I've seen it asserted on this site that gender identity has nothing to do with biological anatomy, and that has me really confused.

If not for biological anatomy, what does it mean for a man to identify as a female? or vice versa.

Is it a gender role thing?

What does it actually mean for a man to identify as a female but not choose to have surgery? What is the "femaleness" they are identifying as?

This is an honest question, by the way. I trust the members of this site to respond honestly and not assume I'm transphobic or something which isn't the case...

It's a spectrum. And it has more to do with how you feel on the inside.

If you are a boy who feels like a straight boy - that's where you fall on the spectrum. Other people feel differently inside.

Some boys feel like girls. Some girls feel like boys. And then there's feelings in between.

Thanks for writing this. Somehow it makes me feel less weird.

When I was really young, I thought I was a boy. I couldn't stand dresses and HATED my long hair, even at three, because long hair was "girl hair." I cut my hair several times, and told my parents: "Look! Now I'm a boy!" They were horrified. I was ecstatic.

By the time I was about 5, I realized I wasn't a boy, but I still kind of thought I was. All my friends were boys. I played with boys toys, and I remember looking at the Sears catalog and wishing that I could buy boys shoes.

Slowly things changed. I started liking boys. Hormones kicked in and eventually I just felt more like a girl. But it was a process that took a long time. I probably didn't feel like I fit society's definition of female until I was in college.

So, thanks for writing that gender isn't binary. It wasn't for me, and seeing this makes me feel a little less weird.

Thank YOU for this response. It kind of helps me understand that the reasons you felt more like a boy had not much to do with biology and everything to do with the roles and expectations society imposes on the sexes.

Boys' shoes
Girls' hair
Boys' toys

etc...

It's about being treated by society as that gender. Once that happens. The dysphoria diminishes enough or even completely.

The person's identity is reinforced by societal behavior so the person feels at one both within him/herself and their role in society.

This is why full gender reassignment surgery is not very common. Besides price. The person can often be gender fulfilled by outward appearance and society responding in kind to that appearance.

So then is it a fair statement that it does actually come down to gender roles?

So basically, if society treated boys and girls exactly the same, there would be no transgender folks?

"So basically, if society treated boys and girls exactly the same, there would be no transgender folks?"

A very interesting question and based on what I've seen so far, I believe the answer that there would still be "transgender folks", but I don't have the time to research the science for that at the moment.

The male brain and the female brain is different. I know it's not exactly your question, but there's a case where a baby was born male, but due to a botched circumcision, the doctors and parents decided to make the baby female and raised it as such. The boy's brain told him otherwise and eventually he started living life as a male (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer)

So, it seems, you can't raise a baby in a role that it's not meant to be in.

There are all kinds of websites out there today regarding raising your child "gender-neutral", but those are more towards letting your child decide... i.e., they still live in a gendered society, so it's not as if a child could realistically be raised in a truly gender-less manner today, not ethically anyway. It is interesting that it seems (again, I don't have a proper reference for this at the moment, sorry) that if you raise your child gender neutral, they will decide for themselves.

Very helpful response.

So in the instances that a child is raised "gender neutral" and they decide for themselves which gender they are, does that ultimately mean they act like a male or a female regardless of any associated surgeries?

So basically, if we had no gender roles in society, what would it even mean to identify as male or female?

kolobian Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Very helpful response.
>
> So in the instances that a child is raised "gender
> neutral" and they decide for themselves which
> gender they are, does that ultimately mean they
> act like a male or a female regardless of any
> associated surgeries?

Parents with children who are gender neutral usually report that their children do pick a gender for themselves, but that's not always the case. Some people never pick one or the other. They remain neutral.


>
> So basically, if we had no gender roles in
> society, what would it even mean to identify as
> male or female?

That's a difficult question to answer as there are some general differences between the sexes that aren't cultural per se. Men are generally larger than women. Men generally impregnate women. Women tend to give birth to children and nurse them.

Okay, but I've never had a child, so does that make me not a woman?

What about if I personally feel female? But I wear pants and have super short cropped hair. (True, I asked my stylist to "just cut it like the guy who was in this chair before me -- I want it THAT short."

Is it about how I present myself or how society sees and accepts me?

