What does being a man or woman mean?

[whatsername]

I was reading the "how do you prove your gender identity" thread and it got me thinking about this.  I never particularly had a problem accepting trans-ness.  Don't ask me why, but I really don't understand why it's so bloody difficult for some cisgender people.  However, when I first started getting in discussions about the trans concept in a mixed group I could see that it WAS bloody difficult for cisgender people (more often heterosexual men...go figure).  And they got into the usual arguments, and between myself and the trans and other trans allies in the discussion I think we made every single appeal from the "prove your identity" original post.

But in the end, we KNOW who we are, do we not?

What inevitably seems to crop up, for me, is what does this all mean anyway?  Cisgender people never have to question their own gender identity because we are more or less comfortable in the body we're given.  However there are certainly parts of my prescribed gender ROLE that I adamantly oppose (feminist remember ).  So it seems like there are a lot of different issues at work here, and that transpeople challenge something in some cisgender people's conception of themselves (otherwise why would they respond the way they do?).

And that brings me back to... so what does it all mean anyway?

What does it mean to you to be a woman?  To be a man?  What IS a woman?  What are the defining characteristics?  Is there a solid gender role?  It doesn't seem like gender is entirely meaningless, but then, what is it's meaning?!

To be honest with you all, I have asked myself these things for a long time, and I have never come to a satisfactory conclusion.  I know what it is to be ME, and a component of me is I was born in a female body, and I am definitely a woman, and I have sexual preferences as far as men go...but that's...just...it!

OK, I'm starting to think I'm not making any sense.  I'll throw this out there and see if anyone is catching my drift!

[Elwood]

If a transgendered person says, "I am BLAH," I now have learned to take their word for it. But getting cisgendered people to understand? That's something I think each and every trans person has got to go to school for and get a degree certifying them in some sort of form in psychology. It's really hard to trick a person's thick-headed nature into understanding something that is completely foreign to them.

People often ask me to somehow prove it. Or they say, "well, you do THIS girly thing, so you CAN'T POSSIBLY be a guy." A lot of people claim it's a fetish, and that I just want to be a guy in bed. But that's not true. People start to make no sense because they're so busy trying to prove that I'm not a guy.

People have their twisted views about what being a man or woman is. Gender roles, mannerisms, etc. But it's all bull->-bleeped-<-. I know it's bull->-bleeped-<- because I've seen people in the LGBT community. Gay men are men, but boy, do they act like girls! And butch lesbians? I thought most of them were FtM, and hell, were they pissed. They asserted their womanhood.

I am ME. Now, saying "I am a man" isn't really quite... enough to be one. I am physically female, which is in conflict with my gender. Even after transition, I'll never really be a complete man. I didn't grow up a little boy playing ball with pa. I grew up as a confused little girl. That part of me will be gone forever, and I'll never be whole. But I've got to work with what I have.

[Drik]

I dont believe in "men" and "women", yet I talk about them all the time.
I am me, what I do, how I dress, what I say and how I act - if people feel that it fits in their idea of "man" or "woman" well, fine, good for them.

[jenny_]

Its late so i doubt i'm gonna make much sense, and i hope i've read your OP right!
You talk about gender identity and gender role, which i think are quite seperate things entirely - gender identity being personal and gender role being a social construct. And theres biological sex as well.

I don't think trying to define gender (as a whole) is particularly meaningful, because it is so personal and individual, and so any sort of definition of what being a woman or a man is must in itself be an individual thing.  And so coming up with a single definition to encompass every woman isn't gonna work because it'll either not cover every woman or it will be so general as to be able to cover all humans, hence meaningless.

That doesn't mean gender is a meaningless concept though, just trying to define it is.  And i think it is kinda like the concept of God/Goddess, which is also a personal thing.  And theres that saying that "religion means a thousand things to a thousand people".

[whatsername]

I am me, what I do, how I dress, what I say and how I act - if people feel that it fits in their idea of "man" or "woman" well, fine, good for them.

But you are a man, are you not?  I got the impression you wouldn't be too well pleased if people insisted you are a woman?  Correct me if I'm wrong.

Jenny_ I find this sentence really compelling: "That doesn't mean gender is a meaningless concept though, just trying to define it is." 

I'm not exactly sure how to respond to it, but it struck a chord.

[Lachlann]

I'm no expert by any means, but I believe there is a huge difference between gender roles enforced by society and gender itself. I've never gotten into the psychological studies of these things really deep, so I don't have a great knowledge of it, but all I know is... the gender I feel is different than the gender role that is enforced by society.

I have heard, that gender is a really complicated thing though... and I'm pretty sure most people here have heard that theres more to gender than just male and female and that there are several spectrums of it... or at least, thats what I gathered.

I think people look too heavily on personality traits and interests when they define someones gender. I don't believe those things determine what gender you are, but rather a chemical need in your head to fill out that gender. While there are many male things I could do while being in a female body, it just doesn't seem the same as if I were male... theres a difference there that I can't describe.

