Selfie ERIC KIM

The Sociology of Gender and Sex

Sex is biological (were you born with testes or ovaries?). Gender is social — one can and perhaps *should* be allowed to self-assign their own desired gender.

The tricky thing:

In society, we get the two conflated (confused).

The Wachowski (now) Sisters

A quote from this article:

At 6-foot-4, 214½ pounds and a deep voice, Chicago filmmaker Lilly Wachowski is unmistakably male, but that is not who Wachowski is.

Typically if we see a human being who is 6 foot 4 inches (very tall) and also 200+ pounds (huge frame), I believe almost all humans will believe:

This is a man.

Now Lilly Wachowski has now identified as a (I think) a woman. That means:

Society should respect Lilly as being a woman, not a man.

But the tricky thing once again — the physicality of Lilly. She is huge! If we see old photos of her before her transformation, she looks like a big buff dude (like a pro baseball player, perhaps).

Then there becomes societal questions like:

Should we allow trans men, trans women, or anyone who wants to ‘gender bend’ into a certain public restroom or changing room?

Now this is uber-tricky. Then we need a philosopher to determine:

What should be our (American) public laws?

It comes down to an issue of private vs public. A private (business) institution has the right and law to do whatever they want to do with their private changing rooms or private bathrooms. However when it comes to the public, a philosopher-legislator(law maker) must create the rule.

Primum non nocere” – (‘First do no harm’) – Hippocrates

When it comes to bioethics, apparently the ‘Hippocratic oath‘ is “First do no harm” or ‘Primum nil nocere’. The difference between “non” and “nil” is interesting because ‘non’ refers to as (don’t) and ‘nil’ means (without, none). So in some ways perhaps the more accurate Hippocratic oath is:

The philosopher, doctor, teacher, lawyer, legislator has a moral-ethical obligation to PREVENT themselves from doing any form of negative harm on another, whether intentional or un-intentional.

So then comes the question:

We should create laws in America which prevent (even a small chance) of a potential harm.