More genders?!

Ok, I give up with genders if they're gonna go down this path. As someone who's a genitalia essentialist, I can only understand penis=man, vagina=woman, two parts=inter, other=neuter or a set of inter. It's hard to understand gender and tried for years.

 

I've heard about men with vaginas and women with penises, and it's not that they "think I should have been a man/woman", and it is actually that biologically and not genitalia wise, they actually are a different gender than to what the genitalia would otherwise say.

 

I don't know, no offense to anyone else but I find the almost obsessive need to label every sort of feeling as a "gender" to be sort of ridiculous.

 

Right, and honestly there is such a small percentage of people who probably identify as male-female/female-male. Gender identity issues make it seem like being gay is a walk in the park!

 

Ya srsly, perhaps I'm just too cynical, but I wish people would take a rest from constantly trying to think up new labels that nobody has ever heard of before in the quest to seem 'unique'.

It makes the whole LGBTQ movement seem crazy and narcissistic imo.

 

coughpansexualitycough

 

Male and female are sexes. Gender is who some is. A male woman is a trans woman and a female man is a trans man.

Not really the case. You're thinking in terms of sex and not gender.

 

...wow this thread has issues.

I cannot speak to what exactly what was meant by female man or male woman. I can think of a few different potential meanings, but really the only way to know for sure would be to ask the people who identify as such.

This is a deeply problematic view. For one, it confuses sex, which is primarily biological, with gender, which is psychological and cultural. I won't claim for a moment to know what exactly gender is or what defines "man," "woman," or "other," but that would not justify me adopting a model of gender that denies the lived experience of many people. Which is what essentialism does.

Name three identities that resulted from a "quest to seem 'unique'." Frankly, most identities that are dismissed for that reason are actually legitimate identities describing experiences beyond the cultural norm.

 

I know it's a weird concept. But I think I can make it make sense.

I think the best place to start is to think about attraction. Many people are attracted to one physical sex or the other. That part isn't gender. But in order for that attraction to be a real part of you that you can't change, you have to have some idea deep down - like instinct deep down - about sex differences at all. That's not controversial; almost everyone believes that you can't "cure" being gay. You know what a man is, and what a woman is, and which one you can be happy with.

Yeah you add a little to this idea about sex differences when you're a baby, what men and women even are, but it's still very real once it sets in, kind of like clay that's been baked. And that idea in your head as far as what a boy or a girl even is, that's gender.

If you don't believe me about it being that real, try looking at people on the street some time, and try to mentally erase their gender in your head. Just, every time you see someone, refer to them mentally as "they" and try to forget that they are boys or girls. Especially if you think they're attractive.

So there's also these two chemicals, estrogen and testosterone. And we know what they do. Ever since we're babies we study what these chemicals do to people. And what they tend to do is part of what we learn about gender, which means we understand these differences at a really deep down level. Now people used to in the bad old days try to "cure" being gay with these chemicals. But they couldn't. Testosterone just made gay men hornier :lol:

So up until now it's just been orientation. This is where the trans comes in. So you get that you understand deep down what sex differences are, but not just what they are. You know what they mean. Because you know what, on average, testosterone and estrogen do to people. Now. Imagine that at this deep level, way way way below conscious thought. The same level that causes you to be aroused when you see someone attractive, and reminds you not to touch a hot stove, and makes you nervous when you're standing on the balcony of a tall building or even scared that you'll jump.

At that level, you know that what you are doesn't match the body you have, or the chemicals your body keeps giving you. And at that level, every instinct you have will keep pushing you to do everything you can to fix the problem.

I think, and I think this way because a lot of doctors think this way, that the reason I feel like this is because my brain isn't set up to accept testosterone. You can see with people the way testosterone affects them. People use it illegally to get bigger muscles. I mean, we know it works. Well guess what. The brain changes more with testosterone than any other organ in the body. It's got the most receptors for it. And you wanna know what else? All the testosterone your body makes, that it doesn't use, gets turned into estrogen. So the more male my body becomes, the more female my brain becomes. People going the other direction have the same problem; just that it's their bodies that won't accept enough testosterone and their brains that are hungry for something their bodies won't make.

That part is just theory but I think it's a good theory and describes what life is like for me pretty well.

And none of that is chromosomes by the way. It's rare but some people with XY chromosomes have natural vaginas.

So this is where I get to the point with third genders. I have that mismatch. I know I'm a woman. Deep down and I've always been one. I dealt with that instinct behind closed doors, and because it was closed doors, I basically taught myself to be ashamed of myself. I'm sure a lot of you know what that's like, being in the closet and teaching yourself to be ashamed. And how incredibly awesome it is when you accept yourself for who you are and decide to be proud instead of ashamed, and screw what anyone thinks about you because you are going to be you whether they like it or not or even accept what you've said about yourself.

