Re: Gender

-----Mensaje original-----
De: Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...>
Fecha: Lunes 26 de Octubre de 1998 21:05
>On Mon, 26 Oct 1998 19:57:42 -0500 Baba <fikhduv@...>
>writes:
>>--- On Mon, 26 Steg Belsky wrote:
>>> - and people (except for artificial
>>>androids, etc.) can't be of the neuter gender.
>>On the contrary, in my work as a gender therapist I've met several,
>>they're more common that one would imagine. And although most identify
>>as one gender or the other there are some who are quite adamant they
>>are "left out" of things by the absence of specifically third-gender
>>(as opposed to gender-neutral) pronouns and titles and resent being
>>forced to choose between the limited set we have, as neither reflect
>>their reality. These are people who're physically intersex I'm talking
>>about, not psychological conditions such as androgeny or
>>transvestitism.
>> [...]
>>Baba
>
>Then they wouldn't be neuter-gender in Rokbeigalmki - they'd be
>neutral-gender. _uhz_, not _uz_.  Only inanimate objects like rocks and
>100% gender/genital-less animals like bacteria can be referred to as
>_uz_, "it".
>Hermaphrodites and "ttumttumim" (i don't know how to say it in English)
>would use whichever pronoun they feel more connected to - if they feel
>more male, _oz_ (he). more female, _iz_ (she), or, like in your
>description, something else entirely, _uhz_.  If for some reason they
>felt 100% gender*less* they would use _uz_.
>
>-Stephen (Steg)
Whell, I see my point here: it is okay in English to use the word "gender"
and derivations like "gender-less" what in Spanish we would use "sexo" and
"asexual", both in social or biological contexts.  The word "ge'nero" in
Spanish is used in grammatical context: "ge'nero masculino" and "ge'nero
femenino" or some other genders like "neutro".  On a human being it would be
said to belong to "sexo masculino" or "sexo femenino" ... or some other kind
of "sexo" like "hermafrodita", "asexuado"... ?"neutro"? well I cannot
imagine a "sexo neutro".

In not grammatical context the word "ge'nero" is just any classification,
and as I pointed: usually is not used to classify male/masculine and
female/femenine.  It is common to say "el ge'nero humano" for mankind or
"los de su ge'nero" refering to the kind of people an individual represents.

I would like to know how this cognates "gender"/"ge'nero" and "sex"/"sexo"
are used in other languages, like French.

BTW. In Swedish there are four genders (grammatical meaning): masculine,
femenine, natural and neuter.  As far as I know, masculine, femenine and
neuter are the same as German and other IE languages, and natural is a
terivation of masculine and femenine for non-human beings.  Like "pojke"
(boy) is masculine: "han"; "flika" (girl) is femenine: "hon"; "hund" is
natural: "den"; and "ting" (think) is neuter: "det".  But if the dog is very
close to you so you personify it, it would become he or she... as in
English.
Most animate non-human beings are of natural gender "en-ord"/"den".
Innanimate beings are either natural or neuter: "en-ord"/"den" or
"ett-ord"/"det".  Words relating humans are either masculine or femenine:
"en-ord"/"han" or "en-ord"/"hon".  Even "maenniska" (human being) is
femenine (ae is a dieresis), but "barn" (child) is neuter.
If I'm not mistaken, in Swedish sex: "koen" and gender: "gendre" are
different and used as in Spanish (oe is o dieresis).

-- Carlos Th