I am accepting of letting people who feel like they were born another gender than they are, portray themselves as that gender. I fall back to letting people live their own lives as they want. It does not affect me in any way, so why should I care.

The argument often get to the pronouns and he is now a she or she is now a he.

By definition, a male is an individual that produces small usually motile gametes (as spermatozoa or spermatozoids) which fertilize the eggs of a female - according to Websters.A female is of, relating to, or being the sex that bears young or produces eggs - according to Websters.

Here is where I lack some understanding - Just because a person does not see themselves as the gender they were born as, does not change the fact that they are that gender.

I have come a long way since my Mormon upbringing and can be enlightened.

Gender is a social construct and doesn't equal the biological definitions of male and female. The third sex has been recognized for hundreds of years in many other cultures, even in ancient Western cultures.

By your definitions, people who are intersexed, born without ovaries, who can't reproduce, or with other ambiguous forms of genitalia don't exist.

What about those who have the male chromosomes and female genitalia? Or vice versa, because they do exist.

Also, what about those who lose their penises in battle or factory accidents? Do they stop being males? Or women who have to have full hysterectomies or Oopherectomies? Are they no longer women?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/04/2015 09:00AM by Itzpapalotl.

Please do not put words in my mouth...

I never said intersexed or the other examples you listed do not exist.

This is your chance to educate me, not get defensive.

Inevitably come up when discussing the difference between gender and biological sex.

The Webster dictionary definitions don't cover the whole of the spectrum when it comes to gender and biological sex.

Part of educating yourself about these issues is asking these questions, about why we associate certain characteristics with men or women and how we treat those who don't fit into these neat categories. People are more than their biology and genitals. It's not something you will understand until you do and believe me, I've been where you are right now.

I would suggest reading articles on Transadvocate, the GLAAD site, and even Everyday Feminism if you sincerely want to have a better understanding of what it means to be trans.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/04/2015 09:46AM by Itzpapalotl.

One way of understanding it is to differentiate sex and gender. "Sex" is a person's biology, while "gender" can be understood as a psychological and social construct. Most people are fortunate enough to have their gender and sex match, but some people don't. These people have to find a way to reconcile their mis-matched identities. One way of doing this is to re-assign the physical sex to match the psychological gender. The respectful thing to do in this case is to use the pronoun and gender identity that person has chosen to adopt rather than recognize only the biological sex.

Sex is not as binary as we would like to think, and gender can be extremely fluid. Remember, no matter how uncomfortable you may be with these ideas, it doesn't hold a candle to the individuals who have to live it.

I am not uncomfortable in how someone else wants to live thier life. I try to be understanding of everyone.

I think my problem has more to do with the changing of definitions. In my view, a male is a male, a female is a female and (for Itzpapalotl) an intersex is an intersex. There is nothing wrong with someone saying I am a male but I want to portray myself as a female because that is the way I see myself. That doesnt change the fact that they are a male. We are all different. Not every male fits the same mold. Same argument for females.

I do not think of these people as anything less than me. I just have a hard time with calling them something different than (in my view) they are.

I know it is a bad comparison, but think of the NAACP lady that said she was black. Only to find out that she was white. Later she said that she identifies herself as black. Which, for arguments sake, lets say she does identify herself as black. That does not change the fact that she is white.

Please know that I am trying to understand things with this discussion. Not trying to create a mess.

As a background, I grew up extremely homophobic. I have done a 180 on those views and now try to educate others to not be that way. I say this so you know that I can change with education.

A good number of people do not produce gametes of either type.

Genetically, there are many variations other than XX or XY. Most of them are sterile and unable to reproduce.

There are also genetically XY individuals where the expression of the Y chromosome is impeded, who develop as phenotypical females.

What we usually define as "male" and "female" is generally determined by the amount of testosterone present, with typical males having approximately 10x as much testosterone as typical females. There are women who naturally have more testosterone and men who naturally have less testosterone, so there isn't always a clear line between men and women. Of course, hormone levels can be altered as well.

There is some interesting research about how testosterone affects the brain. There does seem to be a difference between the typical "male" and "female" brains, though there is clearly a spectrum of variations between them. It's very possible that an individual could have hormone levels that changed at key developmental points, so that their genitalia developed as one gender and their brain developed in a way more similar to the opposite gender. Scientifically, we only really know that it's very complicated and we don't know much about how the chromosomes, hormones, and environment interact to produce an individual's gender, or sexual orientation (which is a separate thing).

