This is probably the best place to post this, but if there's somewhere better, please move it.
This has been bothering me for a bit now. When other trans people say gender is a social construct, I guess I don't really get it. Gender roles, yes, are a social construct. But gender in itself? I don't think so... because if gender was a social construct, it almost makes it sound like we're choosing to be trans, which isn't the case. And then cis people go ahead and say, "Well, if gender is a social construct, then why do you feel the need to conform yourself to said constructs because your birth sex doesn't match them?" and then they accuse us of trying to enforce gender roles. It bugs me, because I could care less about gender roles, I just wish I was born in a male body. (And yes, I understand 'born in the wrong body' doesn't apply to everyone, but it does apply to me.)
I feel like what makes the most sense is that our brains were hardwired this way before birth, and I'm pretty sure estrogen/testosterone levels have a play in gender identity as well.
How is gender a social construct? I just can't wrap my head around the concept.
I'd like to see a discussion on this. Do you think gender is a social construct? Why or why not?
I agree with everything you said 100%. "Gender as a social construct" is so far outside my experience of reality that someone saying that might as well be an alien from another dimension. Like many things though I think that people unthinkingly repeat the idea because they heard it somewhere and it sounds PC.
Sapere Aude
What you say is true, but I think where things get a bit confused and the wires are crossed in the overall argument for one or the other is that, even though gender is not a construct but gender roles are, we still tend to also adopt many of the social roles and presentation as part of our transition.
I think it is better to say "The gender binary is a social construct." And to be specific, it is a Judeo-Christian social construct. There are multiple examples of non Christian societies in the world that have long standing traditions of recognizing other genders and roles, and not just American Indian tribes. There are tribes in Asia as well, including one Malaysian tribe that recognizes four distinct genders.
Gender is biological and as in any biological system, there is quite a bit of variability and some overlap between the defined boundaries. Two genders is fine, but there is not a real sharp cutoff between the two. Those societies that define more than a binary tend to be catagorizing the middle, where some overlap exists. Those who define a strict binary with sharp boundaries ignore the middle and marginalize those individuals who are in the middle.
Hugs
Jen
Gender is usually defined in social sciences by traits and roles. They sometimes add other categories that could just as well also fall under role. Gender identity is which gender you identify with. Both traits and roles are learned social things. There are cases that seem to indicate some people may have an innate sense of gender dysphoria, but in insufficient numbers to be proof. In all probability, gender dysphoric people are both innate, and socially created. Most transgender people have a gnawing desire for greater visibility. Some spiritual reason, some chromosomal thing researchers overlooked, but the reality is that we are people with a gender identity that is in-congruent with our sex, who will have doctors transform us into a facsimile of the sex our gender identity aligns with, with chromosomes of the sex we were. I wish it was something more special, but it's not, and I just accept it and be thankful there are constantly evolving surgical treatments to fix me.
Quote from: Ms Grace on May 19, 2016, 10:01:20 PM
What you say is true, but I think where things get a bit confused and the wires are crossed in the overall argument for one or the other is that, even though gender is not a construct but gender roles are, we still tend to also adopt many of the social roles and presentation as part of our transition.
It's a pretty interesting question - if there were no gender roles and stereotypes, would we be so interested in adopting those roles and presentations? And if not, then why bother? In my case, it's not so much a matter of safety or fitting in (although those matter too, to a lesser degree) - rather, I finally get to experience things denied to me though my entire life. Part of it also is to get acceptance and recognition for who I am.
However, as a thought experiment, if you take away the roles, presentations, and stereotypes, what is gender? It's not sex - that's clearly distinct. Is it brain chemistry? Hormone levels? Is gender simply a physical phenomenon? Can we measure it? If we could map the parts of the brain and say, "okay, if you have this brain you fall into this type of transgender category, and this type of brain you're in this category, and this type of brain you're cis" would you feel comfortable denying someone's identity who didn't fall into their expected category?
