the way I see it gender is taught by our bodies but is still largely a cultural construct. Our prehistoric ancestors, like hundreds of thousands of years ago, had some practical cultural uses for dividing people based on biological reproductive lines. It helped to distinguish those who gave birth and those who didn't and as cultures became more complex so did the idea of gender. So we have men and women (i distinguish these words as the cultural constructs of gender, compared to female/male for biologic differences) two classes of people that are extrapolated from the male/female split.
The biology has little to do with the ideas of masculine versus feminine, testosterone makes me grow hair on my face but it doesn't make me competitive, want to fix cars, enjoy football, and hate cuddling and sharing. These are all taught and conditioned from birth. Because I had a certain type of physicality in my nether regions I was swaddled in blue, called he not she, played with action figures, not dolls, couldn't wear skirts, etc. I was conditioned to fit into a cultural mold that was called masculine or man and is vaguely synonymous with male. But when we explore the whole phenomenon of gender we find lots of grey areas across time and space. Many cultures have some form of third gender or transgender identity, bodies don't come in clearly defined male and female varieties as there is a lot of space for intersexed individuals, things that were considered masculine or feminine in the past or in different cultures can change after time or compared to others.
Sexual orientation is taught by gender men are supposed to attracted to women and vice versa, but in reality it's more along the lines of penises are supposed to go into vaginas. When I was younger I was disgusted by thoughts of sex amongst men, and was sexually attracted to women (specifically cis-women). But as I became more and more aware of myself and my trans*androgyne-ness I realized that i was conditioned to like only women while now I see myself as just sexual and screw the prefix. If I think someone is hot and I enjoy them as a person I am attracted to them despite their bodies or their identities. The idea of homosexuality didn't come about until the 1870s the ancient Greeks and Romans weren't bisexual they just had sex with attractive people despite gender.
We live in a society that is so far beyond its roots that the old ways of seeing ourselves doesn't fit. For me being androgyne isn't about finding middle ground on the gender "spectrum" (a model I don't prescribe to) and being trans* isn't about going to the other side of the cultural divide. It's about, like Pica said, making my own identity and creating space in society for a wildly varied approach to gender and sex. And the more I find and piece together the me I want to be the more loose and vague the ways our culture organizes itself become. There is nothing concrete in our culture and our bodies, bodies are made of flesh and tissue both of which are adaptable and can evolving, normalcy is a myth to provide cultural value and social cohesion.
No longer is the human race bound to the slow toiling process of evolution and the constricts of biology, we have entered an age of self determination where we can take conscious charge of evolution like never before. I like to use the term Posr-Queer Trans-femme- Androgyne to describe myself because using labels is silly and because I am a self-created human. I have issues with my body some of which can't be changed with surgery or hormones but this body is still mine and is still me and doesn't impede me from seeking pleasure and that elusive bastard happiness. I think we should work on creating new ideas and models of thought rather than rehashing old ones to describe our current state.
Feel like I got off topic a bit, anyway /rant, have fun, love and all that's good.
