"there are as many genders as there are people". This is actually such an underrated quote from Corry

Straight, cis, 52 year old mum of a recently out trans boy here! This podcast is SO SO helpful! Thank you! I'm still getting my head around every aspect of what this all means now, still trying to get all the terms and words correct, still learning about this whole thing in full so that I can completely support my kid. Uploads like this (and the videos from Noah, Jammidodger and gorgeous Sam Collins!) are invaluable to me right now. So, it's not just the people who are going through this that are in your audience, parents too (I hope!) are here, soaking up all the information that you're collectively putting out. And this parent is extremely grateful to all of you!! You're helping me to help my child. Thank you. Big love to you all. X

I’m glad my first language is genderless. Just one pronoun for everyone no matter what your gender is

Related to but not specific to a talking point in the pod but I’m intersex(turners syndrome) and non-binary and I’ve joked before that I’m actually cis😂

The describing "gender" and Non-binary with colour was such an amazing way to do it. Will gladly be using that for now on ☺

Quick Google check: "girl" was originally "gyrle" gender neutral; "young person". Interesting fact.

Me, the annoying German speaker I am: Actually both window and dress are neutral in German.

A note on the talk about people not having pronouns at about 9:00 - some people who are non-binary prefer to be referred to as only their name and that is very valid as well!

“Pretty much everyone has a gender except people who don’t “ Thank you for the in-depth explanation 😂 Jokes aside, I’m only a few minutes in, but the color wheel metaphor really helped some things click for me, and I’m absolutely going to steal the book/film sex/gender comparison when explaining in the future

There are so many good quotes from Corry in this episode such as: "We should use them [labels] to help us understand the world around us and to explain and describe the world around us. But we shouldn't use them to define the world around us."

I’m hoping this gets addressed later on & I’m sure it probably will knowing Corry is typically so thorough, but just in case I wanted to address Luke saying that historically gender has been viewed as binary or only man & woman which is just not true. Sure, if you are coming from a perspective of Christianity & colonization, but that is not the only perspective. Many cultures have been inclusive of non-binary identities throughout history & even revered them. For example, Native American tribes historically have respected Two Spirit individuals as leaders, teachers & healers. Transphobia only came to this continent with the white man. Yet another disease they have spread that kills so many POC.

To refer to a young girl in olden times they would say gay girl, and to refer to a young boy they would say knave girl. Blue also used to be a “girl” color because it has a softer tone, and pink a “boy” color because it has a stronger tone to it.

YES the thing about how gender identity is perception and description of your feelings, not literally your internal sense of being. When I say that to (cis) people, they get mad at me. Even though claiming that being trans is a choice is a little transphobic. The only choice is the words you use. Like my gender is not "trans man." That's a description or label of an experience, not a gender, and also not how I identify. I feel like a biological male, but I took extra steps. I'm just... a guy. I've been getting into phenomenology recently, and it makes things like this make more sense. Like who I am is not defined by someone else's perception, but to them, their perception defines me. IDK if that all made sense. Sometimes people forget that pushing their beliefs about someone else's reality onto that person is uncomfortable no matter how "woke" they're trying to be. Defining someone else's experience for them is not woke. I'm stealth at university and overhearing the things that over enthused cis "allies" say when they think there are no trans people in the room is illuminating. (And invalidating)

I'm gonna memorize chunks of this so that I can easily explain concept about gender and categories to different people

As a native french speaker, I'm always weirded out when I am reminded that other languages don't have gendered nouns. Like I'm fluent in English, so I'm AWARE that they don't, but my brain just puts itself in a weird denial mode where I just kinda assume that in their brains, things also have a gender, they just don't use it in their speech. When native English speakers are confused by the concept of gendered inanimate objects (or concepts or just any noun), it's always wild to me that some people's brains don't have that notion. Just goes to show how much language changes the way your brain works!

words are important. I knew I was asexual the day I learned it was a thing that existed, and finding out about it brought me a lot of relief about being 'taught' gender roles: I'm a preschool teacher and every year I have to teach my 4 year olds that men have eyelashes too. Because they will draw eyelashes on every craft in order to 'make' it a girl

I want to see "The science of Noah's hair". He always has a good hair day

Great episode! As someone who generally considers myself some form of non-binary or gender non-conforming, I quite liked the color analogy, but also offer my own analogy. If the idea of believing in gender is similar to believing in religion, asking me what gender I identify with is similar to asking an atheist what religion they believe in. The atheist acknowledges that other people believe in & follow religions, but they do not believe in one themselves. Similarly, I acknowledge that other people believe in & follow genders, but I don’t believe the concept is helpful or good for society myself.

