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Is the problem that our genders are forced on us at birth?

Started by Ms Grace, October 05, 2014, 05:32:24 PM

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Ms Grace

Just thinking out aloud...

From the moment we were born most of us had no say in what gender we were, it was assigned to us based on our genitals (or, for those who are Intersex, some medical hokey pokery).

Names, titles (son/daughter, brother/sister, nephew/niece, etc), pronouns, clothing, toys, expectations all pretty much start from day one and are enforced from that point on. No child is ever allowed to choose it's gender expression it is close to a straight cut and paste from the cultural template. By the age in which a child is likely to start expressing a preference for certain clothing, toys, behaviour that "deviates" from the template they are discouraged, even punished, as being wrong. It doesn't take long for the child to realise that their behaviour/preference is seen as naughty even abhorrent, so the behaviour becomes covert and/or a source of shame and dysphoria. This applies as much to non-binary as binary, the expression doesn't have to be one or the other, in fact I imagine it would be an amalgam for almost every child.

I know as a child I was very careful about not expressing I didn't want to be a boy and yet I felt that way with every fibre of my being. I found I was able to work around the boundaries, largely by disengaging, by becoming introverted and reclusive so I didn't have to deal with the restrictions and the people who so gleefully police and reinforce them. I do wonder how different things might have been had I been able to express my gender as a child.

Thoughts?
Grace
----------------------------------------------
Transition 1.0 (Julie): HRT 1989-91
Self-denial: 1991-2013
Transition 2.0 (Grace): HRT June 24 2013
Full-time: March 24, 2014 :D
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stephaniec

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Myarkstir

I got this same scenario. We live in a society of absolutes, gender, religion, even political opinion are all forced on us at as young age. Making our I wn chouce is too often something seen as negative. Even schools do this sadely.
Sylvia M.
Senior news staff




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Nicolette

Quote from: stephaniec on October 05, 2014, 05:38:44 PM
yes, 4 years old onwards

More accurately, it's zero seconds old and onwards (that we have the binary forced up us).
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Misato

Sort of.

Because of stereotypes and social expectations it ends up being difficult to trust your own knowledge of what gender you are in any given moment. Me? I'm locked solidly on a woman. I have known that since kindergarten. It was never in question since I learned, but it was a matter of trust cause I can't stand babies and lace and I'm a lesbian so I was very confused and reluctant to trust what I knew of myself.
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captains

I've thought about this a lot recently, because my mom keeps apologizing for "making me this way." She's worried about the opposite of what you're thinking, though -- that she made me trans by failing to appropriately cement a female identity as a child.

I was raised in a remarkably gender neutral house, the oldest daughter in a family of liberals and feminists. There were essentially no gender restrictions placed on me, and pre-puberty, my life was indistinguishable from that of a boy's my age. (With one exception: while I was free to shuck femininity, my identity as Female was rooted early and reinforced regularly. My earliest memory is receiving a CD-ROM titled "You Can Be A Woman Engineer" and my life was full of "anything boys can do, you can do too." So, while gender roles were non-existent, gender was very much still present, albeit in an abstract way.)

I think this masked my dysphoria for a long time, and allowed me to have a relatively free and happy childhood, but I don't believe it solves the problem or removes the trauma altogether. It actually raised its own, sort of weird, complication: I grew up with the understanding that Girl could be anything, I could be anything, and therefore whatever I was was automatically Girl. Great, as a cis person. As a lil trans kid, it meant that I voraciously devoured stories about girls who tricked people into thinking they were boys, selflessly disguised themselves to go to war/work, etc. I really took refuge in "girl becomes boy" stories, but when the euphoria of identification had passed, I would feel incredibly guilty. Here were these stories of women who were FORCED to present as men because of sexism and oppression. And then here was I, exploiting it, like some kind of gender traitor.

So, I don't know. I think that for a lot of trans people, gender abolition would relieve a lot of issues. It wouldn't erase physical dysphoria, of course, but at least some of the social aspects would be gone.

The only thing that makes me pause is a recent conversation I had with a disabled friend of mine. She is cis, but her experience with gender is almost more like a trans person's. She had to discover herself as a cis woman as an adult and basically reevaluate her whole identity and line of thinking, because her developmental disability so entirely overwrote her personhood, and more specifically, her womanhood. Society aggressively de-gendered her, to the point where she believed that [Woman] and [Disabled] were incompatible boxes. She was Disabled Thing, and the idea that she would experience life as a woman, with female desires and a female sense of self, was incomprehensible to those around her. It wasn't a malicious act, simply a product of ableism and society, but it makes me worry that, in a genderless world, people like her would fall through the cracks and become "the new trans," so to speak.   
- cameron
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Edge

No. I'd still have body dysphoria regardless of gender roles.
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Mariah

I have shown as long as I can remember that I didn't like the role that was forced on me. My dad didn't like this fact, but mom one out. It didn't help matters that a lot of surgical work went into the gender role that was forced on me. Due to all of the surgical work the body dysphoria would be their regardless of the gender roles. I never been for forcing anyone into boxes especially without their consent. I don't like the fact it was done to me and certainly don't like the fact it is done to everyone else.