One problem with the concept of gender as biological is that we clearly associate certain characteristics with particular genders. So saying, 'gender is a social construct' could be construed to be commenting on gender roles inherent with our understanding of gender. In other words, if gender (however it is defined physically) and gender (however it is defined socially) are inseparable, then wouldn't it still be a social construct BECAUSE we apply gender roles? In that sense, since we cannot measure gender, I think in general when we talk about gender outside of dysphoria we really are just talking about gender roles. One then has to ask, since gender roles are so ingrained in our understanding of gender, when we talk about gender roles or even gender are we talking about the intricacies of the biological phenomenon? I think in most cases the answer is no. There are almost always outside of a clinical setting going to be some assumptions on what gender MEANS, even while recognizing that those are assumptions.
Regardless, I think the inference that if gender is a social construct then we are necessarily choosing our genders is simply showing ignorance of the subject matter.
I am going to have to disagree, insofar as to say society has a role in it, but so does biology. Preferences can be a factor, but those are greatly influenced by society. I think of gender in a few different ways, physically as a presentation of who I want to be perceived as, functionally and socially as belonging in a certain group, and internally as the self I'll be most able to accept. Maybe I'm over thinking it.
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Feminists use this argument (Gender is a social construct) for two reasons. And it is a purpose driven argument. it's based in political rights advocacy, not science.
1) To stop discrimination about and social limitations on female potential.
2)To attack masculinity as we know it, when "performed" (their word) by straight cis males. a form of masculinity they consider "toxic".
It's an argument used to get women to engage in the masculine and men to engage in the feminine.
Like the OP my dysphoria from its earliest manifestation was primarily centered on the physical rather than the social. While there is definitely some overlap and it is not absolute, I have little social dysphoria and have never had any great problem fitting into or performing in a male environment even though it has often felt contrived. Possibly this is due to my life's profession and environment where men and women dressed the same and mostly performed in interchangeable roles. Regardless, the dysphoria has been acute and centered on physical aspects rather than clothing or role. That's why reducing transsexuality to solely a dissatisfaction with socially created gender roles makes absolutely no sense to me. Because if that were in any way true then I should not have suffered dysphoria at all.
Sapere Aude
People need to understand that there's a difference between gender identity and gender expression. It's been proven that your brain is wired to be a certain gender and that no manner of socialisation to the opposite will have any effect on how that person identifies. Also people need to stop and think that what we regard as 'girls' things are made up by our society and just having a girl play with a barbie isn't going to magically transform them into being a girl. The way you socialise your child has no bearing on their identity. Somethings considered for men only in the past are now only for women (tights; high heels etc) and things now considered for women were only allowable for men (trousers; shirts etc). The only thing I can think of which has made a comeback to being allowable for men to wear again are earrings.
Growing up I was made to wear dresses and have long hair. While I'm not totally sure if this made me the feminine man I am today; it certainly didn't make me identify as female. I've thought about the argument of 'if society was more accepting would I want to physically transition'. And I think the answer would still be yes. I want to see a male face in the mirror; not a women's which my brain tells me is wrong. I also need my chest to be flat and my hips to be narrower; again because my gender identity sees that as 'right'. But I'm still going to be feminine because we now live in a more accepting society were I don't have to hide that part of myself.
Every culture has interpreted gender in it's own way. In that sense, gender is socially constructed.
But every culture in the history of humanity has had two binary genders (and a few non-binary folk who don't fit cleanly within their boundaries). The (generally) binary nature of gender and the drive for (most) people to identify with their gender appears to be biologically programmed.
Does that help sort it out?
Quote from: Cynthia Johnson on May 19, 2016, 11:19:28 PM
Gender is usually defined in social sciences by traits and roles.
Social sciences are primarily descriptive sciences. With the exception of psychology experimentation is too unwieldy to be applied to their subjects. Because psychology's subject is the individual and because it overlaps with psychiatry it can be more experimental, but basically it's at the stage that biology was before Watson and Crick. It doesn't mean that there's no physical component to gender, there's evidence that there is, it just means we can't point to a location or mechanism yet.
I think of it as a mixture of "biology" and context. Gender roles are a social construct, and the are continually changing, but we as people still have to function in a society with that construct, and so we have to find ways to use it that aren't negative. Acknowledging that much of what we think of as gender is an opt-in opt-out situation would be pretty good for most people...
