I hope no one goes ape ->-bleeped-<- on me for asking this but a friend and I were talking about different aspects of what genderqueer may or may not be and it was commented that even ci-people, for the most part, have a feminine side and a masculine side. They may not connect to it as strongly as we do but when a ci-male cries at a chick flick (and they do) is that boardering genderqueer if they allow themselves the right to cry ? or allows themselves to take a bubble bath and enjoy it ?
Are we just a tad more 'into' or 'acknowledging of' the yin/yang of ourselves ? I was also thinking that since it takes the DNA of a man and woman to form a child, maybe every single person in the world has the potential of being male/female if they open themselves up to that possibility, like they dont shove one gender down because their body reflects only one..... usually ..... not always.
What do you guys think ?
I think the first thing I'd point out is that a guy crying isn't a guy being feminine. Crying isn't an exclusively feminine thing. The whole "boys don't cry" is a social construction. Some guys were taught that, some weren't, so saying that a guy crying at a chick flick is bordering on genderqueer isn't right and that's because genderqueer is a GENDER and crying is just a human BEHAVIOR, a natural process that everyone is capable of.
People who are genderqueer or androgyne or whatever term you want to use are not male/female gendered. Some people are born cisgendered, some people aren't. I don't think someone can change their gender identity just by opening themselves to it...rather it's more that people who "change" their identity weren't the first gender to begin with. Learning and accepting that your gender and physical sex don't match up can be difficult, so I just don't buy that someone can change their identity or become male/female just by opening themselves up to it.
Having said that, I do think it's possible for someone to have sex with anyone, in spite of their orientation. I chose that because I feel like sex is one of those things we can open our minds to. Sex is about feeling good, gender is who you are. I don't know if that makes sense (and no, I'm not equating gender and sexuality before anyone says that I am), but it does in my head. :)
Quote from: Jaimey on March 22, 2011, 09:34:59 PM
I think the first thing I'd point out is that a guy crying isn't a guy being feminine. Crying isn't an exclusively feminine thing. The whole "boys don't cry" is a social construction. Some guys were taught that, some weren't, so saying that a guy crying at a chick flick is bordering on genderqueer isn't right and that's because genderqueer is a GENDER and crying is just a human BEHAVIOR, a natural process that everyone is capable of.
Would you be able to give a better example of something considered feminine then?
It's very difficult to winkle out the essentials of what a gender is, and what a gender role is, and what's just a gender expectation...or even worse, a gender stereotype.
It's something that's very hard to pin down, isn't it?
Crying at a sad movie isn't an emotionally reserved thing to do. Male gender expectations and stereotypes are that of reserved emotionality.
So you can be an otherwise ordinary hetero cisguy who opens up the waterworks at sad movies. *Shrug*
What I'd like to see is a world where tough guys can bawl their eyes out at movies, and pretty girls can kick butt. ;)
Quote from: espo on March 22, 2011, 06:03:08 PM
They may not connect to it as strongly as we do but when a ci-male cries at a chick flick (and they do) is that boardering genderqueer if they allow themselves the right to cry ? or allows themselves to take a bubble bath and enjoy it?
LOL No, that's not how gender works.
Quote from: Juliet on March 24, 2011, 12:14:09 AM
Would you be able to give a better example of something considered feminine then?
Every society's stereotypes of what is feminine and masculine is different in small and large ways from everyone elses.
Quote from: hylie random on March 24, 2011, 03:18:19 AMWhat I'd like to see is a world where tough guys can bawl their eyes out at movies, and pretty girls can kick butt. ;)
Hey, you just need to get out to Europe for that - I have a Serbian friend, and she tells me that around the table at mealtimes, it would be really unusual if
someone wasn't crying, the men as often as the women, and it's just a different cultural norm. Like how in India, men hold hands in public, and women hold hands in public, but men-and-women just don't. We're each stuck in a particular cultural or subcultural norm-set. I've been part of SNAG* subcultures where it's seen as weird and unacceptable
not to be vulnerable and in touch with your feelings as a man.
I agree, it's virtually impossible to tease out the nature from the "nurture" (read: social programming), so I tend to think in terms of the difference between male/female (for simplicity's sake - not assuming it's as binary as that) and masculine/feminine. Sort of loosely biology vs. socialising. I have a gender identity, a sexual identity, a sexuality, and a sexual orientation. Oy.
And when it comes to men/women and emotion, it just seems to me that each gender has an official socially acceptable range of emotion - so for example in mainstream Western culture, women can be upset, men can be angry, but not the other way around - or in SNAGsville, it's the opposite!
*SNAG - NZ-coined acronym, I think: Sensitive New Age Guy :)
Do you think there is such a thing as gender then? Like what if there isn't gender just a male sex and female sex. If society determines what a gender is and isn't then maybe it's just the roll the male gender plays is what I got going on inside of me.
I'm definitely a little confused on all this.
So everyone says that crying at a chick flick isn't feminine. So I ask again, could someone, ANYONE, give me a better example of what would be considered feminine?
Shooting down someone's example without providing a better one isn't going to help the conversation move forward.
Well, I personally think that each quality that's labelled either masculine or feminine within any particular culture is actually just a human quality, that people all have the capacity to embody regardless of gender. There may be a statistical likelihood that one gender exhibits a quality more than any of the other genders within a given culture, but who can tell for sure to what extent that's just a product of cultural conditioning?
So for me, there are no genuinely masculine or feminine qualities, that's just a convention.
Others will disagree :).
Quote from: yoxi on March 24, 2011, 05:41:35 PM
Well, I personally think that each quality that's labelled either masculine or feminine within any particular culture is actually just a human quality, that people all have the capacity to embody regardless of gender. There may be a statistical likelihood that one gender exhibits a quality more than any of the other genders within a given culture, but who can tell for sure to what extent that's just a product of cultural conditioning?
So for me, there are no genuinely masculine or feminine qualities, that's just a convention.
Others will disagree :).
