"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

For you star trek fans

The Outcast (episode) - Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki

An interesting view into the concept of gender.

 

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

Everything about gender you've recently said is all fine and dandy, Rakkaus. What we were saying was that testosterone was the reason why a man's physical body was the way it was, regardless of actual gender. Yes, it was more about physical sex.

What you were saying beforehand was that men tended to be more muscular only and simply because of the false dichotomy we live in, which simply wasn't true. There was a chemical reason for a MAAB person to be physically stronger than someone who was FAAB, regardless of gender.

---------- Post added 18th Jan 2014 at 10:55 AM ----------

So if there's a chemical reason for someone's body to work the way it is, then there are probably chemical reasons for someone to think a certain way or for their brain to work a certain way. What's up inside our heads doesn't just happen magically, although it might seem to. I know I'm supposed to go to bed at a decent time each night. Do I end up doing that? No. I usually end up falling asleep around 3 AM for whatever reason. In order for me to make this a habit, I've got to do it for a couple weeks to let certain chemical processes happen regularly. The same can be said for overtly religious people who are gay. They have it in their heads that they're not supposed to be attracted to those of the same sex. However, due to whatever reason happening in their brain (and in ours), they end up getting aroused by those of their own sex, much to their chagrin. My guess is that there's something similar with gender. There's got to physically be something with our brains, and we don't know it yet. I may actually have a brain closer to a male's, but the chemical processes going on might be closer to female. That would actually explain a lot, considering how my body works. And then if you incorporate DNA and genetics, that brings another ballgame.

In short, I'm not the only non-binary person on this planet. There are many others and there have been tons of others in the past. So there's got to be some scientific reason behind it, otherwise I'd be the only person in the history of ever saying "I'm not a guy or a girl".

Again, all of this isn't to say that there's nothing social about it. There obviously is. But there's a biological root in the way we think. Transgender people tend to figure this kind of stuff out at a very early age, when all the social stuff is only "you can't wear dresses because you're a boy" kind of stuff. There's a pattern. So there must be a reason behind it that's not social.

 

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

Well, if you did manage to get past the first paragraph and make it to the bottom of my latest essay in this thread ....I never once claimed that gender is "insignificant", in fact just the opposite, I acknowledged the important role gender plays in shaping our attraction patterns- and why it plays a role in shaping our attraction patterns- and explained my reasoning in detail. I know it's long, but if you (or anyone participating in this discussion) do have some free time, please carefully read through my full post(s), I've spent a lot of time thinking about and reflecting upon these issues, and have also put a lot of time into writing my posts and trying to explain my thoughts here in as much detail as possible.

Gender is significant...but it's still a social construct. We live in a society, so the social constructs our society creates still wield a powerful influence on all of us as individuals.

Race is a social construct, not a biological concept...but sadly we don't live in a postracial world, race still wields a powerful influence on our society and how individual human beings act and are treated in our society. A black man can say "race is not a biological concept, I should not be treated differently based on an artificial social construct that can be abolished", but unfortunately society at large will still treat him differently based on the color of his skin.

Similarly, we don't live in a postgender world, so gender still wields a powerful influence on our society and how individual human beings act and are treated in our society. A woman can say "gender is not a biological concept, I should not be treated differently based on an artificial social construct that can be abolished", but unfortunately society at large will still treat her differently based on her female gender expression.

Perhaps one day we will live in a world where neither race nor gender exists, and each human being is just treated as a unique individual... but until that far-off day we have to live in a reality where race and gender both play a role in our day-to-day lives: we are socialized into internalizing these concepts pretty much from the day we are born.

(Even though I personally have broken free of my 23 years of social indoctrination and choose to live my life with a postgender mindset. :newcolor

No, I never said that was the only reason, I said socialization also plays a very important factor in why men actually tend to work out and be muscular while women are more likely to prefer just maintaining a delicate figure.

More testosterone or not, if our society's gender norms were that women should be muscular while men should be skinny and delicate, we would see women working out and men trying to remain skinny and delicate. Muscles don't build themselves.

And yes, something like testosterone is an issue of physical sex, not gender. And, as I've pointed about for about the third or fourth time now, saying that "men naturally have more testosterone that women" isn't necessarily true in the case of trans people, and that statement kinda invalidates those trans people. Unless they've gone through hormone therapy a trans woman will naturally have more testosterone than a trans man. A trans woman would be able to build up muscle more easily than a trans man.