Also the answer to "Well, if gender is a social construct, then why do you feel the need to conform yourself to said constructs because your birth sex doesn't match them?" is: Why do you feel the need to conform to said contructs just because your ~birth sex~ DOES match them? If cis people want trans people to stop 'enforcing' gender roles, then they need to work harder for a society that doesn't require them. Instead of just shutting us down and continuing to allow the arbitrary gendering of clothing, roles and objects
Quote from: CarlyMcx on May 19, 2016, 10:26:30 PM
I think it is better to say "The gender binary is a social construct." And to be specific, it is a Judeo-Christian social construct. There are multiple examples of non Christian societies in the world that have long standing traditions of recognizing other genders and roles, and not just American Indian tribes. There are tribes in Asia as well, including one Malaysian tribe that recognizes four distinct genders.
also worth remembering that the British/ European colonisation of those places discouraged the expression of extra binary genders, e.g. the anti-castration laws in India that were introduced by the British Raj
Quote from: MisterQueer on May 19, 2016, 08:20:32 PM
This is probably the best place to post this, but if there's somewhere better, please move it.
This has been bothering me for a bit now. When other trans people say gender is a social construct, I guess I don't really get it. Gender roles, yes, are a social construct. But gender in itself? I don't think so... because if gender was a social construct, it almost makes it sound like we're choosing to be trans, which isn't the case. And then cis people go ahead and say, "Well, if gender is a social construct, then why do you feel the need to conform yourself to said constructs because your birth sex doesn't match them?" and then they accuse us of trying to enforce gender roles. It bugs me, because I could care less about gender roles, I just wish I was born in a male body. (And yes, I understand 'born in the wrong body' doesn't apply to everyone, but it does apply to me.)
I feel like what makes the most sense is that our brains were hardwired this way before birth, and I'm pretty sure estrogen/testosterone levels have a play in gender identity as well.
How is gender a social construct? I just can't wrap my head around the concept.
I'd like to see a discussion on this. Do you think gender is a social construct? Why or why not?
I never thought of it that way. I used to blame gender in and of itself for the social construct until I read your post here. But you wisely narrowed it down to the roles. This makes perfect sense and explains things much better. Thank you for sharing this with us! :)
I'm inclined to say, "you don't have to agree that 'gender is a social construct'." Of course, you don't have to agree that the Earth revolves around the sun, either. But people who spend large chunks of their lives to studying either tend to agree with those statements.
The thing is, most of the things we talk about are social constructs. E.g., languages are social constructs. My own, highly non-technical definition of a social construct is that it's something that only exists because humans agree/believe/act like it exists. English exists only to the extent that people speak it, read it, write it.
A social construct can be one's identity. Millions of USAans identify as American. They consider it an essential part of who they are and they feel very uncomfortable when they are asked to hide or even just tone down any part of their American-ness. I don't particularly identify with being "American," yet when I lived in Europe for several years, I kept running into the myriad ways that Americanness had become a part of my self (the way Strontium-90 becomes a part of one's bones.) Yet "American" didn't exist 500 years ago, and students of American history and literature have traced how people in what is now the USA created and constructed this concept.
The thing is, people start out without labels. They're just the way they are. (If you've had a couple of children, you've noticed how different they can be right from the minute they pop out.) But then society comes along and says "this is a boy and boys are like this, and that is a girl and girls are like that." And that everyone is either one or the other (not both, not neither, not sort-of anything. You're all M or you're all F.) And this indoctrination starts at birth. They learn What Girls Are the way they learn What Cats Are. Plus, they learn what society says they are. But if there's a conflict between the way a child actually is (something the child can experience directly) and what they say their assigned gender is, then they can either (a) try to turn themselves into something they aren't or (b) take on the entire adult world and tell them they're wrong.
What's interesting to me is the ever-growing number of people who identify as non-binary. To me, this is, if anything, evidence for the arbitrariness and thus the constructedness of gender. If "being a boy" and "being a girl" were something built into people, rather than a classification based on socially defined concepts, we wouldn't expect to find people who are genderfluid, agender, mix-and-match, etc. I think there have always been people like that, they just had to describe themselves in the terms and fit into the roles society supplied them with, while knowing that those terms didn't really fit.
Many of the gendered behaviours associated with male and female are hormonally and anatomically induced in addition to socially. The idea that it's nothing but a social construct is the basis of virtually all TERF arguments.
In simple terms and using "you" to describe any trans, their thinking goes:
Your gender is a social construct---> Our society is a Patriarchy ---> Your gender is a Patriarchal construct ---> The Patriarchy oppresses women ---> You oppress women.
