Gender vs. Sex

A continuation of a debate on Judith Butler’s ideas of gender

I recently posted a blog post about Judith Butler and her notions of gender performativity. I posted it on my literary blog as part of a literary analysis of a short story. You can read the post in the link below:

http://lazyliteraryanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-childhood-of-leader-and-gender.html

The post sparked a bit of a debate though. Judith Butler sees biological sex (normally thought of in terms of male and female) as independent from gender performance (masculine or feminine). For instance, one could have been born biologically male but present gendered characteristics that are typical of the feminine, such as long hair, soft hips, and slender arms. For Butler, gender is entirely performative, consisting of aspects that have ‘always already’ been determined to indicate a spcefic gender, without actually making necessary reference to the biological sex from which they sprout.

The part of this that sparked a debate was the idea that sex and gender can potentially be completely separated. A commenter astutely brought up the fact that sexual hormones determine certain gendered characteristics (like facial hair).

So what do you guys think? Is gender tied to biological sex in some way, be it big or small? Comment on the original post to participate in the debate.