Gender

[Muslimwoman]

Oh Flow, please don't get frustrated with me. I accept these things are medical realities now, I just don't see how anyone can say that it actually changes a persons gender. Their chromosomes remain the same.

[flowperson]

Hi MW:
I'm not frustrated, and I've not taken any of this personally. It's just that I see gender as being in a process of constant change due to the nature of the biological changes in chromosomal structuring. But you view it all as a some sort of truth fixed in time. That's ok, but the long term history of humanity is three steps forward, two steps back. Its called evolution, and lots of love must accompany the process.

Love and salaam....flow....

[Pathless]

Originally Posted by dauer

Isn't the word sex typically used when referring to biology and gender for issues of societal roles and identity?

Clearly there is a lot of confusion over this. For me yes, gender is something different than biological sex. Just because I have a penis does not mean that I conform to masculine gender stereotypes. My having a penis complete with testicles does mean that I also have a higher level of testosterone running through my body than those individuals who have ovaries and a vagina rather than the male package. That is about as far as I am willing to go with the stereotyping.

Muslimwoman, I like ya a lot and you are a lot of fun to have around--and I am definitely seeing things from a different angle than you.

Originally Posted by Muslimwoman

Social gender roles are a whole new ballgame, however I still feel that when a person moves out of their natural role they go against nature. Let's take it to basics, we are all about reproduction and homosexual acts (for both genders) cannot create life without the intervention of medical science, so how can their gender role be seen as natural when it goes against our very purpose?

Whaddayamean "our very purpose"? Are we just a bunch of advanced monkeys here to mate and raise babies? What about the population explosion which you addressed later?

Originally Posted by Muslimwoman

The worlds population is already out of control, so should we be tinkering with nature to try to provide a different lifestyle for the tiny minority with the money to pay for it?

This thread isn't only about homosexuality or transsexuality--and I recognize that you were voicing a frustration with wasting valuable resources trying to get males to the point where they can bear children or females to the point where they can ejaculate semen. What I wonder is, if "deviant" genders are associated with homosexuality (which I don't think they are, necessarily, mind you), then maybe we should be encouraging them out of concern for our population problem.

Heh. Okay, okay... I need to slow down. I'd like to offer a quote from a cutting-edge book called My Gender Workbook by Kate Bornstein. Here she offers an interesting perspective on gender. It's an opinion, for sure, and is one that makes sense to me:

'The concept of gender is muddled enough without our confusing it with something entirely different like biology. Sure, some people differentiate sex and gender by saying things like "My sex is male, but my gender is woman."

But why not say, "I'm a woman with a penis!"

For so long, we've bought into a biological imperative that has labeled genatalia as "male" or "female"; what's more, we've dignified that imperative by giving it its own word: sex! Anyway, who says penises are male and vulvas are female? "Sex" as a designation of gender says it. Sex-as-gender says that penises are male, and that vaginas, vulvas, and clitorises are female. I don't get it. I know too many male men with vaginas and too many female women with penises to any longer buy into some wishful thinking on the part of old-guard scientists who'd like to have things all nice and orderly in some predictable binary. For a long time, we've tried to explain two different, admittedly related concepts, with one word: sex. We need to pull them apart if we're going to make any sense of it.'

People here may or may not agree with Ms. Bornstein's line of thinking. To me, it makes some sense--but I am not invested or interested in keeping gender boxed up for any political, social, or religious reasons. I'm just laying that out there, because I think that such vested interests may be where some of the differing opinions in this thread are rooted. What happens if someone with testicles and a penis is just as capable of providing love, nurturance, fun, and creative learning, and even breast milk (it's possible) to children as someone with a womb and a vagina? And who cares if a someone with a womb and a vagina decides that she's rather play baseball and drive a truck than bear children? I mean, really?? Really? On a personal level, I wouldn't be able to understand the latter because I resonate more with the former. Yet also because I'm a person with a "tail in the front" (as I've heard a child refer to it) who gravitates towards nurturing rather than providing material sustenance, I respect and empathize with a person who has breasts and a coochie-snorcher (heh heh, Vagina Monologues anyone? ) but would rather haul lumber and wear a hard hat than knit and take the kids to the park.