I agree with this. It's a lot how I feel about the subject of feminine vs masculine
Quote from: espo on March 24, 2011, 05:01:59 PM
Do you think there is such a thing as gender then? Like what if there isn't gender just a male sex and female sex. If society determines what a gender is and isn't then maybe it's just the roll the male gender plays is what I got going on inside of me.
I'm definitely a little confused on all this.
Yes there is such a thing as gender. But our society's definition of gender (male, female, whatever) is not always the same as another societies. I don't see why you need to label it so hard. I look at what my current society's view of men and women's gender roles/stereotypes are and say I fit in better with men and I feel like physically I should be the male sex.
Quote from: yoxi on March 24, 2011, 05:41:35 PM
Well, I personally think that each quality that's labelled either masculine or feminine within any particular culture is actually just a human quality, that people all have the capacity to embody regardless of gender. There may be a statistical likelihood that one gender exhibits a quality more than any of the other genders within a given culture, but who can tell for sure to what extent that's just a product of cultural conditioning?
So for me, there are no genuinely masculine or feminine qualities, that's just a convention.
Others will disagree :).
I totally agree with you on this part, being male or female is really more about how you perceive yourself and how others perceive you then it is about specific behavior.
To take the ideas of Julia Serano, it is the result of oppositional sexism that people are thought that "female" characteristics are opposite to "male" characteristics. It is a fact that there are behaviors toward which males are naturally more attracted, given that they are constantly under the influence of testosterone and have a slightly different brain organization then female brains and vice versa. However, the influence of hormones and biology can only be that: an influence. The real cause of behaviors are peoples humanity, their experiences and their personality.
You want male stereotypes? Competition, physical aggressiveness, heterosexuality... These behaviors probably are the result of male "biological" influence. Can you meet a "real" male without these characteristics? Of course you can! Does that makes them any less male? Of course not! There always variation within any population of any traits, regardless of their link to gender. To label these males as "more females" simply because they show a behavior that is less typical to that of other males would be as idiotic as labeling someone who like being under water a lot as being closer to a marine mammal then he'd be to a human. Behaviors, being born of a very complex brain, can't be categorized so easily.
Transsexuals and genderqueer define themselves as such precisely because they identify as such. What makes a person transgendered is the desire that that person has to be and to be seen as a member of a different gender. In that case, the transsexualism of genderqueerness that is certainly going to play an important role in the "male" or "female" behaviors that this person will display. However, it would be very presumptuous to say that anyone displaying any non-gender-traditional behaviors has some part of themselves that is trans. It is simply the result of natural fluctuations of natural traits, hence why you see MtF who still display "male" behaviors and FtM who keep on dear "female" habits because it is part of what makes them being... themselves.
In short, sex can affect behaviors trough hormone and brain organization, but in the end, there is much much more involved.
Quote from: babykittenful on March 24, 2011, 09:54:41 PM
I totally agree with you on this part, being male or female is really more about how you perceive yourself and how others perceive you then it is about specific behavior.
But how can anyone (including oneself) perceive you as either masculine or feminine without considering behavior?
Quote from: Juliet on March 24, 2011, 10:44:41 PM
But how can anyone (including oneself) perceive you as either masculine or feminine without considering behavior?
Well, crying in a movie isn't enough to make that determination. Physical looks are probably more considered than anything else and then after that, it would be more in mannerisms and the way you carry yourself. Men and woman, for example, walk differently (if for no other reason than differences in build, particularly in the hip region). So if a female bodied person changes their walk to look more like a man's, the perception should be that that person is more masculine. Those subtle clues identify you intuitively to other people. If you cry in a sad movie, you cried because you are sad, not because you are feminine.
It's extremely difficult to separate actual behaviors from established societal stereotypes, which is what everyone is saying. The idea of a man crying at a chick flick is only "feminine" when looking at stereotypes of a culture where crying is perceived as feminine. I've been in my dad's church where everyone, men and women, start crying as soon as the preacher or whoever says, "now turn around and hug your neighbor." I was completely weirded out, despite being a member of the female sex. Does that make those men feminine and me masculine? No. It's a culture thing. That's the culture of that particular church in rural Kentucky and I was an outsider to that church's culture. So it's not as simple as saying, "this behavior is feminine, that behavior is masculine."
There are some studies about male/female brains that say certain styles of thinking are more prevalent in one sex than the other, but those results aren't mutually exclusive, they're just patterns that have been observed. You could also look at speech patterns where women do tend to use more adjectives and more specific adjectives (maroon or scarlet vs. red) than men, but again, that could be either a result of culture or just an observable pattern.
Wait- someone's physical looks determine if they are masculine or feminine? (and mannerisms/the way you carry yourself definitely counts as behavior! Though I agree they are important indicators)
Quote from: Jaimey on March 24, 2011, 11:53:43 PM
...Well, crying in a movie isn't enough to make that determination. Physical looks are probably more considered than anything else and then after that, it would be more in mannerisms and the way you carry yourself. ...
Quote from: Juliet on March 24, 2011, 10:44:41 PM
But how can anyone (including oneself) perceive you as either masculine or feminine without considering behavior?
Quote from: Juliet on March 25, 2011, 12:39:46 AM
Wait- someone's physical looks determine if they are masculine or feminine? (and mannerisms/the way you carry yourself definitely counts as behavior! Though I agree they are important indicators)
Also clothing can be an indicator (related to physical looks I guess) but really I don't think it matters if you can actively tell if someone is femme or masc. I mean it's not a big deal what that person does/how they identify themselves. Why the hangup on it?
Quote from: Juliet on March 25, 2011, 12:39:46 AM
Wait- someone's physical looks determine if they are masculine or feminine? (and mannerisms/the way you carry yourself definitely counts as behavior! Though I agree they are important indicators)
To your average Jane/Joe, yeah. It's not how you determine your own identity, but when someone sees you on the street, they are going to make a judgment based on the way you look, whether that judgment is male/female, clean/dirty, put-together/sloppy, etc.. Since we were working with the "a man crying at a movie" bit, I assumed were talking outside judgments, not inward ones.
