Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Is it appropriate to think of a type of gender as a personality type? Like how being an introvert or an extrovert are personality types. Or is that not right?

I understand that sex is your physical description and gender is more psychological. But reading through the topics on the board it seems like sometimes they are so intrinsically connected its not worth making the distinction.

I call myself gender-fluid, because I see my interests, personality traits, and appearance as a fluctuating mix of stereotypical feminine and masculine traits. My personality is both feminine and masculine. But I dont see myself as male and female. I am physically female and accept it. Is this the right way to categorize myself or am I mixing things up here?

Quote from: DrillQuip on May 04, 2012, 02:55:04 PM
I dont see myself as male and female. I am physically female and accept it. Is this the right way to categorize myself or am I mixing things up here?

My quick answer is that whatever way feels best to you is the way to categorize yourself.

I'll speak about my own experience (the only thing I can competently talk about). I am physically male and (reluctantly) accept that because doing something about it would be far more complex than anything I want to be involved with.

So I act male when the male aspects of my personality seem to want it and female when the female parts of me seem to want that. It leaves me feeling that I don't comfortably belong to any classification, but I can live with that, since just being ME isn't (at this point in my life) so bad.

Help?

Personally, I do not believe that interests, personality traits, or appearance have anything to do with gender and I don't understand why anyone would.
Gender, to me, is hard to describe, but it's more like an intrinsic sense of being whatever gender(s) one is.
I'm genderfluid/bigender/whatever and I do see myself as both male and female. However, my personality does not change with my gender. It does change just because that's what my personality is like, but it doesn't change at the same time as or according to my gender.

Quote from: DrillQuip on May 04, 2012, 02:55:04 PM
Is it appropriate to think of a type of gender as a personality type? Like how being an introvert or an extrovert are personality types. Or is that not right?

Indeed, gender is a matter of psychology, temperament, a facet of one's personality.

QuoteI understand that sex is your physical description and gender is more psychological. But reading through the topics on the board it seems like sometimes they are so intrinsically connected its not worth making the distinction.

Indeed your understanding is correct. 'Sex' refers to the physiological, biological, anatomical (male/female/intersex/etc.). 'Gender' refers to the psychological, social (masculine/feminine/androgynous/etc.). It is well worth making the distinction between the two terms.

QuoteI call myself gender-fluid, because I see my interests, personality traits, and appearance as a fluctuating mix of stereotypical feminine and masculine traits. My personality is both feminine and masculine. But I dont see myself as male and female. I am physically female and accept it. Is this the right way to categorize myself or am I mixing things up here?

Of what you've written about yourself in this paragraph, I think you and I have much in common. :)

-Emerald

Quote from: DrillQuip on May 04, 2012, 09:40:14 PM
Edge:
Your saying its more of a gut feeling then anything else?

When your personality changes and gender changes, how do you experience that? I think I understand what you mean, but I'm curious to know more. It sounds kinda neat.

For me, yes, it is a gut feeling. When my gender changes, it sometimes takes me a bit of time to sort out what I feel like because it is confusing (getting less confusing now though). When I am male, I get dysphoria, I want a male body, I want to be referred to with male pronouns and stuff like that, and I think of myself as male. When I feel female it's pretty much the same except I don't get dysphoria. When I feel both at the same time, it's hard to describe. Kind of like a duality except there's only one of me?
My personality changes according to how I'm feeling mostly (independent from gender), but also who I'm around (due to shyness). Technically, it all stays the same. The aspects that are more prominent switch and they mix and match. To use clothes as an example, one day I may dress like a dandy, the next I may dress in jeans and a t-shirt, the next I'll wear something different, and so on. Im pretty used to it since I'm like this naturally.

I hope you don't mind me sticking my nose in here, but this is a very interesting thread.

Quote from: Edge on May 04, 2012, 06:13:59 PM
Gender, to me, is hard to describe, but it's more like an intrinsic sense of being whatever gender(s) one is.

This is particularly interesting, as it's how I also think of gender, quite seperate to personality traits.

To use an analogy based on my own feelings: Your body is a temple. Or, to be more accurate, a house. Your sex is the building itself, the way it appears to the outside world. Your personality is the interior decor, masculine and feminine rooms, filled with the accoutrements of the things you like to do which are associated with either.

To me, your gender is the architect who designed the house. The one with the blueprints. Shouting that it's wrong, wrong, all wrong. The building doesn't match the blueprints, that's not how it was meant to be built! Someone hired cowboy builders who couldn't read and they totally misread the blueprints.

And the architect doesn't shut up moaning about how their masterpiece of design has been totally ruined until one fires the cowboy builders and hires a group of professionals, who set about changing the structure of the house to that which the architect desires. Adding a couple of extensions, changing the dimensions and proportions of the outer walls, and removing that totally out of place external waste disposal unit which Mad Marty picked up from a garbage dump somewhere and rammed in there thinking it would be a laugh. The blueprints clearly call for an internal unit, and while the plumbing is too integrated into the internal structure to be able to change, the architect will be satisfied, barely, with a splice job which allows this internal unit to perform the way it was designed to.

As far as the interior decor goes, it doesn't change. And the architect isn't concerned with it, it's all window dressing, as it were. Superficial. Rooms can be re-decorated on a whim. They're more concerned with the blueprints, the vision of what the house itself should look like based on their design.

...

Perhaps a tad contrived, but that's a close approximation of how I see it.

Quote from: Sephirah on May 04, 2012, 11:39:40 PM
To me, your gender is the architect who designed the house. The one with the blueprints. Shouting that it's wrong, wrong, all wrong. The building doesn't match the blueprints, that's not how it was meant to be built! Someone hired cowboy builders who couldn't read and they totally misread the blueprints.

Is that all it is? Just the dysphoria of having a wrong body? So you don't have a gender (or lose awareness of it) if your house is built right, or fixed up? I would like to believe that... but it's not how most people seem to describe it.

And some trans folks don't seem to experience body dysphoria at all...

Quote from: Sarah7 on May 05, 2012, 12:02:47 AM
Is that all it is? Just the dysphoria of having a wrong body? So you don't have a gender (or lose awareness of it) if your house is built right, or fixed up? I would like to believe that... but it's not how most people seem to describe it.

And some trans folks don't seem to experience body dysphoria at all...

I don't know if that's all it is. That's just how it is to me. Maybe it's something else entirely. But for me, yes, I do lose awareness of it if I'm not thinking about it in a physical context. Like kidney function, I don't notice it's even there until something happens to draw awareness to it, like kidney stones or something. It doesn't cease to exist, I just don't think about it. During meditation, for example, where bodily sensation isn't an issue, neither is gender. It's just fundamentally accepted that I am who I see in my mind's eye, rather than something I have to consciously work on creating, and that's utilized to explore other things. A vehicle for perception, I guess.

I see it as my mental self-image, a blueprint, on a sort of primal level, and that's pretty much all. Call it the Mind, the Psyche the Higher Self, I guess there are lots of different names for it. Masculine and feminine, to me, are different. More akin to the balance of energies, Yin and Yang if you like, which influence the way I express myself, or things I like, but aren't tied to gender. I believe that everyone has that same balance in them. And in some, one is more prominent than the other.

I don't see it as anything social because my mental self-image would stay the same in the total absence of other people. And, if I'm honest, it kind of puzzles me how interaction with others can do that. I mean if that were the case then would I feel the need to transition considering I've been seen as, and treated like a male for the vast majority of my life? I don't instinctively feel that way. So, to my way of thinking, being accepted as, seen as, and treated as a woman does no more to make me feel like one than the years of being subjected to the opposite made me feel like a man. It's something other than that, something internal. I guess social conditioning can change the way you express yourself, shift the balance of masculine and feminine, in the same way that reading style magazines can cause someone to change the interior decor of their houses. But that's not the same, at least to me.

That's largely why my philosophy in life has always been: Don't try to be a woman, don't try to be a man. Just be yourself. Because through your higher self, the core of your being.. inside you already know who you are, even if you don't know that you know.

Others see it differently, and have come to different conclusions based on how they feel, and that's fine with me. I'm not trying to definitively categorise it or anything, just express how it's viewed through my eyes, in a way that enables me to make sense of things. :)

Yeah, sure. They are all separate and different things. But, like most everything in life, there are threads of association that tie all things together as a cohesiveness that brings a reasonable amount of sanity to ourselves. It's just that these threads are different, for different people. But again, it is the difference in how these threads are viewed and used, that make us individuals. Lifes experiences affect our personalities, our view of what our genders are, and our perceptions of who others are.

They are all different things, yet they are all used at the same time to define what each of these things are. It's not what these things are, that define our compassions, it's the recognition of the diversity of the threads that tie us together that do. It's our compassion that ties us together, that brings us closer or farther apart in any given situation.

Lol, we are the Borg, we have been assimilated.

Ativan

Quote from: Sephirah on May 05, 2012, 05:11:45 AM
Others see it differently, and have come to different conclusions based on how they feel, and that's fine with me. I'm not trying to definitively categorise it or anything, just express how it's viewed through my eyes, in a way that enables me to make sense of things. :)

That tends to be how I see it too. The more I reshape my house, the quieter the architect gets... It's becoming more and more exclusively an external thing - being gendered by others... which I'm not always that comfortable with, but isn't anything like the pain of the body dysphoria.

I dunno, it's strange. Gender always seems like ghosts and shadows for me.

It can certainly influence personality, but does it affect personality exclusively? No.

Gender actually does affect your personality on a certain level.
Men are logical & women are emotional.

It doesn't mean that all men are logical and all women are emotional, but a vast majority fit in these two categories according to their gender. Doesn't mean because you're one of them you cannot be the other, but one side is always stronger than the other. It is nearly impossible to be neutral toward these two things.

I'm sure lots of you knows about the MBTI and if you do not I strongly recommend looking into it and taking the test.

