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People don't actually believe gender identity is a social construct right?

Discussion in 'Gender Identity and Expression' started by RN12, Dec 1, 2014.

  1. RN12

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    I do think gender expression is a social construct, but what you identify as is rooted within you while you're in your mother's womb, I believe.
     
  2. Just Jess

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    I agree with you completely, but yes, there are a lot of people that feel otherwise. I do want to say, it kind of sucks, to be honest, to be something that there is so much political controversy over. Like this is my life, you know? Me just trying to work and fall in love and have a place to pee in peace. And people have to have discussions about why I'm like this and how I'm promoting this political thingie, and opposing this other one. Just by being alive, I am smashing gender norms and unraveling the gender binary one minute, and the next I am invading women's spaces, or I'm a victim of the cruel patriarchy.

    So I mean I do hear people out even when I don't agree with 'em. And people that view every single aspect of this as something you can use the word "gender" to describe, and then say it's all socially constructed nurture and no nature. To their credit, they do have some valid things to say. And listening to them has, I feel, made it easy to have a pretty darn good idea of what gender is - expression, identity, physical sex, you name it. My being trans has forced me to become a darn expert on all of that crap, even though I majored in Computer Engineering. I'm just lucky it is truly fascinating.

    I do think that some of our core things we know about sexes, we do learn after we're born. Kids do a lot of developing when they are too young to even be able to talk. And so yeah, I believe society has this narrow window to get its digs in. But I mean this is exactly like saying, if we were taught as kids that say men are supposed to have dark hair, and that blonde hair was feminine, then gay men and straight women would be attracted to men with dark hair. Exactly the same way many find washboard abs attractive. You're still gay, still attracted to men, just what "man" means to you has changed. So it is with us trans people as far as I can tell. I'm still trans even if you screw around with what "woman" means and teach me different stereotypes.

    But you know these things, they go around forever - especially when people like yours truly have our backs to a wall and kind of have to defend ourselves from every side. It just never ends, unless we really listen to where other people are coming from.

    And so I really think, that the people saying "gender is a social construct" ? To them it really, really is. I think every gender expectation they were ever taught was more often than not wrong. A lot of them probably feel as though being them would be easier if they were a member of the opposite sex - even if they don't have an instinctual need to be a member of the opposite sex. Some of them, can even find some solace in a gender transition. So who are we to deny them the word "trans" ? Or to say that they aren't the gender they feel they are? Maybe they have a slightly different starting point. It's possible they don't even; that they not only don't fit their gender role, but they have the same need I have.

    So if you can imagine someone like that, whose biggest problem is society and the way they're treated by society, and we can further imagine that they don't actually want to BE a member of the other sex, then where is the support for people like that? Anywhere? Me, I have medicine I can take to enable me to live life with the same advantages everyone else takes for granted. What about them? A transition like mine would be wrong, but it would also solve a ton of their problems.

    So why not just attack those problems directly? Society really is wrong, after all, the way it's prescribing these gender roles. I sure as heck don't fit either template perfectly. No one does, in my opinion. The templates suck. So why not just attack them? Why not just point out that all this gender crap is bologna, so we are free to live our lives?

    And how must someone like me, look to someone like that?

    See it has nothing to do with right or wrong in my opinion. Everyone's right. They just have their own perspective, is all. And I learned a long time ago that when I am face to face with someone like that, trying to get them to see things my way just can't happen. They don't experience being trans the way I do. They simply don't and can't. Instead, why am I trying to get them to see things my way to begin with? Can't I just try to see things their way? And when I have just a little bit of empathy, some good can come out of these conversations; they don't have to be exhausting fights for survival for me. We can discuss how men and women relate, and how the gender stereotypes are bologna, and all sorts of things. And you know what happens then? Something miraculous.

    They let their guard down, and really listen to you.

    Just my $0.02, after having to fight this fight for as long as I've been fighting.
     
    #2 Just Jess, Dec 1, 2014
    Last edited: Dec 1, 2014
  3. RN12

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    there was a boy born in my city in the 60s, who was raised as a girl. He had a failed circumcision and they gave him a sex change at a young age. He felt like every trans person and wanted to be a boy and felt like a freak. Eventually he transitioned. So if you honestly think gender is social, pls leave.
     