If someone sees a guy crying, they don't automatically think, "he's feminine!" Most people would just think, "oh, he must be sad" or "I wonder why that dude's crying?"
Edit: by "physical looks" I actually meant presentation, not actual biological physicality, although build is also something people will judge you on.
to be honest... i did not read the other replys, because im too busy at the moment.
but i have to say, your question is GREAT!!! because i have an answer :D and i am more curious what other people say to my answer :laugh:
it is not his feminine side, when a guy cries watching a chick flick. it is not her masculine side, when a girl likes to drink beer and watch soccer.
THAT IS THE HUUUUUGE PROBLEM... people tend do categorize someone because he likes ballet or she like monster truck (just an example).
as long as you don't have the inner feeling that you should supposed to be the other gender you are what you are, a male or a female. it doesn't matter what you do, because that does not define you (at least it doesn't define your gender).
i speak from my own experience! clothes, hobbys etc. all of that is a cultural thing. imagine men would wear dresses and make up ;) there is no god (don't wanna offend someone) who says that only girls can wear make up, or only boys can play football.
the point is... if you are male (and you are not a transsexual) you can like, do whatever you want and it does't make you any less male!!! why? well i guess is said that before ;)
hope you understand
tell me what you think
:angel:
There is one thing I'd like to point out about the example of the man crying in a cinema.
Let's say someone is looking at that man and thinks: "That man ain't a real man! Real man don't cry!"
If we analyze in detail what that person is thinking, he begins by gendering the person he sees as a male ("That man [...]"), and then, he poses a judgment about the fact that this person is crying (being that real male shouldn't cry). Does that really mean that this person really think that he is "less man" and therefore, "more female"?
If we really think about it, the witness here considers that crying at a movie while being a female is ok, because it is a female accepted behavior. But since in this situation, it is a man that is crying, that is not acceptable. If crying made that "male" became more "female" , then there wouldn't be any problem with that person crying. Instead of being shocked, the witness would simply have thought: "It is normal that this person is crying because that person is a woman."... Well, actually, he wouldn't have thought anything at all since there is nothing odd with a female crying....
So the very fact that there are cultural norms for the behaviors of both men and women shows that behaviors are not determinant when we gender someone. If it really was determinant, then everyone would be genderfluid and people would be gendered by others differently according to the situation. Gendering is a very quick process that happens unconsciously and that is mostly based off of secondary sexual characteristics, clothings and voice. Of course, someone who is very androgynous might challenge that gendering reflex and the person might then have to look for other clues, such as behaviors, the way the person walks or stand, those kind of details. But this is really a rare occurrence (although it's obviously very common here, since the goal of the place is to unite people who are gender variant).
So in conclusion, a man crying isn't seen as "more female", but merely as male acting in disagreement to his supposed normal behavior as a male.
Exactly - and what that means can be different within a 1-mile radius, depending on what culture/subculture/class the observer and the observed are part of, even within the same country (or state or town or whatever).
What seems like "normal male behaviour" is different depending on whether you're in the office, on the shop floor, at the stadium, at the art college... in another country, on another continent... in a different screen at the cinema! - I mean, if you've gone to see Field Of Dreams, you might be less surprised to see a man there crying than if you've gone to see Die Hard 13b - it's all so contingent! And to some extent a biological mechanism it's impossible to override completely - we assess within the first 1/20 of a second each stranger we meet, for potential threat or ally, and that's our lizard brain looking after us. So we shouldn't expect ourselves or anyone else to be fully free of this kind of instant judgement - the thing is to develop the capacity to work beyond it, and know it's provisional and loaded.
Go to www.womansavers.com (http://www.womansavers.com) and you can see what women think about. Another website that allows you to see what is important to women and how they write, think and interact is www.dontdatehimgirl.com (http://www.dontdatehimgirl.com).
Quote from: yoxi on March 24, 2011, 05:41:35 PM
Well, I personally think that each quality that's labelled either masculine or feminine within any particular culture is actually just a human quality, that people all have the capacity to embody regardless of gender. There may be a statistical likelihood that one gender exhibits a quality more than any of the other genders within a given culture, but who can tell for sure to what extent that's just a product of cultural conditioning?
So for me, there are no genuinely masculine or feminine qualities, that's just a convention.
Others will disagree :).
That's what I'm thinking too.
Quote from: lucaluca on March 25, 2011, 03:56:59 PM
to be honest... i did not read the other replys, because im too busy at the moment.
but i have to say, your question is GREAT!!! because i have an answer :D and i am more curious what other people say to my answer :laugh:
it is not his feminine side, when a guy cries watching a chick flick. it is not her masculine side, when a girl likes to drink beer and watch soccer.
THAT IS THE HUUUUUGE PROBLEM... people tend do categorize someone because he likes ballet or she like monster truck (just an example).
as long as you don't have the inner feeling that you should supposed to be the other gender you are what you are, a male or a female. it doesn't matter what you do, because that does not define you (at least it doesn't define your gender).
i speak from my own experience! clothes, hobbys etc. all of that is a cultural thing. imagine men would wear dresses and make up ;) there is no god (don't wanna offend someone) who says that only girls can wear make up, or only boys can play football.
the point is... if you are male (and you are not a transsexual) you can like, do whatever you want and it does't make you any less male!!! why? well i guess is said that before ;)
hope you understand
tell me what you think
:angel:
A great answer to a great question
The romans soldiers did wear what we would classify as a skirt, the egyptians did wear makeup so I think you're onto something
I don't believe in specifically male or female traits or behaviors, they're all within the range of human expression. It is our culture/society that judges them in a particular way.
What I do know is that I don't feel or perceive myself to be male. This perception isn't based on such things as liking pink (actually I look dreadful in pink, however purple rocks!) or frills, or whether I might cry at movies, but instead a deep awareness and understanding of my inner self and gender.
