Sexism

[Kith]

If gender is not a social construct, then the sociology, psychology, etc. textbooks need a rewrite, as even the college-level ones I had access to always referred to gender as a social construct and sex as biological. Thus, I was taught that gender dysphoria was the social construct clashing with the gender the person felt internally (usually springing from a gender role/stereotype being assigned to the sex opposite the one dysphoric individual presented), and transexuality was the feeling of being born with the wrong set of biological parts.

 

I'm not saying you're incorrect, Tikindi, nor that your experience is not valid. Just that if (using the above definitions) gender dysphoria is sex-based and not gender-based, the official documentation that's used for educational purposes needs to reflect that. Either the definitions of "sex" and "gender" need to be altered, or the name for the dysphoria does, or something. So that cis-people can stop having the wrong idea about what transgenders and transsexuals experience.

 

[slight edit for clarity]

Edited June 24, 2013 by Kith

[TikindiDragon]

If gender is not a social construct, then the sociology, psychology, etc. textbooks need a rewrite, as even the college-level ones I had access to always referred to gender as a social construct and sex as biological. Thus, I was taught that gender dysphoria was the social construct clashing with the gender the person felt internally (usually springing from a gender role/stereotype being assigned to the sex opposite the one dysphoric individual presented), and transexuality was the feeling of being born with the wrong set of biological parts.

 

I'm not saying you're incorrect, Tikindi, nor that your experience is not valid. Just that if (using the above definitions) gender dysphoria is sex-based and not gender-based, the official documentation that's used for educational purposes needs to reflect that. Either the definitions of "sex" and "gender" need to be altered, or the name for the dysphoria does, or something. So that cis-people can stop having the wrong idea about what transgenders and transsexuals experience.

 

[slight edit for clarity]

Not having studies psychology I can't say for certain, but I think you may have misunderstood - sex is considered to be the physical characteristics, gender is considered to be the mental aspect. "Core Gender Identity" is the term to look up. It all goes back to the old nature vs nurture debate.

 

Either that or you've only come across the Social Constuctionism theories in psychology. Those are not the only ones out there. To be honest, they are also very damaging to trans-folk. I've had some feminists tell me that I need to "throw off my societal conditioning and accept that you can do anything as a woman!" Way to invalidate my whole person.

 

Claiming that gender identity is soley a result of societal conditioning, for me, attacks the very core of who I am. You wouldn't say sexual orientation was the result of societal conditioning, why would you say that gender identity was? "Society made me a man!" makes about as much sense as "Society made me gay!".

 

Let's face it, if it was all down to the society around a person, and the way they were raised, you would expect all children in a household to turn out the same way. And yet - gay kids have heterosexual siblings, autistic kids have neurotypical siblings, trans kids have cis- siblings. The same set of 'nurture' circumstances produces different results - which says there is something going on above and beyond the 'nurture' element.

 

Edit to add: Also, lets face it, 'official' things are not exactly accurate about trans folk to start with. It's still classed as a mental disorder in several places for a start. Trans rights are a long way behind gay rights - and the info that is out there reflects that. Just think back to when they stopped classifying being gay as a mental disorder, and how things were for the gay community back then.

Edited June 24, 2013 by TikindiDragon

[Shienvien]

As for the "gender is just a thing of societal conditioning" matter... I think the issue is that people are confusing gender with gender roles. Gender roles are a purely societal construct, whereas gender itself is not.

[Kith]

The books I studied in college (whether on the biological or sociological/psychological end) said exactly what I said they did, so unfortunately there's no misunderstanding involved. However, the books I studied are easily 10 years old now, so if they have been updated in the meantime, I haven't been in school to see the changes. *feels rather old now* >..<

 

I totally understand where you're coming from, though, and when the subject is discussed in the future, I have a new set of definitions and other information to think about and draw from. The trans* things I've run across before have been very personal with no real definition of terms or FAQ-like section, so I was applying what I had learned in the past to their words and things weren't adding up... now I know why. Thank you for taking the time to resolve the disconnect I was having.

 

(And, for the record, I don't think that the mental aspect of an individual is inherently and solely societal. There are things in one's mental landscape that are determined by genetics and other biological factors, and things taught by society, and still more things that come from the way the individual interprets the intersection of the two, all of which come together to form the individual's identification of self and the way that self fits into the world at large.)

 

Edited for typos. Stupid fingers getting ahead of brain again. >..>

Edited June 24, 2013 by Kith

[Mousia]

I agree with you, Shienvien. For example, I fit more into the male gender role, but I still consider myself to be female in both gender and sex.