Beyond that, a world full of only two genders--rough-and-tumble manly men and sensual, soft women--seems reallllllly boring to me. I don't mean that to offend God or nature, either; to me it just seems stifling. And I think that God and nature could also be awfully bored with the way we've boxed ourselves up into two poles/roles.



My thoughts...

Pathless

[17th Angel]

Originally Posted by flowperson

Hi MW:
I'm not frustrated, and I've not taken any of this personally. It's just that I see gender as being in a process of constant change due to the nature of the biological changes in chromosomal structuring. But you view it all as a some sort of truth fixed in time.

Ok! Flow calm down!! It's ok... No need for the agro.

[Tao_Equus]

I think I'm more with MW on this issue. As i see it there are 3 "natural" states of gender, male, female and the very rare transgendered. The percentage of transgenered individuals is minuscule and is due to genetic mutation in inbred groups and occurs in any significant percentage only with very few isolated tribes. By transgender I mean those that are born with both male and female reproductive organs.

Biological gender is fixed, unchangeable. You can use medical technology to change appearance but not function. Male and female organs are in fact surprisingly similar and it would not surprise me at all to find that pretty soon even functionality will be within mans capability to change. As I am of the opinion that everything man does is natural we will then have changed what constitutes natural.

I am fortunate that I have always been happy with my gender. For some people this is not the case and the sense of displacement they feel can make them extremely miserable. It is wrong perhaps to generalise but there have been several documentaries down the years on those that have undergone sex organ changes. In every case I have seen the sex change does not remove the underlying dissatisfaction these people seem to have. Rather it seems to me they have unusually aggravated levels of angst and they focus on sexuality as the cause. But it is not. They are no happier after their operations.

Its a big wide world and I say live and let live. But I do feel that transgenders and homosexuals are usually that way because of psychological issues rather than any biological mistake. I long ago decided, and have since seen no evidence to the contrary, that everyone is insane. And its true. Nobody can see the sanity of every single individuals choices. We are lucky if we can see the sanity of our own. I know I'm nuts.

Where I take issue is when medical resources are diverted, or public money disproportionately sidelined for sexuality related individuals and groups. In the US you dont really have this dilemma but here where we pay without choice into the NHS I find it outrageous that we should be paying tens of thousands of pounds for someone's angst to be temporarily thwarted by non-essential surgery. Or that large chunks of my taxes are given to gay rights groups for their lewd promotion of their deviance to children. That is just wrong.

We are all a bit crazy. Gays and transsexuals are just a bit more outspoken and obvious than most. Live and let live... but give them no special rights and definitely not at the expense of the wider 98+ % of people who are expected to fund their choices.

Tao

[China Cat Sunflower]

Main Entry:1gen£der
Pronunciation:*jen-d*r
Function:noun
Etymology:Middle English gendre, from Anglo-French genre, gendre, from Latin gener-, genus birth, race, kind, gender — more at KIN
Date:14th century

1 a : a subclass within a grammatical class (as noun, pronoun, adjective, or verb) of a language that is partly arbitrary but also partly based on distinguishable characteristics (as shape, social rank, manner of existence, or sex) and that determines agreement with and selection of other words or grammatical forms b : membership of a word or a grammatical form in such a subclass c : an inflectional form showing membership in such a subclass
2 a : SEX *the feminine gender* b : the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex

I had to look this up because I was getting lost in the semantical soup. I was thinking that sex and gender are synonymous, but as Dauer pointed out- they're not. So I guess everywhere I used the word gender it should be replaced with sex except where I was referring to gender roles. Ginger rolls...whatever. Gotta go play my gender role and scoot off to work.

Chris

[flowperson]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

Its a big wide world and I say live and let live. But I do feel that transgenders and homosexuals are usually that way because of psychological issues rather than any biological mistake. I long ago decided, and have since seen no evidence to the contrary, that everyone is insane. And its true. Nobody can see the sanity of every single individuals choices. We are lucky if we can see the sanity of our own. I know I'm nuts.

We are all a bit crazy. Gays and transsexuals are just a bit more outspoken and obvious than most. Live and let live... but give them no special rights and definitely not at the expense of the wider 98+ % of people who are expected to fund their choices.

