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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