I am still of the opinion that people should be what they want to be. I'll respect what people want and need, even if others feel the need for an explanation to respect that person.

 

I also have a question. Pronouns. I think it's kind of rude when people call males (biologically) "he" when that biological male is mentally (for lack of a better word) a female. It's a woman, so she should be called a she. It's the same the other way around. So why isn't there an official pronoun for people to be called so as to not jump to conclusions. A gender-neutral one. I know there is one (although I can't remember it at the moment) that people use, but why isn't it official? I know there's "it", but that had negative connotations in most cases.

And why don't children learn that this is okay earlier on? People hide children from so much. Like...some children are sheltered from the knowledge that gayness is a thing. Some children aren't taught about things of this nature at all, leading to some very insensitive adults. I mean, I get that people don't want to explain the birds and the bees to their children and also have to explain all the other things that go along with it (gender roles, gender (identity), sexual orientation, etc.), but I honestly think that it hurts things more than it helps them.

 

I am legitimately confused, so please don't be offended by my questions. I just want to be more knowledgeable because I want to know more.

[Shienvien]

So why isn't there an official pronoun for people to be called so as to not jump to conclusions. A gender-neutral one.

This is one thing my language (Estonian) has correct. We don't have the he/she distinction - there is just this one singular pronoun that you use to refer to living beings, and that's it.

 

(And eh... In English I first refer to a person by their physical sex - since cis-people are notably more common -, but once I know they are trans, I revert to using their mental gender. Even with two different pronouns, it should not be more complex than just occasionally correcting people, although gender-fluidity might still create more confusion.)

Edited June 24, 2013 by Shienvien

[Arroquinn]

We talked a lot about the gender vs. sex debate in an anthropology class that I took. If you really think about the root of the issue, both concepts were created by humans. Somewhere along the line, a human went and said "You have these traits/these physical features so you must be 'male' and you have these traits/these physical features so you must be 'female.'" Or you know, what ever terms in their language that they had for the binary. It's all very existential. Like how the brain named itself.

[St. Jimmy]

So why isn't there an official pronoun for people to be called so as to not jump to conclusions. A gender-neutral one. I know there is one (although I can't remember it at the moment) that people use, but why isn't it official?

There are several, actually. Ze, they, hir, and xe are the ones I remember. As for it not being official... see Tikindi's comment about trans rights. (Also adding that most people don't even recognize anything besides male or female...)

[Mousia]

Shienvien: That's the thing. It should be that simple, but, honestly, I've gotten personally insulted a fair amount of times for not being able to "tell" and address people properly the first time. I don't know. I guess it's a touchy subject right now, because it is unfair that trans rights aren't en par with gay rights and stuff, but some people just don't know.

 

Arroquinn: I've thought about that a fair amount of times. It makes me very confused and just a tad depressed because of the sheer amount of the things we don't know and how much it could all be just a cruel joke. But that's beside the point. But I think that humans half depend on the hard lines between this and that, but was also rebel against those hard lines. Which is kind of a problem, but one that we lack the capacity to amend. So I guess all that we can do it get the point of "good enough" and stop, because getting to "good" is too far of a walk for right now.

 

St. Jimmy: Yeah... The problem is that "they" is a plural pronoun and referring to a single person as "they" can be annoying to certain people too. Ze, hir, and xe are great alternatives, but some people don't really know them and then it becomes a problem of understanding. Although, it's not too hard to just explain it, but if more people used those types of pronouns I think it'd be a step in the right direction.

[St. Jimmy]

Yeah... The problem is that "they" is a plural pronoun and referring to a single person as "they" can be annoying to certain people too.

I don't really give a rat's behind if it annoys them. "They" is the pronoun I prefer, and it's not that hard for people to use it. And since language changes, it can be grammatically correct. (That sounded more hostile than I thought it would... I'm not upset with you, just the people who don't care to respect pronouns. ^^')

 

You're right though, education is key.

[Mousia]

No, no. I get it. There's not perfect way to solve any problem because downers (such as myself) will end up finding some fault in it. But yeah. In some cases, using "they" instead of the appropriate pronoun is just grammatically incorrect, but, in the right way of usage, it's not a blunder, but a purposeful choice made by the speaker.

[ebony ink]

On pronouns: I personally always use 'they' (or their Name) about someone unless they have specifically told me their preferred pronouns. You very rarely need to address someone with a pronoun, more often it's when you talk about them to someone else - and I'm not sure about grammatical correctness, but in UK using 'they' just sounds posh and old-fashioned but still fairly natural?

