Okay, so here’s the $20,000 question:
If being “male” or “female” doesn’t necessarily relate to socially-associated preferences or activities, what does it actually mean?
Those of you who self-identify as having a strong gender identity: what do you mean by “gender identity”?
Not that it matters, except as clarification, but I definitely don’t consider myself transgendered. I just don’t consider myself particularly gendered at all: my plumbing doesn’t influence my perception of myself, and I shy away from either set of gender archetypes.
Androgyne may therefore not be the best word for it – but it’s the word that stuck in my craw as an adolescent, so it’s the one I turned around and started using.
Daniel
On a tangent:
During my turbulent adolescence, I read an interview with Poppy Z. Brite, in which she talked about her participation in gay male porn videos and described herself as a gay man trapped in a woman’s body.
That was the first time I’d ever encountered the idea, and it hit me like a hammer. “That’s it!” I thought. “That’s me – I’m a lesbian trapped in a man’s body!”
There was no element whatsoever in this thought that I could “cure” lesbians, not thought that I could use it as a pickup line; indeed, I thought it bitterly, self-mockingly, in a, “Well, that pretty much sucks for me” way.
It was years later that I heard the line used from a frat-boy, and at first I assumed he used it in the same bitterly self-mocking way that I used it. Until Kelly’s explanation above, I never really understood why people found it offensive.
Every now and then when the subject comes up, I try to let folks know that not everyone who uses that phrase is boasting or flirting; some people use it in a very different manner.
(FWIW, I no longer describe myself like that; as I said before, at some point I became comfortable with being somewhat androgynous, and the trapped feeling dissipated).
Daniel
What’s interesting, DanielWithrow, is that I’ve never felt like that phrase describes me, and my reasons for rejecting its use in describing me go beyond the trite. I do understand that for some people it very aptly describes how they feel, and it is unfortunate that it has been ruined for them by the unceasing efforts of clueless and obnoxious pricks.
My dysphoria is moderately strong, but by no means as strong as it is in others. I didn’t understand that I was transsexual until my early 20s; strongly dysphoric individuals may realize they’re transsexual as early as age 3 and virtually always by the onset of puberty.
In some ways mild dysphoria is harder to deal with than strong dysphoria. Strong dysphoria has an obvious course of action, with an accomodation that is at least explainable, if not broadly accepted. The accomodations that the mildly dysphoric often make are less likely to be well-understood or well-tolerated by society. Genderbending is much harder than a full transition; if anyone is treated as more of a freak than a transsexual, it’s a genderbender.
What does it mean to you to be human? Is it a central part of how you conceptualize yourself and how you experience yourself and how you (think you) have been experienced by others? Or is it a relatively unimportant expression of some genes, such that if you woke up tomorrow as a kitty cat or an orangutan you’d find it somewhat disconcerting but no major shock to your identity?
I think some people have a much stronger and more vivid sense of how much difference gender makes in how we are experienced by others, and alongside of that how huge a factor the perception and reaction of others is in our experience of ourselves. You can’t have any kind of identity in a vacuum.
AHunter, being human is a strong part of my identity. It means I:
Were I a kitty or an orangutan, none of those would be true. That’s why being human is an important part of my self-identification.
If you’re going to use that as an analogy, can you explain what similar inherent features being a man or a woman include that define who you are? Some of the most obvious ones (women can bear children, breastfeed, menstruate, whereas men can pee standing up) are intimately tied to biology and aren’t true for all members either of the genetic sex or of the self-identified gender.
Daniel
I think Daniel brings up an important point. In my experience, whenever somebody talks about “gender identity” they are either talking about matters inextricably linked with biology that would be true regardless of how one “feels,” or else they refer to subjective attitudes and/or reactions to societally determined roles that many other people say don’t have anything whatsoever to do with their sense of gender identity.
For example, if somebody says they “feel like” a man because they like to watch monster truck rallies, or have an aggressive personality, or like to wear boxer shorts instead of, say, panties and a bra, etc., there will be plenty of other people to say that they “feel like” a man even though they don’t like to watch monster truck rallies, have an aggressive personality, or like to wear boxer shorts.
I’m still trying to figure out what is at the root of this so-called “gender identity.” If we discount anatomy and chromosomes (as the transgendered seem to want to do), and ignore things like attitudes, personality types, likes and dislikes and clothing choices (which the non-transgendered often want to do and which, by all accounts, are really just stereotypes that cannot be applied absolutely to either sex), what is left?