Z
Quote from: Zythyra on March 26, 2011, 12:05:25 PM
What I do know is that I don't feel or perceive myself to be male. This perception isn't based on such things as liking pink (actually I look dreadful in pink, however purple rocks!) or frills, or whether I might cry at movies, but instead a deep awareness and understanding of my inner self and gender.
Z
Are u able to articulate what the deep awareness and understanding is based on?
OK, it's my turn. There is this ineffable, poorly understood gender ID, that inner knowledge or feeling that, as with Z, tells me I am not male. I have always known that and it has always affected my actions. It is akin to the sense that I am I, that I am the same entity I was when I was three years old, lying in my crib, listening to the grownups talking in the adjacent room.
But I also sense that there are two ways of dealing with the perceptions that we continually encounter. We can view the world as I-it, in which case, all is to be experienced and used. Or we can view the world as I-you, and, in that case, all are persons to whom we must be sensitive and to which we must respond. We are each capable of either response, but to treat the world as a collection of objects is the masculine response and to the other is the feminine response. Building relationships is a feminine goal; mastery is a male goal. To my daughter, her car is not a collection of metal, plastic, glass, and rubber parts, but a beloved creature named Betsy.
There was a letter in a recent newspaper column, written by a woman ready to divorce her mate, because she felt their marriage was without love. Her husband refused counseling, because, for him, the marriage was quite acceptable. They had sex several times a week, and she was an excellent homemaker and cook.
If we view the human with the tools of a scientist, we can say that the tendency toward these different viewpoints are the result of different areas of the brain developing larger or smaller, more tightly or more loosely connected because of exposure to hormones in utero, in infancy, and in puberty. One scientist remarked that many artists have feminine brains, sensitive to the feelings of others. Another writes the best therapists have female brains.
So, what is it that brings me to Susan's? Is it a female brain? Is it that I like to wear pastel pinks and purples and greens? Is it a desire to devote my life to those I love? Is it some strange nagging sense of self that is at odds with my body? That last, the gender ID, is certainly elusive, hard to explain and express, and so very real. I don't know how others function, but I love life, desire to live consciously and lovingly and fully and openly. If I have a female side or if I am female, no matter; I want to develop all my abilities to communicate, to relate, to be sensitive, and to respond. And if I have a male body and a brain shaped by male hormones, so be it. And if that be androgyne, then let's make the most of it--and live.
S
Quote from: espo on March 22, 2011, 06:03:08 PM
it was commented that even ci-people, for the most part, have a feminine side and a masculine side.
I don't. I just got the mushy, fluid, interelated androgyne side - I'm more spherical than sidey.
Quote from: Pica Pica on March 27, 2011, 01:42:17 PM
I don't. I just got the mushy, fluid, interelated androgyne side - I'm more spherical than sidey.
Has anyone told you, some of that fluid seems to be leaking out through your pores? You remind me of the blueberry girl in Charley and the Chocolate Factory.
S
The thing is, being feminine doesn't make you a woman, and being masculine doesn't make you a man. You're confusing gender identity with masculinity/femininity. The two are completely different. I'm genderqueer because the gender I know I am inside my soul is not male and not female, it is something else. That has nothing to do with how masculine or feminine I am.
Quote from: crazyandro on March 27, 2011, 11:09:01 PM
The thing is, being feminine doesn't make you a woman, and being masculine doesn't make you a man. You're confusing gender identity with masculinity/femininity. The two are completely different. I'm genderqueer because the gender I know I am inside my soul is not male and not female, it is something else. That has nothing to do with how masculine or feminine I am.
So gender has nothing to do with how masculine or feminine you are?
Quote from: Juliet on March 28, 2011, 02:18:20 AM
So gender has nothing to do with how masculine or feminine you are?
This have to be the case, because what is seen as masculine or feminine only depends on the cultural background!
To go back with the example of the guy crying at a cinema, if he does so because he feels connected with the characters and is overflowed with emotions that he express by crying.... this is it. Nowhere in the chain of event that led to that man crying was there anything that got associated to gender. Maybe he had a thought or two about the fact that this isn't very manly, but he didn't cry
because it wasn't a manly thing to do. He cried because... he's human and humans cry sometime!
On the other hand, if a man identify as genderqueer, and to that person, crying is a way of expressing some female part that is already inside that person, then yes, the fact that this guy is crying is an expression of his femininity, but only because he initially had this femininity inside of himself to begin with! Emotions don't change your gender, unless that emotion is directly linked to some kind of gender dysphoria.
That is so interesting. Does anyone else feel differently, or does everyone agree that gender has nothing to do with how masculine or feminine you are?
Quote from: Juliet on March 28, 2011, 04:51:47 PM
That is so interesting. Does anyone else feel differently, or does everyone agree that gender has nothing to do with how masculine or feminine you are?
I disagree. True, one's internal gender ID is the ultimate determiner of gender. At the same time, I cannot conceive that one would identify with a gender and not express that gender through words and actions in accord with their culture and their individual situation. The words of some religion's writings come to mind: "Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit..."
S
Juliet- It's associated, but it doesn't define it. I'd say that masculinity/femininity is how your culture /expects/ you to act based on your gender.
Quote from: Juliet on March 28, 2011, 04:51:47 PM
That is so interesting. Does anyone else feel differently, or does everyone agree that gender has nothing to do with how masculine or feminine you are?
I think that's what everyone has been trying to get at. Masculinity/femininity are words that describe behavior/mannerisms/speech...behavioral/physical things generally and those things are defined by one's culture.
Gender is just a part of who you are. You can identify as a woman without seeming feminine on the outside and vice versa. I consider myself to be a male-identified androgyne, but I have masculine and feminine mannerisms/speech/etc. The feminine mannerisms (I use a variety of adjectives, for example...white/cream/eggshell/off-white: I'll use all of those, which is a more feminine speech characteristic) don't make me less of a male-identified androgyne.
