To put it as simply as I can, what bothers me is that people say gender is a social construct, which is fine, but then a moment later talk about their gender not matching their sex. My response to that then is to wonder how, if gender is a social construct and not actually bound to sex in any way, someone's gender could not "match" their sex. That notion seems to contradict the premise that gender is independent from sex, since you'd think then that no gender matches any sex. I guess now that what's really being said is that gender roles are a construct and gender identity is a real issue. I think that's the main source of my confusion here. So like, this thing you said:Is it that the first time you say gender, you mean gender roles, and the second time, you mean gender identities (or rather, people who identify as different genders)?
As Trance said, there's a slight bit of overreading. While gender roles are a social construct, gender itself isn't purely though. It is an external presentation of an intrinsic facet of identity. It's society attaching traits and expected behaviors and roles to physical features that cause a lot of the issues. Race and culture are social constructs in the same manner; society pinning specific behaviors and roles on physical attributes of skin color or ancestry.
I've identified internally as female my entire life. As a kid I always identified with the girls in the neighborhood or in school and stuff. I wanted to do girly things because well, I was told a girl should like these things and I knew I was a girl. I liked dolls and playing dressup and stuff like that because girls liked it. For the longest time I wanted to be a housewife and a mother and stuff, and I kind of felt ashamed for liking things like sports and video games because girls weren't supposed to. Even though I had a fascination with science and engineering, I hated working on cars because it got me dirty and being dirty was not feminine. This is gender the social construct in action. Had I grown up in an environment where playing with monster trucks and playing in mud was considered feminine, I probably would have liked it more. But because I identified as female, and society told me females are supposed to look and act this way, my likes and dislikes kind of were tailored to that. Nowadays I don't care as much, if at all, if what I do is considered feminine or masculine.
That doesn't take away that I still want to be identified female, it just means I recognize that society has programmed me to try to think and act a certain way. I love ballet and working on cars and playing video games and wearing makeup and dressing up pretty. I definitely still have a maternal streak and I enjoy domestic chores, but I'd rather be a scientist than a housewife. None of these things make me a girl or a boy though, identifying as one makes me a girl. I know lots of boys who are far more feminine than I will ever be, and girls who outbro me. Again, acting feminine or masculine does not determine one's internal gender identity, they do. It's just unfortunate that society still likes to think that by identifying as a certain gender they're forced to act certain ways or like certain things.
Sex, the physical features you wish to have, that is also completely internal. Your mind has its own map of what it thinks the body should be. My mind is 110% convinced I'm supposed to have a female body. Before my sister was born, while I identified as female I didn't quite understand or have a realization I thought I was a girl. When my sister was born, I suddenly had a very physical awareness that my body was wrong. This was the first time I experienced dysphoria. When puberty hit and my body started growing male the dysphoria got much stronger. Gender dysphoria is a very specific set of psychological symptoms, it isn't just typical depression and body esteem issues.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_dysphoriaWhen I feel very masculine, and my body looks masculine to me, I feel dysphoric. I do not feel attached to reality, I lose control of my emotions, and I feel very empty. I literally feel like a stranger in my own skin. And I had actual triggers, being naked or being aroused sexually was an immediately fuck you to the gut and I would get physically ill. Looking female in the mirror has gone a long way towards reducing a lot of my dysphoric feelings. Now it's not a total solution, as I still do have a physical trigger from the bits between my legs that remind me I'm still in a male body, hence why I have gone further with my transition into hormones and will eventually have bottom (and probably top) surgery. Just being able to look female wasn't enough, I was still discontent and it wasn't until I started taking hormones did most of my depression and dysphoria and anxiety go away. It was like a light bulb switched on, my mind was craving hormones it wasn't getting, and worse, getting hormones that was shoving my body towards a destination it did not want.