Transgender was created by Albert Transgender in 1952 when he tried to gay twice at the same time

I love Corry just trying to get on with the podcast while everyone else is talking about seahorses

I love the chaos of corry trying to move on the discussion and everyone else talking about seahorses 😂

I'm a cyst female probably as old as most of your mother's. I had very progressive parents, though, and I didn't get gender toys. I got what I wanted to play with, which was mostly science-based and anatomy-based and chemistry-based items. I never thought twice about it until I was about eight, when a girl at my birthday party squealed and said Gross when I unwrapped the human anatomy book I wanted so badly. It made me feel ashamed for being interested in what I was interested in, and that sucks. At least I had my parents there to tell me that what I liked wasn't wrong just because I was born female

i love how Corry is trying to stay on topic while the others are talking about playdoh and seahorse m preg

I can attest to leaving a certain field because of the environment. I was in an engineering class in high school where I was the only girl. I was a freshman and it was mostly upperclassman boys. I was mostly just a joke in the class by even the teacher and was preyed on by the boys. It was hard to leave because I enjoyed the things I was learning in class. I just couldn't be bothered to keep going when everyone around me was so awful.

I actually did a paper on the medical abuse a lot of intersex kids undergo in high school, unfortunate that Money affected as much as he did because a lot of his work was highly unethical. It’s funny to me that all of you guys have aphantasia because I also realized several months ago I literally can’t visualize at all. And I never recall being able to. I also don’t have any “narrator” or anything which some people seem to have

I'm a woman in a highly specialized medical profession who lives in Texas, USA, and I have absolutely experienced sexism and very toxic work relationships at the last two practices I worked at. I ended up taking what would be considered a demotion to work in a practice partnership with another woman and am building out my ability to offer my specialty services here. I honestly wouldn't even live here if it weren't for my family, especially how things have taken a HUGE leap backwards due to Trump culture. Anyway, I'm thoroughly enjoying this podcast.

CORRY YOU HAVE APHANTASIA TOO!? I've just watched a backlog of the vids. I WAS ON A PANEL AT VIDCON LONDON. WHY DIDN'T WE TALK!? HAHAHA

going to pretend that this is sociology revision to make myself feel better for not wanting to do any revision 🧚🏻‍♂️✨

Categories and labels can indeed be both difficult and helpful. I was told by my therapist that the fact that I question a lot of labels we automatically put on people when we meet them, because of assuming (for instance gender, sexuality) makes an open mind, but also a full mind because it takes a lot of brain space. Because it makes a situation/our world less organised and therefore more "messy". Also, what you didn't mention but I think is a upside of labels is being able to find each other. The upside of totally self identifying is really freeing, but I can be hard to find people with similar experiences. Categories help find likeminded people and building community.

I love luke. He is the most honest, 'I am not an expert but love to learn and not afraid of discussions' person there is. Like he is just on a mission to understand everything. Also I love the way he speaks.... I just want to be luke tbh

it's so weird when people get mad that there are many genders. like, you're mad that people are diverse???

I think the reason I’m content in the gender I am is that personally, it isn’t a defining factor of who I am. It’s more like I’m just me, but I just happen to be female. That’s what I’m not really clear on, where does one draw the line between personality and gender identity?

I'm glad someone did the world health organistation joke. I do it in my head whenever i hear it on the news.

