The Relation between Sex and Gender

Sex and Gender: Why Killermann et al. View the Traditional Gender Binary as “Sick”
In his TedX talk, Sam Killermann explains that sexuality and gender are two different things: “one does not dictate the other,” he says. Instead, gender is something that is culturally articulated to boys and girls from an early age onwards: boys are taught to be rough and tumble, aggressive, to “like the color blue,” as Killlermann adds. While girls are taught to “play house” and to let the boys take charge. In other words, these are stereotypes that are culturally perpetuated according to Killermann and others—like Katie Rogers, who notes that “when Corey Cogdell-Unrein of the U.S. Olympic team won a bronze medal in women’s trap shooting,” a major American newspaper described her only as the wife of a Chicago Bears football player. Her identity was informed by her male companion in her life—i.e., her gender identity according to the newspaper was dictated by the stereotypical approach to gender as identified by Killermann. Killermann goes on to add that gender identity is much more fluid in the real world than it is in the concepts that arbitrarily presented to young persons in school: in the real world, girls can be rough and tumble, like the color blue, and want to play sports and take a leadership role, while boys can like to play house, be more reserved, and less inclined to make decisions for others. Killermann’s point is that there is no either/or when it comes to gender identity in the real world. Judith Lorber makes essentially the same argument as Killermann, when she states that “gender, like culture, is a human production” and “is constantly created and re-created out of human interaction” (54). Nonetheless, gender stereotypes, biases and even discrimination (for example, in the workplace where four out of ten women “say they have experienced some form of gender discrimination at work” according to John Gramlich) continue to persist in society. And that is why Killermann et all view the traditional gender binary as “sick”: it reflects, according to their perspective, an unreal gender identity that is used to perpetuate an old world order.
The main problem for Killermann et al. with the concept of gender being “binary”—that is, one is either masculine or feminine, which is stipulated according to one’s biological sex—is that the concept is narrow and does not explain why boys and girls, men and women, often display tendencies and characteristics that do not fit or align with the traditional binary gender norms. For example, a boy could easily want to play with dolls, while a girl could easily want to play with balls, sticks, dirt and rocks. A man may like sentimental films while a woman could prefer action movies. A man might just as easily want to be a follower as he might want to be a leader—and the same could be said of a woman. For Killermann, Rogers, Gramlich and Lorber, the idea that there aer so-called “masculine” and “feminine” traits in the first place is what causes much of the problems regarding gender in society in the first place. If society could just realize that there are no traits and qualities and characteristics that are specifically related to one’s biological sex (and therefore to one’s gender identity), society would be much more tolerant in its approach to gender and much more egalitarian, too.
What these authors identify as gender discrimination stems from, they argue, a culture that is reluctant to promote gender fluidity—the concept that boys and girls, men and women, can display characteristics and traits that are traditionally associated with the opposite sex. Killermann et al. propose that gender fluidity is the norm rather than the exception to the rule of the traditional gender binary concept. As Lorber states, “Western society’s values legitimate gendering by claiming that it all comes from physiology-female and male procreative differences. But gender and sex are not equivalent, and gender as a social construction does not flow automatically from genitalia and reproductive organs, the main physiological differences of females and males” (56). The social construction of gender used to be determined by the patriarchal system that informed the old world order, Killermann et al. suggest. Today, that order is being challenged by a new system in which gender fluidity is not only understood and appreciated but also promoted more and more commonly in media, talks (like Killermann’s), and in culture.
However, there is still blowback from old world leftovers—like the American newspaper that identified Corey Cogdell-Unrein not by her own identity but rather by that of her husband’s—the football player who demonstrates “masculine” qualities. For that reason, Killermann et al. make it a point to bring up the issue of gender identity and why they view the gender binary concept as wrong or “sick” as Killermann puts it. They represent the new world order of thinking, which they believe is more representational of actual reality.
In conclusion, the reason Killermann, Rogers, Lorber and Gramlich believe that the concept of gender binaries is “sick” is that this concept does not conform in their minds with what gender actually is. They view gender as a social construct and for them, gender is constructed anew all the time because concepts and constructs are fluid and always changing. In other words, they do not believe that there is one right way for boys and girls, men and women to act. They are of the belief that men and women, boys and girls can demonstrate traits and characteristics that are similar or the same. For them, gender is not a binary reality: they do not view it is an either/or proposition.

Works Cited
Gramlich, John. “10 things we learned about gender issues in the U.S. in 2017,” Pew
Research Center, Dec. 28, 2017. www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/12/28/10-things-we-learned-about-gender-issues-in-the-u-s-in-2017/
Killermann, Sam. “Understanding the Complexities of Gender.” YouTube, May 3,
2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRcPXtqdKjE
Lorber, Judith. “Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender.” In The Social
Construction of Difference: Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality, 55-68.
Rogers, Katie. “Sure, These Women Are Winning Olympic Medals, but Are They
Single?” The New York Times, Aug. 18, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/19/sports/olympics/sexism-olympics-women.html