Not everyone has to or necessarily wants to fully transition though, sometimes just being able to express themselves occasionally is enough. Not everyone feels as strongly as I did, sometimes it's just a general feeling of discontent and dissatisfaction in their physical appearance. Some people go through life without actually knowing why they feel down all the time, this is why awareness and letting people have safe zones to explore these things is a huge deal. Sometimes the solution to dysphoria is simply to be able to present as female sometimes. Some people have no problems with what bits they have, but the bits don't give the right hormones their mind wants. You'd be surprised the number of transgirls who are proud of having a penis, but because society tells them girls have vaginas and guys have dicks they feel pressured to get bottom surgery. I still want bottom surgery, but that's my decision, I do not feel compelled to in order to feel like a girl. And sometimes the dysphoria doesn't come from their body at all, but comes from society denying them their identity because of their body. Some transpersons absolutely love their body, and do not mind it at all, but feel pressured to present in their chosen gender to be respected as such. There's still a big chunk of "traditional" (ie. backwards) psychology that think transgenderism is strictly girl born in guy body and visa versa. Not everyone feels they got the wrong body, they just feel society is giving them the shaft and forcing them to look and act a certain way. This is where the gender binary sucks. Some transpersons feel compelled to transition in order to present better in their target gender when they have no desire to.
Now personally for me, I will say, I imagine a lot of my physical triggers for my dysphoria were learned rather than innate. I grew up in a Catholic household, and as such I was raised that sexual feelings were bad and that I shouldn't be aroused by things or I'm having impure thoughts. Now imagine a 8 year old girl, stuck with male parts, wearing girls clothing because she knows she's a girl, but then feeling aroused by it by her male parts, parts she already didn't want. It really fucked with me. I wasn't wearing girls clothing to get a sexual thrill out of it, it was purely to try to feel pretty and some semblance of normal. I couldn't control it though, which was extremely distressing and only compounded on my dysphoria. I will say this is probably the root of my desire to get bottom surgery, and had I been raised that girls can have penises too (and that it's not bad to be sexually aroused, another issue entirely), I probably wouldn't have cared as much. My sexuality for the time being is completely repressed by my repulsion to the fact I have the wrong parts. Which is funny because once again, it is a purely social construct that penises are considered male and vaginas female. Outside of child reproduction they have absolutely nothing to do with your identity or personality.
That being said, some people do hit puberty and their body is like OMG I WANT TO STAB THINGS WITH MY DICK... wait I don't have one?! and visa versa. I may have these feelings as well, but I can't say for sure because again, I've repressed my sexuality for so long I've not given myself any chance to explore. I can safely say though I do not get any pleasure when aroused, so it's likely my mind is operating on the same principle, but since ~*catholicism*~ I never felt comfortable exploring it outside of desperation to figure out how broken I was.
Gender identity is a part of what makes a person that specific person, and contributes much to the personality and outlook. The fact that personality types fall into extremely diverse categories, albeit for the most part still falling under the boy-girl dichotomy, implies that gender identity is by no means the single defining aspect of a person. But for some people, it may be a very huge part of who they are, and they strive to present themselves solely based on that. For others, not so much.
My gender doesn't define me, I am who I am. That doesn't change the fact I am a girl, and wish to be treated as such in society. It is just another facet in the whole amalgamation that makes me, me. The problem is cisgendered people don't think of it as a big deal because to them it isn't. It's not that gender isn't just as much of a core identity as it is to trans people, it's that they've never had it challenged. Society is strictly catered to them as being the majority. Society does not question them, because outside of rather insignificant things they've never had to question themselves and prove to society they are who they are. They are by default assumed properly. Think of how insulting it is to get called girly as a guy, and then realize that to transpersons they live with that every day. Transpersons are challenged on a daily basis the very core of their being, along with all the traits and manifestations that come with it. This is a similar problem faced by minority children. They are raised in a world where being white is the standard and tippy top, so when they look in the mirror and see a different colored skin they start associating traits of inferiority to themselves, and their identity is summarily challenged. This is why people take huge pride in being black or female or trans or gay or what have you, because society assumes that if one is not part of the majority, they have to stand out some way or be ignored. The majority is considered default and "normal", and everything else deviant, when in reality nobody is "normal" and everyone's a shade of different.
