"Gender is a social construct" when it comes to transpeople but gay is "biological"

Re: "Gender is a social construct" when it comes to transpeople but gay is "biologica

Both gender and sexuality are really... models, I suppose, of a collection of behaviours and biological characteristics that make up the whole. And the whole is something both social and biological, in both gender and sexuality. Gender roles and stereotypes need to be thoroughly dismantled, but the concept itself isn't entirely invalid, or else transgender people wouldn't exist. There are real psychological gender differences, but they're infinitely more complicated than a stupid false dichotomy.

 

Re: "Gender is a social construct" when it comes to transpeople but gay is "biologica

I think gender exists in the same way god exists. As long as people believe in it, it will continue to dominate our society, and the average person will believe in gender just like (s)he believes in god.

People are trying to draw some kind of distinction between gender and gender norms, but really....gender is nothing more than the collection of norms and roles society has decided an individual should adhere to based on what sort of plumbing they were born with in the nether regions. Gender is not a biological reality.

Again, try to imagine the trans experience in a genderless world. Instead of having to change names, change how you dress, change your entire way of living to adapt to your desired gender...you simply get to be you. Because names and clothing and all these other things would not have "masculine" or "feminine" associations, they would all just be human things. You could be named Joe or Bob or Mike and walk around in baggy blue jeans and still be able to be completely accepted as female, because all that would matter is how you choose to identify yourself, not whether you fit neatly into the box of the "female" gender and its associated expectations.

As individual human beings certainly there is a biological reality that we all feel programmed to act, dress, and express ourselves in a certain way.

In a genderless world, if you feel uncomfortable expressing yourself the way you were born, you could completely change how you act, dress, and express yourself, just like a trans person does today. But instead of being seen as changing genders, you would just be seen as changing who you are as a unique individual human being, to match what you are feeling in your unique individual human brain.

Obviously there is still the very genuine biological dysphoria when it comes to one's body, so transsexuality, the desire to physically alter one's body to match the sex you know you should be, is an absolute biological reality and transsexual transitions would still be necessities.

I think trans people who get offended at the statement that gender is a social construct are misconstruing the statement as somehow undermining the genuine biological dysphoria that trans people experience.

On the contrary, I guess I'm just asking you to think outside the box, and adopt a whole new revolutionary idea about gender and what it means to be trans(cending) gender.

"Transgender", like "gay", is a term that was socially constructed to fit the unfortunately narrow-minded world we live in. It is a necessity in the reality we find ourselves. If gender as a social construct were to be abolished, the concept of "transgenderism" might no longer exist, but that's because every individual human being on earth would be free to express themselves exactly as they please. If you were born with a penis but feel comfortable expressing yourself fully in ways that we today consider "female", you would be free to just do so without being labeled as a "trans" person; you would just be a woman.

Recognizing that gender is a social construct- and a social construct we should seek to deconstruct- is something that trans people should come to recognize would actually make the lives of people today labeled as "transgender" a lot easier, it would not mean that trans people would disappear.

Deconstructing the social construct of gender would not invalidate the experiences of trans people, what it would accomplish is to make people who are today isolated and otherized by being labeled "trans people" into just people.

 

Re: "Gender is a social construct" when it comes to transpeople but gay is "biologica

Gender is not a social construct. If it was, there most likely wouldn't be the issue of being transgender because if it was a social construct, then being raised as whatever gender would program the mind into being that gender.

As we know, this isn't the case.

 

Re: "Gender is a social construct" when it comes to transpeople but gay is "biologica

Yeah, except things aren't as simple as that.

I've rambled on enough already in this thread to explain why

A) Gender is a social construct
B) Gender being a social construct does not invalidate the life and experiences of transgender people

 

Re: "Gender is a social construct" when it comes to transpeople but gay is "biologica

I don't think Gender is entirely socially constructed. Men tend to have more testosterone than women, and that in turn causes differences in things like urge and frequency with their sex drive and the way their bodies build muscle. That's not saying everyone with a high sex drive or good muscle tone is male; there are plenty of women with both. But it would be equally wrong to say that "men have high sex drives and are more muscular" is entirely socially constructed. If you had two people raised by wolves, one male, one female, no society, these things would be true about them.

So I think "model" is a way more accurate (and less dismissive) phrasing than "social construct". "Model" still gets at the problem that feminists want to point out. A lot of this IS arbitrary. And some things, like the way men and women perform in STEM classes, really have nothing to do with either reality or biology. But some of it, even though it is not true for everyone, still has a basis in biological reality.