And I guess I’m really not willing to buy into the whole “it’s obvious to those who feel this way” argument. I am a man, dammit – why shouldn’t I be able to know what it “feels like” to be a man as much (if not moreso) as a transgendered individual who claims to “feel like” a man?
As an aside, I am 100% heterosexual and the thought of having sex with another man apalls me. However, I can certainly understand what it must be like to be attracted to another man, given my own experience with being attracted to women. In other words, I understand what it means to be sexually attracted to somebody and can easily imagine that if I were “wired” a different way I might find that guy attractive instead of that woman. I do not, however, understand what it means to have a “gender identity” that is somehow defined apart from my actual physical gender. And if such a concept actually exists (i.e., if my “neuroanatomy” really is configured in a “male” pattern), how can I not be aware of this?
Barry
Not all women, not even those with typically “female” chromosomes anatomy, can bear children, breastfeed, or even menstruate. And not all men can pee standing up. Defining “male” and “female” on the basis of anatomy denies these people their identity, which is, IMO, cruel.
Well, it’s impossible to know exactly what it means to “feel like” a man/woman without a common frame of reference. So…without that, we just have to take each other at our respective words.
(stands back and wonders if that last sentance made sense)
godzillatemple, it seems to me that some people just don’t have a strong sense of their own gender identity, while others do. Don’t fall into the “everyone is just like me” trap of assuming that, because you don’t have a strong sense of gender identity, nobody else does either (the catsix fallacy).
Is the problem that there’s no objective way to measure “strength of gender identity” or even “gender identity”? Does it bother you that gender might be an inherently “subjective” quality, in that the only way to discover it is to ask the individual and accept their answer without regard to whether you agree with it or not?
So you weren’t aware that androgyny is the psychological term describing the condition of possessing both “masculine” and “feminine” personality characteristics?
Great minds think alike, it seems. At least, yours and the mind of the person who coined the formal term do.
[bKellyM**, I trust you’re merely reiterating my post, where I said,
That said, it’s possible to define gender on biological terms and get it more-or-less right. Here, I think we get into Wittgensteinian (spelled horribly, I’m sure) langage debates, although I’ve never read the man.
We might define a table, for example, as a horizontal platform with four legs used to support objects. But what about that table in storage, currently stored sideways? What about that table with a central pillar leg? What about a purely decorative table on which nothing should be set? They’re all tables, right?
Our definition is not going to be:
Rather, a biological definition would include a cluster of characteristics. People who are women TEND TO be able to do these things. Being able to do any of them satisfies the definition of being a woman; being able to do none of them does not necessarily preclude a person from being a woman, because we’ll have other traits we add to the mix.
So yes, there’s not really one signature characteristic that all women share – not even genetically (besides the transgendered, there are women with XXY chromosomes). But that doesn’t mean a biological definition is impossible: instead, a biological definition will involve a cluster of characteristics instead of a single necessary characteristic.
Daniel
Actually, I knew the word existed; I just didn’t know about its use as a psychological term. It dates back to 1651, according to Merriam-Webster.
And looking it up, I see that I was after all using it correctly, according to the second definition:
The first definition, having both male and female characteristics, is the one that doesn’t apply as strongly to me, since I was saying I don’t identify strongly with either gender.
Daniel
In other words, Daniel, “male” and “female” are archetypical poles about which people are clustered. There is no single determining characteristic that can be pointed to as the “essence” of maleness or femaleness; rather, a person is “male” or “female” depending on which pole they are closer to, in some n-dimensional genderspace.
Most people don’t like multifactorial decisional rules; they’re harder to apply. People invariably disagree about factor weights, and try to eliminate existing factors or add new ones. So even if this is true (which it probably is), nobody is going to much care for it.
And I’m not convinced that it’s true with respect to gender self-image. Yeah, it may be true for how we perceive gender and how we use gender socially, but simply I don’t think it’s true when describing inherent gender.
I think I agree with your post, KellyM. I’d simply add that it’s possible to posit “male” and “female” as purely biological terms (excluding for the present neuroanatomical traits, since we currently don’t have enough information about them), and still end up with the archetypical poles situation. I think that’s worth doing for some purposes, as you suggested earlier – for example, a physician will want to look at someone’s biological sex for various reasons – but for most purposes, I’m perfectly happy including all factors when looking at the poles.