A lot of behaviour is about "protective mimicry" :) - when I'm with a bunch of gay men, I catch myself getting campier sometimes in order to fit in better. When I'm around tough people, I get more cockney (a survival habit I learned at school) etc. I watch groups of teenagers (not in a stalking way!) and see each little group with their own way of walking, gesturing, speech patterns that defines them as a group, and remember doing that myself, and that I'm not that person any more. Girls learn how to be girls from each other, boys from boys, once they grow out of trying to be like their parents. And we get older and become more ourselves, as we work out what that is. And those of us who don't fit into the norms tend to have to work that out more deeply, since we're constantly swimming upstream against the normative current, and our sense of who we are is constantly getting challenged by the Normative Border Guards.
And then we might end up somewhere like here, still asking each other: am I alright like this? :)
society tells us that the rules for being male or female exist if all the "gender rules" are to hard for you to keep when everybody else seems happy to live by these rules you start to question if you are trying to live by the wrong rules. if you live as someone who breaks gender rules because they feel wrong then you start questioning your gender. from a young age I had mixed messages about gender I was told by one important adult that boys don't cry while other said it was ok for me to cry.
one day when told to stop crying because boys don't cry I replied "maybe I don't want to be a boy" I think I was about 8. Being Male has always felt wrong because I'm not like other Males. A Feminine male who is able to relate to other males has no issue with gender identity. Not everybody who breaks the rules is somehow androgyne/genderqueer unless they need to know why they are different and how they are different if I could live as a femme male I would but to live as me I need to throw away the Male rulebook without conforming to the female rule book if you can live with your assingned rulebook then you are cisgender if the other rulebook is right for you then you are a binary trans person if both rulebooks are wrong for you overall then androgyne/genderqueer/non binary gender you may be
So how we use the word gender is incorrect, gender and sex is the same thing, its physical If my body looks girl but I desire or lean towards the boy role then that's all it is, a desire or attraction to the boy role. Gender isn't an inside sex, the only thing inside us is our desire/feelings/attraction or a WISH to be in the role that society gave to one or both of the sexes and sometimes it matches with our physical body and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it's both, which is super cool because then you get twice as much freedom.
Quote from: espo on March 29, 2011, 03:36:07 PM
So how we use the word gender is incorrect, gender and sex is the same thing, its physical If my body looks girl but I desire or lean towards the boy role then that's all it is, a desire or attraction to the boy role. Gender isn't an inside sex, the only thing inside us is our desire/feelings/attraction or a WISH to be in the role that society gave to one or both of the sexes and sometimes it matches with our physical body and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it's both, which is super cool because then you get twice as much freedom.
From what I've learned in three years in the unicorn forest, gender incongruity is about as much desire, feelings, attraction, or wish as migraine headaches or ADHD. Physical sex and chromosomal sex are parts of gender (One therapist writes that gender has five components). Gender ID is an internal sense, independent of the external. It is ill-researched and ill-understood and not externally, objectively testable, but it is nonetheless real and innate. Like Kinkly, most of us realized we didn't fit in at an early age. Many of us spent years trying to fit in, with varying degrees of success. But a deep sense of frustration was never far from the surface, often accompanied by shame, guilt, despair, etc. Yes, there is a sense of freedom and release from acknowledging this aspect of who I am, but I haven't found that it the way to deal with it easy or obvious.
S
Quote from: Simone Louise on March 29, 2011, 04:49:57 PM
From what I've learned in three years in the unicorn forest, gender incongruity is about as much desire, feelings, attraction, or wish as migraine headaches or ADHD.
I wouldn't go that far
I'm not saying we decide to take this on. I didn't and I doubt anyone does but if something like gender can't be explained then the word might be used incorrectly which is where all the confusion comes in. I'm just throwing my thoughts in the ring
Quote from: espo on March 29, 2011, 06:00:38 PM
I'm not saying we decide to take this on. I didn't and I doubt anyone does but if something like gender can't be explained then the word might be used incorrectly which is where all the confusion comes in. I'm just throwing my thoughts in the ring
Well, gender can't be "explained", but it can at least be defined. I'd say that gender is
grosso modo defined trough the process of
gendering. I call gendering the thought process that decide in which box you put someone (male/female or anywhere else on the gender spectrum). If you gender yourself as female, your
inner gender is female. Things get more complicated when people around you don't gender you the same as how you have gendered yourself. In that case, we could say that gender also has a
projected facet. When I say projected I mean that other people project the gender they have defined someone to be on the person without that person having done anything about it.
Most of transsexual fights involve having people recognize that
inner gender is really how we are to define gender and that people who
project something else on them are mistaking. Since people usually don't like to be wrong, this is a fight that can last a long time...
The definition or explanation is only of value in the context it is being used in. It also has to have a weight of that value as does the context being used. As there are as many contexts as there are conversations or statements, that leaves a definition or explanation with less value, no matter how much weight it has been given. What is of value is the context. It's the statement or conversation that carries the real value and weight of the word gender.
This is true of most, if not all, labels (or boxes if you prefer) that we use in a rather constant way. As the context changes, so do the definitions and explanations. And the weight or value that are placed on all definitions, explanations, statements and of course, conversation.
It's not limited to context being used. It's also dependent on the surroundings and point in time in which it is used.
It's easy to pull something out of context, especially if it is from a further away span of time, and change the meaning or definition. Gender, as a word, has a very broad background from which you can pick and choose your meanings and explanations. Perhaps it is more relevant to give definition and explanation to You, I, Us, Them, etc.
Quote from: ativan on March 29, 2011, 10:07:57 PM
The definition or explanation is only of value in the context it is being used in. It also has to have a weight of that value as does the context being used. As there are as many contexts as there are conversations or statements, that leaves a definition or explanation with less value, no matter how much weight it has been given. What is of value is the context. It's the statement or conversation that carries the real value and weight of the word gender.
This is true of most, if not all, labels (or boxes if you prefer) that we use in a rather constant way. As the context changes, so do the definitions and explanations. And the weight or value that are placed on all definitions, explanations, statements and of course, conversation.
It's not limited to context being used. It's also dependent on the surroundings and point in time in which it is used.