I discussed in another thread how to be more exact, gender expression is different from roles but socially constructed to a large degree, so are gender roles. They are about communication and expectation and those vary by society. Gender itself is separate from the social system.
If i'd grown up isolated and naked on a tropical island with a small bunch of people (that sounds good particularly if there are mangos but i digress), I'd still feel feminine. How i express that and what the groups expectations of that would be, may be different.
When i was first married to my lovely spouse and identifying as a feminine leaning male, i caught a lot of kidding from friends because she was usually the one to drive when we went somewhere together. They were like...i would never let my woman drive, makes me too nervous etc. Men do the driving etc. Such a strange expectation but it exists in most male/female couples we know.
Oh and i loved to ask for directions ;D (before GPS)
We are only whom society allows us to be...
Paula, X.
Quote from: JMJW on May 20, 2016, 11:39:59 AM
Many of the gendered behaviours associated with male and female are hormonally and anatomically induced in addition to socially. The idea that it's nothing but a social construct is the basis of virtually all TERF arguments.
In simple terms and using "you" to describe any trans, their thinking goes:
Your gender is a social construct---> Our society is a Patriarchy ---> Your gender is a Patriarchal construct ---> The Patriarchy oppresses women ---> You oppress women.
Yeahhhh, a few things:
1) I wouldn't take TERFists to represent feminism. This and your other post paint a horrible picture of feminism through an over-simplified and extremely biased representation. For example, rather than attacking people for being 'male,' feminists tend to attack the IMPOSITION of male roles, such as bullying other men for not being 'manly' enough.
2) What are these behaviors that are hormonally and anatomically induced? Isn't that an even worst argument against trans people?
3) There is a logical fallacy here: TERF might use that argument to support their views, but those arguments don't necessitate those views. Hence there being radical feminists who are not TERFists. The implication that if you believe gender is a social construct then you support TERFism is absolutely incorrect.
Asche, that's actually something I was going to talk about in a follow-up post, but then deleted it because I found myself having to write an apology at the end :P
Basically, you can separate 'gender' into two things: the biological phenomenon, and our classification of people based on that gender phenomenon. That classification (i.e., our understanding of genders) necessarily is a social construct because we're the ones who created the classification. Male, female, bigender, agender, neutrois, third-gender, etc. are all names we applied to the biological phenomenon - there's nothing that we know of in the biology that says that they are distinct to the point where they are complementary sets of people.
For example, an agender individual could identify strongly with being agender. But what about the agender individual who, if they had to choose, would say they identify more with female than male? Or who might identify slightly with bigender? I think we can all agree that the biological phenomenon creates a spectrum - there's no one way to be agender, just like there's no one way to be a trans woman. So why treat our classifications as an absolute in the natural world?
And I suppose I'll add the clarification that caused me to delete the original post: I am in no way denying anyone's identity, much less my own.
Yeahhhh, a few things:
Quote
1) I wouldn't take TERFists to represent feminism.
I didn't. Which is why I called them TERFS and not just feminists. First post was about feminists, second was about TERFS.
However: It is apparent that both terfs and most non terf feminists believe gender is just a social construct, constructed in a patriarchy that oppresses women and privileges men by marginalizing women. TERFS just take the next short move of saying transwomen too are patriarchal oppressors by claiming the very title and identity of "woman" which is viewed as the ultimate in marginalization and invasiveness. Which if you already believe in the two underlying axioms, isn't that radical of a conclusion.
Quote
For example, rather than attacking people for being 'male,'
I didn't say that. I said and I quote:
Quote2)To attack masculinity as we know it, when "performed" (their word) by straight cis males. a form of masculinity they consider "toxic".
Attacking the current masculinity of straight cis males is not the same as attacking them for being male.
Quote2) What are these behaviors that are hormonally and anatomically induced?
The kind of behavioural changes transwomen report when going on E, the kind transmen report when going on T. They vary with the individual. As for anatomical, you have to abandon the idea of feminized brains in transwomen and masculinized brains in transmen to abandon the idea of anatomical influence on behaviour.
Quote
Isn't that an even worst argument against trans people?
Nope.
