[Gem]

The first thing to understand is the difference between sex and gender. Sex is biological whereas gender is psychological. Sex is where the male cell fertilises the female egg. In flowers, a single flower can have both male and female parts, so the plant as a whole is not male or female. Other plants have sex, though, like the paw paw tree can be male or female. So, sex is male and female. If you produce sperm you are male and if you produce eggs you are female. This is how sex is defined across all species (which is not to say all species have males and females).


Gender is only very loosely related to sex. For example, I am a male, but as a man, exactly what phychological aspects form this 'man' personality? I am not the same person as any other man, and I'm not even 'typically masculine'. I don't like watching sports, tinkering, fixing stuff, and besides, who says that's what 'blokes' do?


The last confounding issue is social construction, and humans are unique as a species in construction complex social symbols, language, iconography, and social roles that uphold culture. The social issue of gender identity occurs when we see that just about everyone is either a male or a female, and assume that means there are only two genders, when indeed every male is their own kind of man and every female is their own kind of woman.


For example, I am not the same kind of man as I was when I was 14 yo, but I was male then just as I am now. I'm a totally different man personality than I was then while remaining the same sex, so even within myself gender is not a fixture, but rather, an aspect of my changing personality. Sex is a fixture, though, as per its biological definition.