For the past few years (and some difficult moments during childhood) I have tried to find the difference between being manly and being a man and between being a woman and being feminine. And while there seem to be obvious lines (oftentimes stereotypes but well..) like behavior, looks, roles in society or even how people feel their body should look like there keep being tons of exceptions for every rule one tries to make (which is a good thing i believe). While I think i have found the answer to the question of my own identity there are still doubts and from what I've seen a lot of people that come to this site struggle with the same problem. So i wanted to ask where do you think the line lies? And why is it so hard to find? Is this line even important? Is it even worth thinking about if gender is something personal and every person is different? Uhm..i guess this is a weird question but i guess i wanted some input from people who had to struggle with these things themselves...
I feel gender to be mostly in the brain. Having a female brain doesn't mean you like pink or dresses. Hell, liking pink used to be a man's color, and men used to wear dress like clothing. It just means your brain functions in a certain way when it comes to problem solving, emotional reactions, etc. Just take all the man made stuff out of society and ask yourself if you would still identify as that gender without them. Most cis people don't even like their gender role. Cis woman here personally. I've never worn a skirt/dress, I've never worn makeup, I don't shave my legs (unless forced to by swim season), I HATE beauty standards, I love video games, I love men's clothing, I am more aggressive than emotional. My Mom is a tomboy, even though she's almost 50. She too, has never worn makeup or a skirt/dress. She only wears sports clothing and baseball caps. She works while my Dad stays home with the kids. She is a woman. I am a woman. We are women. Even cis men don't like their gender roles. My uncle loves cats, loves to cook, loves flowers. He hates super masculine "crap". He loves more feminine typed hobbies. He doesn't even have hair on his legs (natural genetics) and brags about how good they look. Other cis men wish they could wear dresses, or that they could cry, or do this and that. I also know trans men who wear dresses and make-up. I know trans women who cut their hair short and walk around in cargo pants, and shoot guns. Our gender identity is how we feel in the brain, and gender roles are made up.
I completely agree with Loli. I'm a very feminine transman but I know full well that I am a man. Gender roles are what society imposes on men and women in order to keep a "status quo" of how people should behave. A lot of people, whether cis or trans or NB, don't follow these gender roles completely if at all nowadays. Gender is an intricate part of your system though, very hard to describe and understand beyond a "feeling" - I tend to think of it as how your body (should) feel and how it (should) look and how your brain sees you in relation to the rest of the world. If I lived in a world without gender roles I think I would still be very upset with my body and want to transition.
I'm a very straight acting bisexual male, but I realize that my way of gender dissociation is how I view myself as an intellectual. That's entirely free of gender.
The line between gender roles and gender is identity. Period. Now, I've often wondered how much of that identity is biological vs social. I'm not convinced that the difference betweent a trans person and a gender bending cis person is entirely biological, it's possible it's not biological at all. That's not to say that a person's "gender expression" isn't biological, but I think of identity itself as more of a social construct. But until alot more LGBT people donate their brains to science, we just won't know for sure. I think it's most likely to be biology+the hundreds of millions of other variables that make up who we become later in life when we start dealing with gender dysphoria. For instance, I was home schooled, and with my mom 24 hours a day until I was 17. Unless I was at a church youth thing, hiding in my room or next door with the only other teenagers in the neighborhood. And even then I felt I got along better with girls, I knew I wanted to be one of the girls 15 years before I knew what trans* means. And as much as I hate saying it, I am my mother's daughter. I share alot of interests with my mom, and personality traits. She was definitely the parent I identified with naturally as a young child. I mimicked alot of her behavior and interests (she is a nerdy tomboy, just like me). On the other hand, I didn't really identify with my dad until later, when I understood the gender-role I was expected to fill a little better. I think the parent I wanted to be like naturally was part of establishing my identity, but I'm not sure why I identified with my mom. Maybe it's biological, maybe it just happens and identifying with mom, along with being pansexual and having my brain filled with rigid gender role expectations and evangelical Christian dogma all combined to make me perceive my behavior as female. Either way, here I am. The sum of god or random chance, but definitely a transgender female about to permanently alter her body to match her personality. Why? Because being/feeling seen by others as I see myself is important to me, and the end of the day that's all I need to know. If there is a god, he set the universe into motion knowing I would be what I am, therefor it must be his plan. And if I just happened, then the why doesn't matter anyway, does it? We're all just brains in bodies looking for survival, companionship and happiness. Whatever makes us what we are, we have the same right to exist as.everyone else and it's nobody else's job to identify me.
