No, its because the idea does agree with you is why it seems odd to you. Gender refers to a personal mental status (definition out of the dictionary is, the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex), and a person's sex refers to the physical status of a person.
LOL, where'd you get that definition, from a medical dictionary? Genders are the properties that distinguish organisms on the basis of their reproductive roles; sex is either of the two categories, male or female, into which most organisms are divided.
The American Heritage Dictionary, Encarta World English Dictionary, Cambridge International Dictionary of English, Webster's New World Dictionary, The Wordsmyth English Dictionary, and so on agree with me.
But even then, this cherry-picked definition is actually true in its original and correct context. You think it's supportive of your stance because of how you read it, but in all actuality it backs up my claim. The definition says out in the open that it's associated with one sex. And the "behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits" portion of the definition is, I'm sorry to say it, but sexually divisive in its actual meaning. What do I mean by that? Simple- all the definition is telling you is that men and women are different, that they act differently, live differently, and think differently, not that gender is something you can change based on your surroundings or mental status. That's inane.
Dictionaries, even ones that use language we want to view as supporting us, rarely give in to popular opinion, the counter-culture, or special interest groups and rarely change the meanings of their words because their purpose is after all to retain and preserve information and not continually revise and rewrite it. Notice that the definition of liberalism has largely gone unchanged from its original classical meaning from the 1700's despite being warped in meaning since Woodrow Wilson's time.
Its been like that for a long time now, get over it. Its the modern day and just because you grew up never knowing the difference does not make it weird.
I wasn't referencing the "third gender" idea, but the twisting of the meanings of words idea. That's what I found weird (odd, bizarre).
I'm not the only one who saw your post as criticizing the trans community for changing the 'definition'.
Really now? Please highlight my criticisms of this "community." I was critiquing anyone that outright fibs about a words meaning to fit their purpose. If you're part of this group or whatever you want to call it, you being critiqued doesn't necessarily reflect on your whole unit.
Gender is determined from your sex, social roles, etc. Even though we use it interchangeably with biological sex... it really isn't. I guess that's the only word change that is going on, our society has dumbed down and doesn't know the actual meanings of words.
It kind of is. Gender contains sex. Gender is the description of sexes, and sex is either of the two divisions therein.