  4. Just Jess

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    Well put :slight_smile: Sorry mine was so long winded, but if I gave you the impression I thought it was social than that's wrong. My transition has been life changing too. And this definitely is not social; I have been fighting society my whole life.

    I was just trying to say, that people have really strong feelings about this stuff. "Please leave", while I realize where that was coming from and it's sweet, is just going to put the people that disagree with you on the defensive.

    I'm the middle child here. I'm transitioning. I've got people that feel very strongly the way you do - and I agree with you - and people who I like a lot but disagree with on some things - this is one of them. And you two just won't play nice with each other. And that makes things harder not just for people like me, but for people who don't need to transition, but who have a lot of other sucky problems that come from gender.

    Just play nice. I guess I could have replaced that whole long speech with those three words.
     
  5. RN12

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    oh it wasn't a reply to you lol, but yea you should watch the documentary on him it's so sad.
     
  6. Pret Allez

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    We don't have any postmodern philosophers here because nobody is smart enough and stupid enough at the same time.

    I think gender roles are socially constructed, but gender itself is not. It's very real, and inate.

    Also, this site is very trans supportive. People used to fight over gender and say mean shit to us, and then I smashed their skulls in, so that doesn't happen anymore. (*hug*)
     
  7. DoriaN

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    Disagree.

    I mean, I do believe some gender identity is rooted since the womb, but to say expression is a social construct I find hard to swallow.

    Femininity brings about feminine aspects and that which is taken, given perceived, or received as feminine. The same is true for masculinity.

    I firmly believe we all identify as male, female, or some mix of the two. It is ingrained in us and cannot change save blunt trauma to the head, and even then it might not be enough.

    I mean, petty things like colours or clothing may be constructs, but expression is part of it too.

    I mean, I could /not/ settle for being female in my mind, but not expressing female. Infact, it's the reason I transitioned, I know who and what I am, and as such I shall express it.

    I am told I am feminine, even the way I speak makes complete online strangers guess my gender. I am outcast when I am with my male peers, since I do not seem to be a man. I have literally been told I am not male, when presenting as male, to other males or females.

    Again I'm talking about something deeper, more tangible. Colours, dresses, army soldier toys are petty things, but you cannot tell me that this woman is feminine by what society deems it as such; I highly doubt a man, who feels like a man and embraces masculinity would be caught dead doing these moves past instruction or satire.


    David Reimer was always male, and expressed male, not by society but by himself. His identity and expression was ingrained into him, so much so he took his own life.

    To say it's all a social construct is ludicrous. If no one expressed male or female, what difference does identifying as such mean? Why do genderqueer people often try to present or express as androgyne, neuter, male, female, or even bigender?

    Sure, our expression is SUBJECTIVE, but to say it is entirely a construct is incorrect.

    ---------- Post added 2nd Dec 2014 at 12:12 AM ----------

    This would be a more accurate way to say it rather than expression.

    Although even with that I still have a few minor qualms, but nothing worth debating over.
     
  8. CJliving

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    The gender binary and gender roles are a social construct. If they weren't socially constructed and feed to us as they are, would gender exist as it does now? Probably not. Does all gender exist as a straight up construct? No. But concepts of gender are influenced by the social norms we're fed.

    I agree, gender identity is not a social contruct though, just to be clear.
     
  9. MN Writer

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    As a sociologist I have to critique this thread a bit. Gender itself may be inherent in the individual separate from their interactions with others (i.e. genetic), but gender expression is 100% a social construct.

    Social Construction = "The social construction of reality is an ongoing, dynamic process that is (and must be) reproduced by people acting on their interpretations and their knowledge of it. Because social constructs as facets of reality and objects of knowledge are not "given" by nature, they must be constantly maintained and re-affirmed in order to persist. This process also introduces the possibility of change: what "justice" is and what it means shifts from one generation to the next."

    using this as a definition of what a social construct is it becomes apparent to see that gender expression is something that must be constantly maintained and re-affirmed in order to persist and can change from one generation to the next. Being a "woman" in the 1850's was very different from being a "woman" in 2014 in terms of how that gender was/is expressed. Having a female identity in 1850 and having a female identity in 2014 hasn't changed because those are inherent to the individuals, although one could argue that all identity is socially constructed as they arise from our interactions with others (see cases of children raised by animals who accept an identity as a different species due to their exposures in development)

    I think it is dangerous to say anything like "if you think _____ then you should get out" because that's offering up the same type of small mindedness that your saying is unacceptable. Just because someone doesn't see something the same way you do doesn't mean they don't have a right to offer an opinion, nor does it meant that you are in disagreement with one another about the principles behind the debate.

