You’d think if it was all basic biology we would just have a unique gender for every one wouldn’t you?

Nothing in biology is exactly identical between individuums. A common eye color is brown, although there are as many shades of brown as there are people.

It is just practical and how language, or even perception works, that we tend to categorize similarities, and strongly favor common occurrances over outliers.

the doctor is describing your phenotypic sex based on observable characteristics.

Your doctor is assigning you a gender.

Maybe you two aren’t even disagreeing?

I’d say the doctor tries to assign the new born into male or female according to biological sex, and gender is inferred from that.

He calls you either a boy or a girl based on your genital configuration

Yes, that’s what I mean. A two-step process. First, biological expression is assessed. Next, based on #1, social gender is inferred.

That’s a valid and valuable point.

Personally, I don’t want people to write just what other want to read.

Instead, I want people to write what they really want to say without thinking about their score

In a way, both systems are just different implementations of social regulation. One system achieves it through numbers. If you remove numbers, people will still express their approval or dismissal, in words. This has some regulating effect on what people write, how openly they express themselves. And I’m not even sure that’s a bad thing.

Of course, in a system with karma people can still additionally express their reactions with words.

My main point is, we cannot have a system without social regulation, that’s just an inherent part of human interactions. I can think of reasons for and against amplifying it further with karma. Personally I like it though.