As I understand it (because this is definitely NOT an area of expertise for me!!!)...

...we human beings all start out as anatomically female, and at a certain point in the developmental process in the womb, if an unborn baby is to be male, hormones are released which prompt the baby's genitals (and VERY probably the brain of that baby) to wind up (if all goes well) being "male" at the time of birth.

The problem is that this process does not always work as the ideal template says it "ought" to (in what people assume is a distinctly one-gender-or-the-other way).

Sometimes the genitals do not "change over" all the way, so a baby can be born with either both sets of external genitalia, or one set of genitalia but an adult human being has to decide whether that particular set is "male" or "female" because the physical genitals are ambiguous.

And additionally, sometimes the BRAINS of babies do not do a distinct switchover either, so a baby can be born with male genitalia, but a "female" brain (or vice versa).

Sometimes the baby, as it grows into a toddler or young child or older child or adolescent, KNOWS that there is a difference between the gender it is being raised as and the "true" (to that person) gender that the baby "is"---but for others, sometimes that child doesn't begin to realize what is going on until adolescent hormones begin to kick in as puberty looms.

In some people, sometimes, the genitalia of a given human being are distinctly one gender, but the brain of that same person is distinctly the OTHER gender.

So...for physical genitalia AND for brains, gender is a spectrum...

...with total female on the "beginning" end of the spectrum (since we all "begin" as female)...

...and total male on the OTHER end of the spectrum (since SOME of us become stereotypically "total" males)...

...and SOME of us end up (at the end of adolescence, if not before) at points along that spectrum (for both brains and for genitalia) which are some combination of both genders.

This is MY adult understanding of what goes on, but as I said, my knowledge of this subject is absolutely imperfect...so where am I wrong, all of you who actually DO know what is going on here???

I really would like critiques of this, my own best understanding, so I can overcome my own misapprehensions and blind spots, which are probably plentiful. ;)

Thank you!!!



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/04/2015 09:49AM by tevai.

tevai Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I really would like critiques of this, my own best
> understanding, so I can overcome my own
> misapprehensions and blind spots, which are
> probably plentiful. ;)

I think you nailed it, tevai. And the science of gender backs you up:

"Neuroscience of sex differences is the study of the characteristics of the brain that separate the male brain from the female brain. Unlike sexual characteristics, which are the physical qualities that separate the two sexes of an organism, the neurological differences are not visually apparent and therefore hard to study. Psychological sex differences are thought by some to reflect the interaction of genes, hormones and social learning on brain development throughout the lifespan. Some evidence from brain morphology and function studies indicates that male and female brains cannot always be assumed to be identical from either a structural or functional perspective, and some brain structures are sexually dimorphic."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_sex_differences

Something to consider for the OP regarding pronouns:

Some of your difficulty (and it's not just you, so don't feel bad in this regard, you're showing flexibility and a desire to learn) comes from your primary language. In English we have specific male and female pronouns, that are "culturally" bound to specific cases, and our language lacks an idea of a third (or fourth or fifth) gender, or ambiguous gender, etc. That's also the case for most of the "Romantic" languages.

But not all. Tagalog (Filipino), for example, doesn't have gender-based pronouns. "He" is the same as "she" -- siya. They don't have to grow up learning to assign a pronoun to gender and worry about the definitions -- they use the same word for males, females, and anyone in between or ambiguous. My Filipina wife, who speaks outstanding English and has been in the US for almost 30 years, still occasionally uses the incorrect English pronoun -- so ingrained was her non-gender pronoun use growing up (she'll occasionally say "he" for a woman or "she" for a male).

It's interesting that in the Philippines, despite the strong religious social context (around 92% Catholic and 97% christian), transgender individuals have a LONG history of at least tolerance, and even outright acceptance. Transgender people are practically fixtures in their TV shows and plays, for example -- and the "bathroom issues" we more gender-focused people have are practically non-existent. I wonder sometimes if the language differences, which in their case don't include gender-specific pronouns, have something to do with that acceptance...

We know that gender is more of a spectrum than a binary...

We know that gender does not always match genitalia...

We know a little about the stages of development, and that "female" seems to be the default. The Y chromosome codes for the development of testes which produce testosterone. Absence of a Y chromosome is usually female.

