Being Transgender when you don't really believen in gender?

[japple]

I don't really believe in very much of an innate gender. I see concepts broken all of the time. I also very much enjoy white male privilege. I have been on HRT for a year and a half and only feel physically changed, which has made me much more comfortable in my skin. I've been in therapy for three years. I still present maie/androgynous. I live as a gay male although I often say "queer."

i am not a feminine person (people assume I'm gay but I'm not very flamboyant)  I guess I'm not masculine either, I definitely don't body build or anything, although I am attracted to it in gay culture.  I have a creative job and love art, design, and fashion. Almost all of my friends are straight women, although I have a lot of lesbian friends, and a couple straight men. I date gay men, but don't have a lot of gay male friends even though I live in Hollywood.

What is innate about gender? Why when I don't believe in gender and black and white this side and that do I still feel transgender and have dysphoric feelings about pronouns?  Why do I want to be a straight woman when I don't hate my penis (I'm terrified of that surgery.)  I don't feel connected to the trans world because I feel like people are so willing to jump into wigs and makeup and the trappings of patriarchal gender. I used to play with make-up all of the time in middle school but to live as a femme woman does seems like it'd be a pain. I couldn't pass as female as a butch woman.

What is innate? Why can't I be fine with who I am?

[peky]

Gender roles are social constructs, and that is what you are talking about on your post. But your innate self perception of being female, male, neither, or somewhere in between, that is you gender identity.

The emerging neurobiological data indicates that there a re several centers in our brain that contribute to our gender identity, and that said gender identity is biological determined through out you development and adult life.

[Kevin Peña]

I personally think that gender, technically, is a social construct in itself. However, I do agree with Peky in the sense that how you feel about your gender identity is concrete. To explain it simply, take a look at Republicans vs Democrats. There isn't such a thing as Republicans or Democrats. That's all just how humans decided to divide people of particular differences, just like gender.

Don't be worried about wanting surgery, liking make-up, etc. There are tons of different types of women out there and trans women are no exception to diversity. Some people are scared of surgery or don't want it due to excessive recovery time, etc. There is no one way to be a female except that you feel inside that you are one. That's innate. 

[suzifrommd]

I can only speak about my subjective experience. There is something wired into my brain that wants me to think of myself as female. It wants me to have female body parts, wants me to keep company with females, wants me to look at the world from a female point of view.

Don't know when it got there (sometime before my teen years) and don't know where it came from. I don't think it's a social construct, because every social message I've received is that I'm a male and it is with males that I belong.

[eli77]

I dunno where the leap comes from to go from "gender isn't innate" to "gender doesn't matter." Since when are environmental, social and cultural influences not relevant or meaningful? They are incredibly, incredibly meaningful.

When making decisions about what to do with your body/life, the question of whether any part of gender is innate is actually a bit meaningless. The dysphoria still hurts either way.

And I feel so disconnected from the trans world most of the time I can't even. But that is not related to how I feel about my body or how I want to be perceived.

[aleon515]

Well of course even if something is totally a social construct (not sure gender is-- but things like gender roles and so on are) they still can have a huge consequence. Almost no biologist believes that race actually exists as any more than a social construct. People have died due to their race.

--Jay J

[Ayden]

My stance on gender and being trans is pretty unpopular, but here goes:

I believe gender (like pretty much everything else) is socially constructed. Otherwise we wouldn't have a different definition of what it means to be male/female in different cultures, countries, socioeconomic classes, etc. Why am I trans if I believe this? I dunno. I just am. Maybe it was my early life socialization, maybe its biology. I dunno. I don't believe it is solely innate just like I don't believe that my liking red is an innate characteristic for me personally. Is it present for some since early childhood? Yes. We have people here who certainly did know from a young age, and I do not discount them. I believe that they struggled, just like I know I did when I was around 13 and really started to figure out things.

I am transitioning because it makes me happy. That's really all there is to it.

[justmeinoz]

Transgender could also be taken to mean transcending gender.  I sort of feel like I am transitioning from Male to Femme rather than female at the moment, and transcending the binary division. 
After 2 semesters of Gender Studies at Uni, I feel that it should follow race into the rubbish bin of history as a bad idea, as it has changed so much that it is essentially meaningless.