 

 

[hazeh]

9~6 So then, what exactly is gender? What is the female gender, what is the male gender? What is the difference between the two that create such problems for transgendered people, and what about the other gender is supposedly different to create this disconnect?

What would be the difference between a mental male and a mental female, if in society we got to a point where there were no "boy things" and "girl things", but all were considered neutral in which was acceptable for either 'boys' or 'girls' to partake/enjoy?

[Syaoransbear]

A male is the stronger gender, and the woman is the child barer. As such, in the animal kingdom (and don't forget that we are animals) there are most certainly rolls to play.

Those aren't gender roles, and those aren't things you teach. You don't teach a woman how to form a baby in her womb and you don't teach a man how to be in general genetically more inclined to be stronger than a woman.

[Shienvien]

What would be the difference between a mental male and a mental female, if in society we got to a point where there were no "boy things" and "girl things", but all were considered neutral in which was acceptable for either 'boys' or 'girls' to partake/enjoy?

The brain's interpretation of the body, basically - whether or not the brain's understanding of the body matches the actual body (cis), doesn't match it (trans), or occasionally shifts, is not a factor, is both at the same time or something else entirely (fluid, agendered, queer, and other non-binary variations)...

 

It creates a lot of problems for the poor brain if it is built to know that the rest of the body is supposed to have certain structural elements which function in a certain way, but the reality is not quite matching that. And that is more or less why living in the wrong body while being a trans person is such a problem (although an actual trans person might be able to explain the actual feelings that come with it better than I can.).

[TikindiDragon]

9~6 So then, what exactly is gender? What is the female gender, what is the male gender? What is the difference between the two that create such problems for transgendered people, and what about the other gender is supposedly different to create this disconnect?

What would be the difference between a mental male and a mental female, if in society we got to a point where there were no "boy things" and "girl things", but all were considered neutral in which was acceptable for either 'boys' or 'girls' to partake/enjoy?

The brain function is actually different between male and female. There's one recent scientist that even found differences in a 26 week old fetus. The brain really is set to think 'boy' or 'girl'. It's just that in trans folk it's been set to the opposite of our external physical sex (I don't know how much research on it has been done - but I'm pretty certain that trans folk have the brain activity for their preferred gender, not their assigned sex). And, yes, it is quite distressing to find that you are lacking parts your brain is convinced you should have.

 

I know a lot of people struggle with the concept. Especially people that *want* to believe that all differences are down to society. The fact is that they aren't. You could get rid of every single bit of 'this is for boys, this is for girls' going and you'd *still* have differences. There's a reason teenage boys and girls claim not to understand each other, and it's because they actually do *think* very differently. The brains do not process information in quite the same way (although, I will note, they're not as sharply different as the processing of a person with ASD against an NT). There is variation within each gender, and homosexual individuals have brain function that is closer to that of the 'opposite' sex than heterosexuals.

 

So yeah. The difference is in actual biology, not in social constructs. You can get rid of all the constructs you like, but male and female will still be differnt.

[7Deadly$ins]

Well, I can attest that as of last semester, with a modern anthropology textbook, gender is taught as a social construct.

[Shienvien]

There's a reason teenage boys and girls claim not to understand each other, and it's because they actually do *think* very differently.

The "thinking differently" does largely boil down to different teachings, though. Perhaps not completely, but predominantly nevertheless.

[Carolyn]

http://m.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/m...s.climatechange

 

Might find this interesting.

[TikindiDragon]

The "thinking differently" does largely boil down to different teachings, though. Perhaps not completely, but predominantly nevertheless.

Eh, not really no. The differences show up in MRIs. The pathways the brain uses to process information are actually different. The difference in brain structures means there are differences in processing. Feel free to google it - there's quite a lot of information that will come up.

 

Note the differences in brain structure and processing don't mean that one sex is better than the other. Or that one sex can't do certain things. If you excercise certain parts of the brain they'll develop more connections. But just as it is often possible to arrive at the same destination using two different routes the male and the female brain will utilise different pathways to acess the information they are after.

 

That's what I mean by 'thinking differently'. It's the way the brain actually handles the information. And it *is* different. It's *vastly* different in people with ASDs.

 

Edit to add: Some links for you

 

Processing Movement

Processing Stress

Edited June 26, 2013 by TikindiDragon

[Shienvien]

Ah, so that's what you meant. I am mostly up against the notion that there is "female logic" and "male logic", or that "women are more likely to think this and males that" ... those kinds of things. I as a person with enough friends on both "sides" can attest that men and women mostly act in the exact same manner.

 

(Doesn't help that most things attributed to "feminine thinking " as I mostly see it used are also things which exceptionlessly all females I interact with refer to as "being an annoying *".)