Tao

Amen Bro.

flow....

[Muslimwoman]

Originally Posted by Pathless

Muslimwoman, I like ya a lot and you are a lot of fun to have around--and I am definitely seeing things from a different angle than you.

I know, I am dinosaur!! I like you too but wouldn't the world be boring if we all just sit around agreeing with each other.

Originally Posted by Pathless

Whaddayamean "our very purpose"? Are we just a bunch of advanced monkeys here to mate and raise babies? What about the population explosion which you addressed later?

Well, yes that is exactly what we are. Without that purpose the human race would have died out long along (and the world could have taken a huge sigh of relief). I am not saying women are baby making factories, just that we have that plumbing and men do not. No matter how many ways you look at it and how many scalples you apply to it, that remains a fact of life.

Originally Posted by Pathless

What I wonder is, if "deviant" genders are associated with homosexuality (which I don't think they are, necessarily, mind you), then maybe we should be encouraging them out of concern for our population problem.

Yeah, very funny. I have never suggested that people with gender confusion are deviant. If men want to sit around in tights and lipstick, fine, just please G-d not my husband. If they want to go through operations, having had as much psychiatric support as possible, then fine that is up to them. All I am saying is that no amount of surgery is going to make a man an actual woman or vice versa.

Originally Posted by Pathless

For so long, we've bought into a biological imperative that has labeled genatalia as "male" or "female"; what's more, we've dignified that imperative by giving it its own word: sex! Anyway, who says penises are male and vulvas are female?

You have got to be kidding me, is this a real book? Perhaps she didn't get to play doctors and nurses when she was a child?! So are we suggesting that some vagina's can be male and some penises are female? Sorry but to me this is just one step too far toward the funny farm.

The biological imperative is one of survival and it is an inbuilt instinct. This is not about sitting around sipping sherry and challenging sexual boundaries. We are built to reproduce, without reproduction the human race ceases, which goes against our biological imperative. Your comment about monkeys is becoming so typical these days, people are almost disgusted by the idea that we are animals and reproduce, which takes a male and female (I know dirty words but we have to differentiate somehow). The fact remains that we are animals and we need to reproduce in order to survive.

Originally Posted by Pathless

"Sex" as a designation of gender says it. Sex-as-gender says that penises are male, and that vaginas, vulvas, and clitorises are female. I don't get it. I know too many male men with vaginas and too many female women with penises to any longer buy into some wishful thinking on the part of old-guard scientists who'd like to have things all nice and orderly in some predictable binary.

Are you talking about peoples temperament, their emotional desires, their lifestyle choices? Okay, let us take a couple (one of each gender/sex/different wobbly bits). She is a brutish trucker and he makes house - no problem there, it a lifestyle choice and nobody's business but theirs. Now, they decide to have a baby. Who provides the sperm and who gets a swollen belly, sore boobs and lots of screaming in the delivery room? No amount of lifestyle choices or surgery can change that. I know, I am a demented, dark age thinker.

Originally Posted by Pathless

I'm just laying that out there, because I think that such vested interests may be where some of the differing opinions in this thread are rooted.

My religious beliefs don't come into it, biology does. I accept that I am old fashioned, that some women want to be truckers and some men want to be the maternal parent but we cannot escape the fact that the trucker is going to have to take time off to give birth.

Originally Posted by Pathless

What happens if someone with testicles and a penis is just as capable of providing love, nurturance, fun, and creative learning, and even breast milk (it's possible) to children as someone with a womb and a vagina?

That is a whole different discussion. Once the child is born, which parent cares for the child is a choice between the parents. Perhaps the father is more naturally tuned to be the carer, so that may be better for the child. However, the father, no matter how good a parent he is, cannot give birth to that child as he is of the male gender.

Originally Posted by Pathless

Beyond that, a world full of only two genders--rough-and-tumble manly men and sensual, soft women--seems reallllllly boring to me. I don't mean that to offend God or nature, either; to me it just seems stifling. And I think that God and nature could also be awfully bored with the way we've boxed ourselves up into two poles/roles.

