Some basic Androgyne Questions

[Kendall]

I was wondering what others thought about certain aspects.


1. What is gender?

A common response that I hear is a social construct covering various aspects that varies from culture to culture. Some mention some basis in biological construct.

2. What is gender identity?

A common definition: the gender with which a person identifies.

3. So if androgyne gender identity (or one of it's sub classifications) is identifying with a social construct, what does this mean for androgynes?

4. If androgyne gender identity is identifying with a biological construct, what does this mean for androgynes?

5. If other TG categories depend on this biological vs social construct theory, what does it mean for them.

*6)  why is gender always the shape of a box?

Sometimes it is shown as a sphere.

Not that the shape is important, rather I am talking about the metaphor and the meaning behind the shape. Is the word "box" used to denote a prison or entrapment? And what assumptions lead to believe that constructs are always boxes? And that people are forced into these boxes which others have been created.

What happens if Social constructs are not looked upon as being just a box, rather a more fluid like amoeba or sphere metaphorically speaking. And is more self constructed or self determined. Does how one talks about even the shape of gender influence one's opinion about what gender is?



* Added 8/8/07

[no_id]

Hilarious timing KK, Jaycie and I (with awesome Andra/Alison support) have been working on a theory that explains all those questions. Though we're still in the revision/rewording process so I'm afraid I won't be able to add a magnificient post for the time being.

[RebeccaFog]

Hi,

  Good questions KK. 

  Get on the ball, no_id.  I expect those reports to be ready ASAP!!!

   My answers to each of the questions is "I don't know".   Not much of an answer, but sometimes I seem more lost than other times.  I really don't understand what gender is.  And, all I have on gender identity is that I am lost.  I don't identify as either of the usual suspects.


Rebis

[Seshatneferw]

I was wondering what others thought about certain aspects.

Here's a quick and sketchy answer; I'll hope to expand on some of the ideas later on.

1. What is gender?

A social construct grounded in biological sex. That is, it's largely social, but the underlying biological concept of sex is not completely irrelevant.

2. What is gender identity?

Your classical definition sounds about right.

3. So if androgyne gender identity (or one of it's sub classifications) is identifying with a social construct, what does this mean for androgynes?

For these androgynes, the social aspects are the most important ones. In the extreme case, biological sex is completely irrelevant: one would be equally comfortable in a male or female body, or something else as long as that something else was healthy.

4. If androgyne gender identity is identifying with a biological construct, what does this mean for androgynes?

A desire to have an intersexed, hermaphroditic (in the classical sense) or non-sexed body?

For what it's worth, I don't believe numbers 3 and 4 are exclusive: most of us have feelings on both the gender and sex side. The big thing is how much emphasis and importance we place on each of these.

5. If other TG categories depend on this biological vs social construct theory, what does it mean for them.

Actually, I believe this has something to do with the TS vs. TG distinction: the terms are appropriate in the sense that transsexuality involves a reasonably severe dysphoria on the level of physical sex, while in the transgender case the bulk of the dysphoria is on the gender level. This may have something to do with why some people with extreme TS seem unable to grasp androgyny.

Someone else's turn now. 

  Nfr

[no_id]

Get on the ball, no_id.  I expect those reports to be ready ASAP!!!

Ay-yai Cap'n Reeb!
I will probably suggest to host it online (looking at how it's growing and growing).
The basis theory is near-done (apart from decrypting/rewording). I'll be working on the AG/N/IG application this weekend and suspect Jaycie will be attending to the CD/TV application. Long live time consuming projects!

[Louise]

It is the binary gender system that is the social construct.  For me androgyny is rejecting this construct.  I have no interest in creating another box in which to imprison myself.

[Kendall]

Ok moving further on with what Louise said, I have a question about the metaphor and meaning behind gender "shapes". A good question for Louise or anyone else that wants to answer.

6)  why is gender always the shape of a box?

Sometimes it is shown as a sphere.

Not that the shape is important, rather I am talking about the metaphor and the meaning behind the shape. Is the word "box" used to denote a prison or entrapment? And what assumptions lead to believe that constructs are always boxes? And that people are forced into these boxes which others have been created.

What happens if Social constructs are not looked upon as being just a box, rather a more fluid like amoeba or sphere metaphorically speaking. And is more self constructed or self determined. Does how one talks about even the shape of gender influence one's opinion about what gender is?

Just wondering why social constructs have to mean boxes and binary, with negative connotations.

If one's social construct is to not live by social gender norms, would still create a rule, or rules to live by. The rule being not to limit oneself to other's definitions.

Comment about question 4
As for being fundamentally biological, there is no real evidence that gender identity is determined by biology yet. The closest being the studies on hypothalamus region and neurons in that region.

Certainly one doesnt really choose to have gender identity issues. Rather the choice is in being aware, learning more about it, and what to do once one is aware of it.

[Seshatneferw]

6)  why is gender always the shape of a box?