Understanding human development is always complicated because it's a combination of genetic and environmental factors, and we don't know how much is influenced by genetics and how much by environment. Also, it's very difficult to do scientific studies of humans, since it would be unethical, for example, to try to randomly turn males to females and females to males at various stages of development so that we could study the effects. We can't do that, so we are left with simple observations.

When you choose to call someone a he or she based upon their biological characteristics and not what they are on the inside, it's simply disrespectful. You are not recognizing their true self. They can't help that they were born in the wrong body. It's extremely rude and insensitive to insist that they are a he or she based on what sex you interpret with your eyes, especially if you know damn well they do not identify with that body.

There has traditionally been a distinction between "sex" and "gender." Sex is generally seen as biological and ultimately based on sex chromosomes - this can be complicated for some people but for most people this distinction can identify them as "male" or "female." Gender is more of a construct based on personal and social identification. People perceive and present themselves and are viewed and treated as "male" or "female" or something else. Gender can be influenced by cultural norms and social roles and is more fluid than biological sex differences.

Most people are inclined to treat people how they choose to be identified and don't really need to know all of the details unless they have a compelling reason (e.g. a physician who may have real reason to be concerned that a drug would work differently based on biological distinctions).

people started calling my son "he" way before he even started his hormonal transition. I feel for the ones that don't easily transition physically because it's such a mindfuck to be called the sex that you know you aren't on the inside.

My sister, who is a cisgender lesbian that is very "butch," was often misgendered in her early adulthood because she is very masculine in appearance. This is why we can't just define people by what their outward appearance.

Take a look at these pics:
https://www.google.com/search?q=buzzfeed+transgender+male&biw=1366&bih=701&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CDAQsARqFQoTCMnC25vI3ccCFcIMkgodMpwPyg

Can anyone really tell if these people are actually trans males without knowing beforehand?

Maybe the problems come from us needing labels. Everyone just needs to look at people as people.

It's also why when we're not sure how someone identifies, we need to suck it up and ask politely what their preferred pronouns and identifications are.

This might be of some interest to your questions, especially about the use of pronouns:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/gender-neutral-pronouns-when-they-doesnt-identify-as-either-male-or-female/2014/10/27/41965f5e-5ac0-11e4-b812-38518ae74c67_story.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/gender-neutral-pronouns-when-they-doesnt-identify-as-either-male-or-female/2014/10/27/41965f5e-5ac0-11e4-b812-38518ae74c67_story.html
http://www.theawl.com/2011/01/our-desperate-250-year-long-search-for-a-gender-neutral-pronoun

very true, just ask! It's the respectful thing to do.

Thanks for the links. They are interesting.

The use of 'they' for one person would be hard for my brain to deal with as well.

imagine being the mother of a transgender child that you love with every fiber of your being. I am used to saying "she" but I try not to say that now because I know it's disrespectful to his true identity. I can forgive the general public when they use the wrong pronoun, but to use the wrong pronoun on purpose makes me really mad because it discounts everything they are trying to accomplish.

We're all conditioned (at least in the USA) to think in binary and dual terms. Think of how children are gender conditioned from the moment they are born- Pink bows and frilly things for girls, blue shirts and "manly" clothes for boys. Even the way people hold babies is different by the identified gender. So many people don't question why things are they way they are and believe this is the way it's always been, but that's not the reality of it.

It takes active, concerted effort to understand that there's more than just this or the opposite. It also takes a lot of rethinking what you've been conditioned to accept as "truth" and it won't happen overnight.

I hope you can see that I am asking the questions to gain an understanding.

Thanks for your input.

If my answers seem clipped, it's only because I'm trying to be as forthright as possible.

If it makes you feel less alone, I'm going through my own process of trying to understand cultural appropriation versus appreciation and it's been painful to re-examine myself in that context.

It really does matter when those with societal privileges decide to take a long look at what marginalized people deal with everyday.

My daughter told us that she knew wasn't a women when she was 13, but now she is "non-binary". She says she is a man who likes to dress like a woman, but she also dresses like a man. She's 19. She's chosen a man's name now. I think that when I scoffed at the reports of what going off to a liberal college does to kids...I was wrong.

She's confused. I'm confused. She treats my wife and I badly and gets angry when we refer to her as "she"...she'd rather be "they". Check the DNA and testosterone levels and she's a....woman.

She/They would stay up half the night on Skype with the "love of her/their life" (met on the internet, never met in real life), a 23 year-old who holds the same views, but appears to have no schooling, no job, but plenty of time on the computer, apparently.