Men can be as soft and sensual as they choose but they still have to hold their penis when they pee.

Why do you think it would offend G-d or nature? The Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) used to go to war and also do his own sewing and play with the children. One of his wives also led a battle. G-d does not say women must be girly and men must be brutish, He simply gave each gender certain capabilities when it comes to the future of the human race. He created two genders and only two.

Well that is my rambling nonsense for now.

Salaam
Sally

[Muslimwoman]

Originally Posted by China Cat Sunflower

I had to look this up because I was getting lost in the semantical soup. I was thinking that sex and gender are synonymous, but as Dauer pointed out- they're not. So I guess everywhere I used the word gender it should be replaced with sex except where I was referring to gender roles. Ginger rolls...whatever. Gotta go play my gender role and scoot off to work.

Chris

Well that puts a different slant on things, I was certainly in the gender meaning sex camp. Although I am no further forward, I have looked up the definition and found that the UN had an entire session to debate the meaning of gender and came to no particular conclusion. One dictionary states definitions, being:
1) Gramatical category ....blah blah blah
2) Sexual identity, especially in relation to society or culture.
3) The condition of being male or female.

OMG it is a condition now, I wonder if they will find a cure soon? So it appears that the word gender is really not very well defined and is no doubt adding to the confusion of this discussion.

I did find this, which is rather worrying. Why would anyone that is male want to change their birth certificate to read female, without sex change surgery? Sorry but it suggests psychological issues to me.

City Drops Plan to Change Definition of Gender - New York Times

The above article does leave me with a question. If we are going to start playing about with gender and allowing people to change their sex on birth certificates, what protection do I have? Other than in an emergency situation, I would only allow a female doctor to examine my body, so let us say I ring the surgery and ask to see a female doctor but get a male, with a penis, that lives as a woman. Okay it's not very likely but it is possible. So we have dealt with his rights to be as feminine as he wants but what about my rights to know what sex my doctor is?

[Pathless]

I don't see gender as a biological issue. Yes, only women (those born with girl bits, as mw says ) can have children. Yes, it takes an egg and a sperm to make a baby. So what? That stuff has to do with reproduction and biology, not gender in the way I think of it.

I could have been more clear initially, but I think I wanted to see what people thought of as gender. When I use the term gender, I don't use it to refer to biological differences. It has more to do with presentation, I think--whether one presents as masculine, feminine, or somewhere in between. I think there is a lot of color in the in-between spaces and also a lot of reactionary attitudes to those that present their gender as ambiguous.

Why should gender be set? Why not wake up in the morning and decide what gender to present the world with? "Today I will be more feminine," or "Today I am feeling more like a man. I want to wear these cowboy boots, these Wranglers, and this beefy flannel shirt."

Originally Posted by Tao Equus

Its a big wide world and I say live and let live. But I do feel that transgenders and homosexuals are usually that way because of psychological issues rather than any biological mistake. I long ago decided, and have since seen no evidence to the contrary, that everyone is insane. And its true. Nobody can see the sanity of every single individuals choices. We are lucky if we can see the sanity of our own. I know I'm nuts.

Yes, this is open-minded. Everyone is insane. Might as well say that we are all certified sane, though, for all the difference that makes. If we are all insane, then there really is no sane or insane is there? But I digress...

Yeah I don't think that any special funding should go to a pool of welfare sex-change operations. That would be silly, in my opinion. There are much more noble causes in the world, and yes, gender dysphoria may very well be a more psychological issue than a biological one. Who's to say, and what's the difference again, really? Anyway, personal gender issues can certainly be addressed without anyone going under the knife. Yet I think the fact that many people are compelled to take this drastic course is evidence that our cultures really have serious issues with gender. What kind of cultures do we live in where certian people with boy bits and others with girl bits feel so estranged in their own bodies that they want to undergo plastic surgery and hormone therapy to realign things so they can feel more comfortable? Is it purely a psychological problem of the individual?

I'd like to suggest that it might be a cultural problem: very strict notions of what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman have been presented to all of us relentlessly as part of our cultural programming. To be fair, I think women, with the various feminisms and women's rights movements, have more flexible socially-acceptable options for gender identity/presentation than men, although butch women are still sneered at and ridiculed too much.

