> You agree that similar concepts have existed across the globe and in other eras, but want to have a semantic (and convenient for your argument) position that there must be a universal definition for some reason.
I don't think I did. I said historians noted that cultures often had roles and duties divided along sex lines, but that some people did not strictly conform to those divisions of labour. In what way does that entail that they had some notion of gender that was abstracted from sex?
> Are there any societal or cultural concepts that actually do have a universal definition?
Law. Government. Trade. Religion. Gods. These all have a definition by which we can look at a system and say, "that was a religious belief", or "that was not a law but a local custom", "this was a deity they worshipped". They're not "universal" in the sense that they are identical in all cultures, they are universal in the sense that you can look at the definition and use that definition to classify cultural characteristics in a meaningful way.
I don't think I did. I said historians noted that cultures often had roles and duties divided along sex lines, but that some people did not strictly conform to those divisions of labour. In what way does that entail that they had some notion of gender that was abstracted from sex?
> Are there any societal or cultural concepts that actually do have a universal definition?
Law. Government. Trade. Religion. Gods. These all have a definition by which we can look at a system and say, "that was a religious belief", or "that was not a law but a local custom", "this was a deity they worshipped". They're not "universal" in the sense that they are identical in all cultures, they are universal in the sense that you can look at the definition and use that definition to classify cultural characteristics in a meaningful way.
I don't think this is possible with "gender".