Did you seriously post an entire Wikipedia article?
I gave you the definition of anisogamety, from something a bit better than Wikipedia, but since this is the level we're at, from [1]:
> Anisogamy is a form of sexual reproduction that involves the union or fusion of two gametes that differ in size and/or form. The smaller gamete is male, a sperm cell, whereas the larger gamete is female, typically an egg cell. Anisogamy is predominant among multicellular organisms. In both plants and animals gamete size difference is the fundamental difference between females and males.
It goes on:
> Anisogamy is a core element of sexual dimorphism that helps explain phenotypic differences between sexes.
> No, I didn't post an entire Wikipedia article; I posted a link to an entire Wikipedia article.
Oh, I see. My mistake, you wanted me to read the actual URL! /s
No, you wanted me to read part of the article but since you lazily posted a URL instead of that then the URL stands in for the entire article as I have no way to read your mind to work out which part of the article you wanted read.
Please, keep the pedantry, and the laziness, to an absolute minimum.
Secondly, humans are not asexual. Asexuality is a reproduction strategy not involving gametes. Humans produce gametes. Talking about asexuality with regard to human sexuality is a) erroneous, and b) irrelevant. If we were involving plants in this discussion it might make sense, but we're not.
Please stop mentioning it.
Lastly, you claimed that I had conflated two concepts when - quite ironically - your novel use actually conflates its new meaning with an existing psychological concept known as temperament or personality.
So, your use of asexual in this conversation, no it makes no difference because it is wholly irrelevant.
That humans are sexually dimorphic does make a difference (the word is relevance), because you've taken a word that describes that and applied it erroneously (again) while mixing it up with a different word, and largely based on gender stereotypes to boot!
There are many temperaments and personalities, they certainly have a spectrum (or something far more profoundly complex). Gender does not, and I have no interest - except to oppose it wherever necessary - in the pseudo-science from which silly claims like "sex and gender are fundamentally different" that it cannot validate or support, beyond borderline fraudulent citations and repetition among those with not the first clue about biology or basic reasoning.
> Please, keep the pedantry, and the laziness, to an absolute minimum.
I think this would be a good opportunity for you to get off your high horse; to me, all these responses of yours are pedantic rants about the correct use of "asexual" and complaints about changing language. Let's try to give each the benefit of the doubt.
> Lastly, you claimed that I had conflated two concepts when
No, that was a reply to Shared404. You for some reason felt the need to jump into the conversation - which is perfectly fine, this is a public discussion board. But please - don't lie; that response was not aimed at you.
> So, your use of asexual in this conversation, no it makes no difference because it is wholly irrelevant.
Sure, that's why I'm so confused why you get so hung up about it. I can go with either definition, I think I wrote that, eh, two replies ago. Let's stick to the actual question.
> That humans are sexually dimorphic does make a difference [...]
That was not my question. My question was:
> [..] why [should] your distinction between the formulations [..formulation A..] and [..formulation B..] make any difference to the question of "It makes sense to differentiate between sex and gender".
I think you answered that now; you admitted that the definition of asexuality doesn't make a difference to my question above.
> There are many temperaments and personalities, they certainly have a spectrum (or something far more profoundly complex). Gender does not [...]
I don't really comprehend what you are trying to say here. Can you maybe rephrase it?
> But no, you made said point in support of a larger point (a new understanding of human sexuality). Since said point is irrelevant, and incorrect, it doesn't support the larger point. That's how reasoning works.
Let's have a look at my original reply
> Sex is defined by the gametes one produces. Female for few large gametes, male for many small gametes. If you don't have the capacity to produce functional gametes, you're asexual.
We can leave away the part about asexuality, the point still stands; sex is a biological trait related to the gametes ones genes and biological does (or would) produce.
Whereas gender is
> [..] the social expression of the set of behaviors typical for a given sex. Your gender does not necessarily have to correspond to your biological sex.
You on the other side take the position;
> Gender is sex.
You can go with that. But I've found it more useful to distinct between gender and sex since there's a lot more to human sexual behavior than just the biological mechanism underlying the dimorphism. Human's have culture - vastly different cultures - that all have a different interpretation of what it means to behave like a male or to behave like a female. And some people have the desire to not behave like their biological sex.
An example; wearing a skirt is considered female, in western societies. So if I - as a male - wear a skirt, I'm drawing attention and potentially ridicule upon myself. Why is that? My sex is unchanged, I'm still male. But I don't behave according to the societal expectations of how males have to behave.
> From What is asexuality?[1]:
This links represents neither my position nor my arguments about asexuality, so I will just ignore all said about them.
Yes, let's, because it didn't support your point, though I see you continue to assert its validity based on a claim to usefulness. Let's address that.
> > From What is asexuality?[1]:
> This links represents neither my position nor my arguments about asexuality, so I will just ignore all said about them.
Actually, it does, because it points out (via its inane existence) that the distinction you make between sex and gender is really a repurposing of the word gender where temperament or personality already sit.
> An example; wearing a skirt is considered female, in western societies. So if I - as a male - wear a skirt, I'm drawing attention and potentially ridicule upon myself. Why is that? My sex is unchanged, I'm still male. But I don't behave according to the societal expectations of how males have to behave.
Firstly, "wearing a skirt is considered female" is an equivocation. "Female" as an adjective is entirely different to female as a noun. Even if your statement is true, applying the adjective does not bestow noun-status on the object. Licking your feet may be feline but it does not make you a feline.
Additionally, males have certain strongly associated temperaments and personalities (e.g. lower disgust response, higher aggression), as do females in turn. These lie on a spectrum, if not some multi-dimensional shape. There are feminine men, or men that have higher disgust response than most other men, or men that enjoy musicals (I'm one), or men that hate sport… or men that enjoy wearing women's clothing. These are not gender, these are temperament and personality. Male is their gender. Enjoying X is their temperament or part of their personality. Expressing higher levels of disgust than most males is temperament. Being disagreeable or aggressive is personality.
Taking up the stereotypical behaviour of other people is not a "gender identity" or an identity at all. The clothes do not maketh the man a woman, and I only used to hear that kind of nonsense from those mired in stereotypical thinking who were often truly bigoted. Plus ça change.
So, grammatically it's not useful - and that's even before discussing pronouns (Lord, save us, this atheist begs you!); in biology it's entirely erroneous; and in life it's undermining free speech, endangering actual females, confusing the hell out of children, and helping close to no one.
I gave you the definition of anisogamety, from something a bit better than Wikipedia, but since this is the level we're at, from [1]:
> Anisogamy is a form of sexual reproduction that involves the union or fusion of two gametes that differ in size and/or form. The smaller gamete is male, a sperm cell, whereas the larger gamete is female, typically an egg cell. Anisogamy is predominant among multicellular organisms. In both plants and animals gamete size difference is the fundamental difference between females and males.
It goes on:
> Anisogamy is a core element of sexual dimorphism that helps explain phenotypic differences between sexes.
I hope this is the end of this.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anisogamy