What is Gender? (featuring @sykochica as author)
Attention: This post has been written by @sykochica
Before we can get into defining gender, we need to cover a couple of things.
Gender and Sex
While the terms Sex and Gender are interchangeable terms for many people, it is important to understand the distinction.
Sex refers to biological differences; chromosomes, hormonal profiles, internal and external sex organs.
Gender describes the characteristics that a society or culture delineates as masculine or feminine.
Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation
In this picture we see four independent spectrums. This means that a position chosen on one doesn't effect (or limit options) on the others. A common misconception is that Gender Identity is the same as Sexual orientation. For example, a male to female transgender person has to like men, right? In fact, this transwoman, whose gender identity is female and could like men, women, both, be pansexual, asexual, or a slew of other options on the sexual orientation spectrum. The same availability of options apply to gender expression.
And Finally....What is Gender
Imagine a world where people were free to think, talk, dress, and present as they please? Do you think there would even be a concept of gender? Couldn't males act feminine or females act masculine without any issue? Society has developed what is acceptable for each gender and for a long time have gone against those who dare to step outside such "norms."
Language is also deeply embedded with gender. Have you ever noticed how many he/she pronouns you use in a day? Ever find it strange that languages including French, Spanish and Italian all have gender designations for inanimate objects? Do we really need to know that the table is feminine and use 'la' instead of 'le'?
Thousands of years back our biology ruled and was the primary concern for pre and early civilization. It's only natural that ways of thinking and language became embedded as the norm. With modern society we've gained the ability to think outside of this and see that gender can differ from sex, ideally allowing people to identify and express themselves freely.
Yes, biology has some effect and so does social interactions. There are still kids out there that are told (or worse) that "they shouldn't play with certain toys because it's not for their gender." This statement highlights key issues.
- Parents assuming that their child's biological sex is the same as their gender identity (male = masculine, right?)
- Social and/or familial norms of what someone else's gender should be.
These things are subtle and easily missed so I'm not trying to make anyone out to be a bad person. Things like this are rarely brought up or presented. However, it is still important to notice the effects these have to a young child who doesn't fully understand the world yet. Many times a child (or older) will present a gender identity or gender expression different from how they feel for practical reasons. The abuse, scorn and violence to the transgender community is staggering, can you really blame them?
Full Size Image
Gender Feedback Loop
As nice as it would be to have gender be a non-issue, where people were free to live, act and express themselves according to their own compasses, many parts of society backlash against those that don't hold to society's standards of gender roles or the gender binary itself (i.e. non-binary, gender fluid, etc.) To live life as a trans or non-binary person requires not only coming to grips with internal feelings and preferred methods of expression but also running these through a feedback loop with society.
For example, when I was about 5 or 6, expressing myself in ways that were socially considered feminine (at the time) such as wearing "my emotions on my sleeve" or crying was met with being picked on, sometimes bullied. The practical decision for me was to not express such things and hence be left alone. How I look and express is "digested" by others and how they treat me either positively or negatively reinforces my behavior. This is the feedback loop.
The sense of one's gender identity is acquired through the internalization of external knowledge. However, it is in fact never fully acquired – it has to be constantly performed and reenacted in social interactions. (source)
Trans and non-binary people have to first find the courage to identify and express as they see fit, and then hope for positive interactions with society. While many are able to succeed in their transition the statistics of those who aren't so lucky are staggering. On every study I've seen in the United States or the UK, over 40% of all transgender people attempt suicide at some point in their life, compared to about 5% rate for the general population.
I know we've all heard the counter arguments here, saying the trans or non-binary person is "sick" which leads to the horrifying statistics of suicide. But they never seem to mention that these are people who were kicked out of their home or disowned by parents, bullied endlessly, trolled online, shunned by friends, kicked out of their places of worship, beaten up, raped and sometimes murdered. Is it any wonder that at least 4 in 10 transpeople try at some point to take their own life?
Until the day that gender is irrelevant (i.e. people are free to identity and express as they please) society MUST accept it's role in propagating these imposed "norms." While it takes times to change something as deeply embedded in society and language as gender, simply being accepting of somebody who has the courage to Identify and Express their core self outside of these "norms" goes a long way in the mean time.
