androgyn my interpretation

[wildandfree]

I remembered that way back when i used to attend college (2 years ago) I took a gender communication class.  Luckily i'm a pack rat and have all my old notes, and even purchased the text book.  I've been going over my notes and I realized that being androgynous is a perfect mixture of the genders. 

Gender is classified biologically at first, and then it is about the meaning our culture attatches to each sex.  or thats the conclusion i came up with.
I must quote from the book for a second : Three different tribes were studied in africa.  One, both men and women conform closely to what we consider feminnine behavior.  Both are passive, peaceful, and nurturing.  The second one, Both men and women are aggressive, and competitive.  The third one, is the opposite of the current ones in america... women are aggressive, and men are passive and delicate.

Throughout the book, it mentions different theories about why things are the way they are, and to be honest, theories are not facts.  I think its based on interpretation. 

Also throughout the book, it was saying that androgyns are a fine mix of the two.  Communication, for instance, it was saying masculine speech tends to be short and to the point and feminine speech tends to discuss details.  Androgyns have an understanding and can relate to both masculine and feminnine  styles of speech and can more effectively communicate with others.

basically what i'm saying is that being one extreme or the other usually creates conflict in understanding the other side.  But having the ability to relate to both sides is special and should be embraced. 

I'm also saying that gender is made up of interpretation, biology, and the way a child is raised.  If you took a boy or girl and raised them as an androgyn, then they would have the balance that they should have... aggression and passiveness, sensitive and straitforwardness.  If you raise a girl as a girl only, she may be confused as to why she is aggressive or "tomboyish" and vise versa.   Because they've always been told "no! thats wrong! boys don't cry!" 

Yay for androgyns!   

[Kendall]

Hmmm . There may be something to being raised a certain way. To some point.

However, in addition there must be other factors also. I come from a family of 9. We all were raised in the same family with the same mother and father. And the same rules. My other brothers are very masculine only (play sports , hard rock music, work out all the time, competitive). I am the only one born male, out of the 6 boys, that turned out the way I did. My other 3 sisters are more agressive then me even (tomboys). So something must be different natural to me.

[Refugee]

I remember reading an article written by a mom who tried to raise her children free of violent toys.  She was suprised one day when her son chewed his toast into a gun and used it to "shoot" his sister.  A certain degree of behavior is "hard wired" and can't be modified/overcome.

By nature I'm a bookworm and a computer geek.  My brother is a total sports nut and definitely all boy.  My parents swear they raised us the same, in as much as they let us find our own paths and supported our interests.

[Mia and Marq]

I talked with my wife earlier this evening about what idea she was trying to post concerning being raised in different environments and how it can affect someone. We came to the following conclusion she asked me to summarize in my own words since she feels she doesn't always express herself in a way that makes her ideas clear.

She feels that how open or closeminded an environment one is raised in will greatly affect how fast and easy someone who is transgendered comes to realizations about themselves. How you are raised does not affect what gender you feel you are inside, but whether you're given the opportunity and support to explore things not associated with your birth sex or whether you're forced down a harsh narrow path of conformity will determine how difficult the realizations and starting down the path of change will be.

If everyone were raised in a way that allowed them to not be held by stereotypes, then most transgendered people would overall be much happier and those who are not transgendered could at least related better because they had experimented with these things when they were growing up and think "Yeah playing with dolls wasn't my thing but I accept that I might have been, this person is alright in my book".

Now that is an ideal setting for optimal realizations. Now realistically families are different stages of openness that allows some an easy transition and others decades of conflict and family abandonment. So does how one is raised affect whether you're transgendered or not? No. But does it affect how easy things are going to be for you? very much so.

-Us

[Jillieann Rose]

Interesting subject.
I was born into a family that forced me down a harsh narrow path of conformity. And yes it took me over 50 years to realize and starting down a new path. It has been hard for me to determine who and what I am.  Yes because of the environment that I grew up in it has been a prolonged search because I felt that I had to be either male or a female (born in the wrong body) and there was nothing else. In fact as I have mention else where I have been until recently trying to kill off part of myself for that very reason.

Oh Marq and Mia I never played with dolls when I was young either. Of course in my family that would not have been tolerated. But I did have a stuff animal that my sister and I fought over. I had two younger sisters both not really girly girl but not tomboys either.
Oh I often played house with them and a neighbor girl, but I always had to be the father. Of course my little sister always had to be the baby and she hated that to.

I remember that I didn't like to play with the boys in the neighborhood except when they played baseball; most of the time they were just to rough for me. And I hated the any form of rough- housing or wrestling. Also they seem to be so insensitive toward other and that always felt wrong to me.

Even today I know that my wife only tolerates Jillieann and wishes that we would come together as a gentle male in gender.  But although we sometimes blend we most often are equal but separate. I normaly wear clothing of both genders and I just noticed  (and that is what I mean) that I am now wearing a mixing of male and female jewlery.

So yes environment does play a part and maybe I would be more of a blend of both genders if I had grown up in a different family. But I also seem to be hardwired as  Refugee mentioned. I am a gentle person who love other and would never knowingly be insensitive to people as it seem many males are. (but not all)

Jillieann/JR

[taylor]

Hi All,
I think it is the personality that is inate in us that determines how we respond to being "forced" or "pushed" down a path. For some personalities it can be what causes years of attempting to conform. I actually think to say that a person that is forced to behave a certian way is just going to do it, is not accurate. there are a lot of TS people that rejected this approach and came to terms with their identities earlier in life.  I think when you look at the age of the person that has transitioned you find some common personality traits more so then parenting styles. At least I did during the years I did the field research for the book I wrote.

