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Comments
I'm tempted to make a "mermaid problem" joke now...
Yeah, though this basically depends on whether gender roles/stereotypes/expectations are pretty much the vast majority of the whole concept of gender anyway.
Re there seem to be a lot of non-cisgendered people:
This.
I omitted this aspect because it didn't fit content-wise with the rest of my opening post. There I noted that (at least some) transgendered people, as well as some cisgendered people, seem to treat gender as an either-female-or-male thing.
Agendered people would seem to fall outside the realm of gender differentiation in the first place. I'm not sure how to place androgyny. I am aware that some people feel that they are both female and male to varying degrees.
See, I feel like I identify with both stereotypically male and stereotypically female traits, as well as with both female people/characters and male people/characters. But I see that identification as a sort of trait-matching, not as some sort of inherent piece of my identity; it is quite true that stereotypical/expected behaviors of women and men are often not displayed by persons of that respective gender, sometimes even opposed, so I believe that these expectations are mostly societal (or as you say, social) in origin.
Now, are there parts of me that are gender-related? Yes, of course, my biology and the way my sex drive works. However, I feel that that's pretty much the extent of the meaning of gender as far as I can tell personally; the concept of gender doesn't seem to go beyond this, for me at least. I've also found it rather useful to treat boys/men and girls/women with the same basic attitude (modulated by my familiarity with the particular individual of course), rather than to see them as two different (even if equal) classes of people.
That said...
You may be right. If you are, then I am neglecting this.
Yes, I do respect people's choice of gender identification. It was initially a bit of a bumpy ride on TVT for me to come to realize that they attached far more meaning to the concept of gender than I did, but I've come to understand it and I'm fine with it.
I just posted this because I had a thought, a realization, about my understanding of this topic.
And because I wanted to see how fast the community would recover from the site outage.
And now to read the article Wicked223 posted.
"I mean, I am male and feel male and I don't feel female. I don't identify with, um, my perception of women because of how I was raised and the way people always told me how to behave in one way or another."
For me, I was born androgynous, but end up skewing male because of influences that stuff like nail polish and Easy-Bake ovens are not for me. But aside from my junior high school terribleness, I eventually grew up with the perception that being male or female wasn't too big a deal, partly because I actually felt more of a kinship with girls at times, but that mostly came down to whose attitudes matched (or conflicted with) mine.
"I'm also amused to think how this thread would have gone on tumblr or even parts of Something Awful, with accusations of "check your privilege" all round.
Honestly that phrase annoys me so much, if only for how fucking vague and overused it is."
Privilege isn't restricted to cis males as many people seem to think, as it's based on experience in which many factors play into. Students are still more privileged than employees in general because universities are relatively sheltered from, for lack of a better term, "harsh realities".
The thread title would be helped by a "why" in it, by the way.
This actually reminds me:
I apparently use the term "gender" the way a lot of y'all use the term "sex". This is because of two reasons: (1) I don't personally believe gender has meaning beyond physiology, and (2) I find "gender" more meaning-specific and less likely to cause snickering.
Nowadays, in light of transgendered people, I use the term "biological gender".
That said, I am not very much in love with this intro. The word "indoctrinated" suggests axe-grindiness from the starting gate. The phrase "victims of this extremely aggressive brainwashing" also doesn't help. If this really is brainwashing, then it definitely isn't "aggressive", it's more of a "because people don't know better" thing rather than an agenda-pushing thing, as the wording here implies.
Well, to be honest, if gender is this "floating" concept that people have a right to ascribe a personal meaning to, then what's wrong with some people identifying as "X trapped in a Y body"? Or maybe this statement isn't about this?
(editor's note: this point will be returned to later)
Okay, the amount of axe-grindiness in this article is REALLY annoying, and more importantly, very distracting from my trying to understand the point.
This whole section about gender assignment at birth is filled with axe-grindiness. The author keeps on talking about gender being arbitrarily assigned at birth by a doctor, and keeps on pointing out the arbitrariness. What about the concept of gender being just a description of the sex organs or chromosomal makeup of the individual?
The writer has here presumed the existence of a separate quality known as "gender". Okay, that's fine, but...if it's just such an arbitrary decision, and the result of being "raised as" a person of said picked gender, then isn't it something that just exists due to the way society at large understands gender?
So far I know of two dimensions, actually--"male" versus "female" in terms of societal expectations, and degree of sexuality (asexual vs. hypersexual, if you prefer). Are there others?
