What is gender?

Well, gender is the behavior associated with one's sex by a social construct, such as a particular upbringing or socialization. For instance, males are expected to have a "masculine" gender, while females should have a "feminine" gender. Complete bullshit, of course, but that's the way Western society deals with sex and gender: through dualisms. In other words, society finds it impossible that a male should be feminine, or that a female should be masculine. Just a thought.

 

"Gender is the two distinguished organism (I almost typed 'orgasm'...) of a creature that are joined together for sexual reproduction. These two organisms are 'male' and 'female.' "

How's that?

 

male/ female vagina /penis testosterone/estrogen thats all i know sorry i couldnt be more of a help haha i recommend grease two for this part around the sexual reproduction song haha thats how i know more then i did lol

 

Hmmm...not to be confused with "gender" is "{sexuality"...which I always regarded as fairly fluid - a "sliding scale" if you will.

I must admit, I never really had reason to apply the same sort of analytical thought to "gender" (me and my sheltered life!)...I think I'll have to give it more thought and get back to you later on that one.

 

But you have to ask yourself, is gender physical or mental?

 

Hiya,

I thought I'd leave this one a bit and see what responses come back... I could also post a huge great "lecture" all in one go, but I think it's more fun to break it down a bit and get something of a discussion going :icon_bigg

Sex and gender, gender and sex... most people use the terms interchangeably, and think they're the same thing. Well, most people's sex and gender are the same so they never have cause to think about it. I'm not "most people" though; and I tend to make a lot of people think about it, sometimes by my very existence.

So, we'd better define those terms a bit more rigidly.

Sex - Physical sex, definied by primary sexual characteristics (those you are born with) and secondary sexual characteristics (those that develop later in life, generally during puberty.)
Gender - has both a sociological and a psychological aspect; gender role being the social role a person adopts in society, and gender identity is a part of the innate "sense of self", a core part of their identity.

For most people, all three of these are congruent, the physical sex of their bodies, their internal gender identity and the gender role they take up in society. It's hardly susprising that they don't think about these things and mix the words up.

I suspect physical sex and gender role are pretty well understood, so let's take a look at what I find is the least understood one - gender identity.

Where does it come from? How is it that we know what we are, seemingly from a very early age when most of us stop and think about it.

Some have thought it's brought about entirely by social conditioning; that girls and boys are the same at birth, a "blank canvas"; their upbringing is what "moulds" us into who we are.

But can that be right? I think it's reasonable to assume that the majority of us on this forum had something of a gendered upbringing to some degree; it's also a fair assumption that most of us were brought up to think that you're supposed to feel attracted to members of the opposite sex, not the same... Am I on familiar territory, here?

When I was growing up and started to feel attracted to other people; I found that it wasn't always people of the "opposite sex". I was attracted to some girls and some boys. I'd feel bad about being attracted to boys; after all I was supposed to be one, and that's supposed to be wrong - the social conditioning by this time said so. But by that same social conditioning it was ok for me to find a girl attractive. No guilt or confusion there.

But did the social conditioning work? Definitlely not, it didn't change who I was attracted to - all it did was make me feel guilty at being attracted to some people. I was attracted to whoever I was attracted to - it seemed to be an innate part of me, "hard coded" inside me. I know from my gay friends that this seems to be pretty much their experience; when they look back they just know they've always been gay. Social conditioning doesn't change who you are.

The same is true of gender - but I'll leave it there and wait for a few replies then write some more on the subject if anyone finds this interesting enough :icon_bigg Jo

 

Woah, when you said you had interesting insight you werent kidding were you. What a lengthy post... only got half way through...must read the other half later. Very enlightening...thanks for sharing.

 

Lengthy yes, but also interesting.

I disagree, gender is basicly your "sex" as you put it. The way you feel would come under sexuality, wether you feel like you should have been born female or just plain gay you cant say my gender is female even though i have a penis and i lack breasts.

The social conditioning i will agree upon, after typing out hundreds of pages of my BF's Psych essays for uni i learned more than i could in a class :s.

Anyway to use myself as an example, I was an only child lived with mother divorced parents bla bla ususal. Did that affect my current sexuality, in a way yes. My current "shout it loud say it proud" attitude towards my sexuality is because it was accepted by my mother at a very young age. If it had been the case that i had a male rolemodel in my life, im sure it would have been a hell of alot harder to "break out" it would have happened eventually but with the "norms" being told to me by a male rolemodel i would have thought what i was thinking about boys/men was wrong, instead i didnt have those thoughts and found it easier to.... embrace my sexuality.

BTW proud.. Evanessence FTW (if you spell it right )

 

Thankyou

In the politest possible way, I'm not sure it's something you can actually disagree with... this isn't my opinion; I'm stating facts as defined by those members of the medical profession who've been researching gender dysphoria. You also seem to be confusing gender and sexuality. Given people (TS or not) can be gay, straight, bi, pan... sexuality and gender aren't connected.

As far as I'm concerned (and the same's true for other TS women I know) my gender is female (and always has been), and yes, I was born with a penis (primary sexual characteristic), and didn't develop breasts (secondary sexual characteristic) until a relatively few years ago. My physical sex may well be male; but my gender identity has never been male - that's what makes me TS.

If my gender identity wasn't female - then I wouldn't be transsexual; I'd be a man, wouldn't I?