One of her FB friends has, as her profile pic', the slogan "gender is a choice". Uhhh...no...I put this down as a First World problem. It may sound judgmental, but I simply hope she grows out of it; as my wife puts it: "She's so consumed with this sexual identification thing that she's not taking care of business."

I know I'm rambling; any help?

Chicken N. Backpacks Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> One of her FB friends has, as her profile pic',
> the slogan "gender is a choice". Uhhh...no...I
> put this down as a First World problem.

Not so. As I pointed out in my post above, the Philippines has a vibrant and mostly accepted transgender community. So does Thailand. So do a number of other "third world" countries. It's a human issue, not a "First World problem."

If your child doesn't want to be defined by the gender binary, why not respect their choice?

Maybe your child just wants to be seen as a person, a human being, instead of being stuck in a little box.

I'm completely female, but there were times that I wished I were male, just because of the societal privileges given to men. Maybe you child is the same way.

Maybe it is deeper than that and your child is transgender.

Why not accept your child, and then try to talk to them about it? Show them that you care and that you really want to understand.

Yeah, I guess a question for me is that if gender is simply a social psychological construct, then how can a person be mismatched. If the adoption of a gender identity is arbitrary, then that knife cuts both ways. It's either important, or it's not. If gender identity is important to the transgendered then it makes sense to me that it would be important to everybody.

Truthfully, I'm happy to admit that I'm uniformed on this topic. I am, I honestly don't get it. I've never experienced this, so I don't understand it. And I'm satisfied to accept that I don't understand it. But, I don't think most of the people defending it understand it either. I can be respectful of why a person would want to be treated as the gender they are identifying. I can accept that this is a real "condition" for lack of a better word, but I can't say that it is for certain, so I can call a guy a woman if he prefers, or vice versa, but I can also appreciate that there are plenty of contexts where a person would like to know 'okay, this is a woman...but physically you could argue that this person is a man who believes their gender was mismatched according to their biological sex'.

In other words, I don't think that it is as simple as being open minded or close minded. I think I'm fairly open minded, but how do I honestly be open minded on this topic? I can read a lot of self reported anecdote and some case study...but at the end of the day I am required to take these narratives at face value or reserve judgement about what it means to have a mismatched identity. For the most part that means live and let live, but as simple as that sounds, it isn't nearly so easy once we start talking about simple yet volatile issues such as restrooms or full-disclosure dating, etc.

...Unless one is trans. I understand it better than the average person because I've had friends that are trans and I've spent a lot of time studying the issues and researching the subject in depth. This is part of the field I'm going into eventually, so I need to be able to empathize and be knowledgeable. I get that not everyone is not up on the same level, but that doesn't mean they should be nasty or flaunt their joyous ignorance about it (not a jab at you, just a general comment.)

I also know, however, that I can never fully comprehend what it feels like to have the wrong body because my mind matches up with my biological sex. That's the nature of the interpersonal gap where no one can fully understand what it's like to be another person and some gaps happen to be wider than others. It doesn't mean we can't be understanding or empathetic to others, though.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/04/2015 05:05PM by Itzpapalotl.

Would there be a level of disparity if a transgendered person born male and identifies as female, but has not yet had surgery, competed in the olympics as a female?

There's a woman who was originally male, fighting in the women's division...there's definitely some concern about whether having developed with that additional testosterone gives her an unfair advantage...but it wouldn't be fair to put her in the men's division. In a way, maybe it's similar to steroid use? But she didn't intentionally do anything to disqualify herself, and as an athlete, she deserves to be able to compete. Not too sure what's the best way to handle this one.

Gender and sexuality are very biased concepts in the minds of most of us. We are influenced by our childhood indoctrination. If you are willing to think about it for a minute, you'll realize that it really doesn't matter that much. A person is actually the gender they believe they are. The "bathroom controversy " is a false idea.

I donate platelets on a frequent basis. The phlebotomist who does my intake is required to ask me, "What is your sex?"

I answer, "What do YOU think?"

He/she/it replies, "I'm required to ask."

My answer: "Well, today I've decided to self-identify as a man. Hope that's sufficient."

caffiend Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I donate platelets on a frequent basis. The
> phlebotomist who does my intake is required to ask
> me, "What is your sex?"

This is a sensitive and thoughtful question to ask, rather than the phlebotomist making assumptions and then proceeding on those assumptions.

This is a really good thing.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/04/2015 06:31PM by caffiend.