    ---------- Post added 2nd Dec 2014 at 08:14 AM ----------

    food for thought:

    if a child was raised in a community where everyone lacked any definite gender roles/expressions would that child grow up to have a gender or would they simply have an identity separate from gender?
     
  10. NingyoBroken

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    gender roles and rules (clothing, interests) is rules made by society. You can see this because what is masculine and feminine varies cultrally.
     
  11. wasgij

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    I'll bite :wink:

    I think it's a bit of both.
    Without society there would be no "boy girl, girl boy" idea for us to compare ourselves to. It would just be 'me' vs the wild. Pain, life and experience makes society seem real to me, and it gives me a convenient 'boy' and 'girl' reference scale so I can plot my real gender on it, somewhere.

    On the other hand, society can also be kinda shit. It's survival of the "fittest". I.e.: survival of the most prolific breeders, and survival of societies with the most advanced lifestyle-brainwashing where gays have the most kids.

    We've all got the baggage: parents who were breeders (obviously), who almost certainly "naturally" wanted their children to grow up straight and narrow because everyone else was going to make your life difficult if you were a bit different, so it was best if they acted on their own prejudice and toughened you up first with boundaries and normality and stuff. Also, colour-coded clothes, boy toys, girl toys, well-meaning fairy-tales with brave princes and passive princesses. Then, school. Years of putting far too many kids together in confined spaces in the name of education. While the cover story is to forcibly teach useful stuff because kids aren't naturally curious, a convenient side effect would be social self-discipline and conformance to a might-is-right majority starting at a young age.

    Yeah.
    As I work through my issues, I'm finding that my mental model of society is changing, which is all in my head. (!)

    I like you (*hug*)
     
  12. ctrl alt delete

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    I think that identity and what you identify with is too complicated a thing to be called a social construct. Like if your gay, you can't say society made you gay, or if you like long walks of the beach, you can't say that society made you like long walks on the beach (I'm not saying being gay is like taking a long walk on the beach :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:)

    But yeah I mean what society says that being a man or being a woman is, or that being gay or liking long walks on the beach is. Those things are just stuff people make up as they go along.

    I've kinda been thinking recently why these issues have come so much to the fore at this moment in history, like were there not genderqueer/ androgynous/ intergendered/ etc. people before now? My guess has it has something to do with how restrictive social roles have become
     
  13. Daydreamer1

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    Too many people say gender itself is a social construct, not gender roles; to which I try to bite my tongue when I want to ask how they know they're male/female.
     
  14. BradThePug

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    Many people don't see the difference between gender and gender roles. So, some people when saying that gender is a social construct mean that gender roles are.

    Gender to a point is a social construct, since in some cultures there are different non-binary genders that are mainstream.
     
  15. Just Jess

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    This is were I usually like to start thinking myself, when I try to figure out who I am and what I need to do to make my life make sense. It really helps me reduce my problems to just the ones I absolutely need to deal with. The rest, the stuff that's only an issue because I have to interact with other people, it's stuff that is still there. I'm a social person, we all are. More and more so further into my transition and being myself more. But that's stuff I can deal with to some extent, you know, being a little more bold and learning to devalue the opinions of perfect strangers and value those of my friends a little higher, stuff like that.

    You can't solve the problem completely like that. No matter what you do, "being treated like a man" is going to mean something to you at a visceral level. Even if I learned the word "sir" after I was born, for instance, the way it makes me feel especially when I'm out as myself in a skirt I thought looked halfway decent, that's not something I can just fix with positive thinking or thinking "this happens to cis women too". Going back and forth will always be hard every single time I have to do it. I'm not trying to downplay the social side of this at all. But the little tricks do help, a lot, wit the social stuff.