I'm sorry if I'm not making sense... its just one of those things thats difficult to describe.

[Drik]

But you are a man, are you not?  I got the impression you wouldn't be too well pleased if people insisted you are a woman?  Correct me if I'm wrong.

Not really, just because I wanna look like one doesnt mean that I am one.

[whatsername]

Not really, just because I wanna look like one doesnt mean that I am one.

Touche.  Point taken.

[NicholeW.]

-------- My huge thanks to whatshername for posting my original this morning. That was sweet and beyond the call of duty. But relieved me of a great deal of frustration.  I've since deleted her help since I found a way to post it as well which she suggested to me. She has my gratitude. -------


A lot of my compatriots here talk a lot about gender. Actually there are good historical reasons for that as the writers on "gender identity" have normally used that term. And to be honest, I find that the terminology was coined by cissexuals in order to talk about transsexuals. Note, I used the "sexual" words. Why? Because for me, that's what it's all about. No hokey-pokey!

Just my opinion, but I believe that Dr. Benjamin and Dr. Hirschfeld had their own difficulties understanding what was being told them. I mean just look at who they "saw" and how they dealt with it. Lily Elbe and Christine Jorgensen they could call transsexuals, but then Benjamin left the planet and others come up with GID. Benjamin and Hirschfeld defined the language we use to talk about this. I believe that as cissexuals they each had a total block against seeing that what they were being told was that the root of the problem was "sex" characteristics. The people who came after had an even larger problem with this, imo. Paul McHugh, for instance, has never been able to wrap his very-well educated and psychiatric mind around it.

Not gender roles. So, where does GID come from? I think it's the only way most cissexual people can begin to wrap their minds around the entire "transsexual phenomenon." And, in my experience, a number of transsexuals cannot wrap their minds around it either.  

I believe that gender came into vogue as a kind of cissexual way of feeling comfortable discussing transsexuals. That became a way to discuss the "role" parts without having to dig for the kernel, which most find just unbeleiveable. Benjamin, I think, also had to gear himself to a post-Hefner era of American life. Gender, as many here decry constantly was used because "sex" for most Americans seems to be synonomous with something one does rather than something one is. Gender is much more neutral in that way.

Gender roles are not things that bother me a lot. Some traditional gender roles for females I can live with just fine. Others I cannot. I have no "typical" range of female gender roles. I work, I raise my son with the assistance of a female partner. I absolutely am mad for Premier League Football, Champions League football and international matches if they are European and South American and it can be enjoyable to watch USA and Mexico as well. I love baseball and softball.

I enjoy wearing dresses and skirts, simply because I find them comfortable. But slacks and tops I also like and wear when I need to. Sweats and shorts and a range of clothing. I like jewelry and I love using my brain to discuss stuff like this. I have no desire to be dominated by a guy, any guy. I feel no particular compunction to be docile and helpless. I absolutely hate housework except what it takes to keep the house clean and my partner does that as well. But neither of us clean the way our mothers did. Nor can I imagine either of us behaving with "husbands" the way our mothers did.

I drive well and will pit my skills against any male. I hate math. I am fascinated by biology and anthropology. I enjoy interacting with children. I interact, always have, much better with other women than with men. I have forever felt a deep sense of loyalty to someone I give my love to. I love good novels and poetry. I have no particular ability at "mapping" or geometry and when I want to discover a direction, well, I need a map, GPS or a compass. I feel a sense of other's pain and like to try to find some way to alleviate that. All of that seems pretty mixed to me among the cliched "gender" roles and proclivities.

My difficulty has always been that I haven't been blessed with the right sex characteristics before transition. I can see that might be exactly where the "het guys" have a problem with someone like me. I might "fool" them into having sex with me and then they'd be gay. Bull->-bleeped-<-!! They still be having sex with a female.

So, I have great difficulty with being "transgendered" for that reason. I don't have trouble accepting those who have no problem being "transgendered." I don't find the term meaningful to my life. Transsexual makes a lot of sense for me because that's where my problem has always lain: in my inconguent physical sex when matched with what I have always known I am and should look like.

I don't know, whatshername, if this is what you're driving at, but for me the whole "gender identity" concept may work for some, for me its a sex-difference. Male/Female biological and physical characteristics. A body dysphoria.

Gendering for me is those roles and preconceptions that are culturally and socially created to differentiate between the places males and females occupy and how we act. That, in general, has never been my difficulty.  

What cis-het-males say you are taking the meaning out of is ?their? meaning of woman? So what is a woman? A pussy? Breasts? XX? (& even there, sometimes what seems to be there isn't even with XX.)

Is sex and gender, at least when it comes down to human meaning so vague as to be non-existent? As a woman who has a deep love for Lord Krishna and Gautama as well as for Mother ... I think that perhaps our lives are all a sort of magic sometimes anyway. An illusion that we all call reality. Reality is something else?

