Hi everyone.
I was talking with a young lady this evening in much detail about my take on a representative gender model to try to describe as much of gender as possible. I ask that you read the model in its entirety before making any comments about it. One of the biggest questions asked is about whether gender traits are naturally selected or a social construction. For sake of this model, I am choosing one of the two possibilities and do not dismiss the model because of this choice, view it as one way to try to clarify the gender picture.
To simplify the model, I'm removing or renaming some words until the big picture is present. I may use cliche colors within the model to represent points a little easier. My choice of colors is not important, so don't give me a hard time if I pick pink and blue to represent male and female, it could just as well be red and green.
---ROUGH DRAFT VERSION---
Colorful Sheets of Paper Gender Model
Imagine if you will that all people could be represented as being one of three different colored pieces of paper, lets say a black sheet of paper, a grey sheet of paper, and a white sheet of paper. What sheet of paper you are represented by is what your physical sex is. For sake of argument, lets call a man black, female white, and an intersex individual(one having both or no physical sex) grey. The level to what extend any one person falls may be a different shade of grey as the extremes but for simplicity sake its not important, since it is more conceptual.
Now suppose that there were a number of personality traits that could be described exclusively as being of just grouping based on a general rule. For example we want lists of words that contain the letter a, lists that contain the letter e, and the lists that contain both a and e assuming no other words outside these lists exist. Lets color these lists for sake of argument green for a words, red for e words, and words containing both letters are yellow. This represents static personality traits associated with males or females or both. Obviously the list that shares both a and e is going to be much shorter but will occur. Stay with me here, this statement might anger you but the bigger picture will smooth out. People associate negative thoughts with what might be considered gender norms. What I'm describing here is solely gender personality traits. This does not include at all any gender roles, so strike the idea of gender roles from your mind right now.
Now we have a bunch of sheets of paper of 3 colors. Upon these sheets we start to place any words from either list, the words being of red, green, or yellow color, onto the pages and fill each page up with the words that define that person as a whole. Now we look at the pages for all these people we've represented sex and gender traits for. We'll notice that trends form in what color paper has what color words as a majority. You will find almost no instances where a specific paper color will only have one color. This is because in general, most people have some from all 3 lists. The people who experience gender problems have special circumstances.
Here is a rough list of what you'll find for some of the gender possibilities. A relatively average male will be on lets say black paper. Again my choice of colors is not important. This black paper has a couple red words but most of the list will be of the green and yellow words, red being traits associated with females, green with males, and yellow being undeterminably shared traits. We're not going to try to identify what each list contains because its not important to show the grand picture. A relatively average female will be on the white paper with again a light sample of green words and most will be of the red and yellow color.
Now we come to the unique gender possibilities a lot of us experience. One who is say a transgendered female, born as a male for example, would be a black piece of paper with most of the terms being red and yellow, with a couple being green in color. Lets say because the large number of words of color that might contrast the paper color stands out, they realize they are not printed on the right paper. Steps can be took to be reprinted to some degree on another color of paper or SRS, as is described as a coming out or rebirth. Obviously if the words together with the paper don't seem to contrast enough that the color of the paper needs to be changed or not changed completely to the opposite color, little or nothing has to be done. It remains completely a personal choice. Obviously for a transgendered male, the paper color would be the opposite and the composition of red to green words would be inverted.
Moving along, lets cover say an Androgyne. Well by the definition of an androgyne you're going to have some color piece of paper, doesn't matter which one, with a set of words from both the green and red lists. This actually covers almost everyone, so lets narrow it to who identifies as an androgyne, because those are the people who this example would best describe. Lets talk about a male androgyne, black sheet of paper with a number of red words, green words and yellow words. One identifies as an androgyne usually when the number of red words and green words are pretty equal or still close to the same number of each. The reason that these people can realize something isn't quite right is that there is a certain amount of conflict with how the sheet looks either for those looking at the sheet or the sheet itself also doesn't feel quite right. Because women can get away with far more of the green terms on their sheets, they aren't pressured quite as easily to recognize something is amiss, but it still occurs under different circumstances.
Someone would doesn't consider themself to be either gender also might identify themself as being a piece of paper, once again what color doesn't matter, with mostly just the yellow terms, and few green or red terms. One who considers themself bi-gendered as well as anyone that identifies as perhaps a straight down the middle androgyne might be a sheet of paper containing almost all of the red, green, and yellow words.
How does sexual preference play into this model. Well its not important to gender at all. Every possible combination of colored pieces of paper with every possible combination of red, green, and yellow words could have any sexual preference and so is not a factor in the model. Certain trends might appear but not enough to be considered since averages only tell you whats common, and everyone in their own right is perfectly unique.
This model can be taken further to describe all aspects of a person down to what nationality, hair color, eye color, or anything else that describes someone, but keeping the model simple to talk about gender was the intention.
Ok I'm ready to say something about gender roles. This is probably what you may feel enraged about. Gender roles are sets of behaviors expected from a gender. That right there tells you that gender roles are decided by society and you can't be sure those are going to be fair. I reject gender roles, kids should have the choice to grow up playing with dolls or trucks, everyone should be able to wear anything they want to experess themselves in any way they want. Gender roles are like lines to see a picture or something, you have to get in one line and people want to force you into that line, but you know that you want to stand between the two lines because thats where you can see all the things that appeal to you. So hopefully before you attack the gender model above you seperate gender roles from that represented with the colored words. Gender roles are where the real problem lies.
I urge you though when you're trying to explain what you are to use my model. It gives people a seperated perspective of simple concepts without making them get tied up with preconcieved gender beliefs. Make sure you mention what the colors of paper and colored words represent after you are sure the person understands what is trying to be said.
I have left the lists of what fall under each list of colored words intentionally blank because its not important to understand the concept. Inevitably people will disagree on what each list contains but they can agree that this model can identify a lot of differences we as humans have but share at the same time. I hope you've found this informative and well presented.
One last thing to note in case you felt that the words that fall under the red or green color should be changable, any such change would require massive changes in society but would overall not affect the model since its unlikely that a signifcant number of words would change at the same time leaving any one persons page practically the same status. In other words, even a changing list of red and green words would still describe everyone just as well.
Thank you for your time. I am eternally in debt to the people around me for the kindness and support I have experienced here. I would love to address any questions you have in PM or as comments below.
-Us