If I take my type of personality for example, I am an INTP (Introvert Intuitive Thinking Perceiving) which is a personality type more common among males. My weakest function is Fe (Extroverted feeling) which is one dominant function among females. Even though my personality type is more popular towards males, I still consider myself androgynous (Both physically and mentally). The way I think doesn't really change the way I see myself as a person and I do not think that it should. I do not know if there's one of the 16 types that is more likely to be genderneutral though.

Male or female aren't personality type by themselves, but they can be hint to which one you are most likely to be.

I strongly agree with you that men and women tend toward different personalities. (Note I say "tend." Statements that start "men are" or "women are" provoke counterexample).

It's a lot easier to notice if you don't fit into the traditional mold.

That's rather sexist.

Let's discuss the issues, please.

Gender is not the easiest subject to discuss, especially for those of us who are still finding our way.

Sexism = Discrimination
I didn't not see any of that in this thread so far.

I still think that what I've said makes sense. These aren't rules or anything, it's just how things are most of the time but nobody is forced to follow the stereotypical roles of their gender by any means.
If we take in consideration how we evolved as a specie, we can clearly see these things are true.

Men mostly took care of the hunting while women mostly took care of the children. We simply are this way, we've been like this for a long time and we'll probably stay like this for a while as well. Even though jobs are less gender-oriented than before, and that is great, our genes simply makes us work this way (most of the time at least) and there is nothing sexist about this.

Sometimes I'd like to think that we're all born equal in every way, but it's not the case. Our genes play a huge role on our development and personality and some people are more logical than others, while some people are more emotional than others. There isn't one that is better than the other, because we need both in a society for it to work. I like logic more than emotions, but that is only a personal preference and it doesn't make me hate women for that reason.

Quote from: Edge on May 18, 2012, 04:53:11 PM
That's rather sexist.

I hope not. It's intended as an observation, not an indictment of either men or women.

I used the word "tend" because I agree it's impossible to pigeonhole men being some way or women being another. But I do notice tendencies - that there are characteristics I see more often in women than men and vice versa.

DrillQuip,

I totally agree.  I always had this thought.  I feel that gender is just another variation in human beings.  I don't feel it is the one thing that things are centered around.

I even think that maybe some personality traits are gendered.  Maybe a personality trait can be masculine or feminine.

Quote from: Sephirah on May 04, 2012, 11:39:40 PM
To use an analogy based on my own feelings: Your body is a temple. Or, to be more accurate, a house. Your sex is the building itself, the way it appears to the outside world. Your personality is the interior decor, masculine and feminine rooms, filled with the accoutrements of the things you like to do which are associated with either.

Sephira thanks for sharing this analogy.  It seems really interesting.  However I was wondering what if the building itself has a character of its own, a gender?  Not every building is similar to the other so what if starting by the building the architecture means something to everyone?

I don't understand gender. I understand we have certain hormones and so on. I also know that factually men are generally better with 3d and visual spatial relationships and women tend to better with language. But aside from a few things like that... What exactly is not influenced by culture, etc. I mean the experiment has only been done a few times--- what happens if you rear a child completely outside those things.


--Jay Jay

Quote from: aleon515 on May 18, 2012, 05:59:46 PM
what happens if you rear a child completely outside those things.

Meet me and my siblings. One is cis female, one is cis male, and one is fluid.

Nothing isn't influenced by the environment the being is living in.
The growth of a human goes like this:
- Genes first.
- Environment second.

It's not really the culture that made the stereotypes.
I mean if you would have a small community of 50 people, let's say 25 men and 25 women (with some children here and there) living in the woods. Do you think the community would be just fine if women would hunt for food while men take care of the kids? I'm pretty sure that 90% of the time it would be a disaster unless all the dudes are like Chris Crocker and all the ladies like Buck Angel.

After thousands of years of using this formula (Which wasn't really a trend by the way, most civilizations in the world had gender-oriented roles because it worked best because of how we're made, not because of cultural pressure) we stopped using it because we simply do not need it anymore. We don't live in the wild, constantly struggling for survival, fighting bears and fishing with spears. We do not need gender-roles anymore.

Oriole, that hypothesis has already been halfway disproved. I say halfway because we no longer need to hunt for food and, therefore, we have no idea if it would be a disaster or not or what the women would look like. However, lots of dads take care of their children. I have known several stay at home dads. It is proven fact that it is not a disaster. It is also fact that most of them do not look like Chris Crocker. Not to mention that being a good parent requires a heck of a lot more logic and physical strength than you are suggesting.
Would you mind linking your resources for information about genes and personality? It's a subject I am very interested in.

I have no sources for what I am saying, everything I write are mostly theories that makes total sense to me.

Even if we don't need to hunt for food anymore it doesn't mean that my hypothesis has been ''half disproved''. I know that there are ''lots of dads that take care of their children'', and I really hope so, but what I mean is that a certain gender is usually better at something than the other is.
I'm talking about how we're designed, not what we can or cannot do.

There is the 'issue' between the 'self' and the 'ego' - if we look at gender, forgetting physical sex for a moment.

Some would argue that the 'feeling' as what one is, e.g. male, female, ... is a 'perception of the self' the real self i.e. something quite fixed and independent of our physical sex.

Our 'ego' is trained by our surrounding culture and those expectations that are placed 'into' us. Parents, peers, religion, etc.
If we can not 'feed' (constantly reaffirm) our ego, we are usually lost, depressed, confused, frightened, scared, etc. as we do not seem to please, to fit in with others, disappoint them –not being good enough- etc.

Ego-feeding is what even makes us post here at Susan's. Ego is what makes us desperate to pass, to pass expectations, to pass 'inspection' of what we have been trained to accept as to what is right - and what is not.

The problem starts if the self and the ego do not align. Transitioning is the self, asserting itself, yet the ego will suffer, suffer a LOT in the process.

Gender (brain sex) as I understand it is part of the self, the ego will try and align with our physical sex, - so we fit expectations - of what we are taught (ego training) for physical sex to be "right" – and what is not.

I think gender, brain sex, is as fixed as is physical sex, (along a scale though, as much as is physical sex BTW) and it becomes an issue if the two are not aligned, as the ego will constantly have to 'subdue' the self in order to fit and align oneself.

This BTW, does not only apply to gender issues. If our ego is too much misaligned with our real/inner-self, we have any sort of other issues, which very often require therapy to become more accepting of the needs of our REAL self - as opposed to the TRAINED ego.


I hope this will make some sense,
Axélle

Quote from: Edge on May 18, 2012, 06:07:55 PM
Meet me and my siblings. One is cis female, one is cis male, and one is fluid.

:-) Not exactly a scientific experiment though....

--Jay Jay

I am very wary on a strong belief in genes, I think they are used to explain away people too easily. I also think that believing in genes allows people to not take responsibility for their lives, people can just claim 'the genes did it' and not take control and feel a sense of self-determination and free will.

Genes exist. Whether or not they have any affect on personality has yet to be determined. They are not completely understood yet (not nearly). It's all very fascinating.
So if someone claims that "their genes made them do it" or something like that, feel free to ask for evidence.

How could I say this...
Let's say that you are a tree.
You genes would decide which kind of tree you are.
Your environment would decide how you would grow.

Genes affect our personality in the sense that if we wouldn't have the same exact ones as we do right now, we would be totally different.
Pica Pica, I can understand your point of view, but it doesn't change the fact genes do exist and they have a very, very strong effect on how we work. But I do not think that it is an excuse to say ''the genes did it'' and become a nihilist, actually I've never heard that in my life. It's not used to explain people too easily, because genes aren't 100% responsible, they're not the only thing that affects you and most people don't know the reasons why they are a certain way.

For the ''free will'' thing, I'd rather not talk about it. I do not believe that we do have free will but it is so hard and annoying for me to explain I would rather not.

Quote from: Pica Pica on May 19, 2012, 04:35:50 AM
I am very wary on a strong belief in genes, I think they are used to explain away people too easily.

I can agree with that. I can trace so much of who I've turned out to be to a few moments in my life. Times when I saw something or heard something that changed my whole outlook. Maybe I was genetically predisposed to have my outlook changed in that way, but sounds like a stretch to me.

Quote from: Oriole on May 19, 2012, 06:09:52 AM
Genes affect our personality in the sense that if we wouldn't have the same exact ones as we do right now, we would be totally different.

I can't wait to research it. It's so fascinating.
No, Jay Jay, it's not scientific, but how would one make such an experiment?

By the way Edge, I see that you gave me a -1 reputation point for ''sexism'', I'd like you to take in consideration that I am not sexist at all.
What I am saying is that we are not thinking about thing the same way. Men and women are both equally necessary in a society for more than just the ''reproduction'' factor. I am trying to be realist here, and what I said is obviously the case. I do stand by my words when I say that men are more of the ''thinking type'' and women are more of the ''feeling type'', it does not mean that women in general are more stupid than men.

Even the MBTI says so:
''Demographics of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator indicate that in the United States 65-76% of women prefer "feeling" and 55-67% of men prefer "thinking".''

I know some women who are more of the ''thinking type'', and I know some men who are of the ''feeling type'', but most of the time it is not this way. I know INFPs (Intraverted Intuitive Feeling Perceiving) who are very intelligent and logical, the only thing is that their feeling side is stronger and they are more vulnerable to what they think is offensive but they are also more capable to show empathy to people.

I'd also like to say that I am used to people disagreeing with me, thinking that I am aggressive and narcissistic or something, and I see this ''-1 reputation point'' that you gave me as a little slap in my face because you think that I am offensive.
Know that I didn't come here to fight with you guys, I came here to have legit discussions about gender related stuff.

Quote from: Oriole on May 19, 2012, 07:05:12 AM
I am trying to be realist here, and what I said is obviously the case.

What you have said has never been obvious to me in the society and the world I live in.
The statements about parents were rather outdated and have been proven to be false by reality and logic. You talk of genes, but the theories that you have stated as fact have not been proven yet and you have said yourself that you have no scientific evidence to back up your claims.