I surely haven't a clue. But this whole question at some point is gonna, if it hasn't yet, take on the quality of a metaphysical argument, a la Aquinas and the Scholastics. (A very good reason it should be in the "Philosophy" section.) My concern isn't angels dancing on pin-heads. I just think when we get into the metaphysical parts then we reach that very blurred and then finally that totally unknowable as human place.

I've almost thought myself into saying, "This means nothing at all."

Nichole

[Sephirah]

I think that a lot of preconceptions people tend to use with regard to male or female roles come from a time that doesn't exist anymore. Now, in modern Western society, the distinction between the sexes in terms of role and 'characteristics' is far more blurred than it was only thirty years ago.

I mean, products that used to be purely marketed for women -- moisturisers, skin care etc... these are now socially acceptable, and even aggressively promoted for men. Likewise, the idea of men staying at home to take care of the children whilst the women have a career... again, even a few years ago this would have been unheard of.

And then you have women in politics, women in the Church... both traditionally seen as male-dominated. The distance between genders is coming far closer together in terms of role and responsibility, although there is still a way to go.

This, I think, makes the prospect of explaining what it means to be a man or a woman far more nebulous and, as Nichole alluded to, verges more on the metaphysical than the physical. It's not really possible to base your sense of identity solely on things you like to do (I like xxxxxxx ergo I am a woman/man). That doesn't work. For every woman who likes to do something, there'll be a man who likes the same thing, and vice versa.

I guess, for me personally, I prefer female friends... I don't really get on too well with many guys. I identify with women on a more instinctive and intuitive level. And my... situation... allows me to be privvy to the conversations that the guys have where I live... which live up to the stereotypical ideas in every way, and then some. Women are objectified, little more than a bust on legs, and seen as potential trophies. I'm supposed to engage with this, to be one of the guys... and to be honest it makes me sick listening to it. It's like The Village That Evolution Forgot *sigh*.

I'm not one of the 'guys'. Nor do I want to be. But it does show that, at least where I live, men and women are viewed purely by anatomy. And that's sad.

All I know for sure is that when I look in the mirror, the male person who stares back at me is not who I should be. Not who I am supposed to be, for whatever reaon. It's not someone I recognise. That only happens when I close my eyes and look inwards. The image of myself in my mind, heart and soul does not match the one the outside world sees.

That doesn't answer the question, which I'm not sure can actually be answered... only pondered. But... when my body is as close as possible physically to matching my inner sense of identity and core belief... then that's what being a woman means to me. Being myself. Whatever that means to the rest of the world... is largely irrelevent. I am not the world, or an amalgamation of social constructs... I'm just me.

[whatsername]

I'm just me.

That seems to be what I keep coming back to as well.

[NicholeW.]

I can't answer it beyond what Leiandra said.

Guys, I'm not certain there is any other answer; I mean none this side of knowing Mom's mind. I'm reasonably convinced it's a body/brain disconnect and I don't think it's pathological in the psychotic sense. Of course having it, perhaps I wouldn't know it as psychotic even if it were. *shrug*

Like the angels on pin-heads, maybe there just is no answer outside the metaphysical. So all I can say is like pornography, kinda, I know it when I see it and experience it. Otherwise I can't define it for someone else.

Nichole

[Lisbeth]

"What does being a man or woman mean?"

I can give you no other answer than that it means whatever meaning you give it.

[April221]

To define "man" or "woman" are questions that I have far to much difficulty with except by comparison. The differences between men and women have to do with the way that each gender, I'm trying to keep it as simple as possible, experience the world in terms of emotion, spirit, sensitivities of perception, and overall awareness. Men and women express themselves in different and unique ways. It is the way that life, and the world is seen and felt that separate men and women. It's about what one gets out of the experience of living, and each gender gets more of different things because of the differences in perception and spirit.


When I once came out to my co-workers, many of the women had known all along. When I asked how they knew that I was TS, the response was that "you knew too much!" That's the difference.

[tekla]

It means whatever you want it to mean, welcome to the New World.

[Simone Louise]

Reading this thread is like reading the Alice in Wonderland. For instance, the conversation with the caterpillar:

"`What do you mean by that?' said the Caterpillar sternly. `Explain yourself!'

`I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, sir' said Alice, `because I'm not myself, you see.'"

I've always felt "not man/boy", but if I can't define man in a meaningful way, what do I mean? And how do I explain myself?

And if I use "man" to mean one thing, and you use "man" to mean another, how can we converse?

Maybe, I'll just eat more of the mushroom.

S

[tekla]

Oh, save some 'shroom for me, I love them.

One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small.

[Simone Louise]

Oh, save some 'shroom for me, I love them.

One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small.

We're usually on different oceans. You want I should ship it UPS?

S

[tekla]

Nah, I'll meet you halfway.  Say the Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado.

[Simone Louise]

Nah, I'll meet you halfway.  Say the Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado.

I noticed you were recently in Michigan; I get there much more frequently than I get to Colorado.

S