I know it's difficult to understand for those who aren't TS themselves (it's partly why I was invited along here, and why I'm posting these things - The "T" bit of "LGBT" was somewhat under-represented here and that might put off those trans folk who might otherwise join.)

But - the genitalia you're born with doesn't determine your gender identity.

Sure, in the main there's a correlation between physical sex and gender identity, but that's all it really is - a correlation. Failure to understand this appears to be the main reason why TS folk still experience difficulty in acceptance by society at large. But in a way that's understandable, most people (regardless of sexuality) never have cause to think about it as their physical sex and gender identity are the same.

I've not been discussing sexuality as it's a seperate and, certainly here; I think a better understood issue. A TS woman isn't a gay man. Well, there are lesbian TS women... A TS man isn't a lesbian woman, either. Some TS folk go through a phase of identifying as gay, as it sometimes sorta fits; it's a bit easier to accept as well, for a while...

At the risk of making this post utterly huge (sorry :rolleyes: ) ; here's a tale of a TS woman who got hurt by a misunderstanding. She met a guy, rather charming and attractive. He didn't have a problem with her being TS, either. Perfect. Cutting the story short it transpired that this guy was gay, but firmly in the closet. He'd got this idea that by dating a TS woman he could have a "male" partner but to the rest of the world it would appear to be a straight relationship. Wrong! He soon found out that a TS woman is just a woman. He preferred guys and he dumped her.

I'll throw in a link to some interesting research which points to an underlying physiological cause. As medical papers usually are it's a bit complex. But it seems to agree with the findings of others researching in this field; that gender identity is "wired" into the brain before birth. If someone is born with a female brain in a male body; they're just as much a woman as any woman. As the brain can't be "rewired"; the only recourse is to attempt to surgically alter the body to bring it into line with the gender identity.

Sorry about the length of this... (hope you're all still with me...) but I hope it clarifies things a little more Jo

 

Jo...
Wow...say it, sistah!! See, part of being Trans is constantly explaining ourselves....
I just posted something almost identical...lol
Darya

 

2 the state of being male or female (typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones) : traditional concepts of gender | [as adj. ] gender roles.
• the members of one or other sex : differences between the genders are encouraged from an early age.
ORIGIN late Middle English : from Old French gendre (modern genre), based on Latin genus ‘birth, family, nation.’ The earliest meanings were [kind, sort, genus] and [type or class of noun, etc.] (which was also a sense of Latin genus).
USAGE The word gender has been used since the 14th century primarily as a grammatical term, referring to the classes of noun in Latin, Greek, German, and other languages designated as masculine, feminine, or neuter. It has also been used since the 14th century in the sense ‘the state of being male or female,’ but this did not become a common standard use until the mid 20th century. Although the words gender and sex both have the sense ‘the state of being male or female,’ they are typically used in slightly different ways: sex tends to refer to biological differences, while gender tends to refer to cultural or social ones.


The Oxford Dictionary definition of Gender ~ do you think its correct?

 

Why would the way you feel about your gender identity be categorized as your sexuality? Isn't that suggesting that a person selects, based on feelings, their gender identity rather than being born with it? Though social conditioning may increase the need or desire to declare one's gender of sexual identity, isn't nature responsible for the overall outcome? Shouldn't there be a distinction between sex and gender identity? If not, does that not solidify the heterosexual-centric argument that since a man has a penis and it is supposed to be used in the process of copulating the existence of homosexuality is indeed a perversion of natural law?

 

Amazing posts, Jo!

I've been very interested to know more about transsexuals and what role their physical gender and gender identity play in the whole deal. Thank you for the enlightenment!

I think there was a thread here before about it, but I've forgotten - what's the difference between Transsexual and Transgender?

 

For those who hadn't realised - Darya has 'found' (and bumped, by posting) a very old thread.

Jo A was here some time ago (2006, if you look) and gave us some enlightening info on some of the issues of being a transgender person.

Unfortunately, she hasn't been around for a long time.

Fortunately :icon_bigg Darya looks very much as if she IS going to hang around and help us understand.

 

Oh lol... I never look at the date of the original post

 

Me neither :eusa_doh: :eusa_doh: :eusa_doh:

Very interesting but that has not clarified things much for me. I am trying but this is just soooooo way beyond me I can't seem to fully comprehend what it is to be TS but I'm getting there.

Does anyone have statistics on transexual people?

 

This looks interesting.

 

that article is really interesting -> me recommends to all.

 

July 2006?! God..I can't read.....!!!

Anyway...thanks, u all...I am going to post my own version of "what it feels like" in a sticky as soon as I'm done...I'm about halfway thru. I also have an entire "Trans definitions" post that will take at least two postings...

Basically, the difference between a Transsexual(or TS) and Transgender (or TG) is that Transgender is a more umbrella term for anyone with persistent cross-gender feelings, while Transsexuals (like me) really feel that we were born into the wrong gender role and/or body. Transsexuals tend to pursue transition to a more comfortable gender role and often have surgical procedures done, although not all of us do. A psycologist friend that I deeply respect said that "Trassexuals pursue integration at all costs"; I say "amen" to that.
Both terms are very respectful and it's not a faux pas to call a Transsexual "Transgendered". I usually tell people that all Transsexuals are Transgendered but not everyone who is Transgendered is a Transsexual.
"Genderqueer" takes a little more 'splainin....
xo D