It's easy to pull something out of context, especially if it is from a further away span of time, and change the meaning or definition. Gender, as a word, has a very broad background from which you can pick and choose your meanings and explanations. Perhaps it is more relevant to give definition and explanation to You, I, Us, Them, etc.
I agree with you that context is very important for a word, but there
is a context in this particular situation. The context is that we want to know if being masculine or feminine has an influence on our gender. If we want the debate of ideas to work, it is essential that we all stick to the same definition of the word gender, otherwise any debating would be totally meaningless. For that reason, I think that the idea that we should all "choose" our own definition for ourself and stick to it is kinda unproductive.
But I agree that everyone has it's own view of what gender is, and I'd invite anyone who disagrees with the definition I've given to speak their mind. The goal being that everyone understand each other! (Isn't that the goal of language anyway?)
Quote from: Juliet on March 26, 2011, 06:04:38 PM
Are u able to articulate what the deep awareness and understanding is based on?
In the same way that most cis people know that they are innately men or women, I know that I am not either.
Quote from: Juliet on March 28, 2011, 04:51:47 PM
That is so interesting. Does anyone else feel differently, or does everyone agree that gender has nothing to do with how masculine or feminine you are?
Gender identity and gender expression are different things. Thus it is possible, using my own experience to describe this, to feel more female than male, while not necessarily having a need to express high femme (although that can be fun once in a while).
Z
Identity is inside. That's the best way I can think of to describe it. Gender identity is in your head/soul/heart...inside. The ideas of masculine/feminine are adjectives describe something outside of ourselves...behavior/style/speech.
Quote from: Zythyra on March 30, 2011, 09:18:42 AM
In the same way that most cis people know that they are innately men or women, I know that I am not either.
See thats the tricky part. Because I think if you ask cipeople how they know they are innately men or women, I think most of them would start describing either the masculine qualities they possess or the feminine qualities they possess.
Yet you (and others i'm sure) can tell what you innately are without it having anything to do with femininity or masculinity, so I'm still at a loss on what you base it on.
Well I would have to disagree. When you ask a trans person how they figured out they were really supposed to be male/female or why they thought they were supposed to be they will name instances where they were acting in a societal stereotyped male way or female way. I would say a cis person knows they are men or women because they don't question it. Some never have a question and think that their body or something must be wrong with them for their feelings towards their gender.
Yeah but feminine guys still know they're guys, and they don't base it off being masculine. There's something more. But most cis people never had to question their gender, it was just there, just right, but the sense of maleness or femaleness is still there.
You ask Cisgender people what makes them the gender they are and they will paint themselves into a corner everytime, or just give up by saying they are what they are.
Just where is the line that changes you from one gender to the next? It's always different to different people and always fluctuating. How wide is the line? What are the percentages in each group and how many groups are there? Do they overlap in places?
If you're trying to determine who you are based on others, you're lost before you've started. You have to make the effort to understand yourself, in the most honest way you can. Then you can have conversations about gender and what it means to you and possibly others (to a degree). Here in the forest, the range of everything is quite broad and acceptable. With acceptable being the key. I would never expect someone to understand me completely, and I know I will never understand them as well as they do themselves.
To understand yourself, you may have to start accepting others as they are, and vice versa, understanding others will help you understand yourself. To accept yourself is the same process. Knowing the definition of something, doesn't mean you know something about it. It just means you can recite the definition. Doesn't mean you understand it.
Richie Nickel is a very feminine guy indeed but he doesn't consider himself to be a woman. He is a very feminine gay guy. Admittedly Nickel is something of an extreme case, but you can be very masculine in your interests and yet have a 100 % female gender identity.
WSITN: Makeup Collection / Storage (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW5axxz89ZI#ws)
http://www.richienickel.com/ (http://www.richienickel.com/)
So I'm still curious as to what it is that would make someone identify as a woman or man, if it has nothing to do with masculinity or femininity.
What are you basing it on, what clued you in, what solidifies it in your head/gut? How do you know you are a man/woman? How can you tell?
Can anyone answer that?
I'd say that masculinity and femininity are expressions to the outside - interactions from the internal to the world. (E.g, I value colour and so will wear a colourful clothing, I value the look of makeup and so will paint my eyes etc...)
Cultural masculinity and femininity comes from outside, (girls do this, boys do that...)
But gender identity (and most identity claims), I suggest is how we view ourselves from the outside - when we imagine ourselves from without. When I imagine myself from outside, I don't see a character of a male or a female.
I think this is how gender identity is different from gender expression and masculinity and femininity generally.
Does the soul exist? If it does then maybe that's what we use to feel or identify male or female inside and it doesn't always match the physical body
Quote from: Juliet on April 02, 2011, 04:54:44 PM
So I'm still curious as to what it is that would make someone identify as a woman or man, if it has nothing to do with masculinity or femininity.
What are you basing it on, what clued you in, what solidifies it in your head/gut? How do you know you are a man/woman? How can you tell?
Can anyone answer that?
If anyone can answer that question, ether that person is lying or I am ready to pay a lot to know about it. I think that this is the most complicated aspect of being trans (at least it is for me). While I do feel like I identify a lot more with woman then I identify with males, I still feel utterly confused about my situation. If there was anyway for me to be 100% sure, I'd give up a lot to get it. However, I think that this is way more subtle then that. Gender being mostly a psychological matter, there is absolutely nothing clear cut about it. In some society in which the word "transsexual" doesn't exist, many people who would identify as transsexual today might have seen themselves as just "weird" cissexuals, and while feeling lots of pain about being in their gender, they wouldn't identify totally to the other one that they long to be. In other society, where there is a "third gender", they might have identify with this one.
So in the end, I think that there is no easy shortcut. While figuring someone else's gender usually take less then a second or two, for a transsexual, figuring out their own gender can be quite a challenge. Of course, most cisgendered people don't have that problem, since they never had to question their gender.
Quote from: babykittenful on April 03, 2011, 04:24:11 PM
If anyone can answer that question, ether that person is lying or I am ready to pay a lot to know about it.
