WATERMARK

When do we need to know someone else’s gender? 

• If we wish to reproduce with them. It matters then. Sometimes. 
• If we are attracted to them? Why? If attraction is there, is that not enough?
• For risk assessment. Boys and men are more dangerous than girls and women. For women and girls in a space without other people about, this is essential information. (Sorry, sensitive nice boy, nothing personal.)
• In public bathrooms? I honestly don’t see how. Public bathrooms have booths. We can all use them. 

(And, you, bathroom gender police, while you are checking for camouflaged males attempting to enter the women’s room, a male-to-male pedophile is next door in the men’s room with a small boy.)

I remember well the both-gender bathroom on airplanes panic! that killed the Equal Rights Amendment. It made no sense then or now. It had nothing to do with sharing bathrooms, as we all do in our own houses and elsewhere without difficulty. 

All this clearly has to do with something else entirely. Such panic over anatomical differences. Perhaps these differences aren’t as important as we think they are? Or perhaps something else is at stake. 

This is the second of a series on Gender. The first is here.