Gender is a biological concept (and not social) distinct from sex

The Traditional Western society and its science, because of its Christian influence, considers Sex and Gender to be synonymous. The 'progressive' thought in the West seeks to oppose this belief by claiming that Gender is a social construct that has nothing to do with nature. They claim Gender is nothing but a set of arbitrarily defined gender roles ascribed to the male and female sex by different societies.

Thus both the traditional and progressive school of thoughts in the West consider Gender to be not a natural trait distinct from 'Sex'.

My contention is that both these schools of thought are essentially wrong, and have led to several faulty concepts in the West on human gender and sexuality.

The contemporary and ancient non-Western societies, as well as pre-modern West acknowledged Gender as a natural/ biological trait distinct from 'sex'. Gender in this respect is defined as the 'inner sex' of a person (or inner sense of being male or female) irrespective of his or her 'outer sex'. Sex of a person in this case refers to his or her outer sexual organs.

Thus a person born male could have a strong inner sense of being a female and so his Gender becomes feminine. This femininity doesn't need to be extreme... it could well be in different degrees.

Similarly a person born female could have a masculine 'inner sex' or Gender.

The Gender identity of a person cannot be decided just by his or her outer sex. The Gender identity is the basic identity of a person and is determined by the combination of 'Sex' (outer sex) and 'Gender' (Inner Sex). 

All non-Western societies classify their populations and social spaces/ identities based on these Gender identities into at least three distinct Genders:

1. Man: i.e. a predominantly masculine gendered male
2. Woman: i.e. a predominantly feminine gendered female
3. Third Gender (People who are partly male and partly female; Queer): Hermaphrodites, intersexed people, feminine gendered males and masculine gendered females.

Other societies (like the Balinese society) have as many as six different human genders.

These identities don't have anything to do with 'sexual orientation' of people.

The West confuses Gender identity with sexuality and classifies its population into a wierd combination of Gender and what it calls 'sexual orientation'. What is more of a concern that through the process of Globalization and its economic and technological might, the West imposes this invalid classification on the non-Western societies, which is nothing short of modern imperialism. It's a deliberate confusion created by the Forces of Heterosexualization, in order to misrepresent and misclassify man to man sexual instincts in order to discourage them.

Western science considers male femininity to be a 'disorder' and 'abnormality' not in the natural scheme of things. Female masculinity is better tolerated.

I feel there is a strong need for the West to learn from other cultures and broaden and improve some of its basic beliefs around human gender and sexuality.