Recently I was sitting in my lecture hall, learning about the nuances between gender identity, expression, and sex. The lecture was very informative and interesting, so imagine my surprise when a boy wearing a greek life shirt raised his hand to tell the professor, “sex and gender are the same thing”.
Surely, he can’t be right. First and foremost, it is agreed upon by those with literal doctorates in psychology, sociology, and biology (to name a few) that they are separate concepts, and sex does not and will not dictate the gender somebody identifies as. And even if you’re too much of a prick to educate yourself, you can at least exhibit basic respect.
But what left me even more puzzled was that I don’t recall having gender with their mom the night before. At first I doubted myself, but no. It couldn’t be fake. The connection was so real. Then I called his mother in panic, who told me to blow off the rest of my lecture and come back to bed. I woke up in that very bed this morning not saying, “Ughhhh I really shouldn't have had gender last night.” In fact, I woke up and did a touchdown dance while still naked. Because of sex. I have sex.
The Lonely Island didn’t release a song called “I Just Had Gender” and I didn’t walk in on my parents having gender that one time. I didn’t get taught to use a condom to protect myself from genderly transmitted diseases.
I am going to bring up my concerns with his mom during dinner tonight. He used to call me a liberal, but now he’ll be calling me stepdad. Boy, do I love having sex.