I think if there were no gender roles in society, self-confidence in individuals would be higher. People would be more self-accepting and accepting of differences in others, because there would be no ideal or perfect way to be. I think when parents raise their children as gender-neutral, it gives power back to the child about their own identity. It tells a child they do not have to feel less than compared to other students in their class who are conforming to expectations of their gender roles. When I think of a girl who falls outside the norm, I think of tom-boys, who still identify as female but are happy with the "male" interests they identify with. Same for guys who identify as male but have more "feminine" interests.

well, then everyone would be transgender.

From a Cultural Anthropology perspective, Sex is biological, Gender is a social construct.

Wellll, not necessarily. There is quite a lot of social construction of sex at play too. One in about 1,500 people has some anatomical or chromosomal variation that diverges from the traditional understanding of biological maleness or femaleness. Some variations are highly visible (anatomical ambiguity, etc.) and some people may go their entire life without realizing that their hormonal responses, etc. are not aligned with the sex they were assigned at birth.

Indeed. I intentionally simplified my statement for the sake of brevity.

Think back to when you were growing up and you first became aware of the world. You start to notice other people and see things in your neighbourhood. Then you start to notice that people treat boys and girls differently. They look different. Men and women are different. Then you start to notice how you differ from what people tell you are -- just like the "Freaky Friday" movies. You keep insisting that no, you are not what your parents and family tell you are but the opposite. As you grow older, you become aware that a horrible mistake has been made and your body is deformed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_Jennings
http://www.transkidspurplerainbow.org/jazzs-book-i-am-jazz-is-now-out-2/

I think its the same dynamic in mormonism.

I was born into a mormon family.

I was expected to walk, talk, and act like a mormon for my entire life.

Before the age of baptism, "I" knew I wasn't mormon inside and I knew I didn't want to be one on the outside.

My family tried to "make" me be a mormon, they didn't want anything but a mormon.

I resisted all the way, but was eventually allowed to "not be" a mormon during my teens, although now I was treated as "less than" by my family and the other mormons in my life. I was finally happy inside.....but still isolated because I was different. That isolation has severed many relationships with family and friends.

What would have been nice, is if the church and everyone in it would have said I could identify as whatever I wanted as far as faith and worship, and I would still be welcome and loved by all, because its really all about family, happiness, and joy.

I think it means something like that.

That was excellent.

I think societal concepts of male and female are extremely limited and based largely on assumption. People resist those assumptions when they don't apply to them and try to find the identity that fits them better. For the individual, it may or may not matter if the reasons are biological. For me, I respect an individual's desire to be who they are and see no need to impose my subjective, extremely limited definition of genders that is based largely on religious conditioning that I'm still shaking off.

There's a small nation where a rare genetic quirk results in babies who are born with no male genitalia and are raised female. When they reach puberty, suddenly they grow that genitalia. As they grow up, they are faced with the decision of how they want to identify -- as what they were raised? Or as a male? Or as something else?

At the end of the day, I think the individual is the only one who can decide what identity they are comfortable wearing. I see no need to control the definition of someone else's gender. I had enough of ignorant people controlling everyone else when I was in the Mormon church.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/10/2016 07:51PM by abcdomg.

Nevermind.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/10/2016 03:33PM by blueorchid.

Years ago, I worked as a nurse in a preschool for Head Start kiddos, ages 3 to 5. One little boy, who had been born with ambiguous genitalia, had parents who decided to raise him as a boy. He was clearly uncomfortable in this role and had mannerisms and physical abilities that were very effeminate, even at age 4. He was what you would call 'dainty' at that age, and his voice was definitely that of a little girl. I felt very sorry for him and think the parents made their decision way too soon. Fortunately, he wasn't teased by the other kids but I could only imagine the torture he faced as he got older.

It's more accurate to say that gender identity isn't determined by anatomy. It has something to do with anatomy for most people, but it's really about who you are as a person.

I guess most people don't realize they have feelings about gender. If the label you were given at birth fits you, then you probably never felt left out or misunderstood. People said you were a boy and then a man, and you agreed. They placed you in groups with other boys and you felt like you belonged. They called you he, him, sir, son, brother, father, uncle, etc... and you felt those words described you.

To be honest, I've always wondered what that's like. To be understood without having to explain yourself. To be accepted without having to fight for it. To have people believe you when you try to tell them who you are, instead immediately trying to invalidate you.

So yeah, a lot of it is about the gender role you play socially, but it's also about how you see yourself and how you feel about your body.