Karen.

[Maddie]

What is innate about gender?

Nothing.

The OED defines gender as



Using the word the way we do here is following in the footsteps of 1960s feminism.

Why when I don't believe in gender and black and white this side and that do I still feel transgender and have dysphoric feelings about pronouns?

Because "he" and "she" act as unambiguous sexual markers. Since there is a dissonance with how you feel ("No, that's wrong!"), the language processing parts of your brain will fire at parts of your brain responsible for sending back signals such as disgust, rage, and sadness.

Why do I want to be a straight woman when I don't hate my penis (I'm terrified of that surgery.)

That's okay. I don't hate mine, either. Not crazy about it, but until they can give me a functional uterus so guys can make babies with me, I'm not sold on the idea of some ersatz vulva. Even then, I'd rather have an axlotl tank. ;-)

Why can't I be fine with who I am?

The way I see it, gender roles are examples of conditioning, whereas gender identity preferences are examples of imprinting.

When we break our conditioning, we re-program our brains to activate synapses that align with the previously imprinted identity pattern.

So far, that seems logical. The misalignment causes increased cognitive load. Since reversing imprinting is disproportionally more difficult, re-conditioning makes more sense.

You can re-program yourself into whatever you want. The only limitations are those that you allow other people to impose on you.

[justmeinoz]

As far as the Ancient Greeks were concerned Gender was something determined by social position, rather than the body, so apart from our innate core identity, it can mean pretty much whatever society decrees it to be.

Karen.

[Edge]

The thing about science is it exists whether you believe in it or not. Gender identity isn't the same as social roles.

[Nathan.]

My stance on gender and being trans is pretty unpopular, but here goes:

I believe gender (like pretty much everything else) is socially constructed. Otherwise we wouldn't have a different definition of what it means to be male/female in different cultures, countries, socioeconomic classes, etc. Why am I trans if I believe this? I dunno. I just am. Maybe it was my early life socialization, maybe its biology. I dunno. I don't believe it is solely innate just like I don't believe that my liking red is an innate characteristic for me personally. Is it present for some since early childhood? Yes. We have people here who certainly did know from a young age, and I do not discount them. I believe that they struggled, just like I know I did when I was around 13 and really started to figure out things.

I am transitioning because it makes me happy. That's really all there is to it.

I have pretty much the same thoughts about this.

[japple]

Thanks everyone. I'm one of those "I've felt this way since my earliest memory." I've been out to everyone for a long time and they are all supportive but living as a gay man, while more comfortable than living as a straight man, is not enough. I have suicidal ideation every day.

I am going to transition. Technically I guess I have been since I've been on HRT and in therapy for years. I'm scared but I have tried to our work it and our think it. Nothing has worked. .

[James]

We have two fundamental forces that shape who we are: our own brain (and its experiences) and the information (advice, shared experience, etc.) shared by brain's of others, the latter being what people here are calling social constructs.  Sometimes we let social constructs determine our behavior. Sometimes we respond to our own internal guidance.  Usually it is a mixture of both.

My speciality is perspective.  Perspective is the first element of information that comes to consciousness (and can be physical, mental, or spiritual).  From perspective we form a perception, and from perception we choose a behavior/response.  What others tell us—social constructs—is based on their perception of their perspective.  I have worked on this issue for several years and produced an award-winning book on the subject of perspective and it is my conclusion that gender identity arises from perspective of which there are two. There is the left brain's dualistic, which is typically associated with males and thus gives us a masculine perspective, and the right brain's holistic perspective which is feminine in the sense that it is the perspective of most females—but then what we actually experience is a combination of the two, which greatly complicates things when you consider how different they are, plus the social constructs that pressure us. So rather than two genders, what we actually have is a continuum of gender that exhibits a wonderful diversity—but it develops out of the two basic gender identifications.

If you would like more information, you might read my paper at http://thewholebrainpath.com/role.html
I'm also open to questions, but please read the paper first.  There is also a discussion of a brief introduction to my paper in the forum, Science and Medical News.