Is "gender role" a weird word?

[Fencesitter]

Heya,

I've always had my problems with the word "gender role", such as in "do you live constantly in your new gender role now?". Not just because it is translated into German as "Geschlechtsrolle", which is a pain to pronounce as it's spoken with 4 consonants in a row (chtsr). But for other, more fundamental reasons as well:

1. It's not a role, or at least I hope it's not. As far as I know, this word "role" comes from sociology and does not mean playing a role like if you were on stage, but fitting in a social box (policeman, mother, bartender, grandson, leader of a club, sports team member etc.).  Which means, you need to behave more or less according to the expectations, AND people around you need to accept your role so that it works. However, I don't like that word because of its allusions to not being real, playing etc.

Moreover, "gender role" is not specific enough to mean anything. In example, little girls are expected to behave very differently from young women, from middle-aged women, from elder women, from female seniors etc. And that's just the age playing in here, I'm not even talking about the other aspects. So I think, the correct question for people who change their gender role would not be "how do you feel in your new gender role", but "how do you feel in your new gender role, if most of your other social roles have remained the same?".

And I said that often, but let me repeat here that the obligatory or almost obligatory one-year "real life test" before hormones in Germany and several other countries, just to find out "whether you can live in your new gender role 24/7" is ridiculous, potentially soul-crushing and probably not in accordance to the human rights. I mean, in those cases who don't pass well before hormones but will pass once they're on hormones long enough. As, in general, you won't get the new role mirrored by society well in the meantime. Which means the role you have then is that of a crazy person or transvestite or self-proclaimed transsexual or something like that. 

2. There is no such thing as THE gender role. You get treated differently depending on your age, your body, style, mood of the moment, class, race/ethnic background, dialect, job, uniform, clothes, your personal background, history, education if they're known etc. Sometimes there is more overlap between how a man and a woman are treated if they have lots of things in common than between two people of the same sex but who differ in many other aspects. However, as the "gap" between men and women in our society is huge, a person's perceived gender/sex plays a big role. Nevertheless, I suppose that my "gender role" change made less of a difference in my everyday life than if, e. g., I suddenly woke up tomorrow as a black dude with a strong black African accent, an exotic black African name and had to get along here in Germany.

I had a couple of black African friends who were like that, and they told me very "interesting" (mostly sad or amusing) stories how they were treated here, what prejudices they faced, and I saw a bit of that as well when I hung around in town with them. Basically, little kids thought they were from "Africa", which they thought was a single country where it's always warm and where all the tasty chocolate comes from unless it's from Switzerland. And where people lived in huts in the jungle or savannah, chased lions and giraffes the whole day through, made party at night drumming, singing and dancing around a campfire, and wore fancy costumes and archaic, impressive jewellery, and had exotic painted weapons for the chasing. Well these ideas are perfectly okay and cute for kindergarten or elementary school kids. The problem is, many adults had kind of the same ideas, just replace the single country and tasty chocolate aspects with "they just want our money, are primitive analphabets and stupid but have huge d*cks, are good lovers, ->-bleeped-<- around with any women and spread AIDS all around".

P.S. I ask for apology if I did not get the right words for black African people, but I'd be happy to be informed if I made something nasty here with the vocabulary I used. English is not my mother tongue.

[Colleen Ireland]

Well, I'll take a stab at this, seeing as nobody else has... 

I guess I'd say that whereas gender is perhaps one of the most basic elements of self-identity, there definitely is, IMHO, a large element of choice to conform (or not) to society's expectations of us in a particular gender, and THIS, I think, is what is thought of as gender role.  So, for instance - my body is genetically male.  As I was growing up, my parents, siblings, extended family, friends, strangers, etc... ALL placed certain expectations in relation to that biological fact - clothes I would wear, how my hair would be cut, how I would act, what I could possibly achieve, what I would want to study, etc., etc.  ALL of that, is "Gender Role."  Not "play-acting", but "acting" nonetheless.  And very serious stuff, too.  NOW, of course, what I wish to do is to be completely opposite to the expectations of everyone around me - I want to wear skirts and dresses, wear my hair differently (which means, for me, wigs), and ultimately change my body.  To conform with MY idea of my gender, which is an internal thing, but with an outward expression.  The expression of it is the role I assume.

