gender is a choice

Thanks again to Pro for this debate! ~--\=0=/--~ According to my opponent, gender is what you identify with.... Meaning we can choose what we believe ourselves to be. However, this is clearly not true. There are many humans who are abandoned at a young age and raised by wild animals who take those people in as their own. One case is that of Marcos Rodríguez Pantoja, who was sold to a farmer at a young age. The farmer who was taking care of him died, and left him alone. After that, Pantoja had no choice but to either die or find someone else to take care of him. Then came... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . These loving, caring, adorable creatures took Pantoja in as almost one of their own. He played with the cubs and ate with them. The mother wolf even tossed him some meat so that he would not starve. http://www.bbc.com...What is the point of this story? you may ask.... Well... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Was it his choice to become one with the wolves? Of course not! He was thrust into such a situation where he would have to identify with the wolves. His people were the wolves, and when humans came upon him, he growled and barked at them. He was abandoned by the humans creatures and so had to seek refuge with the wolves creatures. And here he is now... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . He identifies with wolves rather than humans, but that was not his choice, as we are debating in the resolution. He could not choose to identify with humans because of the situation he was thrust into. Rather, it was more of......................................... And yes, what I am debating is, in fact, not off topic, because Pro defined gender as what you identify with. Since he did not clarify anything else, I assume it is open to my interpretation. So according to the definition provided by Pro, in order for gender and self identification to be a choice, everyone and everything must have complete control of their surroundings and always be of perfect sanity and clarity of mind. Since Mr. Patoja was not of his right mind to choose who or what he was, "gender" can not be a choice for him. ~--\=0=/--~ Now onto rebuttals... . . . . . . . . . . . >>>Because gender is a social construct, an individual should be able to choose whatever gender they want. Pro is not arguing what the debate is about. The resolution clearly states "gender is a choice" meaning that since it is or is not, people can or cannot choose to identify with the group or organism or thing that they want. Pro is trying to debate that people should be able to choose. That means that Pro agrees with my side in that it is not yet a choice but it should be.Whether or not it ever will be, is not yet known.>>>Weather this is in the gender binary or not I believe its a choice.Let's look at this in sections. There are three commonly know definitions of "weather."1) noun....the state of the atmosphere at a place and time as regards heat, dryness, sunshine, wind, rain, etc.2) verb....wear away or change the appearance or texture of (something) by long exposure to the air3) verb....come safely through (usually refering to a storm)Since the first definition doesn't make sense in context, I will assume Pro is using the second definition. In this case, we are talking about the wearing away of "this" which Pro does not clarify. But obviously we all know what he is talking about. For those of you who are slightly confused, however, I will clarify for him and for your better understanding so that you can vote more properly. He is obviously talking about the wearing away of chivalry. I mean, just look at this picture.... The man's coat is wearing away from his lady's constant stepping on the coat and then him actually wearing it as a coat back and forth. The constant friction created by him taking it off and putting it back on wears holes into the coat and that is what Pro was referring to in saying "wearing this."The next section of his sentence he says that either it is in gender binary, or he doesn't believe its choice."Weather this is in the gender binary or not I believe its a choice."The wearing away of chivalry is either a defined boundary between males and females OR Pro does not believe the choice of gender.(Its/it's usage see here:http://grammar.about.com...) Please note that grammatically speaking, Pro worded this sentence a bit oddly, but that's okay, because a future English major has enough time to spare to decipher this type of sentence. Clearly Pro is trying to send a coded message that if chivalry dies, either discrimination between the sexes will rise or, if Pro concedes to me, we can avoid that war. So even Pro agrees gender is not a choice. >>>If an individual were born a male per say, they may feel gender dysphoria daily.In analyzing the first half of the sentence, we find that Pro is saying that if a male baby were to be born every time someone spoke, then those babies would feel gender dysphoria. (Per se definition:by or in itself or themselves; intrinsically)(Per definition: for every timeSay definition: utter words so as to convey information, an opinion, a feeling or intention, or an instruction.) This is not necessarily true because Pro has no source to back up this random claim that if a baby were born for a sentence uttered, they would be confused and discontent. Until Pro has sufficient backing of this claim, it shall be tossed out. When he has a source, I will respectfully concede to this claim.>>>[Gender] dysphoria can make you feel as if you were born in the wrong body.If someone or something were to identify themselves as something that they were not, such as a female thinking that she was a male, she would not necessarily know that she wasn't a male. Therefore, she cannot feel like she was born in the wrong body. Like in the case of Mr. Pantoja, he probably did not realize that he was not a wolf. Rather, he fit in quite well with the other wolves. This is probably because he had no way of seeing himself, and could not tell that he was different from the other wolves. They treated him the same and he had no reason to believe otherwise. http://www.newser.com...So until Pro begins to back up his case with credible sources, or any sources at all, his entire case falls. ~--\=0=/--~ Thank you, and I look forward to another exciting round from Pro! :D