Of course, I am pretty sure "three-dimensional" doesn't necessarily mean there are three dimensions, and given how this author is using words rather informally, I am sure 'ey mean that it's just some complex, NOT-one-dimensional thing.
I think the issue here is actually NOT how people identify themselves gender-wise, but rather, how people identify the gender of OTHER people. Physiological gender is the most reliable and objective way of doing so, like it or not. And then people use that gender identification for various purposes, such as inferring who should be using which restroom.
Now, if you're saying that people shouldn't even be gender-identifying others in the first place (and going by the restroom example given in the article, maybe we shouldn't even be dividing restrooms by gender), then I actually think that's more consistent, even if it's more outlandish of an opinion.
Sure. But in the vast majority of cases, you have people with XX and female primary and secondary sexual characteristics, and you have people with XY and male primary and secondary sexual characteristics.
I'm not saying that these exceptions don't matter or shouldn't be treated as people too. What I'm saying is that this doesn't "prove" that gender/sex is...wait, lemme just throw this quote from several paragraphs down:
> Sex is as much a social construct as gender
Well, if so, then does it exist as something that's tied to neither biological gender nor societal gender expectations?
Okay, I see your point with the whole "X trapped in a Y body" thing. This basically boils down to "I am what I identify as, and I am not actually defined by the physical traits my body has". Which I'm fine with. But my question is how do you identify as a gender in the first place, besides through sex-specific physical traits and societal frameworks of gender? Does the concept of gender exist but through these frames?
Oh, goodness. It sure was axe-grindy around there.
"Sex is as much a social construct as gender, as much subject to self identification, and besides all that, quite easy to modify."
Well, if it's that easy, I'll just waltz right in and...
Sex reassignment surgeon: Sorry, _____, I can't give you credit. Come back when you're a little...mmm...richer.
"If you thought “XX” and “XY” were the only two possible combinations, you have some serious googling to do. In addition to variations like XXY, XXYY, or X, sometimes cis people find out that they are genetically the “opposite” of what they though they were– that is, a ‘typical’ cis man can be XX, a ‘normal’ cis woman can be XY."
They imply those are not genetic disorders which have little bearing on gender identity. And would it kill people to just cite their sources rather than be condescending and tell them to look it up themselves, especially when their biology is so clumsily integrated to prove a point?
Note that although gender identity is a rather important aspect of a person's life and can have extremely negative consequences for somebody who is constantly denied the ability to express what they feel is their real gender, sex-reassignment surgery isn't covered by most insurance companies.
Gender is, partially, a construct. When most Western parents have a child with a penis, they give it boyish things to play with, and when they have a child with a vagina, they give it girly things to play with. Consider how completely arbitrary it is that we've assigned certain tangible objects as "belonging" to a gender; if we were to go to a parallel universe where boyish things are considered girly and vice-versa, chances are there would be a much higher incidence of transgenderism, since not the entirety of gender is a construct (but much of it is).
For example, many Native American tribes have or had a gender known as two-spirit, which encompassed a person who believed themselves to fulfill both traditional gender roles.
Okay, I'm with you up to here...
This I disagree with. If you gave what we consider "boyish" things to girls and vice versa, then I think you'd have the same existence of gender as a social construct, but just with the associated traits reversed. The reason we disagree is because your conclusion implies (as I believe you intend) that there's something to gender beyond society "teaching" gender to children, so that, say, a male child's inherent "maleness" combined with giving them a "girlish" upbringing makes for less one-sided combination of gender traits.
However, on top of the assumption of inherent gender in people, you also suggest that there's inherent gender in these "boyish" and "girlish" things that we give to children to play with. But these are just, well, objects; how do they have an inherent gender to them?
And, speaking more broadly, how does a gender-specific upbringing happen in the first place--how does one come to realize or develop a gender identity separate from (albeit not necessarily different from) the concept of gender as presented by society?
Even the two-spirit role you cite is based on a mixture of gender roles, which means its role is still ultimately derived from societal gender expectations.
"And, speaking more broadly, how does a gender-specific upbringing happen in the first place"
[folk sociology]Humans like to organize things and make sense of the world, hence they try to find patterns in everything.[/folk sociology]
Also, hunting berries lol. Of course, blue used to be the colour of choice for girls because it was associated with the Virgin Mary while red was considered masculine and thus pink was the colour of choice for boys. So there's definitely signs of gender roles pointing in the direction of culture.
Going back to the "a lot of trans people" thing for a second, there's also the matter of trans people not being as rare as most people seem to think (with estimates generally ranging between 1 in 500 and 1 in 2500).
