Female and male

Why does everyone, and especially researchers in gender issues, make sex and gender an "or" thing, and mutually exclusive? Some psychologists have long argued there are no characteristics, expressions or behaviors which are universally inclusive to and mutually excluse of either gender. There are simply human characteristics where cultures and societies have establish general norms for each. And all have overlaps within those norms.

So why are researchers trying to prove this or that about human development as male or female when it's male and female. With the exception of a few very rare girls with no testosterone, we al were born with andl have throughout our life male and female hormones in our body and mind, which are necessary for the full operation and phyisiology of our body and mind.

We all have expressions and behaviors which cross sex and gender lines. Yes, everyone. We're all on the gender continuum from nearly all female and women to the nearly all male and men. It's simply the range of human beings. The median for each gender isn't that far from the center. And there is far more differences and a wider range of differences within one sex or gender than there are between the sexes and genders.

The only real difference is the reality of our genes, but even there, we're still a mix. We may have XX or XY chromosome but it's the genes inside and the epigenomes which determine matters, not the just the type of the pair. And some people have extra genes, some with conditions were the genes and hormones don't work, and so on down the line of people. Simply the normal and natural variation of people.

So, why do we persist in the binary rule of sex and gender? It never existed in evolution and nature and only exists as percieved social norm.

So, in the end, it's not about the "or" but the "and" between male and female. We're simply both and I find the continued work to define us as different absurb and ignores the commomality between the sexes and genders, all of them and not just two. We are simply people, living with what we're given and expressing and behaving as we know ourselves, just being.

If societies want to differentiate because of legal necessities and other reasons, ok, I'm cool with that. After all there are no good and valid reasons to differentiate,. And worse, to formalize the binary outside those needs isn't necessary when it discriminates people who don't fit the binary.

I've never understood it, why people must make that identity if something is male or female under the assumption it's mutually exclusive. Guys try hard not to be seen as feminine in any way or manner, forgetting they're already there to some degree, along every other guy. It's our society to make guys "male", even if it's dumb, stupid and wrong.

And even the self-help psychologists - and the pseudo one with fake degrees - reinforce it with the books on the differences between the genders, forgetting we're 98+% alike. Focusing on the small differences, which aren't universally inclusive or exclusive, doesn't help.

I'm not arguing evolution gave each sex and gender differences, and it's part of our brain and physiology. It was necessary for survival and becoming a thinking species. And many difference, experiments in nature, fell by the wayside as individuals didn't survive or pass on the traits. As animals, we're no different than the rest of the animal kingdom.

It's only our higher socialization and thinking which separates us now. But imposing social norms from that evolution is false, when you can find other cultures or societies which don't follow it or do the opposite. Norm is relative, not absolute and not scientifically based in our genes. And it also evolves with time and changes.

So, can we quit the male or female thing and try the male and female thing? It's far closer to reality and the truth. It's about the vastness of humanness we share that matters than the few and small degree of differences.