Be a part of the Positive feedback loop.
Additional Reading:
What's Gender Anyway
Transgender Suicide Statistics
Image Sources:
Gender Roles
Spectrums
Trans Statistics
Jazz Jennings
Attention: This post has been written by @sykochica
@knozaki2015 features authors and artist to promote them and a diversity of content. https://steemit.chat/channel/academy (if you want to get in touch)
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Don't just follow me, follow the author as well, if you like their post @sykochica
This is where i differ a bit on this subject. It seems that these sort of arguments call for society to change for the the one who is the victim.
This tends to lead to more laws to police these things and ultimately more tax payer funding.
I am leaning more these days towards a building of confidence in children from birth and throughout their lives, initially being reinforced by all people in the childs life, stemming from their parents and being policed by their parents.
So hopefully the end product is a child that grows into a healthy adult who will not tolerate stupid people and their stupid judgements and who will go about their life and be happy anyway. I think this would work better long term. Eventually we will have healthy adults everywhere and the world could start to be the place every person deserves it to be.
I look forward to the day that parents, families, and other social groups build the confidence in children, as you were saying. While a non-discrimination law can be helpful (as was done for native americans, women, african americans, etc,) the core of the issue is social awareness and understanding, which the law itself doesn't fully solve. As the laws currently stand, and even with same-sex marriage being recognized now, in many US states, including mine, LGBT people can be fired or evicted from homes with no legal recourse. As we've seen before the laws are a supplementary, necessary evil in my opinion.
One issue to banking on 'social and family' goodness, while ideal, isn't possible as things stand. Many who come out as LGBT are shunned, demeaned, disowned, or worse by their own family. While things have gotten a lot better in this area for the LGB with the gay awareness campaign that's run since the early 1980's, the transgender (other others) have just started gaining similar traction in the last handful of years.
My concern with leaving these issues to the 'goodness' of parents, family, and early social groups (school) will just continue with more of the insanely shocking statistics including 41%+ attempted suicide rate for the transgender community, compared to the 4.5-5% rate for the general population. Stats
I'd love to leave this issue to the 'goodness' of society, without need for tax payer money. Unfortunately, I'm not comfortable leaving these decisions to those who in reality are doing the persecuting.
However, my goal with pieces like this, to raise awareness, mutual understanding and get conversations started.
Great post @knozaki2015 and @sykochica. This topic should be talked at all times...it is all how we potrait the appearance of ourself...
Thank you!
I look forward to the day it's a non-issue/ normal to just "be."
We should look around us. Do we see the society changes? No, society never changes. It is all how we show the society and it reacts on that.
I completely agree :)
Excellent article. As always the change starts with us and we must gently, but constantly and with compassion, educate others.
This is a topic that hits home for me and I try to "with compassion, educate others." There are tons of allies who want to gain (or have gained) understanding and are often unappreciated.
Thank you!
Yes if everybody was open to others being different, we would have a lot less problems in the world...
Glad you featured this. The topic is presented really well. I enjoyed it. @sykochica cheers!
Gender as a social construct can be hard thing to really comprehend, seeing as masculine and feminine do exist. That's where the confusion comes from I think. There is proof that those concepts exist as if not we wouldn't recognize transgender at all.
Biologically male and female people, even if completely portraying masculine and feminine traits of their gender outwardly, do not necessarily find fulfillment in ways typical for that way of being, well, no one is a stereotype or wants to be thought of like that, right.
I believe there are masculine and feminine roles. As if not, it makes no sense to feel as if born in the wrong sex (to use that one type of gender fluid experience as example). Some people have trouble comprehending that the desire to live those roles doesnt always come from the hormone levels and genitals one is born with.