Mariah
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask me.
[email]mariahsusans.orgstaff@yahoo.com[/email]
I am also spouse of a transgender person.
Retired News Administrator
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AnonyMs

I agree that its our problem, but not sure what it says about our society. Humans are social animals and I think a certain level of conformity is what binds us all together. There's all sorts of social norms we all taught to conform to, but its difficult to see from the inside (travel a bit and it starts to be noticeable). Without this I think society would fall apart and that would be pretty bad. So possibly these things are good for society, and sucks for anyone who's different, whatever the reason.

I'm not saying its right, or it can't be better, but I suspect this is at least part of the reason behind it.
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gennee

My story is a little different. I didn't know that I was transgender until my mid fifties. I always felt that I was different but I didn't why. I did the things that boys would normally do. I was never troubled to the point that I ever questioned my gender. I never expressed a desire to wear an article of women's clothing.

Medical scientist have always known that there are many expressions of gender. Either from ignorance or pressured by the established norms of society it was kept under wraps. Our parents were only doing what the believed was proper society. The lack of knowledge by them is not their fault because it was never presented to them in the normal discourse of human development. It is because this knowledge the medical establishment had but chose not to reveal has caused harm to men and women who crime was just expressing who they were. I hold the scientists who withheld this information responsible for some of mess we have today.



:)
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Sephirah

Quote from: Edge on October 05, 2014, 06:14:21 PM
No. I'd still have body dysphoria regardless of gender roles.

I'm inclined to agree with this in my case.

I guess for some, or a lot of people, that could be a big part of the problem. However my problem was that my anatomy was forced on me at birth. Not so much a problem of expression, but more a problem of psychological-physiological mismatch. Even being allowed to express myself the way I felt was right would not have got rid of the physical feelings of wrongness. It wasn't so much what others expected of me, but what my own body seemed to expect of me. The former was a result of the latter, not so much a cause in itself.
Natura nihil frustra facit.

"You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection." ~ Buddha.

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Above all... remember: you are beautiful, you are valuable, and you have a shining spark of magnificence within you. Don't let anyone take that from you. Embrace who you are. <3
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Kaelin

While forcing gender on people is terrible, I believe that gender-differentiated treatment is the underlying problem -- if people approached another person's gender the same way as someone's handedness, they wouldn't get so worked up when their preconception is corrected.
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LordKAT

Quote from: Edge on October 05, 2014, 06:14:21 PM
No. I'd still have body dysphoria regardless of gender roles.

Exactly, no one assigned my gender it is what it always was. It is the social expectations that make it seem shameful, but it is the physical part that is just wrong and causes so much distress.
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immortal gypsy

Quote from: Ms Grace on October 05, 2014, 05:32:24 PM
Just thinking out aloud...

I know as a child I was very careful about not expressing I didn't want to be a boy and yet I felt that way with every fibre of my being. I found I was able to work around the boundaries, largely by disengaging, by becoming introverted and reclusive so I didn't have to deal with the restrictions and the people who so gleefully police and reinforce them. I do wonder how different things might have been had I been able to express my gender as a child.

Thoughts?
Personal experience no. My parents gave a sister and I gender neutral names and belived and practiced in giving us enough rope and seeing what we would do with that. Untill we seteled I played with girls more, my stuffed toys mostly had girls names and when I picked my clothes it was generally in colours that some would automatically consider for a girl. Primary school was interesting as I would be "sitting like a girl" and be called on it but to me it was natural. Knowing one could transition, articulating this and convincing parents another story. (Urgh 13 & 14yr olds sitting at desks in a horseshoe layout in shorts. Worst nightmare of highschool I have). The baby of my family was dressed in a cotton football jersey in the middle of summer by my father as people asked, "Is he your daughter?" (he was 2 at the time, and this will lead into your my next point)

Quote from: Ms Grace on October 05, 2014, 05:32:24 PM
Just thinking out aloud...

From the moment we were born most of us had no say in what gender we were, it was assigned to us based on our genitals (or, for those who are Intersex, some medical hokey pokery).

Names, titles (son/daughter, brother/sister, nephew/niece, etc), pronouns, clothing, toys, expectations all pretty much start from day one and are enforced from that point on. No child is ever allowed to choose it's gender expression it is close to a straight cut and paste from the cultural template. By the age in which a child is likely to start expressing a preference for certain clothing, toys, behaviour that "deviates" from the template they are discouraged, even punished, as being wrong. It doesn't take long for the child to realise that their behaviour/preference is seen as naughty even abhorrent, so the behaviour becomes covert and/or a source of shame and dysphoria. This applies as much to non-binary as binary, the expression doesn't have to be one or the other, in fact I imagine it would be an amalgam for almost every child.