In other words, even in a world with no socially constructed gender roles at all, a lot of people would still experience a lot of trans strain. Even though there is no social expectation with your sex drive in that kind of a world, for instance, a lot of people would get that sunken depressed feeling that I sometimes get whenever we get reminded of our situation by biology.

I think the big problem with saying "socially constructed" instead of "model", is that "socially constructed" is a way of pretending we can tell the difference between nature and nurture; we're saying that everything that "gender" is is something that we agree on as a society - pink is for girls stuff. And everything that isn't, is sex. And my point is that, there are areas such as sex drive, where there is not only no way to tell the difference, but no point. A person isn't an infant, and a person does a lot of their most important development well after they have been exposed to society. Meaning, that if you get someone to associate pink with femininity at an early enough age, then pink to them really is female, and there is no way their environment can turn around and change that. It's part of that biological understanding of sex, AND their cultural understanding of gender. They become one and the same.

I think that people have, deep down, an understanding of "boy" and "girl" that has nothing to do with what we're taught. I think what we're taught gets attached to these ideas. But I think it's wrong to say that what we get taught IS what "boy" and "girl" are.

I also think that we do need to change our models in a way that is more fair to both genders than what we have now, and I can get behind the third-wave, trans-inclusive feminists in their efforts to do that. I think our two groups - trans people and feminists - are discovering we have a lot of common ground, and we're learning how to work together. But I think we have a long time to go still, and I think this is part of it.

Still, reading up on some history and the "lavender menace", once upon a time the entire queer community was where the trans community is today, with the way we relate to each other. And you would never have known there was any animosity today. So I think, just as the queer and feminist communities learned to work together in the past, the trans and feminist communities today can learn to work together with mutual respect to ensure that being different doesn't mean getting left behind any more.

 

Re: "Gender is a social construct" when it comes to transpeople but gay is "biologica

Those are not examples of gender, they are stereotypes, and stereotypes that have more to do with physical sex than with gender.

Women can be muscular bodybuilders. Men can be super-skinny and not have a hint of muscle showing (I'm one of them).






And I think a view like that is what would actually completely invalidate the trans* identity, since there are women that are born with male bodies and thus have more testosterone in their bodies and build muscles more easily, yet they are women.

 

Re: "Gender is a social construct" when it comes to transpeople but gay is "biologica

...You just proved Cassie's point. Seriously.

Bolded for emphasis.

 

Re: "Gender is a social construct" when it comes to transpeople but gay is "biologica

To be fair, I did have a wall of text there.

I do feel like we're talking past each other a little though, and like I may have been a little unclear with what I am saying. I am glad you posted those pictures.

I wasn't taking a biological essentialist position, just to be really clear. I am saying.. wow this is a ton of syllables and I feel really pedantic and stuffy just saying this... but anyway... I am saying that the biological essentialist position is just as unfounded as the cultural essentialist position.

Or to put it in words that don't make me feel like I should be wearing a monocle while I type them, saying it's all nurture is just as silly as saying it's all nature. In my opinion.

 

Re: "Gender is a social construct" when it comes to transpeople but gay is "biologica

Nah, I debunked that point on multiple levels. First, she's talking about physical sex, not gender. Big difference.

Secondly, just because she acknowledged that "not everyone is like that" does not mean that she was not engaging in stereotyping. Even a single exception disproves the fundamental claim. Stereotypes might have some kernel of truth to them, but they are still a totally wrong approach to viewing the wide diversity of individual human beings. It's like a racist saying "black people tend to be criminals, but oh not all of them of course". Stereotyping is fundamentally wrong.

How about this: men are more muscular because the social construct of the male gender expects men to be muscular and athletic and express physical prowess, while the social construct of the female gender expects women to be dainty and delicate.

And also, I pointed out that her point would invalidate the identities of trans people born into the wrong physical bodies. A female born into a male body will have more testosterone than a man born into a female body. Which ties back in to the earlier point that this whole topic is about physical sex rather than about the social construct of gender.

 

Re: "Gender is a social construct" when it comes to transpeople but gay is "biologica

Now those are my types of men and women

Sorry, got distracted. Carry on.

 

Re: "Gender is a social construct" when it comes to transpeople but gay is "biologica

At this point, I just want to bash my head against my desk till I start bleeding.

Testosterone, on average causes easier muscle growth. It's not a social construct. It's a biological fact. Look at animals. The males are going to have more muscle than females because, you guessed it, testosterone. Hell. I can throw you a picture of an intersex goat that due to testosterone looks male but is physically female.