Of course, due to socially constructed gender expectations, a trans man will try to overcome the hormone disadvantage and become more muscular and 'manly', while a trans woman will try to to minimize the effects of her elevated testosterone levels and avoid the sort of weight-lifting that would make her appear too muscular and 'manly'. Just like the aforementioned examples I cited of cis women who became uber-ripped, uber-muscular bodybuilders, and cis men who remain uber-skinny, frail, non-muscular weaklings (like myself ).

 

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

To everything that Rakkaus has written, yes.

There's really no clear line between what is 'biological,' that is, genetically conditioned, and, environmentally conditioned (which includes culture... social constructs, etc.). Genes don't work like a pre-written never changing scroll that determines everything having to do with our bodies. Much of our genetic heritage, in fact, involves how we respond to the conditions in which we find ourselves. Think of a white oak in a forest that grows tall and branches out mostly at the top, and the same tree, same genes, growing in an open field--where it will spread as wide as it is tall. It's genes provide for that flexibility. That's only a simple example--when it comes to human behavior, the variability of our 'innate' responses are wide and complex in the extreme--it's how we've been so successful as a species.
We mistake this distinction between 'innate' (biological) and conditioned for confused and ill defined ideas about 'free choice,' hence--responsibility, where we've left the field of biology and objective reality altogether and muddled into the swamp of morality and mores.

"Born this way" translates into nothing about biology, but rather, a defense of what we are by denying that there is any room for the possibility of freedom or development or change over time... sort of stealing the religious irrational, anti-scientific mythical thinking and turning it against them. You say the gods made us so and so, but WE know better, we know that BIOLOGY (substitute for the gods here) made us such and such, so there! Nah nah nah!

When you know, even if it was as simple a matter of choice as the bigots make it out to be (like if you WANTED to be straight... la la la) ... even if it was that simple, and we know damn well it's not, so what? There is no 'innate' right and wrong in nature, no innately good right and 'natural' form of sex. It's our damn choice! What matters are the real world consequences: is it consensual? Do we conduct ourselves in such a way that we do no harm to others, that we do not increase suffering in the world?
This whole biological versus culture thing is an irrational muddle. Let's just grow up about this, and deal with what matters! How to love and care for one another in the terribly short time we have to be together on this beautiful planet.

 

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

I wouldn't reply to someone without having read their whole post, there's just not always a need to quote the whole thing so I tend go with the part that is most relevant to my reply.

I wasn't talking about how important a role gender plays in society, I think everyone can appreciate how being born male or female affects life experiences; I was talking about your personal perception of gender, which I understand from your posts here to be that it is entirely a social construct and in an ideal world would practically not exist as a concept. When you talk about wanting to live in a post-gender world, this must mean you personally see gender as insignificant, or else I've misunderstood your entire argument.

I still don't buy it though, it's not like I'm even particularly attracted to 'male traits', I still find an effeminate guy to be infinitely more attractive than a girl with similar characteristics, and I'm sceptical that the the only reason for that is that one has a penis and the other a vagina, I can't help but feel there's more to it than that, really I'm not actually that attracted to penises or repulsed by vaginas.

So yeah, I tend to feel there's an intrinsic quality to boys which attracts me more than girls, beyond the physical differences and beyond gender expression differences. I can't really explain because I don't know what it is, but there must be something which makes me exclusively attracted to boys, and more importantly there must be something which causes dysphoria in transsexuals as explained by the OP.

 

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

I think what I was trying to say, is that my physical sex plays into my gender identity. "Gender" the way you are using the term may be socially constructed. But my gender identity is not, because it defies social conditioning whether I like it or not. And I believe what you're calling my physical sex, is part of my gender identity, and is why it is so persistent.

To a lot of people, "gender" doesn't mean "what we all agree a boy or girl is" and has nothing to do with social norms. The phrase "sex is what's between the legs, gender is what's between the ears", rather, is closer to how we use the word. And that part of me, that knows I'm a girl, that knows I'm attracted to girls, is something I was socially conditioned against - my being a girl before I started transition, my continuing to like girls despite feeling bad about this and wanting to like boys for a short while after I started transitioning - and a part of me that has forced me to construct my own ideas as far as what gender is and reject some of the social constructs that have been presented to me.