Now that's an easy one: a box is the stereotypical receptacle used for classifying things. I agree that the gender boxes are rather oddly shaped, though. Plasticene boxes, maybe?

  Nfr

[Doc]

I'm on the biology bandwagon.

What you're interested in doing and what you find easy to learn is genetically influenced just like the shape of your body is. I think most people have an inborn drive to identify as a gender and seek environmental input as to how to behave as a good example of that gender. It's like the way people are born with an ability to learn a language really fast, and a drive to seek out and copy whatever language they can find out there. The part of gender that's a social-construct is like a language, most people are driven to learn one but it doesn't matter which one, a made up one like Klingon will do.

The reason for this being that it makes people inclined to a division of labor, and that's a survival bonus for a basic human social-unit band. But there's no evolutionary impetus for it to be linked hard and fast to sex, because having the occassional cross-acting person or the occassional person who takes on some aspects of one gender and some of another doesn't break the division of labor system, and diversity is also a survival advantage.

[Shana A]

Not that the shape is important, rather I am talking about the metaphor and the meaning behind the shape. Is the word "box" used to denote a prison or entrapment? And what assumptions lead to believe that constructs are always boxes? And that people are forced into these boxes which others have been created.

What happens if Social constructs are not looked upon as being just a box, rather a more fluid like amoeba or sphere metaphorically speaking. And is more self constructed or self determined. Does how one talks about even the shape of gender influence one's opinion about what gender is?

Just wondering why social constructs have to mean boxes and binary, with negative connotations.

One reason that I feel that gender "boxes" have negative connotations is due to societal policing of those constructs. I don't think that I'd feel so imprisoned by them if gender was truly allowed to be fluid.

Zythyra

[Jaimey]

It does seem that 'box' carries a certain negative connotation, not just in gender issues, but looking at anything with a 'boxed in' point of view will also give you negative feelings towards it.  To me, gender is a much more fluid thing, probably because I am androgyne. 

I really wish there were more information available on how biology affects gender indentity because people are inclined to believe science (at least most of the time...there are some...you know who they are).  Social constructs, unfortunately, are hard to change because many people are unable to understand how other people might be different from themselves and also, because some people seem to think that if they accept something like non-binary gender constructs, that it will somehow affect them personally and the world will be destroyed.  Personally, life without change would drive me nuts.

It seems to me that the smaller a person's world, the less likely they are to be open to things that are different.  Even if they themselves do not fit social constructs, they will force themselves to fit whichever social construct their biology demands of them.  I've been watching Jesus Camp and the evangelical people in the film fit this description.  They are people who have lived in the same town their whole lives, they go to the same church their parents go to, they aren't well educated (that's mostly for this film...I can't say that generally), etc.  By the way, I don't want to spark a religious debate...it's just an example. 

The best thing we can do as androgyne people is to be ourselves and explain when necessary.  If someone can't accept it, just smile and let it go.  As long as we are accepting, we will (at least eventually) be accepted.

[Prince_Eric]

*6)  why is gender always the shape of a box?

I think because (i'm thinking so beware...) boxs comform more. Boxs are easier to store and control. Boxs can be piled on one another and stacked up to form walls and barriors. Boxs have sharp ridged edges but fit together with one another with ease. They do repreat prisons and such. But also unity and curtainty. There is nothing new and exciting about the box. We know it's angles. We know it's limitations. And so the box represents repression and the comformity. Doesn't gender ask us to conform? Doesn't gender repress in some way?

And kind of off beat answer: Box's slightly remind me of coffins. You are born to your gender and you die there. No room for change.

[Louise]

When I used the term "box" to describe gender stereotypes (the socially defined norms that a man or a woman is expected to conform to as a man or a woman), I was referring to the way boxes are used in classification.  One of the more boring jobs I had while working my way through college was as a mail clerk--I had to sort the mail by putting each piece in the appropriately labeled box.  Round receptacles would have served the same purpose, but they would not have used space as efficiently--no matter how tightly we pack round objects there are always going to be spaces in between.  Rectangular boxes, on the other hand, can be packed so as to fill up all available space (other figures such as triangles and hexagons have this property as well).  The impression is that the boxes exhaustively cover all the possibilities of experience.  The socially accepted gender categories of male and female seem to do this as well.  You either fit in one category or the other and you can't go in both.  That is what I reject as an androgyne.  I don't want to say that gender is a circle, because even a circle is a closed figure. 

The best spatial metaphor for gender is the field.  Sandra Bem used this to express gender in her pioneering work in the field.  She expresses masculinity and femininity as two lines intersecting at right angles (like the axes of a Cartesian plane).  Masculinity and femininity can be high or low (or anywhere in between); the resulting field has four areas--stereotypical male (high M low F), stereotypical female (high F low M), and two kinds of androgynous (one high M and high F, the other low M and low F).  An individual could be anywhere on the plane, including on any of the borders.  Like all metaphors this one has its limits as well, but it is a good example of "thinking outside the box."