I think the social type translation is a perfect one, since using the term "gender" is definitely different than the term "sex" representing the well known bipolar gender system, the male/female one. Gender is a wider term in my opinion.

Going back to what defines gender; I think gender in its wide understanding involves much much more than the bipolar system says it does; it includes race on top of everything else, religion, age, social class, continent and country, sexuality, profession and political membership.

Thus talking about gender without identity and power is meaningless, since the three intact together bringing much more meaning under the attractive bipolar gender system into how the real world we live in interacts.

This quest cannot be passed without talking about what makes a perfect gender. From the above I would conclude that the perfect gender is a white, American, rich, upper class, executive, Christian, conservative, heterosexual male in his 50's.

A good read on this topic is "My Gender Workbook" by Kate Bornstein

s/he talks into what makes anyone a real woman or a real man in the world today, getting into the point where s/he claims to live a life with "No Gender", and i quote "The way you live without gender is you look where gender  is, and then you go somewhere else"! The whole book then talks about how to help the reader live a life with no gender. Great read!