Daniel
We’re not asking you for a single defining factor. We’re asking you for the single defining cluster of factors that defines each of the poles.
Are you guys really sure you wouldn’t be all that shocked to wake up female?
I mean first you’ve got this body. Once a month it gushes blood (and I know men can get a little wierd about mensteral blood) and your the one that has to take care of it. You could get pregnant. Your breasts hurt when you walk. You’ve got thse big old hips that bump into things. You get yeast infections. It’s got steach marks. I’d imagine being in a woman’s body would be pretty wierd if you arn’t expecting it, and you might never end up comfortable with it’s funcitons.
Then comes clothing. Although you can choose to dress a bit more like a man, that garners looks on the street. And it’s hard to find masculine clothes in your size. So mostly your stuck with stuff thats tight fitting. Are you really ready to show off your butt every day in public? And you’re offered lots of pink and flowers and dresses. It all makes you feel soft and weak and exposed. Don’t you think it’d be wierd to get used to wearing that stuff? Even if you avoid most female grooming tropes, you still have to wear makeup and a skirt to things like job interviews and church. Don’t you think it’d feel increadably foreign?
As you walk down the street, men stare at you. They yell stuff out their windows. It’s can be pretty frightening. You realize you can’t walk alone at night. You’ve got to watch what guys you talk to from now and on and learn to combat unwanted sexual advances. Men stop inviting you to football games, unless you want to show up and make them some snacks. Women treat you differently, too. They invite you to go shopping. But they no longer look at you in the same way. You could try to get into lesbian social ciricles, but that still isn’t the same way. A woman doesn’t love a woman in exactly the same way that a man loves a woman.
This all becomes pretty obvious in sex. If you are having sex with a man, imagine being the thrustee and not the thruster. Are you really just going to say “Oh, well sex now involves being penetrated, oh well”? I doubt it. Do you think it’d really get you off? Or is it just going to be such an odd action, so unlike the sexual urges that you really feel, that it’d be hard to get into. If you are having sex with women, well…how fun is that going to be without a penis? Girl parts are fun, but chances are you’re going to want to thrust into whatever girl your playing with, not just lick and touch. And thrusting with a strap-on is no substitute. Won’t you feel a bit deprived of your normal sexuality?
And it’s pretty easy to reverse these arguments and see why it’d be hard to suddenly wake up as a man. I really don’t think it’d be a breeze to adapt to all this. In fact, from my friends’ experiences I know it wouldn’t be. Especially when you relize that your stuck with all this for the rest of your life. Gender identity shows up in almost every aspect of life and is a very strong force for all of us.
Of course I’d be shocked. It’s freaking unheard of, I’m not going to see it coming. And I never said I was sure I’d be happy with being a woman for the rest of my life. If I were, I’d have switched by now. I’m just saying that my gender is no big deal to me. And it isn’t. If someone thinks I’m a woman, I take it as a compliment. If my beard stops growing, I’ll sing hallelujah and throw away my razor.
even sven, I can say that reading your list, none of it freaks me out at all. I mean, sure, it’d be an adjustment – but not necessarily more of an adjustment than would be moving to Japan and dealing with the different culture there. To go over it bit by bit:
-Menstruation. Sure, an adjustment. I’d need to learn a lot more about it than I currently know.
-Clothes/makeup. Not much of an adjustment. I only wear suits when I gotta, and I don’t like 'em; otherwise, I wear clothes that a man or a woman could wear, for the most part (long pants, generic shirts). I don’t anticipate that would change. I don’t wear “It’s All About Your Johnson” shirts now, and I don’t expect I’d wear pink flowers if I were female.
-Sexual advances. It’d be like being 16 again for me, when I got unwelcome sexual advances from guys who couldn’t tell I was male (and from a few who could). I dealt then; I’d deal now. Sure, there might be more, but that wouldn’t affect my self-image.
-Football. Nobody invites me to football games now, and I wouldn’t go if they invited me. Nobody invites me to go shopping now, and I wouldn’t go if they invited me. I don’t expect that would change. If someone stopped, for example, inviting me to play Dungeons and Dragons with them, I’d be superpissed: I invite women to play RPGs with me all the time.
