Why gender is impossible - a thought experiment
August 17, 2008 by Polly Styrene
http://thegenderdelusion.wordpress.com/2008/08/17/why-gender-is-impossible-a-thought-experiment/ (http://thegenderdelusion.wordpress.com/2008/08/17/why-gender-is-impossible-a-thought-experiment/)
To me gender is not physical at all, but is altogether insubstantial. It is soul, perhaps, it is talent, it is taste, it is environment, it is how one feels, it is light and shade, it is inner music. . ."
Jan Morris
In this chapter I wish to examine how gender - "how one feels" as Jan Morris puts it is always illusory. In other words how it is impossible for a human being to simply know that they are a man or a woman, when that quality is entirely unrelated to physical sex or socially constructed gender roles.
Gender is usually expressed - when it is expressed at all, as a conviction that the speaker is just - naturally - a man or a woman 'inside'. Sometimes the speaker is also regarded as a man or woman by society at large, sometimes they are not. But they are always expressing an inner conviction that they are - just are - a man or a woman.