Bem Sex Role Inventory self-evaluation
IJBM: It's so damn difficult for me to do this because I know what the answers are.
And, speaking more broadly, how does a gender-specific upbringing happen in the first place--how does one come to realize or develop a gender identity separate from (albeit not necessarily different from) the concept of gender as presented by society?
Well, gender isn't entirely determined by upbringing. I would not be surprised by some sort of genes playing a role in gender identity.
Even the two-spirit role you cite is based on a mixture of gender roles, which means its role is still ultimately derived from societal gender expectations.
^no, i mean, like, how does one come to the conclusion/realization that they have the wrong gender for their identity in the first place? Obviously, there's the biological gender that 'ey've most likely been raised to identify with, but how does one come to think that their gender identity is different?
Ask 10 people that, and you'll get 15 different answers.
The point when you're told that putting on shiny nail polish is supposed to be wrong for males. That was mine.
ARGH THE PAGE CANCELS OUT ALL MY CHOICES ONCE I LET THE DIALOG BOX GO
I got like 46.6667 of 100 masculine points, 57.5 of 100 feminine points, and like 54.6 or so neutral points. or something like that. Some of the questions were really "uh, this kinda depends on the time of day and my mood". Whatever.
^ But that's still relative to societal gender expectations. How did you come up with a concept of your own gender identity independent of either concurrence or contrast with societal gender expectations?
Let me know if I'm being too annoying with my questions.
By not thinking about it. I saw all personality traits as fundamentally agendered, though if I have to cite influences for this mentality, I guess it was the "girls can do anything boys can do" messages that bombarded my youth.
Mind if I ask what your gender identity is, and what your biological gender is, just for reference?
I know I've seen personality traits as fundamentally agendered too, so I agree with you there.
Male, androgynous.
glenn, are you arguing from a "gender as social construct is arbitrary" thing?
...uh...not really?
Not sure what you mean by "social construct", as I'm not that familiar with philosophy terms, but I guess that's kinda what I'm thinking--that gender is just the result of societal expectations of gender.
That said, I don't intend to argue; I'm trying to understand why people feel that there exists an inherent piece to gender beyond it being a "social construct" or whatever you call it. Because every time I ask people about gender identity, they always cite something in terms of societal gender expectations/roles/stereotypes, even if it's going against said expectations/roles/stereotypes.
Because you will have to cross paths with societal expectations in everything you do.
Hm, you have a point; I should also be asking how else gender can be defined.
Social construct: Something that is constructed by society, as opposed to existing out in the real world. The classic example is money, but there's an extent to which everything is a social construct. There's no solid reason that, say, we couldn't mush up the concepts of "leg" and "foot" and say that everyone has "fegs" below their waist, but we don't do that. We could also think of the upper leg and the lower leg as separate things, but we don't do that either.
Gender definitely is socially constructed to a great extent; on the first level, there's no reason we have to label a certain kind of part a "penis" and another kind of part a "vagina". (In fact many ancient peoples, including the Greeks, viewed these as two different forms of the same organ). Next level, there's no reason that, once we agree on "penis" and "vagina", we have to agree that those correspond to the two genders "male" and "female". Plenty of societies have more genders than that, and a few put some people with penises into "female" or some people with vaginas into "male".
Next level after that, once we have "male" and "female" that are strictly bound to "penis" and "vagina", there's no reason those genders have to MEAN anything, and whether they do differs GREATLY from culture to culture. And then after that, once we have two genders "male" and "female" that strictly correspond to "penis" and "vagina" and have different cultural importance, the exact nature of that cultural importance is totally arbitrary. This is the one we're most aware of, because it's the one that changes most often and has changed most recently.
But then, on the other hand, it's not surprising at all that some people prefer to be one gender over the other, even if sometimes the gender they prefer isn't the gender society assigns them. That's basically where you get trans people. I personally don't think it's more or less innate than any other preference, but that doesn't make it any less valid than any other preference, especially because that's just as true of cis people as well.
Perhaps there should be some sort of distinction between absolute gender identity—namely a dissonance between physical sex and how one ultimately views oneself as determined by biology (see the majority of transexuals)—and the artificially created gender roles designated to a given sex.
(Note: I'm not sure how one might apply this to people who are simply genderqueer on a fundamental level, due to the dearth of proper scientific studies; maybe future research will give us an idea of what's a biological imperative and what's simply an alienation from conventional roles. That said, I do think that both can exist.)