It's obvious to me that gender is actually along a continuum, with Masculinity at one end and Femininity at the other, with various shades of Androgyny in between. The people I tend to be attracted to are all very close to the centre of the continuum, whether they are male or female. Is there anything like a Kinsey scale or a test for gender??
Emm, I think there is no test. There used to be the Benjamin scale, (am I right?) but it's to large degree outdated and reinforces some steretypes such as "true woman is straight", and was created for MtF only. I believe I would be on the masculine side of the continuum, but not on the end, just with a preference.
Masculinity and femininity are two different qualities. You can express them as a continuum, but that's an incomplete analysis of them. Being high in one doesn't necessarily mean you're low in the other. It would be more accurate to say femininity and masculinity are both independent continuums. Androgynous people would be high in both. And this is just a matter of gender expression. With gender identity, it's more complicated. Most people identify as female or male, and some non-binary people consider their gender identities as a mix of them. These people could be put on a female-male continuum, but then there are other non-binary people who see themselves as something besides female or male, or only partially female or male. Putting them on the female-male continuum would be trying to fit them into a box that they don't fit into, being partially or totally outside the female-male continuum. With these people, you could put them on other continuums depending on their gender identity. Say someone identifies as genderqueer and female. They could be put on a genderqueer-female continuum.
I think you are thinking of male at one end and female at another because there is such thing as feminine males and masculine females. Other methods of seeing gender is a 3D method. I was thinking of a 3D method on how gender would work, but gender is so complicated, I couldn't figure out a way to describe it. Some people like thinking as a(n) U shape with male and female at the tips. I have seen and done a test in which femininity was on the x-axis while masculinity was on the y-axis and it plotted you on the graph based on what gender you fit more. If you scored low on both, it said you were agender or neurosis, while if you scored high on both, you would be androgynous (which I scored). I don't remember the link, but that is how the test was.
That sounds interesting. I wasn't thinking of males or females, no, but rather their gender identity. The people could be either male or female, no matter where they were on the scale.
Gender is an interesting topic. In fact, if we take physical gender out of the equation, it makes it much easier for someone like me. On a lot of websites, it says that being gay is being "attracted to persons of a broadly similar gender". If I feel I'm androgynous and virtually all my crushes are also androgynous, then surely that would make me Gay, even when dating a man, because it's the same gender identity as mine? I usually feel that the girls and guys I like are male and female 'versions' of each other, in their gender identity and expression.
Keep in mind, that if that was true it would technically make non binary gender identities into something seperate from those who are binary trans. The reason why masculinity and femininity are considered seperate from gender identity is that for trans women and men it is considrred unrelated to their gender identity. It is not about gender expression but about an innate feeling of belonging to one of the binary genders. On the other hand, I tend to agree that gender expression is an important part of a person's identity and as such it makes sense that it would be included in the boundaries of gendef identity. However, as long as gender identity is connected with binary trans the pieces simply don't fall into place. That's why I like using innate gender to describe the gender that is related to the gender dysphoria caused by being trans. To resolve this issue I've recently started viewing gender dysphoria as something seperate from gender identity which means that people can identify with any gender identity while those who choose to medically transition do so not because they identify as trans but because they suffer from gender dysphoria caused by being born in the wrong body. It also helps explain why many binary trans people prefer to identify as simply female or male after transitioning instead of as trans while some people who are binary trans and nearly all non binary trans people adopt an identity that is constructed out of schematic views connected with their gender identity and expect other people to acknowledge their gender identity and respond accordingly taking that identity into consideration. Ok, this is a bit complicated. :icon_redf
In my opinion there is: the expression, the brain, the physical thing. All separate. And for all of them femininity and masculinity is "measured" also separately. So... someone might like painting nails, but the experience is different depending on how you're wired. So how you feel and what you do are two different things. I don't know, at least in my case there is a difference, because I have a more or less masculine brain (feeling), express myself in an adrogynous way, I just like the look, and I'm female physically. ---------- Post added 2nd Mar 2016 at 04:34 PM ---------- The difference might be very difficult to spot though. The feeling/brain thing is innate and will show in how you act from your instincts. So for example a completely unconscious of anything, 10-year old me would sit with legs spread wide for no reason and get told that I shouldn't do it, I didn't even have an idea why I was doing it or why it was wrong. I just concluded that I shouldn't behave like a dude, because girls are not allowed to do it, and had no idea why. And expression is what came after that, what I learnt: to sit like a lady. Although... it's almost impossible to get rid of this manly sitting habit, when I was still trying to be a girl, I did it all the time when nobody was watching, because it feels better for some unspecified reason. This "feeling" is the trajectory you take when you don't intervene. While expression is whatever the resultant path is, with intervention added. Also, doing some non-stereotypical things is fun, people do it for fun. I love lipstick, it's fun. I don't instinctually reach for lipstick, but doing make-up is a nice, relaxing activity every once in a while and makes you feel pretty. I'm not sure if I explained it well...