[Kith]

I will have to learn to think in different terms in this matter, then. In my brain, all the biological indicators, including the neural pathway differences and such, have been part and parcel of the definition of the male and female sexes rather than the masculine and feminine genders. However, if the trans* community attaches the word "gender" to the mental biological factors, I need to learn to do the same in order to facilitate civil discourse. I don't want to offend someone when we're actually talking about the same thing, but using terms differently and thus seeming to disagree.

[TikindiDragon]

I will have to learn to think in different terms in this matter, then. In my brain, all the biological indicators, including the neural pathway differences and such, have been part and parcel of the definition of the male and female sexes rather than the masculine and feminine genders. However, if the trans* community attaches the word "gender" to the mental biological factors, I need to learn to do the same in order to facilitate civil discourse. I don't want to offend someone when we're actually talking about the same thing, but using terms differently and thus seeming to disagree.

There's a trick my other half and I use when we're having discussion (as I'm Aspie, so I often process things very differently to the way he does), it's basically an analogy: people discussing chess. Before you can start to have the discussion you need to establish which colour chess piece you are talking about. Because if one is talking about black pieces, and the other is thinking of white pieces, you won't understand each other. To be honest I apply to idea to most discussions, as I *know* I'm thinking differently, and I need to be sure people are on the same page. So if it seems like there's a disconnect somewhere, or one of you is getting frustrated, you just stop and go "What do we actually mean with the terms we're using?"

 

In the trans community 'Gender' refers to how you percieve yourself. For most people their gender and their biological sex match up, for trans people they don't. And it's that which causes os much disconnect. Most people are so comfortable with who they are that they can't seperate their gender from their physical self. To them, there is no difference. It's only when the two don't match, and one experiences the real anguish that causes, that you realise there is a very clear difference. Interestingly the story of David Reimer is one that shows clear and convincing evidence that one's mental gender is not something that can be controlled by societal pressure. Despite not being told he was born male until he was 14, despite everyone treating him in a very stereotypically 'female' way, despite not having male genitalia, and despite hormone treatment... he knew he was male.

 

@ Shienvien: To a certain extent the 'logic' may be different, as a slightly different route will have been used to arrive at the same conclusion. Differing structures in the brain will result in slightly differing initial reactions and preferences. People can and do learn behaviours, though, which can result in something that appears to be outwardly the same, even if what's going on internally is slightly different. When I was googling earlier I found a report about brain imaging during IQ testing (I'm not going to look it up again) that reported that even when men and women were giving the same answers on the tests they were using different parts of their brains while they were doing it. The though process was different, even if the outcomes were identical.

 

Aaaand that would be one of the reasons I have issues with the concept of gender as an entirely social construct. When there are such measureable differences in male and female brains - differences present from very early childhood - it becomes much more difficult to argue that the two are essentially the same, and would be identical if treated so by society.

 

I would also note that I have spoken to several feminists who were extremely anti- the idea that gender was anything other than a social construct. Funnily enough those were the same ones that had issues with my being transgender. I think they're the type of feminist that supports this kind of thing. Sadly there's a large part of the feminist movement that is actively transphobic, and some of the rhetoric used can be really quite hurtful. More info.

[Kith]

- Snipped to avoid wall o' text -

Indeed. Which is why I try to explain myself fully and establish where the disconnects are and resolve them ASAP. In fact, I may have some masculine/male mental wiring myself: I appear to think very differently than most women, and a lot of my male friends have not only exclaimed that I was easier to understand than any other woman they'd talked to, they wished I could "train" their female significant others to think, or at least discuss, like I do. My husband has even had such requests from some of his male coworkers. >..>

 

Much to their disappointment, I have to tell them (or have my husband tell them) that it's just how my neural pathways and thought patterns work, so I couldn't teach anyone else how to do it even if they wanted to learn.

 

Edited to add: Not sure whether to be happy that I'm not behind where textbooks are concerned, or disappointed.

Edited June 26, 2013 by Kith

[Shienvien]

For me, the defining factor is that the outcome is the exact same. If you print out a page with the same text on it, with the same format, font, text size, et cetera, then there is no difference in whether the original text file was typed up using Microsoft Office or OpenOffice, although those are different programs - your result, the printed out page, looks the same to the reader either way.

 

Never mind that the individual differences within a gender are often much greater than those between genders. (I usually end up getting the typical "male" result for spatial and navigational test-tasks, for instance - furthermore, I by far outdo most men at what men are supposedly good at when it comes to that...)

Edited June 26, 2013 by Shienvien