That said, coming at it from a biological perspective doesn't work. A trans woman, who was born male, isn't a "man who identifies as a female". She's a woman. One who may or may not have anatomy that is unusual for a woman to have. If she still has a flat chest and a stick and berries she might be upset about that. Maybe not. Discomfort with one's body varies a lot between trans people. Some feel that alteration is necessary. Others feel that their bodies don't define them.

Most trans people I know who don't have surgery choose not to either because they can't afford it or because it doesn't quite make up for what nature didn't give them. If any other woman lacked a vagina do you think she'd want one made from penis skin turned inside out? Probably not. And actually, there are some cis (non-trans) women who fail to develop a vaginal canal, for whatever reason. What they go through to have one constructed is very similar to what trans women go through, just with a skin graft from a different area.

As far as genitals and surgery are concerned, it really just depends on how much pain and suffering you're go through to get what you want. If you lost 92% of you dick in an unfortunate accident would you want a new one constructed using flesh from your arm, leg, or back? Or would you just make do with the tiny leftover stump?

If those sound like shitty options, you're not alone. That's pretty similar to the decision I have to make. I could stick with the thumb-sized dick I have now, or sacrifice some other part of my body to make it bigger. Those are the two most common outcomes. Personally, I'm gonna hold out for a penis transplant. They did it for a guy in Africa, so it's only a matter of time before they start doing it here.

I was good at marbles, baseball, kickball, competitive swimming, you name it. I can often remember saying that I wished I had been born a boy, because it seemed like boys had more freedom, and were allowed to take more fun classes in school. (I would have LOVED to take woodshop, but girls were not allowed to take that. I had to take "Home Ec," because that's what girls did.) To this day, I consider the kitchen to be primarily a room to walk through while en route to another part of the house.

I remember being shocked when my mother told me, when I was in college, that she fully expected me to come out as lesbian.

Didn't happen. Straight female who just happened to like boy-type activities. And I was competitive as hell. I was often told that "boys don't like girls who beat them at sports." At that point in my life, I had no use for boys with such wimpy attitudes.

These days, my DH often remarks that I am a lot smarter than he is. But I can see right through that. Yeah, I am smarter at SOME things - but he is the one with true intellect, and I deeply respect that.

Nature loves variety, society does not.

Gender is a social construct because it can and does differ from society to society.

A gender role is absolutely a thing- Remember all the hell feminists caught for wanting the vote and to be something other than just a wife and mother? They were called unfeminine, unnatural, and the downfall of society. Men who are in touch with their "feminine side" are called wussies, "gay", and pathetic.

Do you remember a few years ago when a little boy in a catalog was shown with pink painted nails because that was his favourite colour? And all the backlash it received?


Women are still castigated for having short, "unfeminine" hair and wearing pants in the most conservative of circles and even non-conservative ones, as our role is always to be sexually appealing, just like men's roles are supposed to be the strong provider that only likes whiskey and never fruity, sweet drinks.

You can be a manly man that likes pink, baking, and cosmos. You can be a womanly woman with short hair that hates frilly things. It's up to each individual to decided how they want to express their gender and that includes trans people.

I don't think you're transphobic, I think you just don't get it yet. It's the same thing I saw with so many straight people when it comes to gays and lesbians- they couldn't understand how a person would ever want to be with the same gender/sex, but realize it's not about how you feel, it's about how a person understands his/her/their own place in the world in relation to the various personal identifications.

There's a whole world of information for you to google. I recommend getting an account at academia.edu and reading lots of apa articles on the subject. Talk to trans people- They're just like you and me, and they've always existed. Look at the histories of various cultures and their perceptions of 3rd genders.

They identify with femininity. Femininity is not the same as womanhood. Same with masculinity and manhood.

If a trans man wants to father a child, what is he identifying with?

If a trans woman wants to give birth to a child, what is she identifying with?

Whatever they want? I don't know. It's an individual thing. It seems pretty straightforward to me.

Just based on the conversations I've been following so far, they'd identify as a "parent."

What does it feel like to be a gender?

This is the best question and I think speaks directly to the futility of Kolobian's question that, to me, seems unanswerable.

Our physical bodies have a gender, sometimes not formed right.

It appears our psyche has a gender which may or may not align with our physical body.

What about the rest of our parts?

I don't feel that what is really me to the core, the place where all the real me comes from, has a gender. I'm just me.

The words I, Yo, Io, or moi have no gender. Interesting.

I am in a training workshop today presented by an expert in gender studies and the comments made here are sounding very consistent with her research.