I met many families, spouses and parents and children, and with the older group of transitioning people there were some common things I came across. In a large majority of TS women I found they had lived life being the perfect son, father, husband and employee, highly successful in many cases! And the need to please others was a very strong motivator to bury themselves deeper into this false identity. What was not consistent was the method of parenting used.  This actually varied largely.

Anyway just wanted to interject here and give some more food for thought out there for you all.

Peace
Taylor

[Kendall]

Yes I agree that tolerance can be taught to most. And is something that should be persued by most families. There will always be a few ultimately intolerant people. But I agree that a society has the potential to change, and can change. After all, as you have pointed out there are different societies that have different norms on how aggressive and what behavior one does. Families can teach tolerance of gender, as well as race, social status, religion, and different cultures. The benefits of teaching such values can only be imagined and I am sure can be seen in time.

Good points Wild and Free.

[Louise]

Gender is a complex phenomenon that is too often oversimplified.  The distinction between sex as biological and gender as socially conditioned is helpful up to a point but can also be misleading.  There are both innate biological elements in gender (such as relative levels of hormones) and socially conditoned/learned elements of gender.

I was brought up in a family that was relatively open-minded in some things but very rigid in others.  I know that my children consider my wife and I to be rigid in many ways but open-minded in others.  When I was young gender roles in American society were much more rigid than they are now--particularly for women.  The second-wave feminists were right in pointing out that the patriarchal structure of society had the effect of oppressing women by putting them into a submissive gender role.  This also had the effect of oppressing any male who did not conform to the standard masculine gender role.  To a great extent gender roles for women are much looser than they were thirty or fifty years ago.  Without denying that there is still gender oppression, there has also been a great deal of genuine feminine liberation.  Liberation for gender-variant men has not been as dramatic.  The fact that gender roles have changed over time shows that they are not biologically fixed but are socially conditioned.  The fact that there are still gender roles (and that there always have been gender roles in any society) shows that gender is not purely a matter of social conditioning but also contains a natural biological element.

Life is beautiful, but it is complicated.  Maybe it is beautiful because it is complicated. 

[Casey]

Thanks Taylor. It's nice to have some first-hand research info rather than having to rely solely on our own observations. It seems to me there's some quote about in the absence of facts we're all experts.

I don't think upbringing makes us anything other than, as some have said, more or less accepting of who we are. If you raise a child as an androgyne then he or she may be better able to understand why people act as they do but they would still be as passive or agressive as they would be otherwise. They might not SHOW it as much. but that's a different thing entirely. Knowing that punching out a coworker will get me fired doesn't make me want to punch that person out any less.

I can understand that being one extreme can make it difficult to understand the other. To me, The Battle Of The Sexes sounds a lot like two groups of toddlers having hissy fits because they can't get their own way. But being an androgyne also makes it easier for me to see people as individuals rather than personifications of the concepts of male or female. What is such and such a person like? I don't know, we haven't met.

OK, so I still do some stereotyping. But I hate that I do it, especially since I honestly don't get why some people have a hard time dealing with men or women. To me, the gift of being an androgyne is being able to be gender blind (as much as I can anyway) simply because it doesn't make sense to me to be any other way.

[Tiffany Elise]

  My question is in reference to the original post by Wild and Free.

  I have noticed that every infirmity that is recognized is medicinal or physical in nature. Yet being transgender I am told there is no physical reason or proof. Only theory.

  The statement was in respect to women using more words, more detail and making things more personal. That does indeed verify why I tend to write a book to say one sentence and why can't answer anything without bringing it into perspective in my own life. It's just something I can't help. I am teased about it all the time. "It takes you a half hour and six million words to say hi." That kind of stuff.

  It would appear to me that there should be something physical that could be tracked down to make this "female mindset", if I may call it that, a physical  condition that differs from the male mind. That would take it out of the "psychological" or "theory" realm and place it into an area in which it could be verified by the medical community.

  That would make having a male or female mind "fact" instead of "theory." Theories open the door to debates and all sorts of foolishness that can be disputed and feed prejudices.

  While I am just a simpleton that doesn't understand medical stuff I'm kind of referring to true physical criteria. Like a high white cell count makes Leukocytosis a factual physical ailment. What would make a female mind fact? Maybe a difference in neurotransmitters or such? One section smaller or larger?
 
  Am I making sense? Something physical that could be seen, tested, x-rayed and proven.

  There has to be a reason that us females speak and write differently from the guys.

  Tiff

[taylor]

Hi Tiffany,

There are way too many obsticals and problematic situations for anyone to ever isolate out the variables that would be required to do what your referring to. The major problem that I see is there would need to be the true existance of an absolute 100% male and a 100% female to be able to do this. ( a baseline) That simply is not likely to exist, if it does it has been missed for centuries. Another reason that it cannot be done is that you would have to first be able to determine what is nature and what is nurture and lets face it, that would be a huge challenge for each and every vairible to be accounted for. Then you would also have to fully understand the one most complex thing within the human body, the brain. What we do know is that exposure to hormones do have an impact on the brain and our thought process etc.

I have often believed that we need to study the changes in the behaviors of Transitioned persons on hormone therapy, that it would shed some light on the differences in the brain to some point. But it would not shed all light.  If you have a "female" dominated brain as it is and estrogen is exposed at an increase, then that would not be an even study environment up against another subject that has a male dominated brain and exposed to estrogen ( assuming all other physical characteristic were the same, a huge assumption...and the ability for a control test is pretty much not there. However some good results could be gained from this and it has gone ignored.  Our organization All Pointz Inc. is going to be conducting some research on this in the future. And our ability will be based on those that participate. Even still it will have to be carefully conducted with the realization of our own limitations due to the example I gave you above and other problems as well.  Yet yes progress could be made, just not sex identity determination tools.

Hope this helps you see the complexity of the matter, but I also think it is GREAT that you are looking at and asking these sorts of questions!

Peace
Taylor