Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-25396609-20150530163143/@comment-24891101-20150607012744

Ah, but gender is distinct from sex. There is a neurological basis for it. This, for instance, is why you have trans people. The neurology disagrees with the anatomy. This makes perfect sense; the body differentiates sex at a different stage of development from the mind. If some wires get crossed, you end up with trans people. You also can get intersex people, with ambiguous genetalia, who are often assigned to either male or female. This is an obvious error state, from a biological perspective. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that a similar thing can happen with the mind. Therefore, it makes sense that you have a small population of people whose gender identity is non-binary. I know a fairly large number. However, even I do not recognize the legitimacy of any pronouns more exotic than singular they (Which is perfectly good English, and don't let anyone tell you different.), as further subdivision is not useful outside a medical context. Transvestitism is something entirely unrelated.

However, there are various people online who seem to tie too much of their identity up in their gender identity, and insist on using ever-stranger pronouns in a effort to differentiate themselves and feel special. And there are also idiots who claim that gender identity is arbitrary (confusing it with gender roles and gender expression, which are social constructs and therefore more continuous), and can be chosen, who frown upon people who actually suffer from gender dysphoria. The whole point is that gender identity and biological sex have significant fixed biological components, though to what extent gender identity is malleable is debateable.

All of this is distinct from gender roles, which are indeed social constructs informed by biology only in fairly vague terms. One can argue evopsych to varying degrees, but societally we've moved mostly past them.

So, at least, is my current understanding.