Just a note, but intersex people are thought to be about as numerous in society percentage wise as people born with red hair. I’d like someone to let the guy with the red hair know that :) (can’t remember his name, I’m new to this podcast)

1:32:50 you described me man I feel called out lol. I say I'm gay but I'm really bi, but I'm way more gay than I am straight if you get what I mean. Sometimes I describe myself as "almost gay" lol. Also, as an autistic person I have this weird need to know people's sexualities. I dunno if anyone can relate. It's almost like it preps me, like I know this person's boundaries and stuff even if I have no intention of ever asking them out it's like, I just wanna know, it's oddly uncomfortable not knowing. So you don't always ask because you're close to someone or wanna get with them, sometimes you're just curious or compelled to know for no other reason than to know. ^^

Love this episode. Women in science really resonated with me and everything else helps broaden your mind. I am a female mechanic and everyday you fight for your place, bosses call you the token women or making the HR department happy and although I make less mistakes then my male counterparts, mine are made out to be twice as bad 😤 encouraged to see society progress and we have a way to go in every ism!

in czech (a gendered language) both dresses and pants have they/them pronouns pass it on.

Hi, I’m an agender person who is experimenting with not using pronouns and I just wanted to clear some things up about people who don’t use pronouns! (Just so you know I’m pretty new to this so not everything here may be completely accurate for others.) It might sound a little strange at first but there are definitely people out there who don’t use pronouns (or at least not pronouns that gender them). Their experiences or preferences with how they handle it might be different then mine but I just want to put this out there! At least for me I use a nickname instead of my full name so it’s less repetitive and flows better when someone’s using it. For example “Z’s done with school for the day, I hope z had a fun time.” would be something someone might say. I also do still use things like I or me when referring to myself. I just don’t use pronouns that refer to myself as a gendered person instead of a non-gendered individual.

Definitely a 100 out of 5 star podcast. I can't thank you enough for doing this episode on gender! This is really right in time for my 5-page essay on gender due in May. You are the holy grail of sources. Now I get to pretend to be doing homework while actually doing homework! It couldn't have been better timing.

The messed up thing is that a lot more women than men get accepted into universities, and if I'm not wrong get their bachelors, but then it shifts. Less women get their masters and even less finish their doctorates, possibly because the as you said the leadership is already more male and those degrees rely a lot more on social relationships than exams and papers.

from someone who speaks portuguese as my main language, it's just so funny seeing them explaining gendered pronouns for some reason lol

i do know other queer nb people who do want to be referred to without pronouns. especially in german, since we don´t have a regularly used version of "they", (there are neopronouns whcih are introduced by queer folx, but are not nown at all in society) so from that perspective it does make sense for nonbinary people, if they wanna avoid getting misgendered, but referring to then without pronouns is really really hard to do.

i recently did an assignment on gender (a question which I chose from a few options) because I thought as a nonbinary person id have some understanding of it already, turns out I just confused myself even more so oops ig

"i dont have pronouns, do not refer to me" still goes hard

While I identify strongly as male and never have I been misgendered, test results always out me as mainly feminine. Apparently, being reasonable and compassionate makes you feminine.

corry saying " *_bloody_* something" every 10 minutes gives me life

"blurple all the way down" - such an underrated joke

A "pure" color comes from one single wavelength of light. But most color samples in the real world are made of things that invoke a combination of several different wavelengths, including wavelengths that are not contiguous with each other, but have gaps which might cross any boundaries. That is, you can't put the spectrum of real-world colors onto a single spectrum, because it's not that simple. There's no reason to think gender issues are any simpler.

I push many things... buttons, luck, friendships.... I can push this too. Congrats on your 2 years guys. Keep it coming.

Gendering nouns - yes. Wow. As an English speaker, this blew my mind when I found out other languages had this. I'm still so confused by this.

At 34 trans person here realizing I literally grew up with the basic understanding that 'I can't have fun, I can't enjoy myself, I can't be happy', because the things I wanted to do, the things that made me happy had a societal stigma for a 'boy' doing them. How many 'boys' look back at the disappointment of not going to go hang out and go sew with the girls their age?

1:21:30 in Thai we have 2 words for blue(ฟ้า & น้ำเงิน) 2 for pink(ชมพู & บานเย็น) and 2 for orange(ส้ม & โอรส) and this all are words that we use in general

I think of my own gender as a coordinate plane, titled with the oft asked question, "are you a boy or a girl?" The leftmost point (-) on the x-axis is "boy" and the rightmost point (+) is labeled "girl." Similarly, the bottom (-) of the y-axis is labeled "no" and the top (+) is "yes." I'm somewhere happily in quadrant III (-,-).