But the thing is, I can imagine what it would be like if every instinct I had was telling me my body and hormones were wrong... AND... that being a woman would be wrong to. I'm glad that's not me. But that's why I think third genders are valid. I can imagine you needing both testosterone and estrogen, and I can imagine you needing neither, and I can imagine what both of those situations would probably do to a person.

As far as words go though, I know a lot of funky labels do get straight people to roll their eyes. Screw 'em anyway :lol: but I get not wanting to give people any ammo. So I really like the label "genderqueer" more and more. Or just "queer". Which is what I use more and more. If someone's really going to be a problem, like trans just isn't on their radar, I run with gay. I mean, I am; it's not my fault if someone doesn't get it after I tell them I'm a girl and makes the wrong assumption. Although they do get weirded out when I talk about my girlfriend :lol:

 

Dear people complaining about labels trying to be unique; no label will ever adequately describe the group(s) it encompasses. We either expand labels, or have none.

 

I agree. Also, labels tend to confuse people. For example if I say I'm bi, ppl may say, so like, you like both sexes/genders equally? And I may say no, but others bisexuals may say yes.

The label isn't important, it's just to simplify ppls lives, what's really important is to know how to describe your sexual orientation/gender.

I don't see any problem in creating new labels, that's why the label queer was invented, to group all the non hetero or non cisgender fabulous ppl we are

 

Spoiler

There, a big ass chart for you all to read on gender and sexual orientation. If you don't understand or are too lazy to understand something then do everyone a favor and Google it or shut your trap. You have no right to tell somebody who they are and by saying you want less labels you are pretty much giving the finger to everyone under those labels.

You don't have to memorize every identity, just show it some fucking respect instead of telling the person off or trying to force your 'reason' on them.

 

^ This. Thank you, Fugs!

 

I hate labels, and I would rather not use any. If you're going to use labels, then by definition you're going to be necessarily putting yourself into a box and limiting your individuality.

I don't think I really am gay, I think whom we are attracted to is an individual thing; "gay" is just a label society invented to describe anyone who is attracted to the same-sex....so I use it, in quotes, as a shorthand to express the general idea, even though I don't think it fully describes me in any way.

However the whole point of labels is that they have an agreed-upon meaning so that it makes it easier to identify who you are. Making up a label for oneself that nobody else has ever heard of defeats the purpose of having a label.

 

That would be great if 1. Everyone's identities fit into neat little boxes, and 2. Each label had one single meaning. Within your own label, 'gay', are people who may also be multiromantic androsexual (andro=men), androromantic multisexual, androromantic asexual, be exclusively attracted to men, be mostly attracted to men but once in a while attracted to someone of another gender... Sexuality and gender are complicated, and I don't think shoving everyone into ambiguous boxes to please cishets is the right answer.

 

Beautifully said.

 

Which is...exactly what you are doing when you use labels in the first place....:bang:

 

This conceptualization of gender isn't exactly free from problems as it operates on the assumption that gender roles are valid and psychological differences between men and women are real. Gender roles are increasingly being considered outdated and we can see that by looking at changes of careers within women over history and what it meant to be a man/woman according to society over time. As for psychological differences, that's controversial as we have studies that supports the idea that there are psychological differences while other study shows that there isn't any psychological differences between men and women. Janet Shibley-Hyde, Carothes and Reis, and some other psychologists have looked into several different studies and they conclude that there isn't any psychological differences. Yes, men and women on average are different, but the thing is one has to consider overlaps between the traits in order to see whether there is really a strong differences between men and women and to see whether it's cultural or inherent or bio-psychological...

That being said, if I had to break away from my essentialist point of view, I would have to conclude that gender should be considered emotional feelings of what you believe yourself to be in respect to your conceptualization of what counts to a man and a woman which is only applicable to yourself. This definition does eliminate the problem with your concept of gender as it does not strictly use the psychological difference notion and does not strictly the support the notion that gender role is supported. Furthermore, the yourself qualifier asserts that your qualifier to what you are only applies to you, and this eliminates the problem of trying to put someone else in a box when they have conflicting definition. So, using this qualifier of gender, if you consider yourself a male while having a woman's body, then you are male according to this gender conceptualization.

Of course, the essentialist point of view can be said to have problems when it comes to sexuality. For one thing, if we are to use the essentialist point of view on sexuality, what matters is arousal and behavior rather than what people feel what they are. We can show that this point of view has issues as it ignores differences between subjective arousal and psychological arousal while it ignores reasons for arousal at a emotional and physical level.

 

Self-chosen labels mean something to people. It helps them express how they experience their identity. Forced labels do not.