I like the gender I constructed better anyway, because there is room for some of the awesome genderqueer people I've met. There are some people, like with any model, that it will fail to describe well enough for me to understand them. But it's still a lot better than the ideas my environment tried, and failed, to drill into me.

Basically I really don't think we're arguing with each other, so much as misunderstanding each other's positions.

 

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

And I think the entire point of this thread, is that people accept "I like dicks" or "I like boobs 'n hoo-hoos" as an uncontested fact, and won't accept "I am a woman" or "I am a man" or "I am not a woman or a man" the same way. It's both true and a problem that being trans is not as accepted - not as in accepted as in people are nice; people are still terrible to every one of us LGBT people, I'm not trying to open up the oppression olympics here, just accepted as in people treat it like a fact - as being gay or left-handed.

In other words, except to a very small minority, you don't have to explain yourself to someone that doesn't believe being gay exists and is a real thing, any more. I wasn't alive back then, but apparently, you used to.

So really all our discussion about definitions and social constructs and efforts to get each other to see things our way, are really pointless. A lot of us trans people come out twice, once as gay, once as trans. Sometimes we do it before we figure out we are trans, and we're attracted to our birth sex, sometimes we do it after we start transition with our destination sex, despite the way our social conditioning makes us feel. To be honest, I think the people that come out before have a harder time of it than people like myself. But either way, we do get to experience directly how other people understand us, and compare and contrast the two.

And the reason why I think people are having a hard time with "I am a woman", much more so than "I am gay", is because there was a cultural change that started in the early 20th century, before anyone currently alive was born (or just shortly after so they wouldn't remember), and as a result any kind of gender or sexual minority is going to be working against "the way things have always been". And the way things have always been, involved teaching people that heterosexual couples were normal and everyone else was weird. And we just happened to start with sexual minorities when we began our efforts to get past that. I think in a few decades, "I am a woman" will be just as accepted.

 

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

Alright, I acknowledge your statement that perhaps we are arguing past each other rather than arguing with each other.

And alright, I know my posts are long and detailed, and in, the words of An Gentleman "high level vocabulary", and thus are probably being ignored...but just to be clear, I've elaborated on why the "gender is between the ears" assertion does not prove the gender is anything more than a social construct.

Just about everyone (or at least, I) would NEVER dispute that you have these feelings between your ears. Nobody would dispute that trans folk (and cis folk for that matter) have a feeling between their ears that says "I am a girl" or "I am a boy".

Just like I would expect nobody to dispute the feelings I have that "I am attracted to boys".

What I am saying is that how these feelings are classified as "I am a girl" or "I am attracted to boys" are products of our society and the social constructs it has erected for us.

Well what I am arguing is that trans people would be accepted- not as trans people, but simply as people- in a society where the social construct of gender no longer exists.

Trans people who believe a biological basis for gender must exist in order for their identities for be validated are mistaken, and are not looking at things from a bigger picture perspective.

---------- Post added 18th Jan 2014 at 08:52 PM ----------

Well, if you had read my whole post, I don't know where you would have come up with the conclusion that I had argued that gender is "insignificant".

I think your idea that there is some "intrinsic quality" to boys beyond their physical sex and gender expression is simply not rooted in any sort of fact. You might believe it firmly your head- sexual attraction is based on a lot of gut feelings rather than on facts and reason.

But ultimately what makes someone a "boy" in our culture is
A) Male sexual organs
B) Male gender expression

Someone who has male sexual organs but female gender expression is considered a trans female. Someone who has female sexual organs but male gender expression is considered a trans male.

Pretty much everything you described are the sort of ideas we are socialized into internalizing from the day we are born, but aren't necessarily factual.

 

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

I can agree with all that. I think it is important to avoid any pushing people to be "trans enough" just on principle. If someone says they are trans, and is comfortable with their body and hormones, that is valid.

There are some of us who would still have a problem in a world with total gender equality and freedom of expression. And for those of us, while fixing the social problems and destroying the binary would make things tons easier, focusing on the social aspect alone feels dismissive.

There is a biological component to our sexuality. We did not decide who we would be attracted to. It would just be nice if people on the whole had the same level of understanding with gender identity.
The language we use, when we say "gender is a social construct", while technically correct in one sense, in another sense is an obstacle to us enjoying that kind of equality. And I think that is the source of the thread title and the frustration behind it.

