Forgive me if this is a really dumb question but its one that has been on my mind for a while. In regards to transgender individuals, it has been shown that they have different brain structures, which more closely match the structures of their opposite sex. It’s also apparent that gender identity is not biological in nature but rather socially and culturally instilled.
With these facts known, I struggle to understand where the gender identity in transgender people comes from. Gender identity isn’t biological, and society didn’t instill them in transgender people, so where does it originate.
Again, if Im missing something obvious, please forgive me.
Gender identity certainly is biological in nature. What is culturally instilled is gender expression. Being a man or a woman is biological, but what it means to be a boy or girl in society is cultural.
It’s like how a craving for protein is biological in nature. Whether we satisfy that with a slab of pork, a kosher chicken sandwich, or a pot of dhal is cultural in nature. It’s the same basic instinct but it is expressed in different ways in different cultures.
Aren’t you conflating sex and gender? I still don’t understand where trans people get their identity from. Cisgender people are born a certain sex and culturally develop their gender identity over time. How does this compare to transgender people?
I think my gender identity was larely shaped by culture and environment. Im not convinced that the brain structure differences in trans people isn’t a result of their identities and life as their gender, rather than a cause.
This is exactly the kind of stuff I was hoping to avoid. Also, why I put it in GQ. Me asking these questions in no way implies that I don’t accept them. Why do these discussions always have to be derailed with this judmental b.s.?
I am male. By the time I was in 3rd grade I knew I was one of the girls. Not because I had girl parts (I didn’t, and that was OK), but because girls and boys were very different kinds of people and, weirdly enough, (since I was male and all), how I was was the way the girls were, not the way the boys were. I saw it, the other kids in my class saw it, the teachers saw it. I don’t mean it was a universal perception (THAT would be highly unusual, people DO tend to go on the basis of what body parts you’ve got), but it was a common perception.
Is it due to a built-in difference that caused me to manifest as one of the girls? Who knows—I certainly don’t. But what caused me to identify with them was social. I recognized them. They recognized me. I reacted to the boys as alien creatures with strange natures and inclinations and I disapproved of them and went to considerable lengths to not be lumped in with them just because I was male. The boys reacted to me with similar disparagement and hostility and disapproval. (Of course there were a lot more of them than there were of me, but I can’t say it wasn’t a mutually hostile recoiling, because it was).
Anyway, that’s how gender identity happens. You recognize the people who are like you.
For most people, of course, the folks they recognize as being “like them” are also, coincidentally, of the same SEX. I can see how it could be confusing to understand what it’s like to recognize folks of the opposite sex as being the same gender as yourself, and not the people of your own sex, but it happens.
It’s understandable why this is hard to make sense of.
Not that long ago, the leading theory was that gender identity was a social construct.
What happened is that based on this theory, doctors began performing plastic surgery on babies with ambiguous genitalia, shaping whatever genitals were most likely to look convincing. These kids were then raised from birth as their assigned gender, sometimes with no clue as to what happened.
It didn’t work. People began strongly identifying with their real gender. All evidence points to there being something biological about it.
I was struggling for the right words for this. Basically most people identified with whatever people with their chromosomal makeup typically identify as. I’m sure that with a large enough sample size you’d find transgender people in these situations as well.
Firstly, I was not implying you don’t accept them only that you likely didn’t need to know the ‘from where/how/why’ about their sexual identity. Or your own for that matter.
So, you think yours is the result of X+Y, good for you. But you don’t know, do you? No, you don’t, because science hasn’t determined that yet. For you, or for them.
So what difference does it make, to their fight for their rights, where/how/why they are the way they are? (No, I’m not accusing you of anything, calm down!)
Did you/Do you need to know these answer regarding heterosexuals? Or gays? Or just trans people? If so, why?
I think the OP’s questions are coming from genuine curiosity about the phenomena and not some rejection of them as human beings. I think he’s genuinely trying to understand transgender people better. Asking “why” shouldn’t be suspicious. Why are some people left-handed? Why do people come in different skin colors? Neither of those questions have a firmly proven answer, either.
Elbows, you say you’re not accusing him of anything but my perception (purely subjective) of your posts is that they could be read that way and are a bit hostile in tone.
Not to push back, but rather expand the conversation, this is how I felt about boys, but I never felt I was a boy, nor did others perceive that I was a boy, nor have I ever struggled with my own gender identity. I have always been quite comfortable describing myself as a woman, I love being a woman, but I have always felt more ‘‘like a man’’ than ‘‘like a woman.’’ As a writer I am most comfortable writing from a male perspective. If you pulled six random men and six random women out of the general population and told me to go hang out with the group I’d feel most comfortable with, my inclination would be the men. I’d place bets that my brain is structurally similar to the male end of the spectrum, or maybe even square in the middle. (I’m also left-handed, which would predict a lot of variability in my brain structure as well.)
I do believe there is some genetic component to this. My mother and my Aunt have both described themselves as like men; my Aunt has often remarked she has the brain of a gay man (because she is sexually attracted to men) and she’s even said her personal ideal body type would be the stereotypical Asian man and she is frustrated that she will never have that body type - she has never identified as transgender and she is married to a very tall large man (who is also a quarter Japanese.)
I’m curious where the line is drawn, what the push is, for someone to reject the gender assigned to them at birth and identify as transgender or gender fluid or whatever different way they feel, because even though I have what you describe (a feeling I’m more like a man), I don’t have it strongly enough to consider myself transgendered, and it would feel viscerally wrong to me to be called a man. I guess I see a huge difference between ‘‘I feel more like a man,’’ and ‘‘I am a man’’ but I’m trying to determine what that difference is.
I am 100% a trans ally but I feel like figuring it out, wrapping my head around what it means, will be an endless search for enlightenment. Nobody should be slagged for asking questions.
There is an implicit accusation in that sentence, and a disdain for honest intellectual curiosity. The answer to your question is that Ambivalid’s query had absolutely nothing to do with transgender rights/acceptance. In fact this whole thread has nothing to do with transgender rights/acceptance, so your line of questioning is rather off-topic.
I don’t need to know how high-bypass turbofans work, or what all the controls in the cockpit do, in order to be willing to buy a ticket on the next flight to Japan. Nonetheless, I am curious and will ask endless questions of people in the know, and I don’t expect to be chastised in any way for simply being curious; the same ground rules ought to apply here.
I think elbows gave the basic answer. Gender identity isn’t a social construct. You don’t merely get your gender identity from external sources. It is also internal. Usually your sex pushes you towards a gender identity that matches. And then you express that identity in socially acceptable ways, creating a feedback loop.
Sometimes your sex doesn’t. Or your sex isn’t so cut-and-dried in the first place. Chromosomes by themselves don’t do anything. They just tell the body what sex it’s “supposed” to be. But other things can happen. It’s possible that a lot of trans people are actually intersex in some way, even if there’s no outward sign of such.
In short, there are three aspects: sex, gender identity, and gender expression. Only the latter is purely sociological, and only the former is purely physiological. The middle one has some of both.