So... what say ye?

[lilacwoman]

this is interesting and I have my initial appointment at gender clinic report here now and it says 'in role full time' and I'd one over 27months RLE by then and I could only be me.
but dictionary defines role as 'part or character in play' ...but in Psychological matters role means 'part played by person/influenced by his expectations of what is expected'...but then also definition is 'usual function'.
Report for second session says I arrived in role.
So does the staff of gender clinic see our RLE as just play acting?  I think that this is the case. And it is one of th isssues my lawyer will be taking up with the clinic.

[nickikim]

Yes this gender role thing confuses me, who is the role model, also i hate the words"chosen gender",and for that matter "real life experience".  So what is all that? Crap. After  decades of acting like a man now i have to act like a woman to get hrt so i can look and feel like myself, and somewhere i Chose this ! Can you explain real life to me, WTF. I just wanna get my drugs and see what happens,i played the role of mad hatter that way for years.  I ve seen a friend go through a faze of doing things no sane woman would do wearing a dress to satisfy this gender role thing . This just makes my head spin .

[lilacwoman]

well actually I take the view that RLE is essential as otherwise the surgeons might as well put vaginaas on any man no matter why they think they'd like one.
if a man has difficulty living and being seen as a woman then quite frankly I don't think they are anything but a man.

[Double_Rainbow]

well actually I take the view that RLE is essential as otherwise the surgeons might as well put vaginaas on any man no matter why they think they'd like one.
if a man has difficulty living and being seen as a woman then quite frankly I don't think they are anything but a man.

This I don't believe is true.  How can it be easy after living as a man, in my case 24 years, and then unlearn all those things and at the same time learn new things as a woman?  I mean...its great if you can just POW! immediately start living comfortable as a woman, but I think its quite unrealistic to assume if that's not the case, you are not a woman/man. 

ALAS, is it not the hardest when we are first starting out transitioning?  Bumps in the road are inevitable and I honestly feel if you've questioned your birth gender more than once, chances are you're going to question transitioning with the same tenacity!

You can feel in your core of cores like the gender you know you are, but your current body says otherwise.  I'm having to learn to speak, walk, mannerisms, make-up, etc.  Some things are harder than others and I'm having quite a difficult time with the voice and yeah, it really does get you down sometimes. 

I would be willing to bet the majority of transitioning folk had some difficulty in one way or the other before they finally found a comfortable fit for themselves.

Also, in speaking of gender role...is every woman a girly girl who likes to do all the womanly things in the extreme?  I am DEFINITELY not going to fit the perfect female role as I believe it is not a good suit for me personally.  Some things may be universal, but I think there are far more variations and not fitting a strict gender role brings more flavor and uniqueness to a person's being.

[CaitJ]

well actually I take the view that RLE is essential as otherwise the surgeons might as well put vaginaas on any man no matter why they think they'd like one.
if a man has difficulty living and being seen as a woman then quite frankly I don't think they are anything but a man.

We wouldn't want men running around with vaginas now would we?
How utterly insulting to FTMs.

[nickikim]

I don t think thats a bad idea,vaginas for whoever  wants one , what about a trade in program  . I just wasted more than half my life playing a Role that i didn t choose to standards of other people ,then have to play another directors role to get what i need to feel like myself. It should be enough that i know and accept the medical risks and effects , take your scrip and go . I want to live my life not just roles rules or roses .   

[Simone Louise]

if a man has difficulty living and being seen as a woman then quite frankly I don't think they are anything but a man.

So our physical bodies really do define our genders? My bowed legs mean I really am masculine though my brain screams otherwise? I am not canceling my appointment with the gender counselor Thursday.