Quote
3) There is a logical fallacy here: TERF might use that argument to support their views, but those arguments don't necessitate those views. Hence there being radical feminists who are not TERFists. The implication that if you believe gender is a social construct then you support TERFism is absolutely incorrect.
You're making implications out of statements I didn't make.
Quote from: MisterQueer on May 19, 2016, 08:20:32 PM
This is probably the best place to post this, but if there's somewhere better, please move it.
This has been bothering me for a bit now. When other trans people say gender is a social construct, I guess I don't really get it. Gender roles, yes, are a social construct. But gender in itself? I don't think so... because if gender was a social construct, it almost makes it sound like we're choosing to be trans, which isn't the case. And then cis people go ahead and say, "Well, if gender is a social construct, then why do you feel the need to conform yourself to said constructs because your birth sex doesn't match them?" and then they accuse us of trying to enforce gender roles. It bugs me, because I could care less about gender roles, I just wish I was born in a male body. (And yes, I understand 'born in the wrong body' doesn't apply to everyone, but it does apply to me.)
I feel like what makes the most sense is that our brains were hardwired this way before birth, and I'm pretty sure estrogen/testosterone levels have a play in gender identity as well.
If gender was a social construct all of us could think ourselves out of being trans right now by telling ourselves it's just a silly social construct we can ditch. Now I'd love to be able to do that and not have to transition. But I can't, because postmodern ideas about gender and the body don't account at all for the fact that some aspects of gender are demonstrably innate.
QuoteHow is gender a social construct? I just can't wrap my head around the concept.
I'd like to see a discussion on this. Do you think gender is a social construct? Why or why not?
It's a social construct in the minds of people who want to believe it is a solely a social construct and want to ignore that there are cases, many cases, of people who need to express their innate gender and often die trying. They will happily ignore the cases in which socialization of a person as a particular gender failed spectacularly, because they had an innate one that could not be suppressed.
Some aspects of gender expression are socially constructed yes. But by no means all. Trans people are pretty much proof that there is something deeper than "nurture" at work in gender.
I would say that there's biological component to gender as well as social component to gender. My evidence? You have transgender individuals, cis-by-default individuals, and strongly feeling cis people along with my other evidence which is people having different definitions of gender. There's also brain researches, but at the moment, mosaic model is gaining ground while male/female binary is losing ground, but male/female binary model still is the best model at the moment. As far as behaviors goes, that's a lot more controversial since gender similarities hypothesis is just as great as the gender difference hypothesis since conclusions is entirely dependent on the method you apply to find the degree of differences between the binary gender. The strongest evidence regarding behaviors involves 23+ million samples, and it has concluded there are very little difference between males and females, and I have yet to see any challenges to the study. All of those support the idea that gender has a social, and biological component.
Also, I am cis-by-default or cis-genderless or even agender with cis-identity, but my reason to why I identify that way has nothing to do with socialization or feelings or anything, it mainly has to do with the least assumption approach which I find works when it applied to me. It's not an approach that works for everybody. In fact, every approach to identity is problematic. Think of every approach and question them, you'll see what I mean. Furthermore, that only shows that gender has a lot to do with social, and biological component seeing as people have different definitions of gender and different approach to identity.
Quote from: Newfie on May 20, 2016, 01:15:49 AMHowever, as a thought experiment, if you take away the roles, presentations, and stereotypes, what is gender? It's not sex - that's clearly distinct. Is it brain chemistry? Hormone levels? Is gender simply a physical phenomenon? Can we measure it? If we could map the parts of the brain and say, "okay, if you have this brain you fall into this type of transgender category, and this type of brain you're in this category, and this type of brain you're cis" would you feel comfortable denying someone's identity who didn't fall into their expected category?
You will still have people who will identify as trans under hypothetical egalitarian earth. Brain-body map has a very powerful influence on one's identity.
We are just like other women we tend to conform to the roles society has evolved for us. We act like women because we are women.
Quote from: Reptillian on May 20, 2016, 06:54:22 PM
You will still have people who will identify as trans under hypothetical egalitarian earth. Brain-body map has a very powerful influence on one's identity.
I feel that you misunderstood my thought experiment. I never said we wouldn't have trans people if gender roles, presentations, and stereotypes were eliminated, just that the categories we created are necessarily social constructs. After all,
we created them. We don't have a way of deterministically mapping people to genders, and even if we could map everything that causes the biological phenomenon of transgender, our grouping of people into categories would still be subjective.