Women that do not have testosterone in their system, on average, have a harder time creating muscle than men do. It's harder, but yes, it can be done. The addition to testosterone is why FtMs start bulking up, to a degree. Yes, I can gain muscle mass if I work at it, but I'm limited with how much I can build due to a variety of reasons, two of which are hormones and metabolism.

However, everything you're talking about is the expected gender roles, which is entirely different from the mental perceived sense of gender. If there was no mental perceived sense of gender, I wouldn't be here. I'd be considering myself female.

 

Re: "Gender is a social construct" when it comes to transpeople but gay is "biologica

I'm with Hexagon and Cassie on this being both biological and social (in good ways, and in bad).

Rakkaus, if you're still confused, there are biological reasons why Cassie and Sarcastic Luck have said what they have said (as well as Hexagon) about testosterone. Here's something I learned in a foods class:

The average man's body has about 15% body fat, while a woman's has about 20-25%. The reason why women tend to have more body fat than men is so that they can have breasts that produce milk for babies. It's also the same exact reason why women get fatter easier than men do.

If you eat, say, an entire salami in the same day and then try to "work it off", you'll notice that you gained weight, but your body fat percentage doesn't spike at all (it may go up a little bit) and you may be able to lift certain things easier because you got stronger in the areas you exercised, and you exercised just after having a huge dose of protein, which we all know is essential to muscle. That's not really much of a psychological thing other than "I'm gonna gain a lot of weight from eating this salami!"

If a girl (biologically) about the same size as you ate the same salami in the same day and exercised the same amount you did, she'd notice that she got quite a bit rounder around her middle or her thighs. The problem here doesn't lie in that people think she can't have muscles, but rather that she doesn't have the sufficient amount of testosterone running through her system to process the protein into muscle and so it becomes something else, likely into fat.

 

Re: "Gender is a social construct" when it comes to transpeople but gay is "biologica

I came across this link recently, and it reminded me of this thread. I really feel like Rakkaus and I were using "gender" in different ways. But I can agree with everything on this page,

Sex is a social construct. &emdash; Nerd is my Gender

I guess the big reason I get worked up over the language, is that society isn't a skinner box that works effectively with regard to my gender. I've had an identity that, by itself without my doing anything, and in fact with my working against it, works against the culture I'm living in. A very real and natural part of my identity insists one thing; my peers in my environment insist on something else. Even if my peers stopped and accepted me for who I am, my problem would not go away completely though. That is because my identity comes from the world around me in part, and my nature in part. My gender, the way I experience it, is definitely not something the world around me created with words and definitions and conditioning.

But there is a very real, very socially constructed thing that you could call "gender" that I am working against, and I think this was the point Rakkaus was making. Of course "boy" and "girl", "male" and "female" are things we have to agree upon, and however we define it there are going to be cases that defy our definition.

So I really think that's where the trouble is. I define "gender" as a very real part of who I am at my core. That is definitely not socially constructed. But what I am comparing it to when I label it "male" or "female", is definitely a social construct or model, and I believe that was how Rakkaus was defining gender.

Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Re: "Gender is a social construct" when it comes to transpeople but gay is "biologica

Yeah except testosterone has to do with physical sex, not gender. A woman born into a man's body will have more testosterone than a man born into a woman's body. I really am failing to see the connection explain how that proves that gender exists. If anything this line of argument is invalidating trans identities since it is saying that having more testosterone makes someone a man, when we know there are trans men who naturally have less testosterone and need hormone therapy, while on the other hand there are trans women who naturally have more testosterone and also need hormone therapy. Physical characteristics are part of sex, not part of gender.

Physical men having more testosterone might have been why the social construct of the "male gender" developed into the idea that men should be tough and muscular, while women should be dainty and delicate, but those gender expectations are not biological facts.

I also think people are misunderstanding...gender is a social construct, but that doesn't mean it's not real.

In our current understanding of the world, where gender is nearly universally accepted as reality, and we are indoctrinated into the gender binary from a young age....yes, it makes entire sense for someone to feel mentally "male" or mentally "female". I don't dispute those feelings, even though I personally don't feel mentally "male" or mentally "female". But perhaps that's because I have adopted a postgender mindset, if I may call it.

In a world where the social construct of gender has been abolished, those feelings of being mentally "male" or mentally "female" would not go away, they just wouldn't be classified according to some artificial gender binary.

Instead those mental feelings an individual experiences would simply be categorized as the desire to be mentally you.

