I've put a lot of thought into this, but I really haven't really come up with anything conclusive.
Strictly going on biology, what makes a male a male and what makes a female a female:
A) MALE:
* You have a penis.
* You (can)
a female.
* Your skin is a little tougher to bruise than a female's, and your breast tissue doesn't develop.
* Your muscle tissue develops naturally easier than a female's.
* You might go bald.
* Your voice is deeper because your adam's apple develops way more.
* You will generally live a good amount less long than a female.
* Statistically you'll be a bit taller than females.
B) FEMALE:
* You have a vagina.
* You (can)
a child as a result.
* Your skin is a little more susceptible to bruising than a male's, and your breast tissue develops in order to nurse any offspring you have.
* Your muscle tissue doesn't develop as easily as it does for a male.
* You won't go bald. 99% odds, you won't.
* Your voice is not as deep as a man's because you never develop an adam's apple.
* You will generally live a good amount longer than a male.
* Statistically you'll be a bit shorter than males.
That's about it, right? Is that about right?
There are others, but those appear to me to be the only big hallmark things set by nature that set the sexes apart. If a female baby and a male baby raise themselves in the wilderness, those are really the only things that would seem to set themselves apart. And that's the thing I keep coming back to... male and female toddler, in the woods on an island,
Blue Lagoon-style. What happens? And what happens if you run the same experiment 100 times? What makes one male and what makes one female? Behaviorally, would one have a predilection to smearing berries on their face as crude makeup, or fashioning dresses over the other? I don't think that's there. I tend to think there'd be some pretty base-level stuff going on... protecting the mate, guarding the home, rearing the children, gathering foodstuffs. It'd reason to say that the male, as occurs in nature, would be fashioned genetically as the primary hunter/gatherer to protect the female for the time when the female is rather vulnerable for 9 months at a time (genetically, species are pretty good about "OK, there NEEDS to be a protection mechanism during this time," whether it's the mate himself or something else). Now, at
this point it's a little wonky in nature... the male can completely become disposable. Mating is done, the male can be eaten and consumed (or just wanders off), his duty done. This is a thing. One thing, anyway. But generally the male can be a throwaway thing. And that's fine.
What I don't wholly understand is (just as one example) "I am a transgender female, this means I want to right away put on a skirt, makeup, long hair, and painted nails." Because none of those items are coming from the place of genetics, DNA, or anything biological. They can't. These are man-made constructs, borne of culture and society. Surely there is nothing biologically or genetically female about these things. Now, I understand there are transgender people that don't adhere to those stereotypes... but they seem a bit few and far between. Pretty much, the transitioning seems to be (to use the transgender female example) "let me get myself and everyone in my circle used to me wearing 'girl clothes,' long hair and makeup while I take these hormones or don't," no?
I'm totally the last guy to tell anyone what to do. I am
more than OK with anyone doing whatever the hell they want to do as long as it's not hurting anyone else. Totally cool. You want to become a male or female, change your gender, register as such, surgery or not and even get married to either gender, and enjoy exactly the same benefits as every other couple? Perfectly fine by me. I'd just like to understand the science behind that a little more before I can say, "OK, I
get that, that's completely innate on a genetic level" because right now I don't entirely grasp it as I currently understand it. I admit I am not a genetics expert, remotely.
And don't get me wrong. I have an uncle that became an aunt. I'm not insensitive to it at all and I'd be open to someone explaining it to me in a way that I can wrap my head completely around.