Now, problems arise when someone underestimates the amount of care and attention a certain person puts into their gender identity. For those who fall into the spectrum of gender variants, the amount of care they put in considering and mulling over their identities seems hard to comprehend - almost foreign - to the common cisgendered folk, and striving to fully understand their situations is an undertaking that many of them would likely deem as stressful or confusing.
And this is where privilege comes in. Just because the majority doesn't face the issue doesn't make it less important, nor solely the minority's responsibility to bring it up. This is the height of arrogance and insensitivity to think that just because it doesn't happen to them then it shouldn't be important. As a majority it is their responsibility to be aware and perceptive of minority issues, and to help adjust their behavior to be more accommodating. Society already accommodates the majority automatically, so why is it the minority's responsibility to build their own accommodations? Just because something is more common doesn't make it superior or more "correct" than others. Just because cisgendered folk tend to be the majority of humans born doesn't make cisgenderism the right thing and transgenderism some sort of deviancy. People aren't statistics, being "normal" in the mathematic sense is not "natural" in the sociological sense. It just tends to be that way because it's the majority voice and majority experience that gets recognized in society.
As a majority in society it is their responsibility to make sure minorities do not get ignored or stamped out. We don't even know how many people are truly transgender or intersexed or what have you because of efforts in society to stamp out dissent and silence minority voices. Society may think these things are rare but in reality it may really not be.
It seems to me like the question of sensitivity to others' perceptions is an Achilles' Heel to those who are prone to being misidentified. It's a weakness that may not seem apparent in the surface at first, but devastating to those who have it. While Achilles' weakness lies in the heel, of all places, the gender-sensitive human being's weakness just has to lie in their gender identity. There are two ways to fix this. One is, as commonly agreed upon here, to attempt to disarm the rest of the world by bringing the sufferings of the mis-identified to their attention, and placing your emotional well-being entirely at the discretion of others. The other solution is to put extra armor over the Achilles' heel to adapt better to the battlefield known as the "real world." That's not to say that these solutions are mutually exclusive - they both can be striven for at the same time. I'm just trying to highlight the other viewpoint over here, which is why I'm in complete agreement with Suzuran:
One major goal that we should strive for is to have the question "Why are you so much like a boy?", when asked to a transgendered girl, carry the same amount of emotional baggage as the question "Why do you walk funny?" or "Why are you always so pessimistic?"
I'm sorry, but my gender identity is not a weakness, and to perceive it as such is insulting. Just because I do not fit the majority narrative does not make my identity "emotional baggage". I am just as natural and "normal" as any cis-born individual. I am merely a different variation on the human spectrum. To act as if it's my responsibility to "toughen up" because I'm not the majority voice is frankly the height of arrogance and privilege. Cisgendered individuals are no more "correctly human" than I am. I am not a deviancy, I am merely a variation. And to act as if it's my responsibility to stick up for myself, rather than cisgendered individuals to be more accommodating for me, is extremely bigoted. It is pure luck one is born into a sociological majority, and to lord that privilege over others who weren't "as fortunate" is wrong, period.
It's society that's told me being a girl is shameful. It's society that's told me being trans is shameful. It is not an Achilles Heel, it is society being bigoted dumbfucks thinking straight white cismales are the pinnacle of human development. My shame is purely external. It's not my job to toughen up because society is a bunch of bigoted ignoramuses, it's society's job to stop being assholes and learn that people are different.
Now to respond to another quote -
http://www.ehow.com/info_8001121_difference-male-female-writing-styles.html
http://www.ehow.com/list_7518558_speech-differences-between-man-woman.html
I agree that your viewpoint is noble and appealing, but observations are for the most part objective. You may argue that these differences are a result of the annoying social prescriptions that force the distinguishing between men and women, but this is the reality of today's world. Differences exist, and instead of fighting against them, (unless you particularly enjoy a "me-versus-the-world" scenario), I think these differences should be accepted, examined, and maybe even celebrated instead.
