What does it take for someone to be called „man“ by society? What does it take for someone to be called „woman“ by society?

Western society knows two genders. Male and female. Other socieries know more than two genders. Why do they know something that we don‘t? Why is it part of their culture?

Because it‘s a social construct. What we label as male or female (or something other than that) is socially constructed. These constructs include gender roles and gender expression.

These social constructs are to some degree based on biological sex - most people are cisgender (= not trans, cis is a Latin prefix and means „on this side“) and our binary system of „male“ and „female“ bases on that. That‘s also why it‘s often conflated.

But what about people who we call intersex? People whose biological sex doesn‘t really match our definitions of what is male and what is female?

While our society tries to push those people one way or the other and treats it as a taboo (how many out intersex people do you know? It‘s more common than you‘d think!), other societies have constructed a gender for that - a label that often fits many people who don‘t really fit into the other two categories of male and female.

Now, as I said, most people are cisgender and not intersex. Their body and gender identit