TL;DR - why do we need so many terms? can we all not use just a simplified pronoun system (as explained below, or if someone else comes up with something better), and can we stop adding a sexual preferences as a part of gender, as that is something too personal in my opinion?
I primarily want to understand how it relates to a person’s identity.
Before starting, let me partially introduce myself. I am a male, and If I get my terms correctly, I am possibly Aero Ace. I am (possibly) coming of a privilige that my percieved gender identity is same as that of what I accept myself to be. Also, I have not read any literature or watched much content about this stuff. I am not asking anything about why would someone have a “different gender”. I just want to understand how it relates to you as a being.
And before going ahead, I am not sure gender is the best word or not. If it is not, please correct me. And I am sorry in advance in case I say stupid or bizzare or straght wrong stuff. Please forgive me if possible.
Also I am quite ramble-y, so reading and understanding what I write may be hard, or non-sensical, so pardon me for that too.
My first question is, why do we have so many terms? I know the answer is somewhat obvious, that everyone has there own preferences, and it may not align with someone else, so to identify themselves, they would get a different label. (kinda like names, if everyone had same names, it would cause confusion) But I also want to ask, Is using a label not somewhat alienating?
Try to understand my perspective, I have almost never mentioned my gender to anyone. Possibly it is because my “attire” says it. Or maybe it is because I am not a very social person, or the fact that I have never had a “personal” conversation with some other person. My general conversational idea is how it goes with siblings - slightly informal, a lot of stupid slander, and jokey stuff, and the actual stuff. If someone comes to me, and mentions there gender, I kinda do not know how to process it. because as I understand, 1 part of gender ideentity is what “orientation” (sorry if it is a bad way to put it, but I want to mean how they dress, or how they want to adressed as) and another is sexual preferences. I understand that If I know there gender, I can atleast address them as they prefer (also I do not know how to do it in general. I am an old school guy, I use they/them/their for people older than me (as a form of honorification), with small children (it is somewhat amusing, and also children like it when they get respeect) and whenever I do not know what gender a person is, or how does that gender prefered to be addressed). But this gave me the thought, that why do we not use the same pronouns for everyone (for example they/them), or maybe 2 pairs, one for formal, one informal, or 1 more pair, for singular and plural. Why do pronouns have to depend on gender?
The second part is sexual prefernces. I do not know much about sex or sexual preferences. I am a young adult, and have not had to know about this for any person that I have met yet. I have never had the interest to know about this for someone, neither have I retained this information. I understand that if you are looking out for partner/s, then you would have to share this, so we would have to use some words for it. But why do we have to keep this as a part of gender. As in, why would I want to share this information with my governments (who do census), or for my visa applications. Should this not just be something personal?
I understand that one reason to have some words for it is inclusivity. If, for example, we want some group to better assimilate with society, and we want to do some “positive discrimination” (I do not know if this is appropriate wording or not, what I mean is for example, reservations, or some other kind of actions to integrate some people in society), then we would need some terms to make rules with. And that makes sense, but then again I feel that revealing your preferences is a bit too revealing. Am I overblowing this? I also understand that completely ditching the sexual part from gender might not be possible today. It would probably require a more accepting society. For example, in most places, gay marriage is still illegal. I do not know why laws have to have laws defining marriage (it may have something to do with subsidies going for marriages, or definitions of families/spouse being used by insurance companies or any other banking system, where your spouse also gets certain benefits/rights), or gay adoption is illegal, but can we not make something like - any reasonable person/s can adopt anyone (where reasonable part is just to maybe seculde criminals, or people with prior histories of child related offences, or if they are not financially stable - but all this is very separate discussion)
If a person tells me their gender, how should I react/respond to it? Is my current line of actions appropriate (just address them with their preferd pronouns, and if I do not know that, use they/them; completely ignore the sexual part of it)
Another thing that I want to ask is, why do some groups use different acronyms? I remeber hearing about this the first time, and the word used was LGBT. Then I heard LGBTQ, then LGBTQIA+, and today I heard LGBTQ2. I presume that since more people are getting aware, and they are trying to express themselves, they need some newer words, and hence the acronym would keep on evolving, if so, is it not a endless exercise? Am I being insensitive If I use one over other (for quite some time, I have been sticking with lgbtqia+, in hope that + means extensions, as in, others, so hopefully it is less excluding than others, but if that is not the case, please correct me.)
edit - moved my summary to the top as tl;dr
Okay, to avoid confusion maybe I should use the same term you used, which is sexual preference, and not sexual orientation. This is what I’m talking about (from your OP):
The only one who talks about this in the linked comment chain is the other person, and only tangentially.
