Terms we use in gender issues.

[Joann]

I've been struggling with the terms we use in gender issues.
Just my thoughts. i know its not this simple but without writing a book,

Male/ Female: Our chromosomes, our genitals, our hormones at birth. Plants, insects, other animals are designated M/F or even Bi sexual or hermaphrodite.

Masculine/ Feminin: Our programming in child hood of of base traits of our society ( masculinity is stronger, more assertive, territorial).

Femininity: (Compassion, nurturing, collaboration ect).
Man/Woman: Conforming to the cultural and religious norms of our given society ( A man in Afghanistan will be quite different from a biker in California or a gay man in Chicago.)

A lot of which we get from  tv and media (remember all those cartoons/ sit coms?) and less from family and community these days.

And Here are definitions from someone did wright a book.

[i]Proposed Legal Definitions
Faced with the wide array of definitions of sex, gender and transsexualism, ICTLEP offer some standard definitions from the standpoint of utility under health law.

Sex: A person's identity along a continuum of role types with "male" and "female" at the polar extremes.

Role Type: A set of beliefs, behaviors and appearances.

Male: A role type which a particular culture associates with individuals anatomically structured for contributing reproductive cells to another person.

Female: A role type which a particular culture associates with individuals anatomically structured for receiving reproductive cells from another person.

Gender: The characteristics of a continuum of role types ranging from male to female, with such characteristics including behaviors and sexual anatomy, and being labelled as "masculine" and "feminine" at the polar extremes.

Transsexualism = ->-bleeped-<-: The condition of wanting to change one's gender to better match one's sex.

These revised legal definitions recognize the emerging scientific reality that sex is in the brain, and not the body. Transsexuals do not really change their sex - they are born with that. Instead, transsexuals aim to change the erroneous sex labels that were assigned to them at birth. The only way to change those labels is to change the basis upon which those labels were applied, namely, the outward expressions of sex. This means that to change a sexual label, one must change their gender - from behavior to anatomy - since gender is the outward expression of one's sexual identify. Hence, transsexualism is really a misnomer and ->-bleeped-<- is a more scientifically accurate term.[/i]

Thougths?

[Padma]

I'm inclined to think of masculine and feminine qualities as simply being Human Qualities - among different cultures (and within each different subculture) you'll get a different "official list" of which of these human qualities are considered acceptable embodied in men or women - along with punishment for embodying the apparently wrong ones.

In my culture, for example, we've spent centuries socially engineering women to be a certain way, men to be a certain way - and have then called the qualities each is allowed to embody masculine or feminine, to the point where people believe that the "feminine qualities" are more inherent in women than in men. I personally think there's way, way more room for manoeuvre, and that everyone has the potential to embody all of these human qualities in healthy ways.

Sorry, that turned into a bit of a speech.

[PrincessLeiah]

The problem with terminology is that when it comes to issues of identity it's always hopelessly bound up in connotation and association. As an example, the male/female terminology is much less unambiguously connected to biology for me. My body is biologically male, but I identify as female. I'd have problems with the formulation that I am a woman with a male body though, because while I know with absolute certainty that I am female, it's harder for me to really feel like I am a "woman," as that term seems so bound up in my culture's (often oppressively patriarchal) gender roles.

[Joann]

I still believe threes a difference between trans gender and trans sexual.
I'm TG now as i feel like a lady, think like a lady, walk and talk and look like a lady... but the hormones are wrong. My brain says "wheres the estrogen?"
But the first time you push the needle in or drop the pill.. your TS.
Over simplification?

[Padma]

The problem (if it is a problem) with TG-TS is that you will find people around the world using the same terms to mean different things, and the different terms to mean the same thing. Personally, I really dislike the term TS, so I won't use it. For other people, it's really important to them to use it.

I don't think you can define these terms that rigidly, their usage (outside of the healthcare professions) is too variable.

[justmeinoz]

It's like my High School Maths teacher used to say, "first define your terms."  Everyone will have a slightly different take on it, so I am always interested to compare someone else's understandin of things if our issues are being discussed.
If I am explaining my situation to someone with little knowledge I will often start by using TG rather than TS, as it gets away from the Jerry Springer images.  Once the explanation has progressed, and I know they understand what I am talking about I will use TS instead.

[Joann]

I'm finding as i communicate to others that they confuse TG with TS and dont understand TS at all. They understand gay/ lesbian because of the switch flip at birth theory but dont understand why they cant except their birth sex.
"But that's who you are" they'll say.
Talking to my councilor i mentioned the brain sex theory and that seemed to resonate with her. Going to try it sometime.

[peky]

Gender Identity and Sexual orientation are mostly defined by biology, and their manifest as an spectrum.

Gender and sexual roles are but sociological and psychological constructs. Most our community member are always confusing what is innate, your gender identity, with what is imbued by society and rearing conditions, the gender roles.

Transgender is a colloquial umbrella term to cover: a-gender, no-binary, gender fluid, and of course transgender sensum strictum )AKA true transgender. true transgender does not imply any superiority status over other transgender variants, and it is used here simple to define those folks who claim a single gender. 

Gender Dysphoria is or shortly would be the medical-psychiatric term to describe people whose mental innate gender self perception do not match their external genitalia. Regretfully narrowly interpreted this term only covers true transgender

Transsexual is sort of a medical term used to describe transgender folks who are actively seeking-, or have completed sexual reassignment surgery. Personally I hope this misleading term would be discard and not used.

Personally, I define myself as a female, misgender at birth by a biological mishap, who is in the process of fixing this grievous  mistake.

I do not personally like any of these terms, but alas I am forced to use and /or defacto accept them

[PrincessLeiah]

Yeah, the one thing I feel really uncomfortable with is drawing too hard a line between transgender and transsexual, because the way I see that line being drawn most of the time, it seems to tie identity too strongly to the willingness/ability to undergo a specific surgical procedure, with the added implication that your identity is somehow more valid if you get it than if you don't.

It reminds me of the rifts that have occurred in deaf culture over whether to get cochlear implants or not (though the way the hierarchy of values relates to technology is reversed in that situation, I guess).

[Edge]

Transgender is a colloquial umbrella term to cover: a-gender, no-binary, gender fluid, and of course transgender sensum strictum )AKA true transgender. true transgender does not imply any superiority status over other transgender variants, and it is used here simple to define those folks who claim a single gender. 

Gender Dysphoria is or shortly would be the medical-psychiatric term to describe people whose mental innate gender self perception do not match their external genitalia. Regretfully narrowly interpreted this term only covers true transgender

I disagree. "True transgender" does imply a superiority status because it implies that non-binary transgendered people aren't "true." Also, non-binary people do have gender dysphoria. We are also recognized by the WPATH standards of care.