Ever since I can remember, I have known I was not a man, male, masculine person. This was always my deepest, darkest secret. And it has been an acting role for me. I have practiced looking serious and making my lips appear less fleshy in the mirror for long periods. I developed a way of walking that I still practice when alone. I took ROTC for a year in college so I could keep out of gyms and locker rooms, but I would get so nervous on inspection that the examining officer frequently asked if I were sick. Come to think of it, if I have difficulty living and being seen as a man, then I am not a man either.

The people I most resemble are female bodied. They rarely wear makeup, nor much jewelry, either. Most often, they wear pants and comfortable shoes. They like being outdoors, and either hike or ride a bicycle, and kayak or canoe. The farm wives I used to work alongside were stronger than most male office workers. Yet, the ones I've talked with don't question their gender as women.

I am repeatedly mistaken for a female on the phone or from the back, but I would have difficulty living to some arbitrary "role." I do not like being dismissed as nothing but a man. It ain't true, but I guess that remains my secret.

S

[lilacwoman]

while ever you have all that hair your secret is safe.

[Simone Louise]

while ever you have all that hair your secret is safe.

Isn't that why one grows a beard?

When UPS offered me a promotion to driver, if I were clean shaven, my wife and four kids (ages 21 to 44) vetoed the idea. None of them has ever seen me without the beard. I am not that attached to it, but I do dislike shaving.

S

[Naari]

This has always kinda tugged at a nerve inside me as well. I do not feel anyone has the right nor should they have the power to require or ask of anyone to live in any 'gender role' in order to receive any sort of 'treatment'.

I do recognize the need for an individual to be prepared, on many levels, to deal with the consquences of any decision they make regarding transition, any course of 'treatment', or surgery. I keep quoting the term treatment because I also have an issue with describing any course of action in regards to one's gender expression, as 'treatment'. I am not naive. I am quite aware that many of of us suffer from 'GID' and so the apt term or phrase would be 'treatment' or 'help' or whatever we choose to label it. I do, however, feel that GID and the treatment therof, is in essence putting us into a category that we may or may not truly be in. It is only a 'disorder' in so much as it causes distress, which it does, most assuredly, but, at least some of this distress is caused by external factors, such as an unaccepting, unaware, misguided, and misunderstood general public, or society. GID to me is not so much descriptive of us, imo, as it is descriptive of the human beings who attempt to understand us but for some reason or another, are unable to. When people are unable to understand others, they create all types of 'disorders' and 'issues' in an attempt to explain what they do not understand.

In saying this, I do not make light of gender dysphoria. Do I feel I am gender dysphoric? Yes. Do I feel that most transgender individuals are or were at some point gender dysphoric? Yes I do. However, the whole idea of gender dysphoria is an attempt to explain these issues to others. It has been labeled as GID by individuals, without GID, to describe what they previously had no description for. The 'treatment' that follows is simply what we wish to do in order to increase our quality of life. I could go so far as to say that Gender Identity Disorder describes the misguided notion that there are only 2 'gender roles' and that an individual must fit, at any given time, into one or the other. I believe that to be a more apt description of the phrase.

There are as many gender roles as there are individuals on the planet. I think to understand this viewpoint, one must put aside any preconceived notions of what the definition of 'gender role' is. I hope not to offend anyone by what I have said here. That is not my intention in the least. This is just an attempt, by me, to describe things that are quite abstract and not 'black' and 'white' but very much a gray area. To allow oneself to fall into a binary mode of thinking, in regards to gender and the expression thereof, is unwise at the least.

There is not a single person on this planet that has the right nor the ability to decide for me, which gender role I choose to live in, except for myself.

[Naari]

We wouldn't want men running around with vaginas now would we?
How utterly insulting to FTMs.

I agree, it is quite insulting. It seems many men are quite impressed by vaginas, but they are not running in droves to aquire one. Especially at the expense of losing the penis.

[Nobuko]

I hate the whole forced RLE business. What if you just want to present yourself as how you always have, and just want your body to more closely match what you feel on the inside? I don't see how having a female or feminine body means you have to project a female gender role.

And what about the androgynes? Somehow I don't think therapists would be very happy if your RLE was done by living as an androgyne.