Some people say there are two distinct things: sex and gender.  I disagree.  I think one can and should make finer linguistic distinctions, delineating 6 levels of identity:

1. Genotypic sex

2. Phenotypic sex

3. Culturally assigned gender

4. Internally felt gender identity

5. Gender expression

6. Essential gender

Just because I distinguish these meanings linguistically does not mean that I consider all of them equally empirically real.  Of these, in my own opinion, I would say I believe in the first 5 of these, but not in the sixth.  To me, the sixth is a kind of fiction, or myth.  Again, though, that is merely my own opinion.  If someone else feels strongly that the sixth level is real, I think that's perfectly fine, and indeed I celebrate and encourage their exposition of their own conception of reality as they see it.  I'm not using the words "myth" and "fiction" as pejoratives here - if people want to use their creativity to explore the possibilities of interpretation of these myths and what follows from them, they are welcome.  I'm a big advocate for what I call creative essentialism.  That is to say, I see essences not as given, but as something that we can creatively construct and reconstruct.

None of these 6 levels is simple.  All of them are quite complex.

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