    But yeah, the way I feel at 2 in the morning, in this shell, especially the way it used to feel before I could do anything about it? No messing around with society and definitions is going to help that.

    I think another variant of this I like to think about when planning my future and my next move is, "who would I be on a desert isle after 3 years" or "who would I be in a post apocalypse world".
     
  16. Tai

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    I'm going to be the odd man out here and say that I believe gender is a social construct - to an extent. There are some things that are factors to gender identity that are rooted deep, yes. But I also think there is a nurture side to it. I talked with my therapist and she agrees. Now, the extent to which the nurture side contributes, I don't know. I'd guess it's pretty small. But it shouldn't be ignored, I don't think.

    I also think we should keep our minds open to the fact that everyone has their own experiences. As Jess said, there isn't a strict "right or wrong answer" to this question, but in different perspectives, the answers will vary. Some will never experience an environment which factors into their gender identity. Some, like me, will. I have a feeling that my environment has contributed to my trans feelings. Does that make me cis because it wasn't quite rooted as deep as everyone else? I don't think so. I experience dysphoria and other trans tendencies just like you and all of the other trans people in the world.

    I also like MN Writer's scenario. I was thinking about a similar one as I read this thread. I believe in that scenario the nurture part of gender identity would come out (again, to what extent, I don't know, but it may be noticeable). If no one was taught gender roles, gender expression, or gender itself, would anyone feel the need to become a gender of their own or not?
     
    #16 Tai, Dec 2, 2014
    Last edited: Dec 2, 2014
  17. Just Jess

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    I think what puts some strain on some people, is that some of us still would still have problems with things like our bodies, and others wouldn't.

    I definitely would. And I think we all go through a phase where we feel like we kind of have to prove ourselves "trans enough" to get help. When we encounter ideas like this, we're not in a good place to sit down and think, you know, academically, "how much of this is like, spiders building webs, sea turtles running to the sea, wolves forming organized packs stuff, and how much of this is pink is for girls, hold the door open, men are the breadwinners stuff". In other words, stuff we know is nature, and stuff we know is nurture. We can't think calmly about that stuff, because the stakes are too high for us. We need people to know just how much we're hurting! We need help!

    But you know, I can definitely imagine what it would be like if the social stuff were even more of a problem than waking up in a male body. I've experienced social dysphoria, and I know how bad it can get. And I'd be seeing all the people claiming that they were trans from an early age, and I'd be seeing them get the help they need, and I'd be thinking, what about me? Being called "sir" makes me feel like crap too! Where's my transition? My help? And hello - this other trans person is telling me that it's not real just because I'm honest about not wanting this or that surgery? First of all what kind of kool-aid have they been drinking and second, I thought we were on the same team! What the hell!

    So yeah, strain like crazy. Because really, underneath? We all just need things we're not getting and we're scared.

    So my own opinion, saying "everything is social" implies some things that just aren't borne out in our realities. At least on the surface, without a "bird's eye view" of our own lives. We have our lived experiences, and I think those are things people fail to take into account when thinking about this stuff. I myself came into contact with some of the more harsh realities of being trans, when I was forced to admit that I was sexually incompatible with my ex fiancee, every bit as much as if I were a gay man, and that that was a huge part of why we had been celibate for three years. And, of course, being unable to be attracted to men, even though that's a social norm for women, was an added layer of difficulty in understanding myself. My draining dysphoria was getting in the way of my getting through school, and trying to double down, lift weights, and fulfill my gender - and see, that last part? DEFINITELY social, I will be the first to admit that - After years and years, society was trying to teach me to be something I wasn't, and the other identity it gave me - gay guy - well that shoe didn't fit any better. I'm not a straight man or a gay man, because I'm not really a man. I tried to be everything that people trained and taught and expected me to be. I tried very, very hard. And it all ended up being wrong, more and more wrong the harder I tried.

    That stuff, that's us dealing with our reality, the reality of being trans. That's not us taking a scientific view, because we can't. We need better than theory. We need stuff that works, right away.

    I have the benefit of hormones and a little bit of distance, though, so I can be objective and scientific now. Objectively, I believe that kids learn a whole lot of things their first few years alive, and that none of that stuff can ever change. I believe this includes a lot of our ideas about the differences between boys and girls.