Quote from: Newfie on May 21, 2016, 12:16:38 AM
I feel that you misunderstood my thought experiment. I never said we wouldn't have trans people if gender roles, presentations, and stereotypes were eliminated, just that the categories we created are necessarily social constructs. After all, we created them. We don't have a way of deterministically mapping people to genders, and even if we could map everything that causes the biological phenomenon of transgender, our grouping of people into categories would still be subjective.
I don't disagree with your argument, but gender isn't special. All categorisation is like that. Every distinction humans make is arbitrary with grey areas at the edges. Categorizing is how we attempt to make sense of the world but it's never a perfect map.
Quote from: Asche on May 20, 2016, 10:51:59 AM
I'm inclined to say, "you don't have to agree that 'gender is a social construct'." Of course, you don't have to agree that the Earth revolves around the sun, either. But people who spend large chunks of their lives to studying either tend to agree with those statements.
The thing is, most of the things we talk about are social constructs. E.g., languages are social constructs.
Much of the structure of human language is constrained by biology. Stephen Pinker has a number of books about how the cognitive revolution changed our understanding of language (and many other aspects of human behavior, including gender), and I think it's apparent that looking at something like this as being either a social construct or biological is naive. As with language, some aspects of gender are a social construct, others aren't.
It works the same way with sexual orientation. There is a certain extent to which socialization determines the kind of features we find attractive; at the same time, an androphile is attracted to men because of biology, and this is not a social construct.
So with gender, yeah, many expectations about gender expression and the roles that men and women play are culture-dependent and pretty arbitrary, but many scientists today believe that gender identities themselves are ultimately determined by biology.
No one is willing to bring up the point of how gender and sexual orientation is relative to each individuals except myself... And yes, people have different definitions of gender, and sexual orientation, and to a extent those influence their identities.
Quote from: Kelseyness on May 21, 2016, 08:46:12 AM
Stephen Pinker has a number of books about how the cognitive revolution changed our understanding of language (and many other aspects of human behavior, including gender), and I think it's apparent that looking at something like this as being either a social construct or biological is naive.
I would be leery of regarding Stephen Pinker as an authority. I'm sure some of what he writes is correct, but I've read some stuff of his where what he said was so far off from what most people in the field say that I couldn't take him seriously. Unfortunately, he simply gives what he thinks is the right answer and you either believe it because he says so or you write him off.
Quote from: Kelseyness on May 21, 2016, 08:46:12 AM
So with gender, yeah, many expectations about gender expression and the roles that men and women play are culture-dependent and pretty arbitrary, but many scientists today believe that gender identities themselves are ultimately determined by biology.
Given the state of the field and the enormous difficulty of avoiding being led astray by one's socially ingrained prejudices and assumptions, I wouldn't take
any of "what scientists believe" too seriously. The history if the field is littered with cultural prejudices presented as scientific fact.
Quote from: Dee Marshall on May 21, 2016, 04:39:01 AM
I don't disagree with your argument, but gender isn't special. All categorisation is like that. Every distinction humans make is arbitrary with grey areas at the edges. Categorizing is how we attempt to make sense of the world but it's never a perfect map.
I don't disagree necessarly, but that's why in the original post I drew the distinction at complementary sets for categorization. As it stands, our understanding of gender identities overlaps significantly. To take an extreme case in the other direction, we can categorize geometrical shapes by the number of points they have - they are complementary sets.
I say that gender is a social construct in particular because it seems to be almost entirely gray area. What we do as a society is pick apart those gray areas and classify them, but it's extremely subjective where we draw the boundaries.
To bring it back to the biology, there are quite a few transgender people who visit this site. If you looked at our brains, you'd see we each look very different. If we limit our scope to the theoretical gender markers, we'd expect to still have different brains. If you looked between groups within a gender classification we'd expect that they'll be different, and if you compare between gender classifications, we'd expect that they'd be different. They'll have similarities too, of course, given a large enough sample size. But what are the chances that our gender classifications actually match the closeness of brain composition, much less with enough separation for them to be distinct? If you could show that it did, you'd win a Nobel prize in medicine, and possibly the peace prize as well.