Thank you x100 for being honest !
You're attacking this problem of who you are by asking others who they are and why, then trying to apply it directly to your self.
Why not ask your self if you're a person? What parts of humanity define that?
You know who you are, because you know all the things of where you've been, what has happened, what you've done......You know you are you and there is only one of you.
You know what you're gender is. You accept the reality of the fact that most of the world is between two different genders. You're trying to put a label, a solid unbending definition of who you are. Babykittenful...... that's who you are here. Do you have a soul? how do you know? What's your gender? How do you know? Is there anything that is in your past that would have changed you and made you into someone completely different? How do you know? Stop talking to yourself, stop the inner dialogue. Just be who you are. And then accept that.
Here's the answer to all your questions...........( ).
Jaimey often has said it's the journey that's the fun part. It's what defines you. And what a long strange trip its been. And what it's going to be. The world doesn't define you, it's you who defines your world as you travel and live through it. The more you accept of yourself, the clearer the view of your world.
Hi, new to the topic (and the forum) but felt it is interesting.
Language is used by us, humanly speaking, to communicate. So there has to be at least some kind of "definitions". I think no one can describe sexuality only using gender and sexual orientation. A lot of factors come into play (as I see, at least):
- gender as in dictionary: male/female, as born?
- current physical gender, if trans
- preferred gender, or not, if gender fluid
- gender identity constructions (prefers dolls? cars? dolls & cars? none?)
- sexual orientation (bisexual? homossexual? heterossexual? also, definitions vary from people to people when speaking of trans people)
As with my case, I was born male; current gender, still male; preferred gender are both (gender fluid, as in mind); never "played with dolls or cars"; sexual orientation, preferring some 80% women.
But the part that matters: all of this may change through time. As ativan spoke (quoting Jaimey), the journey is the fun part.
Welcome and I agree with you except the last part about the journey being fun, it is for some not everyone. Its a freak'n nightmare for some but we all have denominators not in common
I really doubt that there hasn't been anyone here who hasn't had the nightmarish experiences that seem to go along with being Androgyne.
We are a group of self hating, depressed and suicidal people. We get ->-bleeped-<- from anyone who thinks only in terms of binary, including Transgenders themselves.
We are caught in the middle of our own rage at not being who we really think and feel we are. Our diet of self loathing has no bounds, it can go forever if we let it.
We can become that final last person who you can't even say 'things could be worse', because they can't. It's not that the glass is half empty, it is fricken empty.
There are days that tears just stream down our faces without control, for reasons we don't even know why, let alone understand. Can you scream into a pillow any louder? Have you ever beat your forehead with your fists until either your forehead or your fists gave up, but you still wanted to do it? Do you look into the mirror and despise the person you see? Do you even wonder if that is really you or you're just so ->-bleeped-<-ed up in the head that you just think you do?
I've spent 5 hours on a table with nurses and doctors screaming into my face to hang in there, slapped to wake me up again, hear my monitor flatline, only to come back to the screaming in my face. Then spending an hour being medi-vac'd to the only hospital equipped to deal with me in long term IC.
I was brought back again another time, and spent most of my time in isolation because I beat on the staff any any given chance. Because I hated them all, I hated all of you, I hated myself more than I hated you, but I wanted you to die mother->-bleeped-<-er first, just so I could look at the horror of death on you face.
I did this for seven years, on and off, out of over 50 of them. Do you want to hear about all the friends and things I've learned in those years? All the joyous times, the times I cried because I was so happy and felt at peace for a while? The not so bad and not so down days? The days that just rolled on by with nothing significant to talk about? Do you want to here about the hair raising stunts that should of killed me, but didn't cause I just knew I could do it?
Nobody here has had a fun journey without the nightmares either. We're not gifted that way. That's not how it works for anybody. For some it's not so extreme. For others, it's more so. You have to be able to look back and instead of the glass being empty, it's just a glass with water in it. Doesn't matter if it's half empty or half full, that's always a debatable point, but you can't deny that it is indeed a glass with water in it. And your life is the same. You can't deny that you are not the only one.
And that's why we come here. to prop up or be propped up, somedays it's both. That's the way it is and it's going to be.
I can promise you this,... that there is always someone here who feels for you, and will help you if they can. There will always be a shoulder to cry on if you want one. But most importantly of all things, we will try as a group when we can, to help you through the nightmares. But ya gotta say something better than some of you have fun and others have a nightmare. It just isn't so. What a Long Strange Trip it's going to be.
You're sick of hanging around, you'd like to travel
Get tired of travelling you want to settle down
I guess they can't revoke your soul for trying
Get out of the door, light out and look all around
Sometimes the lights all shining on me
Other times I can barely see
Lately it occurs to me
What a long strange trip it's been
Truckin' I'm a going home
Whoa, whoa, baby, back where I belong
Back home, sit down and patch my bones
And get back truckin' on
Grateful Dead
Quote from: soulfairer on April 12, 2011, 02:16:49 AM
Hi, new to the topic (and the forum) but felt it is interesting.
Language is used by us, humanly speaking, to communicate. So there has to be at least some kind of "definitions". I think no one can describe sexuality only using gender and sexual orientation. A lot of factors come into play (as I see, at least):
- gender as in dictionary: male/female, as born?
- current physical gender, if trans
- preferred gender, or not, if gender fluid
- gender identity constructions (prefers dolls? cars? dolls & cars? none?)
- sexual orientation (bisexual? homossexual? heterossexual? also, definitions vary from people to people when speaking of trans people)
As with my case, I was born male; current gender, still male; preferred gender are both (gender fluid, as in mind); never "played with dolls or cars"; sexual orientation, preferring some 80% women.
But the part that matters: all of this may change through time. As ativan spoke (quoting Jaimey), the journey is the fun part.
The one thing I'd clarify is that sex and gender are not the same thing. So your born with a sex, probably a gender, and the two don't always match.
I should of said something better I know but I don't know any TS TG IS TA or whoevers in r/l or I would have asked them Really? Was there a spot in your journey that was fun? before I commented.