Quote from: Oriole on May 19, 2012, 07:05:12 AMI do stand by my words when I say that men are more of the ''thinking type'' and women are more of the ''feeling type''

Quote from: Oriole on May 19, 2012, 07:05:12 AMEven the MBTI says so:
''Demographics of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator indicate that in the United States 65-76% of women prefer "feeling" and 55-67% of men prefer "thinking".''

There is a considerable difference between those two statements.

If it's sources that you want, I'm sure that this article has plenty of them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_and_intelligence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_and_intelligence)

I'm pretty certain than there isn't a considerable difference between my two statements. If there is, it would be nice to let me know exactly what it is.

I will come back and try to explain it later if it is worth it, but right now I'm getting a migraine.

A reminder of Rule 15

Quote
15. Items under discussion shall be confined to the subject matter at hand, members shall avoid taking the other users posts personally, and/or posting anything that can reasonably be construed as a personal attack.

regarding how genes and environment shape one's personality, i read this book written by two tv personalities who've gathered a good variety of studies on this. they only presented the most controversial theories on tv (which caused lots of discussion), but the book is actually pretty sensible (unfortunately i put the book in a place i can't remember where was, so i can't quote any single source)

they presented one study of identical twins where they found that twin who were separated at birth would usually grow up to become ever more similar the older they got (some would even smoke the same brand of cigarettes), whereas twins who grew up together would develop more distinct personalities and tastes. and of course many more studies, even of intersexed and transsexual people

anyway, what i got out of it was that personality is in your genes, but can be tweaked a good deal based on environment. like how twins who grow up together will feel a greater need to form their own identity so they develop different personalities, while those who don't grow up together don't have the same need, so they don't tweak the core they were born with too much. it also suggests that one's personality is highly influenced by the environment when one is young (because of a need to be taken care of, so kids will often do whatever they can to be what they think they're expected to), but this influence weakens as one gets older, and one gets closer to one's "real" personality

i also strongly believe that if something outside of myself changes me in any way, then it's because i'm predisposed for it. since there are other people with the same experiences who don't react the same at all. but blaming things on the genes is taking it a bit too far, since flexibility and ability to conform is also in the genes. the book also presented a study where they found that kids tend to have their own interesting taste in colors until they (usually) at around age 3-4 suddenly learn that boys don't like pink, while girls have to like it, and choose according to this. a couple of years later, when they've established their identity as part of their gender group, they suddenly start to show more integrity in color choice again

interaction between genes and environment is really interesting. the most important reason to believe in genes (at least to a certain extent), is that when genes dictate that someone's a boy, then environment can't do anything to change this. if environment gave this person the wrong chromosomes, the wrong body type, changed his body at birth, he still remains a boy. what part of the genes has to do with gender is still very uncertain, though, and it's probably so complex that scientists will be surprised more than just a few times when they think they've gotten closer to the answer

(anyway, this is just my conclusion from what i've read about it, there may be evidence suggesting otherwise. if you know of any, please inform me)


and now to the op's actual question... i think both gender and personality is decided mostly by genes, but also by environment. gender might be less influenceable than personality, though. they also don't work in the same way and aren't parallel to each other in any way. a cis woman can have the common personality traits of a cis guy and still be female. i'm pretty sure that the same goes for trans women too, but it might be a lot harder for them to show or admit it, since people would start questioning their "choice" of gender

(i hope i don't offend anyone with this, btw. i don't mean to, but i might have written something wrong without realizing)

I am not doubting the existence of genes in themselves, and it is clear that genes and genetics do have control over such things as eye colour and various metabolic features.

But to put genes as the centre of the story of the personality seems such an easy way out of discussing any real social issues and problems, to lessen the importance we place on parenting and the structures of our society. I also don't see much anecdotal evidence in genes on behaviour and personality. It would seem personality and behaviour are more influenced by the people and societies in which we grow up and are around, then the ones we come from.

I think gender has a largely psychological basis, and my own identity as an androgyne springs in a large part from my problems with visual/spacial/3d type skills, that led me to identify more with the feminine than with the masculine - yet not wholly as female, nor not as male.

Ooh! If you remember the name of that book, Taka, please share it? I love this kind of stuff.
I agree, Pica Pica, that genes are not the centre of the story. I have noticed some interesting patterns in my own family though that I would like to study further.
(Sorry for derailing the thread. I like brains and genetics a little too much. Er... maybe we can start a neuroscience and genetics topic else where? Pretty please?)

I suppose you are what you read and at a youngish age I read The Doctrine of DNA by Richard Lewontin, which I found to be a very convincing argument against genetic reductionism.

I just typed in the name of the book to get the author's name, and got this pretty good quote from the piece.

"The transfer of causal power from social relations into inanimate agents that then seem to have a power and life of their own is one of the major mystifications of science and its ideologies."

Taka, that's a really interesting thing you shared with us, I never thought about what would happen with twins. If it turns out to be true (Which could easily be the case considering that it makes sense) then genes are way more powerful than I thought they were. Also it could be purely coincidental but I'm not so sure about that.

Pica, genes aren't an easy way out of discussing social issues and problems, it is far from being that.
If I take myself for example (Again, I hate doing this but I know myself more than anybody else) I was born a little different from other males.
Growing up, I noticed that I wasn't like the average boy physically (Because of genes), so the environment would treat me differently and the way I perceived thing were unique to me (Like they are for everybody else) and it shaped me to the way I am today. That doesn't exclusively start during puberty, but that is where it is the most noticeable.
So, the way I was born + the way the environment influenced me created a path for my personality, these two things really are the only things that make somebody what they are. By environment, I don't mean what it looks like outside, it's everything really. Parenting is part of the environment and it has great influential power on the children. I can even tell why I am a certain way because of how my parents acted towards me.

Now, what I said about myself is valid for everybody else.

Quote from: Oriole on May 19, 2012, 09:03:54 AM
I can even tell why I am a certain way because of how my parents acted towards me.

Me too. My dad's emotionally unstable. :P :-\

But were you to grow up somewhere or among people that regarded your unusual body as part of the natural group called male, then how you grew up and your idea of yourself would be completely different and you may be thinking of yourself as male now.
The genetics would be the same, but the environment would have created a completely different outcome.

Pica, I know what you're saying, and I agree with you.
Our brain tends to remember bad things that happened to us more than the good things. Our parents influences us in good ways most of the time, even though there was a little bit of bad. My dad wasn't around a lot when I was growing up, my parents both being very young when they had me (They were 21) had to work hard in order to be able to pay for all the extra expenses I cost them. I would spend a big amount of my childhood with babysitters or with my grand-parents. But then my parents broke up and I was living only with my mom. The lack of fatherly figure shaped me a certain way, one could argue that I am attracted to men because I am looking for qualities that my father had, but I'm still not certain about this. I use this as an example for the way my parenting had an influence on me and this is the most obvious one to me. (Don't worry about me, I have a decent relationship with my father and I am mentally sane)

If we want to talk about serial killers, we can see clearly that genes and environment are the two main things that shape an individual. Most serial killers come from families that had history with certain problems, it's often schizophrenia or alcoholism. Then the second factor is environment, and kids are the most influenced by their parents. Most serial killer had really bad relationship with their parents, most of them were beaten or sexually abused.
I'm not saying that if you experienced these things you are going to go in a killing spree, it's all about how your genes takes these experiences in the first place to create your personality out of this, but if you have schizophrenic ancestors, you should start to worry a little.

Quote from: Pica Pica on May 19, 2012, 09:02:30 AM
I suppose you are what you read and at a youngish age I read The Doctrine of DNA by Richard Lewontin, which I found to be a very convincing argument against genetic reductionism.

I just typed in the name of the book to get the author's name, and got this pretty good quote from the piece.

"The transfer of causal power from social relations into inanimate agents that then seem to have a power and life of their own is one of the major mystifications of science and its ideologies."

I have not read that book, but it sounds as if it would be a good resource.

I have, however, read about studies of identical twins separated at birth, and how they have amazingly similar lives, despite being raised in different environments. It seems to me genetic controls are a factor.

Quote from: Oriole on May 19, 2012, 09:24:51 AM
If we want to talk about serial killers, we can see clearly that genes and environment are the two main things that shape an individual. Most serial killers come from families that had history with certain problems, it's often schizophrenia or alcoholism. Then the second factor is environment, and kids are the most influenced by their parents. Most serial killer had really bad relationship with their parents, most of them were beaten or sexually abused.
I'm not saying that if you experienced these things you are going to go in a killing spree, it's all about how your genes takes these experiences in the first place to create your personality out of this, but if you have schizophrenic ancestors, you should start to worry a little.

I'm not sure why we want to talk about serial killers, but let's be careful about making associations between them and mental illness. Finding tenuous links in order to explain why someone behaves the way they do takes responsibility away from the individual for the acts they commit, not to mention it adds to the stigma that 'if you have this then you must be a psychopath' which is often unfairly assumed and which many sufferers and treatment organisations are trying to get away from.

Can we get back to the subject of gender, as it relates to personality type, before this train of thought goes any further, please?

It was related because it is one of the clearest example I could use to describe what we were talking about (Genes+Experiences=Personality).
It doesn't mean that you will start killing people if you grew up similarly to a lot of serial killers in history, but I was just talking about the links.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macdonald_triad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macdonald_triad)
You could have all the three characteristic from the Macdonald triad without being a completely crazy person, but it was shown that in a lot of cases of sociopathy that they were often linked together.

We cannot judge someone by the way they grew up or what we know about their ancestry, of course not, but we can have an idea of what they could possibly be like.

Quote from: Edge on May 19, 2012, 06:53:52 AM
I can't wait to research it. It's so fascinating.
No, Jay Jay, it's not scientific, but how would one make such an experiment?

Well not sure it is even possible. If Nobody can really know what the gender of the child is, how do you accomplish this exactly? Remember that parent with the kid where they wouldn't tell anybody what gender xe was? What a big ruckus this caused? It was *very* controversial. And even people who agreed with this premise thought they went too far. But that is how far it would have to go, I'd think.

I am also pretty sure some modern parents raise their kids without a lot of the hang-ups of previous generations of genderdom (sorry just had to make that sentence!!). Actually compare city to small town kids (or red states blue states), and there were probably much fewer gender stereotypes pushed their way even 50 years ago (girls don't... boys don't...). That still isn't our experiment. They've got grandparents, relatives, schools, churches, etc. 

BTW, I saw this thing about transgender children and in one case the mom had fraternal twins. One of them turned out trans and wanted her sister's pink cup. "No, the pink cup is for girls." The youtube was filled with comments on how "bad" the mother (who eventually accepted the girl for who she was-- so she certainly was NOT a bad parent). Not bad, imo, but highly conventional in a sort of rural south way (which I think it was).

As for genes. The genetic influence of anything is interesting, but how much really? I'd guess trans* on any level is more to do with the amniotic fluid bathing embryonic and fetal humans or brain differences very early on.

--Jay Jay

Quote from: aleon515 on May 19, 2012, 11:15:48 AM
Remember that parent with the kid where they wouldn't tell anybody what gender xe was?

One of my mom's co-worker's is doing that. I didn't know it had been done before. What were the results?

Quote from: aleon515 on May 19, 2012, 11:15:48 AM
As for genes. The genetic influence of anything is interesting, but how much really? I'd guess trans* on any level is more to do with the amniotic fluid bathing embryonic and fetal humans or brain differences very early on.

possibly, but even then there are intersex conditions that are result of something in the genes, so why not for trans too?

the book that pica mentioned:
google gave me one interesting result other than the book itself:
A Critique of "Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA" (http://www.humanists.net/pdhutcheon/humanist%20articles/lewontn.htm)
i didn't read the whole thing, but the last paragraph is still interesting to read:
One of the many unfortunate consequences of Lewontin's confused message is that the only sound part of it might well be overlooked. His rejection of the harmful old doctrine that "human nature cannot be changed" indicates that he is at least aware of the fundamental premise of social science. And his warning concerning the foolishness of the currently popular, romantic notion of disallowing any environmental change so as to maintain "harmony with nature" is badly needed. This is the arena where we can really benefit from the advice of biologists, but only if it is based on science and not on personal ideology. However, when Lewontin reveals that he does not yet know the difference between the two, he forfeits all claim to credibility.
even people who believe in the importance of genes don't necessarily deny the effect of society

this is the book i was talking about (norwegian):
http://www.gyldendal.no/Gyldendals-pocketslipp/Dokumentar/Foedt-saann-eller-blitt-saann (http://www.gyldendal.no/Gyldendals-pocketslipp/Dokumentar/Foedt-saann-eller-blitt-saann)
published last year, and thus contains lots of newer knowledge
it touches onto many different themes. genes, environment, parenting, personality, gender, sex, etc...
they also have a facebook group where people post many interesting articles about different things, some in english:
http://www.facebook.com/groups/345285616004/ (http://www.facebook.com/groups/345285616004/)

Quote from: Metroland on May 18, 2012, 05:34:56 PM
Sephira thanks for sharing this analogy.  It seems really interesting.  However I was wondering what if the building itself has a character of its own, a gender?  Not every building is similar to the other so what if starting by the building the architecture means something to everyone?

Sorry for not replying to this sooner.

That's an interesting idea. I have to confess to not having given it a massive amount of thought since often I tend to see my body as little more than a home for my consciousness, or sentience (literally a building, I guess) rather than something influential in and of itself.

Hmm, I suppose it all depends on the individual and the significance each one assigns to the various parts of themselves. For example, by nature I am very introspective. I spend large amounts of time in meditative states which are free from bodily sensations and even awareness. During these times I get in touch with, what I consider to be, the essence of myself. The... part of me which makes me me, as opposed to a walking cadaver, as it were.

In those times, I have a mental self-image of myself, especially when interacting with visualised representations of the various aspects of my psyche, or emotions etc. A frame of reference for interaction, I guess you could say. This is quite seperate and different to the way my body looks, although not entirely. It's hard to describe, it's like I'm my own sister. There are aspects I recognise which perhaps come from the way my body is physically, and years of having to live in it, but it's as though... hmm... it's as though, at some point in the past, something happened which caused my body to develop physically male and my mental and/or spiritual 'everything else' to develop female. I don't know if that was in the womb, before, or after.

The thing about this self-representation is that it requires no conscious thought to experience. It just is. I have, at times, attempted to 'be' the way my body looks on the outside. That is to consciously recreate that image of myself in my mind. And it takes a quite extraordinary effort to do so, because it just doesn't 'stick'. There's no familiarity there whatsoever. And unless I keep up a certain amount of concentration, it ends up reverting back, like a coiled spring re-coiling back to its original shape. It's forced, and often that ends the whole experience.

As far as I can tell, this only applies to the way I see and experience the bodily sensations of this self-image within my mind. I've tried to ponder if it has any sentience of its own, sort of like a Russian doll type thing, but that just makes my head hurt. So the conclusion I've come to is that it's little more than a blueprint for the way my body is supposed to be. According to who, or what, I don't know. The Architect, whoever or whatever that is (I've just realised that's a Matrix reference. Ugh). But it just is whether I want it to be or not.

...

I'm sorry, that's not really answering your question.

I guess that everyone's building does have a character of its own. Although personally I wouldn't call that gender. Perhaps self-expression within the limits of anatomical boundaries is the way I would put it... although I tend to think of it more like erosion, to be honest. The constant weathering away and subtle reshaping of the exterior by physiological, sociological even psychological processes into something the outside world wants it to be.

However, as I said at the start, before all the probably unnecessary waffle... people assign differing significance to different aspects of themselves. And gender seems to be a different concept to everyone. Since I am more of an introvert, I see it as something within myself, seperate from a body that serves only to remind me how different it is to everything else about me. However, for others, perhaps more in touch with, and integrated with their bodies, it means something else. And, as you say, the architecture of the building itself holds more significance in how, and who, a person sees themselves to be.

Or maybe something else entirely for yet other people.

Part of the fascination with us as sentient beings is finding these things out, and seeing how people are different, not just with their buildings but with the way they live in them.

Quote from: Sephirah on May 19, 2012, 05:25:34 PM
The thing about this self-representation is that it requires no conscious thought to experience. It just is. I have, at times, attempted to 'be' the way my body looks on the outside. That is to consciously recreate that image of myself in my mind. And it takes a quite extraordinary effort to do so, because it just doesn't 'stick'. There's no familiarity there whatsoever. And unless I keep up a certain amount of concentration, it ends up reverting back, like a coiled spring re-coiling back to its original shape. It's forced, and often that ends the whole experience.

I guess that everyone's building does have a character of its own. Although personally I wouldn't call that gender. Perhaps self-expression within the limits of anatomical boundaries is the way I would put it... although I tend to think of it more like erosion, to be honest. The constant weathering away and subtle reshaping of the exterior by physiological, sociological even psychological processes into something the outside world wants it to be.

people assign differing significance to different aspects of themselves. And gender seems to be a different concept to everyone. Since I am more of an introvert, I see it as something within myself, seperate from a body that serves only to remind me how different it is to everything else about me. However, for others, perhaps more in touch with, and integrated with their bodies, it means something else. And, as you say, the architecture of the building itself holds more significance in how, and who, a person sees themselves to be.

Part of the fascination with us as sentient beings is finding these things out, and seeing how people are different, not just with their buildings but with the way they live in them.

I hope I didn't chop this up to much, but...this is nicely put.

Thanks Sephirah for the explanation.  I guess for you, you are able to reconcile your thoughts and your body.

For me I am still having problems with my body.  Not all parts.  Only some.  The saying that I am born in the wrong body doesn't make sense to me but some parts I would like to get rid off.

Maybe it is good to start to think the way you are thinking that the inside (thoughts) are important and it is important to take care of the vessel but everyone does it to varying degrees.  For you, you are able to separate between the two and it is not affecting you that much how your body looks.

Thanks for the explanation.

Quote from: Metroland on May 20, 2012, 07:40:35 AM
For me I am still having problems with my body.  Not all parts.  Only some.  The saying that I am born in the wrong body doesn't make sense to me but some parts I would like to get rid off.

I don't see that there has to be a definitive 'this' or 'that' in the way a person believes their body should be, or who a person sees themselves mentally to be, either. That I believe people have a gender 'blueprint' somewhere inside themselves... well, that blueprint doesn't have to be 'male' or 'female'. I don't see why it couldn't be a mixture of both, or neither. Or something outside the scope of either. This mental blueprint, or sense of self, isn't restricted by the binary physical limitations that anatomy is constrained by. It has the freedom to just be. Only when that freedom is curtailed by being integrated into a medium which has inherent rigidy do can the complications arise, be that by virtue of being completely at odds or only partially, the end result is often similar. A need for change.

Quote from: Metroland on May 20, 2012, 07:40:35 AM
Maybe it is good to start to think the way you are thinking that the inside (thoughts) are important and it is important to take care of the vessel but everyone does it to varying degrees.  For you, you are able to separate between the two and it is not affecting you that much how your body looks.

I don't know, I wouldn't say it doesn't affect me that much. Sometimes it affects me very badly, and very persistantly. However this is almost always during times when my awareness is very much shifted into the physical. During those times, things can feel very wrong and unpleasant indeed. Being mentally aware of who you are sometimes isn't enough to combat the vastly overwhelming sensory assault which comes from living and interacting within in a very tangible world. Sometimes it feels like a lone figure engulfed by a violent storm, trying to speak only to be drowned out by the sound of the wind and thunder.

I suppose I've just learned techniques to get back in touch with the 'real' me, as I see it, when that happens. Maybe it is a coping mechanism, who knows.

Anywhoo, I think I've probably rambled on enough about this, lol. I apologise if at any point it seemed as though I was trying to force my views on anyone. In spite of the way I feel about myself, I am fascinated by the different views that everyone else has of themselves, too, and don't see any other as less valid than my own. We're all just trying to make sense of stuff, after all.

Sephirah,

I didn't think that you were trying to impose your ideas and I really enjoyed reading them.

Your thoughts got me thinking about how we view gender and sex (this might be a little bit of rambling of my own).  Why are sex organs given so much importance?  When we say that a person has a penis then they are thinking in a masculine way and when one has a vagina then one thinks in a feminine way.  Why don't we say that about blue eyes and hazel eyes (maybe this is a poor example because eye color is not binary)?  What if once a baby is born the color of the eyes decides everything about them for the rest of their lives.  Kate Bornstein writes in her book "The Gender Workbook" about the idea that a woman having a penis or a man having a vagina.  Could this be accepted?

Quote from: Metroland on May 20, 2012, 10:18:16 AM
Could this be accepted?

Yes.
Why not.
Many already do.
It's really not a big deal.
It's just a penis, just a vagina.
So?

Ativan

Has a manly man with a suite and tie and hoarse voice ever came to you and told you I am a woman?  Not a woman inside but a woman? He goes to the DMV and selects female in the sex box.

I haven't heard anyone who told me this is just a vagina or this is just a penis.  It would be nice to hear that from someone.

I guess it really boils down to semantics. The words assigned to things to express thoughts and concepts. At some point, before the advent of language, there were no words to call somone or something 'male', 'female', 'masculine' or 'feminine'. At some point, someone had to decide what these things were to be called, and why.

Often the etymology of words comes from descriptions of traits or actions associated with the thing in question. I suppose because direct observation is easier to describe than mental abstract. For example, the English word female is derived from the Latin word fēmina (woman), which itself is thought to be derived from another Latin word, fellāre (to suck), which refers to breastfeeding of a child... an action taken by someone with breasts.

Also, the words we use to call things what they are now are sometimes just corruptions and simplifications of older words, or groups of words, that sometimes have more complex meanings. For example, one etymology of the English word Man comes from the Old English word Mann, which itself was gender neutral, and meant simply 'human', or human being. 'Woman' and 'Man' in that particular language both had prefixes attached (Wermann for a man, and Wifmann for a woman).

Perhaps the evolution of language has more to do with the way cultures and societies assign importance to one thing or another, rather than the actual thing itself.

I am no expert in language but definitely it changes with culture and it is good that language changes with our influence on it.

I am not sure though how this pertains to the discussion?

No, probably it doesn't. But it's one possibility with regard to your question of why sex organs are given such importance. How changes in language influence what constitutes the way people view male and female, perhaps originally based on physical characteristics associated with each.

You're right though, it is drifting away from the original subject. My apologies.

Quote from: Metroland on May 20, 2012, 02:31:23 PM
Has a manly man with a suite and tie and hoarse voice ever came to you and told you I am a woman?  Not a woman inside but a woman? He goes to the DMV and selects female in the sex box.

I haven't heard anyone who told me this is just a vagina or this is just a penis.  It would be nice to hear that from someone.

Yes. I don't know if she went to the DMV or not.

I tried to say that as nicely as I could, with the least amount of words.
I hope you took it that way, I didn't mean it any other way. I guess the 'So?' could be taken differently.

Ativan

Rereading some of the posts in this thread got me thinking...

There was a vigorously argued discussion about whether there are traits that are truly male or truly female.

Thirty years ago, I would have argued vigorously that the answer was no.

Why?

Because almost nothing that people said were typical of men seemed to apply to me and a lot of what people said were typical of women did seem to apply. I frequently and vociferously made the claim that men and women were far more similar than people gave the credit for.

I still believe that there's an awful lot of overlap. There's almost nothing you can say about all men or all women, and just about anything you can say about most men will apply to many women and vice versa.

But I could never get anybody to agree with me. And gradually I began noticing the tendencies. More men than women seem to be uncomfortable with emotional vulnerability. More women than men seem to appreciate emotional connection before you got to the point. Etc.

Binaries, all.

Here's what I'm getting at.

To me, as a non-binary, the differences between men's and women's tendencies were harder to see. Because I, personally, was an exception to most of them.

Have other non-binaries had this experience? Having difficulty spotting the differences in the way men and women tend to be because of our personal experiences with gender?

Quote from: agfrommd on May 20, 2012, 08:07:16 PM
Have other non-binaries had this experience? Having difficulty spotting the differences in the way men and women tend to be because of our personal experiences with gender?

The only difference I have ever noticed is that females my age tended to be more vicious, but I later realized that this assessment was false since males can be and are equally vicious.
I didn't even know that people still believed in gender stereotypes until a couple months ago (not including my ex, but he's nuts) and I still can't wrap my head around how. (I also still don't know what all of them are, but the ones I have heard are like...  what the fridge?)

Quote from: Edge on May 20, 2012, 08:34:15 PM
TI didn't even know that people still believed in gender stereotypes until a couple months ago and I still can't wrap my head around how.

Edge, I hope you're not lumping me with those people. I agree that most stereotypes are overstated and riddled with exceptions.

The only differences between males and female tendencies I give any credence to are those that I've seen with my own eyes over the years.

Of course I'm not the most perceptive person in the world, so I may be seeing stuff that's not there. Being non-binary, it was very hard for me to notice even what I have, since the way other males experienced being male and not-female was very different from my experience.

Agfrommd,

I believe that I wasn't perceptive either of the differences.  I didn't understand that I was non-binary until recently and I am in my early 30s.  So maybe you could say that perception is not really my strong suit.  Maybe one the things that made me not see it is that I was always bullied for being feminine so I might have blocked that thing from my mind.

Quote from: Metroland on May 21, 2012, 11:28:30 AM
I was always bullied for being feminine.

I wonder if that is a nearly universal experience of androgynes and TG's born male. I was bullied a lot too as a kid. It didn't help that I was skinny and not athletic and not aggressive enough for it to feel natural to stand up for myself. But looking back, I think some of the bullying had a gender component. I got teased a lot about musical and other tastes that I was too clueless to realize were the sort of things that mostly girls liked.

I am totally confused by the supposed differences.

I think there are supposedly a few things that are really true (or they are nearly always true) men generally have greater upper body strength, women's language abilities are greater, men have better 3D abilities (Though I see some "rearing" possibilities here too. Girls aren't expected to be strong. Boys may not be spoken to as much. More active play that boys are encouraged in builds 3d abilities whereas other types of play does not (I don't know about this, but it seems logical.)

BTW, I was bullied a lot too, but more due to lack of social skills generally. I did play with boys more for a time, so that may have been one more thing. Tom girl traits are too predominant to ever have been an issue, I think.

--Jay Jay

Quote from: aleon515 on May 21, 2012, 10:16:38 PM
I am totally confused by the supposed differences.

I think there are supposedly a few things that are really true (or they are nearly always true) men generally have greater upper body strength, women's language abilities are greater, men have better 3D abilities (Though I see some "rearing" possibilities here too. Girls aren't expected to be strong. Boys may not be spoken to as much. More active play that boys are encouraged in builds 3d abilities whereas other types of play does not (I don't know about this, but it seems logical.)

The biggest difference I've noticed is that men tend to much less comfortable allowing themselves to be emotionally vulnerable.  In the male world vulnerable feelings tend to be something to avoid or overcome whereas in the female world they tend to be looked at as things to share and cherish.

Usual caveats apply: These are tendencies I've noticed, but there are many men and women they do not apply to (though I haven't met many male exceptions). And this might be just my perception, clouded by my prejudices.

I feel like I had to learn this the hard way. At first I was really perplexed that my male friends reacted so strangely to disclosures that my female friends accepted as a matter of course.

Quote from: agfrommd on May 22, 2012, 07:08:32 AM
In the male world vulnerable feelings tend to be something to avoid or overcome whereas in the female world they tend to be looked at as things to share and cherish.

Hey, that's what my ex said, but only the avoiding part. Ironically, by avoiding his emotional problems, he made them way worse.
As someone who is considered female, I can honestly say that, in the female world, it is more common to share, but it is equally common (perhaps more common, in my experiences) to see emotional problems as things to overcome.

Quote from: Edge on May 22, 2012, 09:04:27 AM
Ironically, by avoiding his emotional problems, he made them way worse.

I can believe that.

I used to imagine that the world of men would wake up and realize that all this emotional bottling up was damaging and hard on them and they'd rebel against it the way women rebelled against the restrictions society had placed on them.

I still think it's damaging and hard on men, but I no longer expect them to rebel. I think most men are happy this way and prefer it to the alternative. Being mix-gendered, I think I had a different perspective than most other males, in that I didn't actually like sitting on my feelings.

Quote from: agfrommd on May 22, 2012, 07:08:32 AM
The biggest difference I've noticed is that men tend to much less comfortable allowing themselves to be emotionally vulnerable.  In the male world vulnerable feelings tend to be something to avoid or overcome whereas in the female world they tend to be looked at as things to share and cherish.

Usual caveats apply: These are tendencies I've noticed, but there are many men and women they do not apply to (though I haven't met many male exceptions). And this might be just my perception, clouded by my prejudices.

I feel like I had to learn this the hard way. At first I was really perplexed that my male friends reacted so strangely to disclosures that my female friends accepted as a matter of course.

I agree, though I don't know how it is developed (or not). You know that vulnerability can be encouraged (or discouraged). For instance, boys are often told not to show emotion or cry.

I've heard that guys on T will say that they are less likely to cry or feel angrier, but not sure if this is an expectation or if it is really hormones.


--Jay Jay

Quote from: aleon515 on May 22, 2012, 06:13:18 PM
I agree, though I don't know how it is developed (or not). You know that vulnerability can be encouraged (or discouraged). For instance, boys are often told not to show emotion or cry.

I've heard that guys on T will say that they are less likely to cry or feel angrier, but not sure if this is an expectation or if it is really hormones.


--Jay Jay

Great point about the reasons why.

I've heard that prolactin, a female hormone, encourages tears.

I can speak about my male body. I find it much harder to cry than most of the females in my life. My body just produces fewer tears when I'm emotional than theirs does.

That being said, since I've started dealing with my mix-gender issues and allowing myself to act feminine when I feel that way, I've found tears a little bit easier, and find myself crying a little bit more.

I don't know about the crying thing, but I know that female hormones can cause anger, mood swings, crying at the drop of a hat, etc among other things. Yeah... pregnancy was interesting. Luckily, I don't think anyone goes through those levels of hormones on a regular basis. Oops I think I digressed from the subject again. Sorry. Anyway, I'd say hormones affect emotions, but I don't know to what extent at normal levels.

Gender as a personality type...

Male bodied me went through all the teasing and bullying that so often happens during school yrs.
It was after graduation that I decided that I would be the most manly man I could be. Mistake. Big Mistake.

I bottled up all those feelings that I thought were fem.
I worked my muscles to an extent that I was very physically tough looking for 5'9".
I had a tough ass attitude about everything and everyone.
Only occasionally would I relax around my secret friends, LGBT people.
I volunteered for a hazardous job that required some of the most evil things I have ever done.
I discovered I really had lost remorse or that I didn't have it in the first place.
I was the prime example of that personality type that is associated with being that manly man.
John Wayne was to nice a guy, I was the Marlboro Man with a bad attitude.
I was an extreme example of that personality type of the male Gender.
Gender as a personality type? Yes.

But the rest of the story goes as an inner implosion of emotions that led to a person without much for feelings.
I spent quite a few yrs doing things that others dared not to.
A legitimate way of committing suicide, I suppose.
Then I did graduate to suicide, I was out of options.
Once again I found myself in that nether world between life and death.
It took some extraordinary circumstances that finally brought me back to what I think is reality.
I am back in touch with that child who couldn't be a boy, couldn't be a girl.
I am a somebody again, at least I think so...

I had practiced by observing and role playing to the point of actually being someone I'm not.
It has given me a unique (I think) view of gender as personalities. They exist.
They aren't what you are told or have seen on TV or in Movies.
They are just a little more one way than the other, not by much.
Especially considering all the feelings and emotions and combinations of, that there are.

Ativan

I don't really see gender as a personality type in itself, but rather, there are associatons between gender and personality traits that tend to be true or believed to be for some majority of people.

Some of those associations are learned and/or reinforced at a very early age, some a bit later into childhood, and I'm willing to accept the possibility that some (but not all) may be more genetically disposed or influenced by hormones.

Sarah Fine's "Delusions of Gender" is an excellent and relevant book for this topic.

Quote from: foosnark on May 29, 2012, 12:35:02 PM
Sarah Fine's "Delusions of Gender" is an excellent and relevant book for this topic.

I highly recommend Cordelia Fine's Delusions of Gender! More info about it here http://www.cordeliafine.com/delusions_of_gender.html (http://www.cordeliafine.com/delusions_of_gender.html)

Z

Cordelia Fine, right.  That's what happens when I rely on memory!

Sorry I haven't been participating. I didn't realize people were still replying to this thread, and haven't been to the boards for a while.

Been reading Delusions of Gender for a while on and off over the past few months. It shows a lot about how utterly sloppy some experiments that 'confirm' gender differences are, and that things like stereotype threat can affect people very strongly whether they want to admit it or not. It's learning about things like this that make me very wary of people when they say they're so sure something is true about gender because of intuition or feeling they have. I still like to take in people's opinions though. There's usually something to it even if we dont know what exactly.

I think because of the LGBT movement happening in the country now are going to radically change the way people see gender within the next decade. fembois, butches, androgynes, etc all challenge the idea that a person being male or female means they will be masculine or feminine respectively. Seeing people like this exist makes me feel that acting feminine/masculine and being female/male are mutually exclusive.

I clearly need to read this Delusions of Gender... a lot of stuff like "men are better at visual/spacial" rings hollow for female-bodied me, who is possibly the best at visual/spatial stuff in the house, and the idea that men are less emotionally vulnerable and cry less seems silly too when I think of the number of guys I know that openly cry during movies! Maybe it's part of me being androgyne that I have traits of both but I'm still curious about the *actual* science--of what is more "hard-wired" and what is more cultural.

But yeah that's getting a little off-topic. I suppose the way that gender is perceived outwardly could be related to personality types, especially the Myers-Briggs... I am an INTP on that, which I think clearly mixes male and female, makes sense, right?  ;D But I think that's really a cultural thing, the outward gender thing--not how you feel your gender is, I mean the gender other people think you are. Some things Americans think of as "male" other cultures might think of as "female" or maybe "both"... like in some cultures (and historically), being emotionally vulnerable is not only acceptable but desirable for men.

Quote from: Ariel on May 31, 2012, 11:17:49 PM
in some cultures (and historically), being emotionally vulnerable is not only acceptable but desirable for men.

Where? I'm on the next plane.

Seriously, I'm quite sure I've never heard of a place like that.

Quote from: Ariel on May 31, 2012, 11:17:49 PM
I clearly need to read this Delusions of Gender... a lot of stuff like "men are better at visual/spacial" rings hollow for female-bodied me, who is possibly the best at visual/spatial stuff in the house, and the idea that men are less emotionally vulnerable and cry less seems silly too when I think of the number of guys I know that openly cry during movies! Maybe it's part of me being androgyne that I have traits of both but I'm still curious about the *actual* science--of what is more "hard-wired" and what is more cultural.

I think you can only say, in a scientific way I mean, that there are tendencies towards something. For instance, males have better upper body strength than females. BUT you have females who have awesome upper body strength that is probably higher than an average male.  But that female (and I am thinking of one) is probably on the 95%+ of the range of upper body muscle strength for females. 3D visual skills are most likely a tendency as well. I have no problem whatsoever with this part, but I do still wonder re: socialization and so forth.

One thign that would be build 3D visual skills would be manipulation of toys and so on. Since boys tend to be socialized to play more actively they would have more opportunities to engage their brains in this way. Meanwhile girls will play more with toys that require language (dress up,  dolls, etc.), so girls would tend to engage their brains more in this way. I think you could take each area that they have found difference in tendencies and pull it apart that way. Including upper body muscle strength-- active toys, being engaged with physically as children, etc.

I think there are now enough parents that raise their children in more androgynous ways that you could actually start trying to tease this apart a bit. I played equally with stuff like trucks, blocks, and dolls (actually since my dolls acted out adventure themes, I had action figures. :-))
I feel my 3D visual skills are only poor because I have a learning disability, but again we can't make generalizations on one person.


--Jay Jay

Quote from: agfrommd on June 01, 2012, 08:10:58 AM
Where? I'm on the next plane.

Seriously, I'm quite sure I've never heard of a place like that.

What I can think of offhand (I'm sick, my brain isn't working right) is sadly more historical... I know there have been times that a man's ability to cry was seen as strength.

Quote from: aleon515 on June 01, 2012, 11:26:32 AM
I think you can only say, in a scientific way I mean, that there are tendencies towards something. For instance, males have better upper body strength than females. BUT you have females who have awesome upper body strength that is probably higher than an average male.  But that female (and I am thinking of one) is probably on the 95%+ of the range of upper body muscle strength for females. 3D visual skills are most likely a tendency as well. I have no problem whatsoever with this part, but I do still wonder re: socialization and so forth.

Yeah... honestly with as much as is known about the brain today I suspect we don't actually know as much as we think about what is cultural, what is from other environmental factors, what is genetic... obviously some things like upper body strength are probably genetic but I am thinking more brain-stuff, personality-stuff. But that's part of why I think it's important to let people be as they are, as they feel they are. I think probably by the time we actually understand the brain enough to really know what's what we'll be far enough along as a society to let people be whatever gender they feel they are without problems. I hope so anyway.

Quote from: Ariel on June 01, 2012, 07:25:44 PM
What I can think of offhand (I'm sick, my brain isn't working right) is sadly more historical... I know there have been times that a man's ability to cry was seen as strength.

I hope you are feeling better, and for what it's worth, my brain doesn't always work right even when I'm well!

One significant point in Delusions of Gender that resonated for me. There are more differences between people of (supposed) same sex than between people of (supposed) opposite sex.

Z

so... the book i mentioned earlier doesn't exist in english, sadly

but the tv programs can be found on youtube with english subtitles
Brainwash (1/7) - The Gender Equality Paradox (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ2xrnyH2wQ#)
i recommend watching just to get something to think about, main theme being nature vs nurture
but mind that they're made highly controversial on purpose (in order to create a good debate)
it's pretty superficial, whereas the book goes much more in depth

Going through the video series Brainwash, and I gotta say this stuff is pretty neat. Thanks for sharing.

I will be finishing up Delusions of Gender, and rewatch the video you posted. They talk about the same experiments so it's interesting to compare the info.

you watched all seven episodes?

the series created quite some fuzz over here. it would never have been possible if not for the fact that harald eia already was known as a (often mean) comedian. so him making a series on highly controversial stuff is somewhat less dangerous than if a serious scientist were to do the same. harald has an education in sociology too, but his face as a comedian is so much better known that at the start of the first video you can see that people are unwilling to be interviewed

Ahh, I was wondering why people kept laughing and turning him away when he wanted to talk to them. Well, if nothing else I think this series of videos has turned me back onto the idea that gender is innate, at least in some ways. I watched all 7. Couldn't stop watching. Its really hard to argue with the fact that some people born with ambiguous genitalia are absolutely sure of what gender they are no matter how they're raised. I mean, the day that kid says "Im a boy" they should have backed off immediately instead of putting him through all that.

well, some people are really convinced that gender is nothing but a social construct. you could see some of those crazy peoples in the series... and as long as people think that way, non-cis and intersexed people will get hurt

Quote from: Taka on June 04, 2012, 01:27:58 AM
well, some people are really convinced that gender is nothing but a social construct. you could see some of those crazy peoples in the series... and as long as people think that way, non-cis and intersexed people will get hurt

I'm not sure what it means when people have said that "gender is nothing but a social construct". Could someone explain?

Does it mean that we identify with a gender because of the way people treat us socially? Or does it mean that your gender is defined solely by how we act socially? Or some other meaning?

Please help.

It's another way of saying gender doesn't exist. Its invalidating.

Pretty much what Edge said. I would personally say that gender expresses itself in a lot of ways, and society favoring certain forms of that expression is a social construct. But society doesn't create the illusion of gender. Otherwise I dont understand how some people born with one body just know deep down they're a different gender.

Well if gender is a personality type and someone modifies their physical self to that of other gender but still presents mostly in birth gender then has person modified their personality type?

Quote from: agfrommd on June 04, 2012, 04:22:54 PM
I'm not sure what it means when people have said that "gender is nothing but a social construct". Could someone explain?

Does it mean that we identify with a gender because of the way people treat us socially? Or does it mean that your gender is defined solely by how we act socially? Or some other meaning?

Please help.

Maybe that the whole concept of gender is created in some sort of social imagination? IF children could all be raised completely in an ungendered way then gender would disappear. Mind you I don't believe this. And I think that it implies something we have no way of proving one way or another.  Another thing is that implies that there is no biological impact (brain structures, hormones, etc.) whatsoever. Huh, how could that be?

--Jay Jay

Quote from: DrillQuip on June 04, 2012, 10:25:03 PM
Im sorry, could you say that again? I'm not really sure what you mean.

Are you talking about a situation like where someone is born female, changes their body into a male body, and still acts feminine? Is the question: has that person changed into a male if they still act feminine?

Close.  However if you physically change things that does alter personality type. In your example above if female takes testosterone it will change muscle mass and voice and body and head hair.  I believe these things will influence your personality type too.

.................

Quote from: aleon515 on June 04, 2012, 11:14:06 PM
Maybe that the whole concept of gender is created in some sort of social imagination? IF children could all be raised completely in an ungendered way then gender would disappear. Mind you I don't believe this. And I think that it implies something we have no way of proving one way or another.  Another thing is that implies that there is no biological impact (brain structures, hormones, etc.) whatsoever. Huh, how could that be?

--Jay Jay

I agree that hormones, social interaction, brain structures all influence what we call gender.  If a female were to take testosterone and still present female, it would influence personality type.   Therefore our gender influences our personality type.  If a female lives as a man for one year in our society it will influence "his" personality even if "he" remains what we call feminine.

Hormones influence our personality.

Quote from: wendy on June 05, 2012, 10:52:51 AM
Close.  However if you physically change things that does alter personality type. In your example above if female takes testosterone it will change muscle mass and voice and body and head hair.  I believe these things will influence your personality type too.

I'm not sure I follow the reasoning there. Wouldn't the person's personality be such that it already exhibits post-change attributes? Otherwise why the need to physically change anything in the first place if not to allow for an environment better able to express that which is already there? It seems a bit counter-intuitive to me that one would change the mind to match the body rather than the other way around.

Quote from: Sephirah on June 05, 2012, 11:31:19 AM
I'm not sure I follow the reasoning there. Wouldn't the person's personality be such that it already exhibits post-change attributes? Otherwise why the need to physically change anything in the first place if not to allow for an environment better able to express that which is already there? It seems a bit counter-intuitive to me that one would change the mind to match the body rather than the other way around.

THIS!

Axelle

A lot of things to do with gender *are* social constructs.  Maybe there's a core that is not, and the rest is a web of expectations and associations that gets stuck to it.

But certainly, any individual trait (such as aggressiveness, or technical skill, or nurturing, or particular colors or kinds of clothing or manners of speaking) that people associate with gender, is only a vague statistical tendency and/or a cultural rule, and you can find exceptions and contradictions in other societies or in history.

I do not deny that gender (or in some cases, a lack thereof) is something we feel strongly at the core of our being.  Nor do I deny that for some, there is an overwhelming feeling (or at least a vague feeling in my case) that their gender is not what society tells them it is.

But I believe it forms as we are very young and learning about the world through observing and imitating other people.  Without society, I honestly don't think it makes sense to say gender exists.

You can't explain gender with hormones alone, either.  I have a very testosterone-ish body.  Male pattern baldness visible since age 18, lots of body hair, etc.  But my personality isn't aggressive and "manly" and my identity is androgyne leaning toward feminine and simultaneously leaning toward agendered.  My parents didn't raise me that way and society didn't lead me to it either, yet here I am.

Gender is an emergent property, an epiphenomenon.  It comes from a synergy of things biological and psychological, and doesn't exist on its own without them.  But what emerges from the input may be a surprise.

Quote from: foosnark on June 05, 2012, 12:05:25 PM

But certainly, any individual trait (such as aggressiveness, or technical skill, or nurturing, or particular colors or kinds of clothing or manners of speaking) that people associate with gender, is only a vague statistical tendency and/or a cultural rule, and you can find exceptions and contradictions in other societies or in history.

True.

But I find the more I explore my own gender issues, the less I mind when people associate certain traits with certain genders. I don't mind if women (in general) are seen to have a gentler approach to life or if men (in general) are seen to give less importance to other people's feeling.

What does bother me and get me quite steamed is when the deviation from these associations is looked on negatively. I.e. I don't mind if someone calls my approach to something girly. I am girly some of the time. But don't you dare imply that that's something bad. Likewise, if a woman is assertive, tough, etc., and you want to say that's unfeminine, okay. But don't imply that there's something wrong with that, or that being unfeminine in various ways makes someone less of a woman.

Quote from: agfrommd on June 05, 2012, 12:59:00 PM
I don't mind if someone calls my approach to something girly. I am girly some of the time. But don't you dare imply that that's something bad. Likewise, if a woman is assertive, tough, etc., and you want to say that's unfeminine, okay. But don't imply that there's something wrong with that, or that being unfeminine in various ways makes someone less of a woman.

Very nice.
.......................

Quote from: Sephirah on June 05, 2012, 11:31:19 AM
I'm not sure I follow the reasoning there. Wouldn't the person's personality be such that it already exhibits post-change attributes? Otherwise why the need to physically change anything in the first place if not to allow for an environment better able to express that which is already there? It seems a bit counter-intuitive to me that one would change the mind to match the body rather than the other way around.

Seph brains are dynamic and not static.  We cut grooves in our mind that can be destructive or enlightening.  We do have ability to change how we view things and change our brain.  We are hardwired for what we perceive as "gender" but software can change.   If we want to be part of society then we have to follow "society's" rules.  Personality can change (modify software) by teaching ourselves.  Changing hormones has felt right but it has also modified my brain which modifies my personality.  Also people treat you different depending on your gender which influences your personality.  My birth gender did influence my personality.  Changing my gender also influences my personality.  Hardwiring stays same but software can be modified.

Quote from: wendy on June 05, 2012, 02:23:47 PM
If we want to be part of society then we have to follow "society's" rules.

Umm... why? Society is a collection of individuals. It changes constantly. The "rules" change dependant on where you are, when you are, what people think they know, what they don't know... if no one ever broke the "rules" and did anything different, we'd still all be swinging through the trees in Africa, picking flies off each others' butts. Maybe sometimes, society has to follow "our" rules in order to get anywhere.

Quote from: wendy on June 05, 2012, 02:23:47 PM
Also people treat you different depending on your gender which influences your personality.

Not sure I'd agree with that, at least from a personal viewpoint. Years of being treated like a man, or having male stereotypes applied to me has made me neither act more like, think more like, feel more like, or want to be more like one. And, to be honest, the reverse also holds true. I guess that's just something to do with my own mind, and probably everyone is different, and have different levels of integration of, and association with their personality as it relates to the world around it, be that social or biological. :)

Or maybe I just see personality as something different to most folks. Which wouldn't surprise me, I can be weird that way. I see the brain and the mind as two different things. Probably we're just using the same word to describe two different things. In which case, it's apples and oranges... so forget everything I just said.

Quote from: agfrommd on June 04, 2012, 04:22:54 PM
I'm not sure what it means when people have said that "gender is nothing but a social construct". Could someone explain?

Does it mean that we identify with a gender because of the way people treat us socially?

basically that. a social construct is something which wouldn't exist unless that particular society made it up
some sociologists believe that all children are born similar and then molded by society, especially when it comes to gender

if you watch that episode i posted, you can see that woman who says that there is no difference at all between the male and female brain, and the reason kids grow up to believe that there are two different genders that tend to have different interests etc is only because of how they're treated by parents and other people in their environment

and as someone said, this is an invalidating thought, especially for transsexuals. if gender doesn't really exist in one's brain, but only in society, then how could anyone be a different gender than what they were treated as in childhood...

Quote from: Taka on June 05, 2012, 04:07:26 PM
basically that. a social construct is something which wouldn't exist unless that particular society made it up
...
if gender doesn't really exist in one's brain, but only in society, then how could anyone be a different gender than what they were treated as in childhood.

Thank you Taka and Edge. Now I feel like I can be a full-fledged member of this conversation.

So what if gender *is* a social construct. (I don't think so, but stay with me).

That shouldn't change how we treat transgendered folk. Unless the whole lot of us are lying, there is something distressing us. It doesn't matter whether it's inate, learned or socially constructed, we're unhappy, and we're real, and that makes our experiences real and valid. I challenge anyone who says my gender angst isn't real (or yours, or anyone's) to look into my brain and prove it's not there.

Basic human RESPECT dictates that even those saying there's no such thing as gender treat our concerns as valid, and ask us what the remedies might be.