Corry´s explanation with the color was so good and helpful. I’ll definitely use that to explain it to people

Love this episode, I did have one objection as a nonbinary genderfuid graph nerd though. I find that its more useful to view Masculinity and femininity as two separate axis on a graph, so that its less like wavelengths moving between red and blue, and more akin to having two light sources one yellow and one blue which vary in intensity. So that makes it even more complicated.

🎵radio waves, microwaves, infrared radiaaaationn, visible light, ultraviolet, X Rays, Gamma Rayysss🎵

I love how this turned quite quickly from a conversation about scientific things to a philosophical one using examples from science, and then eventually into a blatantly philosophical discussion. Is this always what these podcasts are like? Might need to start watching more :))

I’m autistic and identify as being a girl because people tell me I’m a girl. But there’s a large connection with being trans and autistic, in fact, if you’re trans, you’re 8 times more likely to be autistic. And I think that’s because social constructs don’t come naturally to us so our experiences of gender are different from the rest of society. When I was a kid, I didn’t exactly understand what being a girl or a boy meant (I still don’t tbh), I just didn’t see myself as anything, but as I grew up and began understanding there were certain expectations for each of the binary genders (that I hadn’t been meeting since I was a young child), I began questioning my gender identity. I still don’t understand how all of this works but I don’t think I’m trans because I’m fine with being referred to as a girl, but if I was referred to as a boy or non-binary, I would be fine with that as well (I’m just speaking from my personal experiences, obviously, I can’t speak for every autistic person). But I think it’s interesting to see that a group of people that finds social things difficult to grasp and understand, has a much higher number of gender nonconforming people

I'm aware of one public figure who does not use pronouns. Kendriana even posted on Kendriana's story about it specifically telling ppl not to refer to Kendriana with pronouns. Like you said, refering to people only by their name results in extremely long sentences.

I did two years of university computer science where the ratio was roughly 1:9 women and men (no data on non-binary people) and while no one was ever outright sexist, there was always this subtle feeling of not being included or taken seriously. I felt like the men amongst eachother had this automatic mutual respect, while I had to prove my capabilities and only then could I gain their respect. I later dropped out, for several reasons, but the atmosphere was one of them. During my time there around half the girls dropped out. What's ironic is that computer work was female dominated for decades, until videogames became popular and suddenly it was cool and the men took over, making the whole industry masculine-coded and really difficult to exist in for women/femme people.

Corry is the mom friend confirmed 😂 it's like watching someone try to herd cats and somehow succeeding

i study computer science, and at my university they make sure the women end up in the same classes across the subect to let them get to know eachother more easily, as well as arranging socal stuff for only girls, to make sure they want to stay. i was part of it before transitioning

Speaking of women not getting as many citations.. I'm someone who is typically read as a 'woman' according to my legal name (which is what I use in publications, at least for the time being, despite identifying and living in my personal life as non binary). I have a publication with a woman, and there were some other folks working on the same subject elsewhere. They cited our results once, and then in all their future publications in the same work, rather than citing our results, they cited their own paper which then cites our results. Over the years, I've noticed more and more that this is a trend, that people tend to cite themselves. I'd be curious to see the study controlled for self-citations. How much is due to biases in citation vs. biases in funding?

i love corry

oh I've been meaning to check out your podcast for ages! I'm about 10 minutes in and I like the chill, informal atmosphere. it's like we're just hanging out with you guys having a thoughtful conversation. I'm definitely going to be listening to a lot more episodes. :)

I always think about how interesting it is that people get so hung up on categories and how much tension there is when two people view one thing that's on the cusp of two categories in two different ways, aka blurple. Like, is a hot dog a sandwich, is a cereal a soup? the answer is that there is no soup or sandwich, only things. the words we use to describe them are entirely fake.

This episode was so good. It made me really happy to hear your conversation about this very important topic, you treated it really well.

This helping me understand alot. This is a topic that I have been struggling and trying to understand for a long time. Thank you.

This show is so important to me. Cory has a great point of view. I'm beginning to understand his points as I listen more often.

It’s so weird seeing you guys after listening to your podcast for so long! Keep up the good work!

in norwegian we refer to nouns and adjectives as either feminine, masculine or neuter. i have a non-binary friend who asked their teacher in 4th grade if its possible to refer to people with the neuter pronouns too, not just objects :')

I love watching you lot trying to wrap your brains round these topics. Its interesting being familiar with a lot of sociological work on these topics and hear you cover some of the same topics but from a fresh perspective. Same with the philosophical bits. I would love to see guests with areas of expertise like these to see how their perspectives supplement this kind of natural sciences framing that the show usually has.

5:18 That is such a good way of explaining it;I mean I would say I would understand ‘all that’ but this just made me understand it so much more.

Omg the aphantasia thing felt so relatable I never had a word to describe how I was feeling so I couldn't explain it(sorry for the long comment). I remember when I was a kid I would ask my dad how he saw things in his mind, like how did normal people visualize things cause I felt like I was different or something and he basically just told me to stop being a weirdo so I dropped it but it always bothered me😅. Thx this was really helpful, I'm subbing

this was such a great episode! I esp loved the discussion about labels towards the end, because when I got through gender therapy I got diagnosed with the binary diagnosis (we have different ones in sweden ugh), even tho I mostly consider myself non-binary because my experience was very similar to a lot of trans guys.

When we talk about categories, the idea of "the map is not the territory" applies. They are simplifications meant to allow us to work more easily with the data, as you said, a lower resolution view of reality.

just started watching noah, which lead me to corry, which lead me to this; i really love this podcast, you guys talked about this wonderfully:))

Luke’s explanation of the graph is spot on and so awesome to hear. I hadn’t thought of it that way but he’s so right!

In conclusion, nothing is real so everyone just vibe and do you 😊

Both window and dress are neuter in German actually! Unlike French or Spanish, German distinguishes between masculine-feminine and neuter. Interestingly the German word for girl is neuter as well: das Mädchen

If you want to be rich, just say you're Rich. Introduce yourself as Rich. People will start to call you Rich, and then you'll be Rich. That's how easy it can be 😂

You really hit the nail on the head with explaining Non-Binary in a simplistic way, very cool.

I'm Bigender. 🌻 (sometimes I jus say I'm a Nonbinary man because that's my two genders.)

this video blew my mind and also helped me understand my gender more and also made me laugh. love how this podcast just causally changes my life

The trouble with four (undoubtedly well-intentioned and otherwise decent) guys talking about women's progression in STEM is that you only catch the male side of the locker-room talk, plus whatever gets into reports and papers. The female side of the locker room is full of everything which cannot be reported, for one reason or another. Maybe there's insufficient evidence, maybe there's a power imbalance, or whatever. The broad-strokes picture is this: fieldwork is necessary for progression in many STEM fields, and the dangers of fieldwork are more acute for women. To put it bluntly, I'm talking about violence, including sexual violence. Some of that comes from randomers, some of that comes from subjects (typically in ethnography), but some of it comes from within the academy. You can't report without evidence, and we're talking about intelligent people in remote places, so the evidence is thin at best. Even if you have evidence, you can't report your supervisor if you're still an underdoc or postdoc, else your career is toast. This is compounded by institutional belief in the "Great Man" TM. If the (alleged) perpetrator is a "Great Man" who brings in lots of grant money, lots of prestige, then universities and institutions will throw a hundred women under the bus to save his arse! And if you're wondering why this isn't talked about more openly, part of it is like Corry was saying about being the only POC in the office. You look around, you know that you're one of the few, you know that there's a reason for that, and therefore you conclude that nobody will have your back. The consequence is that you just don't fucking talk about it. And for the men who run these universities and institutions to insist that women in STEM step forward to be role models and recruit more and more young women into STEM - to the point now where undergrad courses are majority-female in everything but CS and engineering - while refusing to change the paradigm for which they are responsible, is to demand complicity in feeding more young meat to the beast. The problem with citing a source on this, other than ten-some years in academia, is NOBODY FUCKING TALKS OPENLY ABOUT IT. You either suck it up or you leave.