So, again I suppose, in which way do you think this is part of gender?
that was not the part of chain i wanted to refer to. Essentially, my native tongue (or culture in which I was raised), there is (was) no difference between sex and gender, as in, there were not separate concepts. What you guys would call a gender (and this is also partly based on interaction in this chain, where I even ask what does being a male even mean) - users preference of pronoun, or attire, etc is what I called orientation in my op (again, I also said in op that I do not know if that is correct term for it, and it was not).
the paragraph you have highlighted was the only part where I refered sex as sex (the one associated with your partner/s). Other than that paragraph, I mostly (I am guessing here, again, for me concept of gender is new and still fuzzy) meant gender.
I would apologise again for mmy lack of knowledge on this stuff, and this post has helped me understand gender better.
I’m a bit confused here. Sex and gender, in any language, refer to the equipment a person has (sex) and the way they present/identify (gender). It’s possible that in your language or culture, these two are conflated as they often are.
Sexual orientation, in any part of the world, refers to who someone is attracted to. It has nothing to do with their equipment or what the person’s gender is.
For example, a cis man (someone assigned male at birth who identifies as a man) can be attracted to men or he can be attracted to women (or both or any or none). The fact that that person likely has a penis and looks like a man doesn’t affect who he likes.
While there are cultures that might make assumptions about how men should like women and women should like men, you do seem to understand that that’s not how humans work, so therefore, you understand that someone identifying as a man or woman has nothing to do with who they like. You understand that gender =/= sexual attraction.
I guess I’m just unclear as to why you’re saying that in your culture/language they’re the same things, does your language assume that gay people do not exist? Do you use the exact same word for a man who likes women (eg a straight man) as you would for a woman who likes women (eg a lesbian)?
pretty much. Many old folks consider it as a disease or mental illness.
That was not a thing, and hence it never had a word/s. basically someone born with a male reproductive part was male, other is female, and that is about it. A male was (is) expected to marry a female (love or arranged(where family finds “suitable” partners, and the bride/groom have little idea of other)).
Things have changed a lot for better in past 2 decades, but much of the “older ways” still remain as “traditions”.
I never confused sex and gender, as you describe them, as I said these do not exist as separate concepts in my natiive tounge. I used different words for them, which while not ideal, do convey the meaning. My questions were mostly regarding gendered pronouns, and having terms for different sexes (as in lgb of lgbt) or genders (t of lgbt), and why do even need terms for these, or why would one like to share it with others.
Okay, well I’m not sure what language you speak but that’s interesting. I’d be curious to know what your native tongue is.
LGB refers to orientation. In English, the word “sex” does not mean this and I would recommend you do not use it in that context when trying to get your questions across. Orientation refers to the same thing as attraction, and neither of these terms exclusively have to do with sex (neither the act of sex or what gender someone was assigned at birth).
People use these terms and share them so they can find other people like them. At its base, it’s important to know if someone might be attracted to people of the same gender for the sake of finding a partner, but it can also help for finding community and like-minded individuals and people will share it for those, among many other reasons.
People who are trans may choose to share this fact either for community building as mentioned above, or if they’re finding a partner, it might be important for the partner to understand that the person may not have been assigned the same gender at birth than they are currently presenting as.
People share their pronouns so that others know how to refer to them. For example, for some people, it’s very hurtful to be referred to as “she” instead of “he”, so they will tell you that straight up. This doesn’t necessarily have to do with being trans either - a cis woman who dresses masculine and might be perceived as a man might make it a point to tell you her pronouns.
Other people share their pronouns because they believe nobody should assume. If we all share our pronouns immediately, nobody has to make any assumptions.
I would not give you a specific language, but country is India
this is new to me. In my post I used orientation for what I assumed to be gender, but I had no idea it was also related to attraction.
I do understand both points of finding similar folks or possibly finding partners