Back to your first thought. I belive when a parent has a child (no children here by the way this is my opinion only). They would like another version of themselves in someway, 'a chip of the ol' block' if you will. Be it daddy's little man, or mummy's little princess. So while not always intentional it can come as a bit of a culture shock for them when there children do deviate from the life script that they (parents, careres ect) had planned out for them



Do not fear those who have nothing left to lose, fear those who are prepared to lose it all

Si vis bellum, parra pacem
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Lady_Oracle

Imo I think its a huge problem with our society. No one truly knows their own gender until the mind has developed somewhat, it's one of the first things a kid develops towards their own self actualization. Kids know who they are at least gender wise from a very young age and if they are in an environment where they feel safe to express their true gender they will or they will suppress it like I did and so many others like me.  I didn't feel safe in my environment (thanks public school) so I thought hey I can deal, yeah right. My serious depression started in me as early as 12 years old because of testosterone aka puberty started.

This is why it's so important to ensure that kids feel safe in the environment they're being raised in, free from sexism and forced gender roles. A lot of parents don't understand that by enforcing those gender roles, they're essentially causing some serious devastation towards that child's mental development. Thus causing that kid to have an even harder time in finding themselves when they're older because that conditioning is getting in the way of them becoming their true selves and this applies to not just us trans but cis people too. Religion adds a whole other layer of conditioning which can be even more powerful than the gender roles themselves. I'm all for spirituality but forcing and indoctrinating minds that are new to this world without letting them choose for themselves that crucial piece of their humanity is just plain wrong.

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EmmaD

The start is OK - I guess you have to assume that gender follows sex.  The problem seems to develop when gender expectations are enforced as we grow up and any deviations are not accepted if they even get the opportunity to be raised.  Families tend to do this (your Dad liked contact sports 'cos guys do and so should you etc) but even where they don't, the insidious intolerance of society takes hold, we start to hide and the damage starts.  50 years ago in New Zealand, gender variance was a bit too "out there".  Those that did something about it moved to Sydney and Kings Cross.  They were real pioneers, incredibly strong.

I loved to cook with my Mum, she taught me to knit and crochet at a very young age.  I wasn't into too many guy things.  Always picked last at sport not because I was gay like someone I met a few weeks ago but because I was just useless!  Only thing I could do was run, often being chased!  That said, my Mum also loved shooting things and so did I.  She was a better shot than Dad!  We lived on a farm and slightly quirky behaviour at home was OK to a point
Lots of homophobic comments at home.  Trans not even on their radar.  Private boys boarding schools soon taught me to conform or I would get beaten up (still happened a lot). 

The damage started in earnest then and 40 years later, I am slowly recovering. 

Perhaps families start it as a reflection of how the wider group generally thinks i.e. society.  I would like to think that families are starting to be a little more open than when I was growing up.
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VeryGnawty

The problem is gender roles to begin with.  They are not necessary.  Different people have different personality traits.  Some of these traits are considered masculine and some are considered feminine.  Anyone can have any of these traits regardless of their genitals or their gender.

Gender is an arbitrary concept created by humans.  People enforce gender roles because they think they have value.  The truth is that gender roles have very little use in modern society where technology has made life so easy that we don't necessarily need women to look after the children all the time and we don't necessarily need men to be the breadwinners.  It depends on individual circumstances more than it has in the past, where physical differences between the sexes had a larger impact on the society.
"The cake is a lie."
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Alice Rogers

Maybe, maybe not. For me I feel female, I look (mostly) female and I want people to perceive me as female. It is probably just society and social conditioning at work but there we have it.

Alice
xx
"I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time." Jack London
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Ms Grace

Thanks for your replies and thoughts everyone. I did wonder about the issue of body dysphoria - it's clearly a factor driving many to transition, myself included. I mean, why would what clothes you wear as a child have any overall effect on your perception of your body? I don't think the fact I was branded a boy at birth is the reason I need to take HRT and ultimately GRS. I guess it is that I feel so strongly that I belong in the female camp that a masculine body seems wrong. I can point to experiences as a child where I felt very mortified by my body in relation to appearance and gender segregation... how much that might have contributed to, or was already a result of, dysphoria I couldn't say.
Grace
----------------------------------------------
Transition 1.0 (Julie): HRT 1989-91
Self-denial: 1991-2013
Transition 2.0 (Grace): HRT June 24 2013
Full-time: March 24, 2014 :D
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Blue Senpai

Pretty much, even more so in Spanish families. At around 12 years old, in retrospect, I realized I was transgender since the and I wish I saw the signs then. I was role playing as male on MySpace, played MapleStory as a male character and found myself just giving off a boy vibe when I interacted with others online. I even had an impulse to wear my dad's suit once and wear my brother's clothes at high school with no bra.

I just never dared to tell my parents.
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