    But I absolutely don't believe it's possible to intentionally raise a cis kid to be trans, and I absolutely don't believe that you can raise a trans kid to be cis. So clearly, if you agree with this sentence, there is some part of being trans that society just can't touch. I also don't believe it includes all the differences between boys and girls. I believe, going back to that "raised alone on an island" scenario, if a man and a woman visited the island, over 19 times out of 20 the native would only be attracted sexually to one of them and not the other. So I do believe that some knowledge of sex differences is innate.

    So where does this leave "Gender" ? What the heck is "Gender" even? If we say it's just what we know about the differences between men and women, then sure. I think there's a high enough percentage to call that "socially constructed".

    But what about the part of me that needs to be a woman? I think, if we are calling gender a social construct, well then that part of me, the trans part of me, isn't gender at all. The words "gender identity" are completely misleading. It clearly has something to do with gender. If what I was taught about men and women were different, like if I spoke a different language say and did not know what the word "sir" means, then yeah, my being a woman would mean something different too.

    But you know, I am an engineer and a businesswoman. Both of those things are absolutely not feminine things in my culture. They are accepted, but if ratios in my industry speak to anything they say that is not the norm at all, by a longshot. There are several things I do that are feminine, but several things I still do even though they're masculine. Clearly my being trans isn't just about chasing all the feminine things and none of the masculine things. It's more complicated than that. Because women are complicated human beings.

    I think, whatever answers we come up with, in this or any debate or gender study, those answers need to work for human beings. They need to speak to everyone's personal experiences, and help them live their lives. I absolutely do not see that happening, ever, with the "nature vs nurture" debate, the way it normally works. I don't think the starting point in any of this is "what causes this", because even if it is not the intent, that can be used to attack trans people's identities whether you say "nature" or "nurture". I do think studying how gender works is valuable, but only if we recognize being trans outside of that, as a given, and ask "okay, knowing what we know about gender, how can we help everyone - including trans people who just absolutely and unconditionally exist - live decent lives?"
     
  18. Pret Allez

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    But I think you know I was trying to simplify the issues as a way of clarifying them for everyone else.

    The intuition I was trying to capture is that the way gender roles work has been culturally contingent on place and time. (What it looks like to be "manly" in the US is different than manly elsewhere, and even in the US, masculinity has change over time.)

    However, gender, itself, whatever it's made of, clearly isn't merely a social creation. Whatever gender is made of admits a more solid basis. Remember, Aunt Twisty, the radical feminist behind "I Blame The Patriarchy," distinguished herself an ally of trans women even in the face of vitriol from trans denialist feminists. She stated crucially, that even if the kyriarchy were obliterated, and no sexist oppression existed, people would feel great distress if they were men with vulvae or women with penises.

    I realize there is a need for nuance, and when people say something is socially constructed, they aren't saying it's not real. But at the same time, when people say something is a social construct, they seem to be making it a lot harder for us to legitimize themselves in a world that denies our existence and silences us, sometimes violently.

    Whatever your qualms are, I hope they fit more into the mould that I have been reductive for the sake of understanding, rather than erasure.

    ~ Adrienne
     
  19. Acm

    Acm Guest

    Personally I think gender roles are socially constructed, but gender itself is innate. Even if I lived alone on a desert island with no knowledge of gender, I would still need to transition (physically). Of course since we do live in society, the social stuff is important too. That's just my opinion though.
     
  20. Sorceress of Az

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    Unfortunately some people believe it is, and even think transgender people are mentally ill or spiritually corrupted. An idea I find offensive.

    I feel we are born with our gender identity,
    where as our culture has constructed gender roles and gender expressions.

    One example being that Pink is associated with Femininity and Blue is associated with Masculinity.
    Colors don't have genders, and there is no instinctual cause for that perception it is something our society has invented. Boys wearing Pink even being seen as degrading or shameful while girls can wear blue no problem and no one bats an eye. I feel that way of thinking is Archaic, and people should just wear what ever colors or clothes they want.


    To even go further, womens breasts are not seen as sex objects in all cultures or as a private part that needs to be hidden. Some cultures don't care if women breast feed in public, while others the same ones that sexualize breasts will freak out if a woman feeds her baby in public.