---------- Post added 19th Jan 2014 at 06:32 AM ----------

And OMG I loved that episode!

 

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

Maybe what I think you mean by postgender, is different from what you actually mean, I don't know.

Well, I did say that I feel neither penises or male gender expression are what I find mainly attractive in boys, but yes, my argument is very weak if I can't actually describe what it is I find to be attractive in boys if not those things Don't think I'm going to give up on the idea that there's more to my attraction to boys than that they have penises, though.

 

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

I was sort of thinking about it after having seen your avatar, but I would be willing to say you would recommend people here watch it.

I really think it deals with what we are talking about here right now.

 

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

The way I see it, both are innately psychological. It's a lot like human contact. Sure, the body doesn't need to be around other people, but the mind does, or the person will go mad. A person can pretend to be straight and cisgendered, but they will be miserable.

Getting to the point, even if you can prove its not biological or anything, there's no denying it's there. It's a spontaneous, unalterable occurrence. Of course I have no idea what I'm talking about, given I don't bother to research these things.

 

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

Well you're kinda selectively snipping, out of context, one part of a one line quote in parentheses in which I expressed my own personal approach to gender...which followed several paragraphs in which I explained that gender is in fact a significant force in society.

Here is the full quote, which starts off with me flat-out saying that gender is indeed significant:

After several long paragraphs explaining why gender is real and is significant, I included one line, in parentheses, just to express my own personal conception of gender.

I thought the parentheses, combined with the italicized emphasis on the word "personally", kinda emphasized the point that I was expressing my own personal approach to gender, which makes me out-of-sync with 99.99% of society.

I personally live my life without any regard to what gender society would choose to assign to me. I wear men's clothing, I wear women's clothing. I often get identified as a boy, sometimes I get identified as a girl. Many times when I walk into a room I know people are guessing "is that a boy or a girl?" (And that's just the way I like it!)

Why are people guessing "boy or girl" when they see me? Because people in our society have been trained since birth to categorize every person they see or meet into one of two neat little boxes that form the gender binary. Just like people classify everyone they meet according to race, thinking "white guy" or "black guy". Race and gender are both social constructs, but they are nonetheless real, and the people whom you meet on the street will try to classify you according to race and gender.

Some might classify my approach to gender as "genderfuck" or maybe "genderqueer", but I just view it as having a postgender mindset. I know I don't live in a postgender world, which is why the way I live my life would be classified as "genderfuck" or "genderqueer" in today's society.

But I don't see how, if you have been reading my full posts, you can accuse me of trying to argue that gender is insignificant.

Anyway, I don't dispute for a moment that you have feelings that make you feel intrinsically attracted to boys...attraction is a deeply personal matter, many times based on gut feelings you feel in your heart, not on logic or reason. But rationally speaking, the two factors that make somebody a "boy" in our society are having male sexual organs (penis, balls, etc.) and having male gender expression.

---------- Post added 19th Jan 2014 at 05:32 PM ----------

Well yes, I'm glad someone is finally starting to understand my point! :icon_bigg

Contrary to the kneejerk negative reaction some trans people are having to the statement that "gender is a social construct"....abolishing gender as a social construct would make things a hell of a lot easier for trans people. In fact, in a genderless world, it would make trans people just people, not trans people.

If you're a trans woman in our gendered world, you have to work extra hard to prove that you're woman enough to be accepted as a woman by society. You might be a (trans) woman who naturally just prefers having short messy hair and walking around in t-shirt and jeans. But if you're a trans woman, chances are you're going to feel obligated to wear dresses and make-up and have long well-styled hair in order to 'pass' as a woman. From my own conversations with trans women at my LGBT center (all of whom conform strictly to female gender norms and dress as a uber-feminine women), this is basically the sentiment they feel.


Yes, you are correct, there is a biological sentiment underlying what we consider our sexual orientation and gender identity. We have biological feelings between our ears that are undeniable. But classifying those feelings that we feel between our ears as defining our "sexual orientation" and "gender identity"...that's a product of socialization. We are making the feelings we feel in our brain conform to our society's social constructs in terms of sexuality and gender. Abolishing these social constructs wouldn't make those feelings go away, it would just change the way we classify those feelings.

So I think the frustration that trans people might feel when they hear "gender is a social construct" is rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of what the argument is.