That is very close to my understanding. What you refer to as the brain is pretty much how I see innate gender, the expression is socialy constructed and is part of your current constructed identity and might change in the future and while your body is physically female, the discrepency with your innate gender causes the feeling of wrongness/ gender dysphoria that can only be treated by transitioning medically and socially. (*hug*)
I saw this picture once and I thought it summed up the gender continuum to me perfectly. Just figured I'd share this with you guys.
I don't feel particularily wrong right now, but I can consider myself almost transitioned socially and physically my conditions are not too bad.
This is a great explanation of how gender expression is influenced by innate gender. I agree that there are certain behaviors that have an innate element to them, it feels to me like I have a life map of being female and I habe no idea how to be male. Funnily enough, the crossed legs example fits my own experiences as I crossed my legs in a way that was considered feminine and due to social pressure I changed the behavior. It's really weird that our brains would be wired to behave in certain patterened ways like that but maybe it has to do with support of your body and being evolutionary wired to sit in a way that fits your physiological makeup, knowing how to rest and relax is really useful from an evolutionary standpoint. Funnily enough the fact that girls wear dresses might be ironically enough a consequence of this innate sitting position and how dresses facilitate that style of resting because of the freedom of movement. ---------- Post added 3rd Mar 2016 at 02:59 AM ---------- Yeah, sorry, wrongness wasn't really the right word as gender dysphoria is much more than a feeling of wrongness.
That's a great pictur, I like it. Gender is very interesting. It is quite poorly understood considering how important it is, really. But then again, it is a non-issue for most people, which is probably one of the reasons why there's been so little research on it. We seem to be getting there slowly but surely though, I think. And ordinary layman trans folk seem among the prime theoreticians on the subject, in my opinion!
Wrongness, dysphoria, same thing. Either way, I'm not feeling it any more. Interesting point with dresses. My mom forbid me to wear dresses when I was around 8, because I always ended up: 1. Hurting myself, because I tried to jump and run in them 2. Damaging the skirt for the same reason (*crack* and skirt has an opening right to the top) 3. I sat in this wierd way and my skirts had a tendency to roll up. Underwear was on display... Up until today, always the same thing happens. I broke some two suit skirts this way (My legs are strong as hell - I've been running for a large part of my life, so no surprise) Now I'm all for trousers... Not some tight leggings. Regular trousers. Nothing is going to convince me back. Wait, I have this one baggy, long, black dress in which I can freely ride a bike. That one is an exception, but I think that any Jedi knight could happily wear it Yeah, the roadmap, I definitely got the male one, the male gender role seems much easier and makes more sense to me, but that's just because of the mental tools I have.
A problem with making gender a continuum is that you can make such pairs: butch woman/fem trans guy, or, fem guy/butch trans woman. Not that my examples are perfect, but! If you put such people together, you might notice they basically have the same gender expression, and yet they identify as binary opposites. So perhaps gender expression could be a continuum, because you could easily measure people's behaviour this way. Continuum is sort of easy for sexual orientation, because even if it doesn't cover everything, it represents that people can have different set of preferences. Not so easy with gender, because expression doesn't really match gender. It's heavily correlated and surely gender identity affects expression... but it is not straghtforward enough to put on an easy to read scale. Otherwise, you might end up with a conclusion, that said butch woman and fem trans man are of the same gender, because judging by expression, you would assign them the same score. Of course, you can make a continuum of how much one "feels" male/female... but a spectrum is a better example. And even then you miss out some identities. Meh. Mostly hard because besides feelings, no one knows what constitutes male/female identities. There is no data to clearly say, which traits are innate, and which are conditioned. And how sexual orientation affects gender expression (which it clearly does, to varying degrees... however no one knows how much)