Quote from: Sephirah on June 05, 2012, 11:31:19 AM
I'm not sure I follow the reasoning there. Wouldn't the person's personality be such that it already exhibits post-change attributes? Otherwise why the need to physically change anything in the first place if not to allow for an environment better able to express that which is already there? It seems a bit counter-intuitive to me that one would change the mind to match the body rather than the other way around.

I agree.
I'm really mad right now and probably shouldn't be talking until I calm down.
Neuroplasticity refers to synapses and gender is not learned behaviour. If it was, I would be fine being female seeing as I wasn't raised with gender roles and didn't even know they still existed until I started looking into this trans thing. I still can't understand how anyone can believe in them.

Quote from: Edge on June 05, 2012, 04:28:03 PM
I agree.
I'm really mad right now and probably shouldn't be talking until I calm down.
Neuroplasticity refers to synapses and gender is not learned behaviour. If it was, I would be fine being female seeing as I wasn't raised with gender roles and didn't even know they still existed until I started looking into this trans thing. I still can't understand how anyone can believe in them.

Synapses change until we die.  We can not learn without creation of new synapses.  In fact being happy or sad are not real.  Someone takes a pencil and I go ballistic.  Then they give me back pencil and I am happy.  Pencil had no relevance to my life yet I was angry!  Why?  Because I let it bother me.

Gender and autism are hard wired.  We can not change who we are but we can change our responses by learning new behaviors.  New behaviors are changes in our brains and our brains are malleable.

.....................

Quote from: Sephirah on June 05, 2012, 02:48:46 PM
Umm... why? Society is a collection of individuals. It changes constantly. The "rules" change dependant on where you are, when you are, what people think they know, what they don't know... if no one ever broke the "rules" and did anything different, we'd still all be swinging through the trees in Africa, picking flies off each others' butts. Maybe sometimes, society has to follow "our" rules in order to get anywhere.

I have defended people and put my career on line when I did not agree with a decision by senior management.  Sometimes it worked and sometimes I got to look for another job.  I am glad a few people had backbones of steel in trans comminity.  I do not.  "Our" rules mean nothing unless we are willing to lose all and we "bite".

Quote from: Sephirah on June 05, 2012, 02:48:46 PM
Not sure I'd agree with that, at least from a personal viewpoint. Years of being treated like a man, or having male stereotypes applied to me has made me neither act more like, think more like, feel more like, or want to be more like one. And, to be honest, the reverse also holds true. I guess that's just something to do with my own mind, and probably everyone is different, and have different levels of integration of, and association with their personality as it relates to the world around it, be that social or biological. :)

Or maybe I just see personality as something different to most folks. Which wouldn't surprise me, I can be weird that way. I see the brain and the mind as two different things. Probably we're just using the same word to describe two different things. In which case, it's apples and oranges... so forget everything I just said.

I have never felt like a man and I no longer consider myself a man.  However I do not socialize with women so that I do not know how they feel.  I only know how I feel.  I discussed my feelings with one cismale and he wrote me on internet next morning, "I am no longer your friend."  My synapses have changed.  Community told me that happens.  I did not believe them.

I see mind as "spirit".  I see brain and spirit (mind?) as two distinct entities.  My brain is a "drama queen" that will die and needs to feel useful.  My spirit is immortal and my brain serves my spirit.  I have lost ability to "turn my brain off".  My brain runs at full tilt in middle of night.  I can not sleep.  I argue constantly with myself.  I find no peace or solution.

I am Pisces and I swim upstream.  I have read of salmon changing their gender while swimming upstream.
...............

https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php?action=dlattach;attach=18454;type=avatar (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php?action=dlattach;attach=18454;type=avatar)

Seph that avatar is so cute!

I agree with AG on this.  I don't see why the *cause* or *source* of gender identity would invalidate anything, or make anyone angry.

I don't believe humans have any sense of who they are, any consciousness, any idea that their minds and bodies are separate from the rest of the universe at birth.  It develops in the first weeks of life, and continues to develop more slowly and subtly over the next months, years, even decades.  And that includes gender identity.

If you never knew there was a difference between male and female, how could you have a sense of being one (or both, or neither)?

None of this, *none* of it, means that a person won't grow up being told they are a girl but feeling the entire time that they are not; it does *not* say those feelings are wrong or mistaken or should be overridden by other people.

"Gender is a social construct" does not mean that society gets to decide for you who you are.  It will *try*, but it can be wrong.

Imagine if society took astrology very, very seriously.  Imagine it believed and taught that your personality is determined by your birth month.  Imagine it discriminated against people differently based on their sign, and expected each sign to behave a certain way.  Most people just accept this without question, but there are some people born in mid-November who feel like an Aquarius, and other people who don't feel like the whole system fits them at all.  Do these beliefs actually change who you are as a person?  No! (*)  But you cannot be said to have an "astrological sign identity" as an Aquarius if people hadn't invented astrology and perpetuated the belief in it.

(*) conformity is a strong force, and there is some influence to perform as the sign/gender you are expected to, and that *will* change you one way or another -- whether it means you fake it, hide who you are, rebel against it, just feel the stress of it, are attacked and discriminated against because of it, or simply find society absurd for trying to force it on you.

Quote from: foosnark on June 06, 2012, 11:15:14 AM
Imagine if society took astrology very, very seriously.

lol For some reason, I'm reminded of this:
If Homeopathy Beats Science (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVV3QQ3wjC8#)

Class and national identity are also social constructs, it doesn't make them invalid.

Quote from: foosnark on June 06, 2012, 11:15:14 AM
Imagine if society took astrology very, very seriously.  Imagine it believed and taught that your personality is determined by your birth month.  Imagine it discriminated against people differently based on their sign, and expected each sign to behave a certain way.  Most people just accept this without question, but there are some people born in mid-November who feel like an Aquarius, and other people who don't feel like the whole system fits them at all.  Do these beliefs actually change who you are as a person?  No! (*)  But you cannot be said to have an "astrological sign identity" as an Aquarius if people hadn't invented astrology and perpetuated the belief in it.

(*) conformity is a strong force, and there is some influence to perform as the sign/gender you are expected to, and that *will* change you one way or another -- whether it means you fake it, hide who you are, rebel against it, just feel the stress of it, are attacked and discriminated against because of it, or simply find society absurd for trying to force it on you.

What do you mean "if"?  I can not get theme song of Hair out of my head.  I keep singing Aquarius.

I do agree we are trained to conform to societal pressures and it contributes to some in community having difficulty accepting their own gender variations.

Quote from: wendy on June 05, 2012, 10:52:51 AM
I agree that hormones, social interaction, brain structures all influence what we call gender.  If a female were to take testosterone and still present female, it would influence personality type.   Therefore our gender influences our personality type.  If a female lives as a man for one year in our society it will influence "his" personality even if "he" remains what we call feminine.
Hormones influence our personality.

They might but then we know there is much more to it than that. If one were to take hormones wouldn't that be the same as a transfemale (MAAB) who has testerone in the veins but is not, in fact, really male. It will certainly have an effect, I wouldn't deny that.

Living as the opposite gender would change you. But it wouldn't make you that gender. Females have lived as male more than once in history. I don't know if they felt they were finally doing what they should be doing. (Joan of Arc comes to mind).

BTW, I don't think that IF gender were a social construct it would really invalidate it. Social class as Pica mentioned has potentially life altering effects (determines how you are born and even if you get enough to eat, in some cases). Race is another one, some people do not really believe there are any real racial differences of any consequences. But no one says it has no effect.

--Jay Jay

ROFL! Edge I love the video. If I was an out atheist with my family I'd be posting that all over my fb.

~~

I think at this point it might be a good idea to compare gender to personality types again. I have read from some magazine articles from Time that an introverted person can be the way they are because of physical factors (such as heart disease causing someone to tire out easily and then becoming more reclusive as a way of dealing with this physical issue)

IF the above is true, would it not be appropriate to expect some people who have a lot of testosterone and energy to burn to be more masculine? And thus their personality type, if you will, to be a masculine one overall?

There's something about thinking of things this way that urks me a bit but I can't put my finger on it. If I take this route of thinking it seems like the concept of 'personality' just describes what someone turns out like because of solely physical factors. Like it's just a result of dealing with the way your body functions. But if I accept a personality type like introverted or extroverted as simply a description of someone who behaves a certain way, regardless of the cause, then is it not appropriate to think of gender in a similar way?

I hope that made sense. Let me know if I sound confusing. I'm really tired right now.

At the moment, we don't really know how much of our personalities are caused by which factors. We are continuously learning more though and it is very fascinating.
My main issue with gender roles is that they make about as much sense to me as homeopathy and I hold them in the same regard.
To be honest, I used to believe in a sort of gender roles. Aggressive and assertive females are very common in mythology not to mention various famous historical figures. However, I realized that is also silly since there are plenty of males who are just as aggressive. I recently learned that, apparently, the current stereotypes suggest the opposite. That blows my mind. I mean, seriously, how?

Quote from: DrillQuip on June 07, 2012, 08:59:25 PM

IF the above is true, would it not be appropriate to expect some people who have a lot of testosterone and energy to burn to be more masculine? And thus their personality type, if you will, to be a masculine one overall?

There's something about thinking of things this way that urks me a bit but I can't put my finger on it. If I take this route of thinking it seems like the concept of 'personality' just describes what someone turns out like because of solely physical factors. Like it's just a result of dealing with the way your body functions. But if I accept a personality type like introverted or extroverted as simply a description of someone who behaves a certain way, regardless of the cause, then is it not appropriate to think of gender in a similar way?

I hope that made sense. Let me know if I sound confusing. I'm really tired right now.

Physical features are calling card for gender and appropriate hormones amplify those features.  If a genetic woman exhibits behavior that might be construed as masculine then she would be labeled a masculine female.  Her gender would still be female but her personality would be masculine.

Behavior tends to dictate a personality; however a physical attribute can cause you to modify your behavior.