I think that fear--homophobia in particular--and personal insecurites also have a lot to do with resistance to gender variation. I find it hard to understand how people who are not threatened by gender variance would be unnaccepting of those who wish to explore and express their own identities using gender as a continuum and something that is in flux.

[Pathless]

This is an interesting challenge to Tao's suggestion (implication?) that transgendered and homosexual individuals have some kind of angst-fueled psychological problem. Here's a link to a story about Jazz, who is now six. From very early in life--the article claims 15 months--Jazz, who has boy bits, claimed to be and presented hir gender as a girl. What do you make of this?

'I'm a Girl' -- Understanding Transgender Children


Parents of Transgender 6-Year-Old Girl Support Her Choice

From the moment we're born, our gender identity is no secret. We're either a boy or a girl. Gender organizes our world into pink or blue. As we grow up, most of us naturally fit into our gender roles. Girls wear dresses and play with dolls. For boys, it's pants and trucks.

But for some children, what's between their legs doesn't match what's between their ears -- they insist they were born into the wrong body. They are transgender children, diagnosed with gender identity disorder, and their parents insist this is not a phase.

"A phase is called a phase because it is just that. It ends. And this is not ending. This is just getting stronger," Renee Jennings told ABC News' Barbara Walters. The Jennings asked that "20/20" not disclose their real name in order to protect the identity of their 6-year old transgender daughter, Jazz.

Most transgender children still live in the shadows, hiding from a world that sees them as freaks of nature. Rejected by their families, many grow up hating their bodies, and fall victim to high rates of depression, drug abuse, violence and suicide.

Today, hundreds of families with transgender children -- who have found each other over the Internet -- are taking a dramatically different course. They're allowing their children to live in the gender they identify with in order to save them from a future of heartache and pain.

Full story.

[Muslimwoman]

Originally Posted by Pathless

Why should gender be set? Why not wake up in the morning and decide what gender to present the world with? "Today I will be more feminine," or "Today I am feeling more like a man. I want to wear these cowboy boots, these Wranglers, and this beefy flannel shirt."

Excuse me young man, I will have you know that I regularly wear cowboy boots and wranglers (such a good fit) but I do draw the line at flannel shirts, they are strictly for lumberjacks (male ones)

I have certainly always seen gender as male/female biology but shall try to change my thinking on this. That is not to say that I don't think girlies should return to having babies and boys should get back to sweating for a living but I do accept that in your line of thinking sex and gender are quite different - I can go with that.

Now you have me completely confused about my gender I wear cowboy boots and wranglers and I am really good with guns and power tools, so maybe I am boy

[China Cat Sunflower]

OK, so...we're just talking about gender and not sex (noun)? How can one quantify gender? It's a free-floating, amorphous, entirely relative thing. How many genders are there? How many colors are there? I guess I'll go with the rainbow children. If there are more than two sexes, can someone please tell me what the names of the other ones are?

Chris

[Pathless]

Originally Posted by Muslimwoman

Excuse me young man, I will have you know that I regularly wear cowboy boots and wranglers (such a good fit) but I do draw the line at flannel shirts, they are strictly for lumberjacks (male ones)

Ah-ha!! Welcome to the Rainbow, mw!! Glad you could join us after all.

I have certainly always seen gender as male/female biology but shall try to change my thinking on this. That is not to say that I don't think girlies should return to having babies and boys should get back to sweating for a living but I do accept that in your line of thinking sex and gender are quite different - I can go with that.

Hell no, I'm not going to sweat for a living. Been there, tried that, found that it leaves way too little time to think and exercise creativity--which are the abilities that I've been blessed with, rather than grinding down on a pneumatic drill and welding shi+ together.

Originally Posted by mw

Now you have me completely confused about my gender I wear cowboy boots and wranglers and I am really good with guns and power tools, so maybe I am boy

YAY!!! Now you're thinkin'!

[Pathless]

Originally Posted by China Cat Sunflower

If there are more than two sexes, can someone please tell me what the names of the other ones are?

Well, there's always 'chicks with dicks,' or less bluntly, hermaphrodites.