Like I said, as a gay person, I consider sexual orientation to be a social construct too. Certainly I don't think the biological impulses I feel in terms of attraction are socially constructed, but the way I feel obligated to classify them ("gay") is a product of the society I live in, not biology.

 

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

Yeah, I've always understood the distinction you're drawing between the significance of gender to society, and your own personal views on the significance of gender. Whether or not it should be, gender is obviously important in our society, I never thought you were arguing that it wasn't. I hate it when people quote at me like this, so sorry, just to show I do understand that you are contrasting your views to those of society, not that I thought you were claiming them to be the same.

Anyway, I never meant to sound rude, and even though I can't really accept that the only thing which affects attraction is penis vs vagina (bearing in mind I have no particular attraction to 'male traits'), you argue the point really well. And yes I really did read everything you posted, if my responses are weak it wasn't because I missed anything, they just are :icon_bigg

 

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

Just thinking about it, it's kind of funny; I was only one of a handful of my friends that watched Peyton Manning and the Broncos defense kick Tom Brady's ass today Everyone else had these "lol I don't watch sportsball like all you sheep" posts, and ratio wise, a lot of the people saying that sort of thing were guys.

I personally do like being able to express my femininity more than I've ever had a chance before. At first there was a bit of a "kid in a candy store" feel to it and I think I went overboard, but the further I got into transition, the more it became conscious decisions, and more authentic. Like I could do all those things I used to love, that were locked away, but I'm not obligated to do all these other things just to be me and in fact shouldn't. And there is a lot about me from my male life that is going to carry over too.

 

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

Ah, well then I'm glad at somebody is reading my long posts. :icon_bigg

Gender is very important to society. It just isn't important at all to me. I live my life as if I lived in a postgender world, even though I know that I don't live in a postgender world. If that makes sense...

But to be clear, I never meant to argue that "penis vs. vagina" is the sole determining factor when it comes to attraction. My point was simply that sexual dimorphic characteristics do play a significant role when it comes to attraction. Obviously the degree of significance to which it plays varies from individual to individual. To some people, it isn't that important. (Hence gay guys willing to date pre-op trans guys, or straight men willing to date pre-op trans women) For some people, physical sex is not important compared to gender.

On other hand, even though gender is not a biological concept, gender expression also plays a significant role when it comes to attraction- again, to varying degrees depending on the individual. Hence you have gay gays, like myself, willing to date pre-op trans women, and lesbian women willing to date pre-op trans men. For us, gender is relatively insignificant in comparison to physical sex.

For some people, neither gender nor physical sex are very important. Hence you have pansexuals willing to date anyone.

Then you have some people for whom physical sex and gender are both extremely important in determining attraction. Hence you have gay guys only willing to date cis guys.

So both gender and physical sex are factors that shape the incredibly complex matter that is human sexual attraction.

But thanks for your kind comment saying I argue my point well...I try my best! Especially when in a potentially controversial topic like this. If I had just responded to this thread with a one-line post saying "Actually gender IS a social construct", I would have opened myself up to all sorts of criticism and attacks especially from trans people like the OP. So in my own long-winded way I tried my best to argue exactly why gender is a social construct, and to anticipate and address any potential critiques or counter-arguments that might have come my way.

 

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

*Applauds*

This might be the first topic ive seen argued so well here without things going out of hand epicly

I have often thought about this question and have been extremely enlightened to read everyone's thoughts and long posts. (Yes, Even Rakkaus's xD)

In your last post, you talked about how for some people, Physical Sex is more important than gender expression, and for some its flipped and for others its equal and all shades of grey in between.

I never really thought of classifying it in such a way, but now i can understand how I truly feel on this subject with a bit more clarity in regards to myself. I know it wasnt the intention of the thread, but thanks everyone xD

 

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

I clearly don't see this the way others do.

I don't have a gender or a gender identity; I have a brain sex. That sex is female.
Some other parts of my body had a sex which didn't match - i.e. my genitals.
Transition was fixing a couple of incongruent parts of my overall sex, to make it female overall.

For me it was always a medical issue, so I agree with the original premise of this thread: trans people should be treated as a biological phenomenon, just as GLB people are.
If not more so, because there is a medical 'fix' for our condition.

 

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

I dont think gender identity is a social construct gender roles and gender expression are socially constructed but not gender identity.

 

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

I like this point of view...
And I also agree with that premise.