It might eliminate the concept of "transgenderism" as we know it, but that's because the people we today separate and isolate from society as being "trans" would simply be considered regular people no different from anyone else. Instead of being trans, you'd just be who you are as a unique individual.

If you feel your physical sex doesn't match what you feel in your head it should be, then you can and should change it. But the people we categorize as "trans men" would simply be men and the people we categorize as "trans women" would simply be women.

A trans woman who likes to wear pretty dresses and makeup, and has had surgical operations to give her female physical characteristics, is today still isolated and stigmatized by mainstream society...she will forever be classified by society as a trans woman, not a woman.

Whereas in a genderless world, how you dress and conduct yourself is simply your own unique personal expression. What genitals you have between your legs would come with absolutely no social expectations of how you should dress or act. It would eliminate the concepts of "cis" and "trans" because everyone would just be their own unique individuals.

Again, I think the negative reactions to my posts (and to the general of sentiment of people like me who argue gender is a social construct) are coming from misunderstanding what we are saying, and I think perhaps probably not even carefully reading all of the long posts I've made in this thread... it's kinda a "think outside the box" philosophical position, but some trans people, understandably considering all the negativity they have to put up with for being who they are, automatically assume we have some nefarious agenda of invalidating the feelings and experiences of trans people.

Far from it, I want to create a genderless world where the people we today classify and put in a box as "trans" would be perfectly accepted as just being normal regular people being who they are. So again, I would just like to ask, if you are confused or offended or outraged by anything I have said, take and a step back, think outside the box, and realize that I am just making a philosophical argument built upon a radical, revolutionary understanding of the concept of gender.

 

Re: "Gender is a social construct" when it comes to transpeople but gay is "biologica

A more practical solution would be to make more advances in medicine.
When we figure out more about DNA, perhaps we could learn to change it to our will.
A dangerous power in the wrong hands could also be very beneficial to society at large.

The "complete gender change" would give a trans person the sex characteristics (primary and secondary) they should have gotten at birth. Maybe even the chromosomes.

Perfecting that would open up doors to things such as:
-A temporary change, for the questioning
-Gender fluidity treatment
-Dick enlargement surgery
-And so on, and so forth.

Society, however, would take years and years to change.
Innovation is much faster than that, especially considering how quickly information spreads these days.

Rakkaus, you fail to acknowledge that humans are a sexually dimorphic species.

"Men are more muscular because the social construct of the male gender expects men to be muscular and athletic and express physical prowess, while the social construct of the female gender expects women to be dainty and delicate."

Nein. Society might account for some of the discrepancy, but still.

Humans are not extremely dimorphic, but there are differences (almost all of them physical).
If we weren't, trans people would have a much easier time transitioning.

 

Re: "Gender is a social construct" when it comes to transpeople but gay is "biologica

An Gentleman, you fail to understand that you are talking about physical sex, not gender. Please re-read my point which you quoted over again and try to understand what I am saying.

Never have I disputed the biological fact that having more testosterone makes someone more likely to build muscle and be tough and aggressive. I merely pointed out that upon this biological reality, the social construct of the male gender that says that men should be muscular, tough, and aggressive was built.

 

Re: "Gender is a social construct" when it comes to transpeople but gay is "biologica

If I'm getting this right, your argument is...

• We should have a post-gender society.
• A post-gender society will have no expectations due to gender.
• You will be judged by your actions and personality.
• The traits of gender are social constructs based on biology, and they are obsolete.

I still disagree with this idea, but hopefully I interpreted that right.
You tend to write in walls of text with high level vocabulary.
Bad combination.

 

Re: "Gender is a social construct" when it comes to transpeople but gay is "biologica

Naturally I'm quite ignorant about what it feels to be transgender, so I'm not really an authority in this argument. But I'd like to ask, doesn't the fact that you are exclusively attracted to guys mean that you too place importance in gender? If gender is so meaningless to you then why aren't you attracted to girls who have the same traits as the guys you are attracted to, or are boobs and vaginas just that disgusting to you?

 

Re: "Gender is a social construct" when it comes to transpeople but gay is "biologica

Hmm, well that's quite a personal question...but since this is a personal question, I will answer personally...I am attracted to guys because I am attracted to the male sex. I like penises and flat chests, not vaginas and boobies. The gender expression that a male-sexed person has really isn't critical to my ability to be attracted to them.

If a guy is an androgynous uber-femme cross-dresser who spends half his time in drag, that's fine with me, as long as he's got a dick under those panties.