And yet some areas of gender are absolutely concrete and every human society knows it. Biological women for example are the only gender who can successfully gestate and birth children. There is no grey area here. Society knows you typically must have a male and a female with working parts to create offspring. Hasn't been a grey area there for millions of years. In the future there might be biological male birth or artificial wombs or same sex couples routinely having kids by medical intervention or whatever but for now, this is realistic.
Most of the traditional cultural constructs surrounding gender are informed by biology and human generalizations of biology. The term gender itself is a generalization. People generalize stuff because it's been efficient for them to do so in the past I guess.
Quote from: T.K.G.W. on May 22, 2016, 04:55:27 AM
And yet some areas of gender are absolutely concrete and every human society knows it. Biological women for example are the only gender who can successfully gestate and birth children. There is no grey area here. Society knows you typically must have a male and a female with working parts to create offspring. Hasn't been a grey area there for millions of years. In the future there might be biological male birth or artificial wombs or same sex couples routinely having kids by medical intervention or whatever but for now, this is realistic.
Most of the traditional cultural constructs surrounding gender are informed by biology and human generalizations of biology. The term gender itself is a generalization. People generalize stuff because it's been efficient for them to do so in the past I guess.
Um... are you sure you know what the word 'gender' means? I ask because the ability to have children is entirely irrelevant. Also, that was pretty offensive, as you just basically denied many of our genders on the basis of our genitals.
This was very interesting to read so far! It's nice to see in-depth discussions and explanations from both sides of the debate.
Quote from: T.K.G.W. on May 22, 2016, 04:55:27 AM
And yet some areas of gender are absolutely concrete and every human society knows it. Biological women for example are the only gender who can successfully gestate and birth children. There is no grey area here. Society knows you typically must have a male and a female with working parts to create offspring. Hasn't been a grey area there for millions of years. In the future there might be biological male birth or artificial wombs or same sex couples routinely having kids by medical intervention or whatever but for now, this is realistic.
Most of the traditional cultural constructs surrounding gender are informed by biology and human generalizations of biology. The term gender itself is a generalization. People generalize stuff because it's been efficient for them to do so in the past I guess.
Gender and biological sex are very different things. An assignment is made and pink or blue onesies are purchased after the doctor says " Congrats Amy you have a baby girl " or via the ultrasound before hand, because that is all people have to assign from.
Imagine a world where everything is gender neutral until Amy's baby has the opportunity to begin expressing himself/herself. Either gender may result, or some place on the spectrum.
Quote from: MisterQueer on May 19, 2016, 08:20:32 PM
This has been bothering me for a bit now. When other trans people say gender is a social construct, I guess I don't really get it. Gender roles, yes, are a social construct. But gender in itself?
....
I feel like what makes the most sense is that our brains were hardwired this way before birth, and I'm pretty sure estrogen/testosterone levels have a play in gender identity as well.
How is gender a social construct? I just can't wrap my head around the concept.
I'm sure I don't see it as a 'debate' per se because that sets up the whole 'who's right' thing.
The way I first heard the distinctions expressed, 20 years ago btw, was:
Gender is not the same as biological sex. I still believe this and it's my way of thinking about all aspects of gender, social roles, visual and other expression etc.
So I think you're sort of misstating the concept as I understand it. Both gender and biological sex identity have a lot of complexities and we've (IMO) come a long way in not conflating the myriad aspects. However they are still conflated in so many ways:
MTFs may physically pass and yet get clocked for any variety of expression, habitual assumption of male privilege etc etc etc. There's a lot of re-learning that goes into successfully passing which is mostly about gender-roles and gender-expression.
'Gender' as a concept therefor to me bridges roles, brain wiring .... a lot of things, most of which are yes, social constructs.
Biological sex seems more straightforward, albeit certainly not black and white.
As far as brain wiring, as far as I know that's all set in-utero. These were at first very unpopular studies and yet follow-on science seems to bear out the initial findings. I think most agree our brains respond to hormone levels - mine certainly has, however the innate wiring as far as I know isn't affected. That said, the brain is a hugely mutable system so saying anything with certainty ain't easy.
How I experience this is complex and yet simple. I'm a classic late-onset and learned a LOT of male behaviors to pass as male, now I'm un-learning those ... well have been for 20 years now.