In my opinion if the world was lacking in polarity completely and all truly androgenous, it would be a boring, unfulfilling place...likely very utilitarian with sex for pleasure either bred out of people or forbidden as in dystopian futures we know from philosophical fiction.
well, i think its a topic, which is usually not spoken too much in our cultures. so in Asia its very common and accepted and even integrated in the culture. but our capitalistic worlds dont seem to have a place for this topic. it just doesn't fit, but i think its important to bring it up, because the way we react, is really rude and hurting people who suffer with their "gender"
You should write something about how it is integrated in Asian culture. If you havent already. That would be really interesting to people outside the culture. I've never been anywhere in Asia, and my impression is that trans men are accepted as "sex workers" but I think that is just a small part of it.
Very well said!
Personally I see this more of an opening up the spectrum. While some may choose to identify as androgynous (or non-binary,) I suspect the larger group will still prefer to be identified as a male or female, even if they would put themselves as say 70% in one direction instead of 100%.
Thank you for reading! :)
I know I will probably be flagged for this, but I feel that when we tell people to accept who you are, be yourself and to love yourself we should also be allowed to tell that to people who fell like they should go through an operation to change themselves, without being considered a bigot.
There is nothing wrong with being gay or dressing like the opposite sex, but I wonder if by telling people that they should cut up their bodies to fit a certain image are we no longer being a friend and feeding into an illness.
I had a friend that had Body Integrity Identity Disorder and desperately wanted his left hand removed and his parents were told not to feed into it all and they asked us not to feed into it. If he had the same disorder with his sexual organs, I don't know if we could have stopped him or if we would have been called bigots for telling him he was fine just the way he was.
A few years ago I asked about him and he still has both hands and is still in therapy.
I had no intention of this meaning that just bringing up a point of discussion would make them a bigot, I'm very sorry if it did.
A large majority of the transgender, androgynous, and non-binary communities don't have any surgeries done for 'transitioning' either due to not wanting to, against professional medical advice, or being cost prohibitive. While I can understand the concerns of (irreversible) surgeries, there is a somewhat lengthy process of sessions with a psychologist/therapist that's required before these procedures (or even hormones) are a possibility. There are a lot of transgender people who lead quite happy lives without any surgical procedures.
I agree that deciding to transition, let alone have the surgeries performed, shouldn't be done rashly. The WPATH standards of care are used to minimize the likelihood of "poor decisions." Personally, I talked with my therapist for over a year before even starting the necessary reporting paperwork to start hormones.
This is rarely a quick and easy decision, especially with the knowledge of likely social backlash.
I wasn't referring to you and I don't have that impression of you, I was speaking from past experiences. I mentioned this to some friends in New York and they told me that I was homophobic and they wanted nothing more to do with me. This is the first time I have mentioned it since then so I assumed that I would be attacked.
I will accept just about anything, but it makes me sad to think that people would do an irreversible surgery because they are not happy with themselves, even breast implants fit into this. I am no expert, I don't know if this is an illness or a biological thing that I don't understand. All I can say is that I really do care and I hope you know that you are fine the way you are.
I'm sorry you got attacked and lost friendships over that. In my opinion they waaaaay overreacted. This is why actually having the discussions is important, how can someone else fully know what's in my head.
I can appreciate where you're coming from with your point of not requiring surgical body modifications. I'd assume this caries beyond transgender topic into people in general.
Personally, I'm not a fan of hospitals let alone surgery, so things are up in the air for me. I do know of others that want the surgery due to sexual "concerns " or passability.
This always ends up being decided by each individual (nose job, liposuction, etc too) to intelligently find and choose their path.
Things like you brought up are important to consider.
You are one of the nicest people to talk to :)
@gonzo ty! :)
And to follow as well. @gonzo
A very complex issue that requires objective and professionally assessment of course
As gender queer, I have to say that I love this post :-)
What about the text that can be found in the Bible that God only created man and woman and that 3rd sex is subject for punishment when the time comes?
Being agnostic it doesn't effect me much. 3rd gender are revered in other cultures like Hinduism. Whose to really say whose text is right.
That being said, to me the core of any religion is to be a good person and gain understanding. When I'm presented with mutually exclusive statements such as love thy fellow man and persecute someone, I choose love every time.
Brilliant like always !
Thank you!
Excellent post.
Thank you!