I've chatted and almost have gone on dates with trans girls who have penises whom I've met on apps (and I know they have penises because they told me what size they are- and one even sent me a pic- since that's just the kind of thing people talk about on these kinds of apps ).

On the other hand, there have been times where I thought "oh what a cute boy"; when it turned out to be a short-haired girl in jeans and a t-shirt, I immediately lost attraction. Even though her gender expression appeared primarily male, her biological femaleness automatically switched off my attraction.

I started a thread a while ago asking people whether sexual orientation and attraction were based on gender or on physical sex, and basically got conflicting results, with I think a small majority voting physical sex over gender.

But actually, I do think both play a role in attraction.

As I said, gender is a social construct yet at the same time real (just like race is a social construct but at the same time real). It may be that due to environmental factors I have been socialized into being attracted to people who exhibit typical male gender expression. Just about everyone (whether they choose to admit it or not) has a racial preference in terms of their attraction, even though race is not a biological concept but a social construct.

Or it could just be, that I am categorized as a "gay male" when in fact I as an individual just happen to be attracted to some traits that have been socially (i.e. artificially) associated with the 'male' gender expression, just like a "straight female" is.

The point is all of these concepts (sexual orientation, gender, etc.) are products of the society we live in, and that society includes loads of social constructs that aren't rooted in biology.

Contra the claim that there is some double standard where gay guys are saying we are biologically programmed to be gay while claiming gender is a social construction that invalidates the feelings of trans people...I do think sexual orientation too is a social construct.

As with the case of gender, saying that sexual orientation is a social construct is not to say that the feelings gay and bi people feel are somehow invalid, it's just that the way society chooses to classify those feelings is socially constructed. The concepts of homosexuality, heterosexuality, bisexuality, etc. are very recent ideas, and very (modern) Western ideas, they were socially constructed to fit our modern Western society's attempts to understand and try to classify the incredible complexities of human sexuality. Just like with gender, other cultures and other time periods had very different understandings of sexuality. The concepts of being "gay" or being "straight" didn't exist to the ancient Greeks or Romans, even though there was plenty of both gay sex and straight sex going on in ancient Greece and Rome.

The existence of transgender people actually throws a monkey wrench into the idea of there being neatly defined sexual orientations (and was actually my motivation for starting that aforementioned "physical sex or gender" thread). As I mentioned earlier, as a gay guy I've considered dating trans girls who were male-sexed, though I couldn't see myself dating someone who was female-sexed, even if they were a trans guy. (And yes, if you look you will find quite a few "T-Girl looking for dates" profiles on apps designed exclusively for gay men). Does that make me thus bisexual? On the other hand, there are some gay guys who are open to dating female-sexed trans guys, but would not date male-sexed trans girls. There are some gay guys who would date both male-sexed trans girls and female-sexed trans boys. (Surely they must actually be bisexual?) Then there are some gay guys who will only date guys who conform to maleness in both physical sex and gender expression. (Are they the only true gay guys?)

We are all unique individuals with our own unique identities (though our society likes to pigeonhole us into male or female, cis or trans) and our own unique attraction patterns (though our society likes to pigeonhole us into either gay or straight, sometimes bisexual).

As a gay guy I certainly know there is a biological basis as to why I feel differently in terms of who I am attracted to compared to a straight guy or a lesbian girl. But choosing to label me as a gay guy, that's forcing a social construction upon me.

Now, coming back down to earth from that far-off theoretical future where the social constructs of gender and sexual orientation have been abolished... I identify as a gay male out of convenience, because I live in a society where both sexual orientation and gender are established parts of the social order. I know that if I ever want to date or find a partner, the people I am most likely to be compatible with are those who also identify as gay males.

"Gay" is how our society has decided to label people who experience the feelings that I do.

Transgender people live in that same reality that I do, and "trans" is how our society has decided to label people who experience the feelings that they do.

 

Re: "Gender is a social construct" when it comes to transpeople but gay is "biologica

Hmm, well if that's the case for you then fine, you're not contradicting your argument. For me though, I find there is something about guys, beyond penises and lack of boobs, and even gender expression, that means I am attracted to them where I am not with girls. It's something I couldn't really put my finger on, just an innate quality in guys which makes me capable of attraction, where it is not possible with girls. I'm sure it's not just revulsion at vaginas which makes me lose my hard on when I've been intimate with girls before, it feels like there's a whole lot more going on with my attraction to people, or lack of, than that.

So actually, I disagree strongly with anyone who would argue that gender is insignificant, I can't help but feel that it is.