Terfs saying they don't have pronouns is ridiculous for obvious reasons, but there are also people that don't like pronouns because maybe their language doesn't have a gender neutral option. For me personally, a non binary person living in Germany where we only have he or she (er oder sie), I'd prefer people not using any of those when referring to me. It takes a bit of practice but after a while you figure it out and it sounds perfectly natural. This can also work if the person you're talking about isn't out yet and you can't use their preferred pronouns. Using this method, you can keep them safe without misgendering them

Bro everybody is just trying their best with all of the concepts they have, I'm trying my best to always keep in mind that there is no such thing as completely wrong or right, best way to be open to others

Funny about the play thing cause my son’s favorite toys are the cooking and cleaning sets

I literally do the thing where I call myself gay when I technically consider myself pansexual, and demisexual towards women. I'll vaguely specify if necessary, like I am now, but like, generally I feel like gay is probably more fitting. I feel more of a connection with that concept and the general community, when they're not being a whole ass mess in a manner of ways, but as a whole, that's what I feel most comfortable with. (I feel very similar to Noah in that both terms kinda work, depending on the context.) But depending on the very context, my sexuality category does in fact change. Also I argue with people on the shades and definitions of words all the time. To me, violets and purples are different categories. Just like indigo and blue are different categories/colors. I even had a friend in school who we would see each other and shout "fuschia" and "pink-ish purple" (I was the latter) as a teasing inside joke of sorts because we disagreed on what shade my hair was at the time.

i haven't gotten any of your videos recommended in months ! i'm finally back :)

Congratulatins on 2 years of wonderful work, friends! You're awesome! I think that this red line point adressed in many episodes and explained well in this one - about catigories - is very very very important piece of knowlede to all humans to understand. We should teach it to kids, we should make everyone to understand it. Because the perception of catigories as prescriptions and as something 100% thrue (as the hand IS the moon) causes SOOOO MUCH HARM. So much harm, to individuals and to humankind as whole. Pretty every discussion on any discrimination can be boiled down to this f*n bs. A methaphor: People see the rainbow in the sky, then they want to break it to 6 catigories (in russian it's 7, yes, we have a word for the light blue (and coloquially light blue also means... gay... (do not use it that way it's a bad therm))), and after they break it, they want to believe as there are in reality JUST 6 colours. And they also want to kill you if you not agree on that. I hate it so much! We can use catigories just fine, if everybody are agreed and keeping in mind that they are descriptive, not prescriptive, and also - they're just words. Thank you again! Have a nice week!

I don't know if you heard of this, but there was a story of a "French Hermaphrodite" who was strongly sexed both male and female, and this person was criminalized more than once in their life. They lived mostly as a man, but invasive procedures tell us they had both female and internal male gonads. There is an ask historian thread about these kinds of stories.

So many people view the gender spectrum as a line between two genders but it is more of a colour wheel type thing than a line.

29:20 42, if it’s the answer to life, the universe and everything then it must be the answer to how many genders

I love how this podcast is like Corry is the teacher trying to patiently explain the thing and the others just joke around and distract each other like lil schoolchildren🥰😅

So, just a note, when Noah said the thing about his producer and there being only one woman in his class. When I went to school I was still presenting as 100% female, and I studied sound engineering, A.K.A. Music Production, when I started there was maybe 8ish in the group and when I finished school, there was a total of 6 students, I being the only "woman" and the entire time, I felt very ostracized.

I just realized I have this “aphantasia” thing, and I asked my mom and she has it too. Are we sure we aren’t the majority? It seems like it would be weird to not have aphantasia, and she’s calling bullshit on it being a trait of only like 2-5% of people.

I really enjoyed this video and I wanted to thank you guys. I still have doubts about the idea of gender as a whole, and there where a few point you guys made with which I disagree. however I have a deeper understanding an gender identity and appreciation for ppls desire to self identify.

I really enjoyed this discussion.

39:50 LITERALLY we've got boy scouts and girl scouts in my town and when I was little I wanted to be a boy scout because they got to do cool things like camping and learning how to build fires and climb wall and the girl scouts went house to house selling cookies and learning to knit it was so stupid And my dad was mad about it because he thought it was ridiculous for me to be a boy scout even though they were obviously way more fun in my opinion