-Sex. Sex is the mysterious, the unpredictable. I have no idea how I’d respond to the different plumbing, except that I’d be awful curious. But as folks have said, and I agree, who I am attracted to is separate from my self-image. I wouldn’t be “deprived” of my normal sexuality in any way, unless i was unable to gain and give pleasure from and with my new plumbing.
At any rate, this isn’t a good analogy: since we’re not gonna wake up in a different gender, such a theoretical is irrelevant. The question is how closely we identify with our current gender, not how we’d adjust in some science fiction world to having different biological traits and cultural responses.
Daniel
But why on earth would that be the case? If it really is a matter of “neuroanatomy,” then why would only some people be aware of it?
Well, here’s where I get into dangerous territory, and I really don’t know how to explain what I want to say without coming off as an ignorant, insensitive lout. So let me just acknowledge that, in all likelihood, I am an ignorant, insensitive lout and apologize in advance.
Anyway, what really bothers me, I guess, is the notion that for transgendered people “gender identity” is (a) a concept that exists wholly apart from anatomy and chromosomes, and (b) the “controlling” factor in determining whether somebody is “really” male or female, to the extent that if one’s anatomy and chromosomes are at odds with one’s “gender identity” they constitute a “birth defect” (to use your phrase).
If somebody suffers from, say, multiple personality disorder, I don’t doubt that they feel there are (at least) two distinct personalities inhabiting their body and the fact that each personality doesn’t have its own body is, to them, a “birth defect” (one which, of course, cannot be cured with current medical science). The rest of the world, however, realizes that no, these people weren’t accidentally born with too few bodies, but instead have a mental illness that makes them think they have more than one personality. The “defect” is with their brain, not with their body.
The fact that many people (especially those who are not transgendered) claim not to have a gender identity separate from that which is dictated by the shape and function of their genitals, coupled with the apparent absence of any concrete evidence that there is such a thing as “neuroanatomy” that determines one’s gender identity (e.g., that all people who identify as feeling “male” share a distinctive brain structure, regardless of their physical anatomy and chromosomes), leads me to believe that gender dysphoria, while a very real psychological problem, is just that – a psychological problem. In fact, I believe that the whole concept of “gender identity” as something that exists solely in the brain and is unrelated to one’s anatomy and chromosomes, is largely (if not entirely) a myth that transgendered people have created to explain why it’s their bodies that are at fault and not their minds. [I did already apologize about being an ignorant, insensitive lout, right? Just checking.]
Does this mean I think that transgendered people should just “get over it” or take a pill or something? Absolutely not. As I mentioned before, I have no problem accepting that sexual dysphoria is a real problem with serious consequences, and if it isn’t something that can be treated with therapy and/or medication then I think that people should consider having “gender reassignment” (or whatever the correct terminology is these days) surgery. The same way that I think that if somebody suffers from Seasonal Affective Disorder and can’t find relief through medication or therapy, they should by all means consider moving to Arizona where the sun shines more often. And if it makes people feel better to dress as a member of the opposite sex, or adopt mannerisms associated with the opposite sex, I say more power to them.
But at the same time, I think people should acknowledge that having gender reassignment surgery is not “fixing a birth defect.” It’s simply a radical (if necessary) way of helping somebody with a form of mental illness live a happier life.
Now, I am well aware that you consider your gender identity to be integral to your personality, which is why you would rather change your body to match your mind rather than vice versa. And I definitely think you should have that right. However, treatment of just about any mental disease invariably results in a change to the person’s personality, often radically so, and to say that a person’s personality should remain inviolate would deny us the ability to treat the severely depressed, those suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, etc. Which is to say that I don’t think the whole “gender identity defines who I am” argument really “proves” that gender dysphoria is therefore the result of a birth defect rather than a mental illness.
To sum up, my opinion (based on the facts available to me and personal experience) is that (a) “gender identity” is largely a myth, (b) gender dysphoria is primarily a mental illness and not the result of being born with “defective” anatomy and chromosomes, and © people who suffer from gender dysphoria should nevertheless be encouraged to adopt the mannerisms of the opposite sex and/or modify their body as they see fit if, in fact, there is no other treatment to treat the problem.
Having said all that, I’d still like to hear from more non transgendered/gender dysphoric people to find out if they do, in fact, have a sense of “gender identity” that is not based on anatomy or their comfort levels with the roles that society has arbitrarily placed on men and women.
Regards,
Barry