You're missing a key point though, that this is a self reinforcing loop. How many female writers over the years have had to write under pen names or other pseudonyms because society just assumed female writers were inferior? Joanne Rowling, aka JK Rowling, had to publish Harry Potter under her initials because the publishers told her a woman would never sell well because they would see her writing intrinsically as inferior. There are lots of male romance writers who write under female pen names because guys aren't supposed to write mushy love crap. It is purely society telling you there is a difference between make and female voices, not that there actually quantifiably is one.
I had this argument about video games and science. Society telling women they can't be programmers and engineers and scientists is why there is a male majority, not because there's an actual gender specific variance between math and science skills. That is purely pushed by society, just like black people are told they are dumber and prone to anger. Gender, race, culture, none of these have any relation on someone's likes or dislikes or talents or behaviors. Stereotypes hurt, and are self reinforcing in a lot of ways.
Well, what if the question is warranted? Gender is not binary. Or even integer. This is mostly why the idea of a "wrong" gender is stupid. I was born male. I am green-deficient colorblind and nearsighted. I like airplanes and complex machinery. I wear cutesy frilly dresses. I collect stuffed animals and dolls. I negatively identify with male stereotypes. I wish I still had a high-pitched voice. I suck at arts and crafts. I play violent video games. I program computers. I keep cats. I wear long hair and wish it were longer. I am a sucker for cute animals. I can't cook or clean. I am lazy and undisciplined. I am jealous of small children and wish to emulate or become one. I love wearing things that make noise. Which gender am I? Why should I chose one stereotype to the exclusion of another? The ideas of binary gender and exclusively gender-based stereotypes are stupid and broken. People are who and what they are. People who are sufficiently capable and motivated are very close to their ideal self. Some people are the exact opposite. Such is people. No two are exactly alike. Saying "all trans girls have X behavior" is just as wrong and broken as saying "all black people steal televisions". Saying someone is closer to the "wrong" gender than that which they wish is an observation of outwardly displayed features, not an accusation of crime.
Just because you do not put any importance into your gender identity or how society perceives you does not mean other people don't take pride in. It is different for everyone. Again, this is the height of arrogance to assume that if something isn't important to them, then it shouldn't be important to others. Just because the gender binary is a social construct does not take away the fact people do take identity from being considered male or female. Not everyone is this amorphous genderless blob. I am very proud I am a girl, even if I don't necessarily do the typical "feminine" thing. I feel feminine, and I act feminine, even if society tells me some of the things I do aren't feminine. And people can and do feel they're in the "wrong" gender, because society tells them they have to act certain ways because of their body parts or what they were assigned at birth. Telling people to just suck it up and/or stop caring what people call them does nobody any good. I don't want to be an amorphous genderless blob, I want to be referred to as a girl.
And if someone wants to act a certain way, or fit into gender roles, that is their perogative. As long as they don't feel compelled to by outward forces who cares? There are things I like strictly because they're viewed as feminine. There's no innate wiring that tells me I should like makeup, but I like looking girly and therefore I like makeup. I don't force myself to wear makeup because I feel like I'd be less of a girl if I did, but on the same token, I don't have a direct love of makeup, it is strictly because it is seen as feminine that I like it. And there's nothing wrong with this! As long as nobody is being coerced to do so.
Jusst because some people don't take any identity from their gender doesn't make it wrong that other people do. Society telling you you're in the wrong gender, that's wrong, but that doesn't mean that people can't internally feel they're in the wrong gender and need to correct it. It's when people are feeling compelled to do things they aren't comfortable with, that is the issue. Some people just don't care one way or the other and just go with the flow and follow gender roles, and some people do not wish to be restricted by them. As long as they're happy who cares?