Ativan I read your last message 3 times so far, it's extremely well written Thankyou
Thank You! :)
Quote from: espo on April 12, 2011, 10:09:09 PM
I should of said something better I know but I don't know any TS TG IS TA or whoevers in r/l or I would have asked them Really? Was there a spot in your journey that was fun? before I commented.
Just in general, I think finding oneself can be fun. Maybe not like rollercoaster fun, but there is something that I personally enjoy when I figure something out. So maybe fun isn't the exact right word...satisfying? It might be better to say that when you get to an answer, you appreciate the journey to that particular answer more? See it in a lighter way? Something like that.
Or I could just be a big nerd who likes figuring things out.
Quote from: Jaimey on April 12, 2011, 10:00:54 PM
The one thing I'd clarify is that sex and gender are not the same thing. So your born with a sex, probably a gender, and the two don't always match.
Ah, yes. For completeness, we should also think about that (but then, how's XXY for sex?), but as the two don't always match, I started with gender, at least :)
Thanks for the clarification!
Ativan... your reply was just... incredibly touching.
*Blushing*
I think it's fun once you realise that in absence of knowing where to journey, you may as well journey somewhere.
Well, when you would ask a cisgendered person what makes them male or female, they would probably say it was their physical characteristics (their genitalia etc.). That's evidently not quite it, as shown by pretty much everyone on this forum (I realise that sex and gender are different things, but the world at large generally doesn't, so this is still how it goes).
You ask a pre-op transsexual with a specific gender what makes them male or female, and they may well speak of how masculine or feminine they are as an example. Of course, this isn't necessarily true either, as males may be really effeminate and females really butch and it doesn't mean they are not male or female.
I think what it boils down to in the end is an 'I just know' thing. It's not particularly definable for a mass audience, but it's there. There may be certain indicators that lead the person to discovering this (physical dysphoria, lack of connection with masculine or feminine behaviours etc.) but these things on their own would mean nothing in isolation without the why to connect it to.
There are plenty of males who do stereotypically feminine things and vice versa, but if that person starts to question their gender what they will rely on in the end is this sense of 'just knowing'. They are obviously doing these things because they enjoy them, but I suppose it is the motivation behind it that determines whether it is an expression of masculinity or femininity (or just neutral).
As everyone has said before me, whether a behaviour is considered masculine or feminine depends so much on cultural norms for wherever the person is that they become largely irrelevant as a generalisation. By the way, I think crying at a film is a bad example because it's not much about conscious choice; I think even in the most macho culture if a man was crying because something in the film reminded him strongly of his recently dead wife, people would forgive him that. So if we use as an example a man wearing makeup instead. In a situation where everyone around him sees him as 'girly' for doing that and to be considered 'male' you have to not do that at all costs, well, that may be a sign that he is more feminine/more comfortable with his femininity than most males in that particular context, but it does not make him female. It is in fact a sign of masculinity in many cultures. You can't really define what people are by their character traits. ;)
I think that basically people need to let go of their own gender stereotypes (boys don't cry, girls don't do maths etc. etc.) and just let themselves go with whatever comes most naturally to them regardless of whatever cultural norm you are beholden to because in the end, it's the 'just knowing' sense I talked about earlier that really decides for you, not what you do in your spare time. Believe me, I had a stupid macho persona for ages before I figured myself out, I was trying to prove I was more 'masculine' in the hopes that I would be perceived (by both myself and others) as more 'male'. It worked on others, but I was the one I really needed to please and that kind of stuff was too much effort to keep up to be worth it. Labelling myself was useful at first because I had a support group I could identify with, I could read their opinions and coping strategies, but because I belong to that group that shouldn't mean that I restrict my behaviours to fit in with them (and I'm not even sure I could, after all, what is a specifically androgynous behaviour? :P) Now that I've discovered this label and accepted it, it's just integrated into myself and I continue to do whatever the heck I like. I don't pay much attention to it, really.
Actually I think a lot of people are a little scared of choosing androgyny as their label (that sounds like an awkward way to phrase it but I cannot think of how else to put it) purely because it pretty much means 'do what you like, define yourself'. But at least there are some general implied guidelines there to rebel against. We don't really have any boundaries to stretch in the first place, and as rebellious as people might like to think they are with nothing to rebel against there is no structure, no framework to validate their decisions and compare themselves against and that's scary. For an analogy just look as someone who has just realised their religion is false; the structure to their world is gone, there is no up or down any more to orientate them and show them what to do with themselves. For someone very used to the structure, it's a big step. But this whole shindig is essentially about trying to be yourself and figuring out how best to live your life. By all means pick a label to start you off but who you are and what you naturally do comes first. And in the end? Well, you'll just know.
...Gah, I'm not even sure what point I was trying to make in that big massive rant near the end there. Bedtime for me. >.<
Geez louise, that's even longer than I thought it was. :o Sorry guys...
Quote from: Fenrir on April 18, 2011, 08:08:47 PM
Geez louise, that's even longer than I thought it was. :o Sorry guys...
Don't be sorry, it was pretty good!
Quote from: Fenrir on April 18, 2011, 08:07:43 PM
Actually I think a lot of people are a little scared of choosing androgyny as their label (that sounds like an awkward way to phrase it but I cannot think of how else to put it) purely because it pretty much means 'do what you like, define yourself'. But at least there are some general implied guidelines there to rebel against. We don't really have any boundaries to stretch in the first place, and as rebellious as people might like to think they are with nothing to rebel against there is no structure, no framework to validate their decisions and compare themselves against and that's scary. For an analogy just look as someone who has just realised their religion is false; the structure to their world is gone, there is no up or down any more to orientate them and show them what to do with themselves. For someone very used to the structure, it's a big step. But this whole shindig is essentially about trying to be yourself and figuring out how best to live your life. By all means pick a label to start you off but who you are and what you naturally do comes first. And in the end? Well, you'll just know.
Point well made :eusa_clap: :eusa_clap: :eusa_clap: