On gender, definitions, and femininity

Dear reader,

Being transgender there are several questions concerning gender that I constantly find myself wrestling with. I don't feel like I'm male, but at the same time I was born into a male body and am perfectly aware that just because I feel female doesn't mean that I am female, at least physically. In the end I don't really know what I am.

This whole blog is part of an attempt to really work through the problem of 'who am I?' As I think about this problem I am confronted with an even more basic problem. This question at first glance seems to have an easy answer, but after some more thought it is actually an incredibly difficult question to answer. The question is: what does it actually mean to be a man or a woman?

The instant answer is that gender is determined by physical sex and physical sex is determined by chromosomes. But intersex individuals make any attempt to categorize a person's gender by genetics extremely complicated. In fact in cases such as true hermaphroditism where the individual's sexual identity is unable to be determined the ethical medical decision is to allow the individual to determine their desired sex, a sex which matches their preferred gender.

If we can't use genetics to firmly categorize the sex of an individual how are we supposed to determine an internal condition such as gender? We can't use external markers such as pregnancy since for many woman this is an impossibility. We can't use gender expression, clothing, presentation, behavior, desired hobbies either. These traits very so widely that the presence or absence of these traits cannot prove anything.

So what does being a woman really mean? As a Mormon I know that we do believe that there is an important distinction between the genders. But more and more I am convinced that we will find the expectations of gender in the eternities vastly different from the expectations that exist here on this earth. In the end, I don't know if gender is something that we will firmly be able to understand or define here in this life.

I think with many transgender people the following two points combine and can create unhealthy attitudes about gender.
   
     1) I think a lot of trans people struggle with how to define the gender.
     2) For many trans people merely being recognized as their perceived gender on a constant basis          is enough to bring a vast amount of relief.

This means that many trans people, in an effort to be perceived as the correct gender, grab onto the most superficial means of defining gender possible. This creates the dangerous circumstance of reducing gender merely to clothing, makeup, wigs, appearance, and trying above anything else to be beautiful.

I saw a post on reddit just this week where a transgender individual was bemoaning the fact that after transitioning they just weren't beautiful enough. If they couldn't be beautiful what was the point of transitioning in the first place? This elicited some fantastic comments from cisgender (not transgender) women who basically commented 'welcome to womanhood, most of us aren't what society thinks is ideal anyways, so you can just live with it too.'

I think this is why there is such a large conflict between the male-to-female transgender population and feminism. Feminism sees trans individuals superficially defining femininity through appearance, dress, and behavior where feminism has been fighting for the last half century to change that definition. At the same time male-to-female trans individuals often define femininity in such a way that they get the benefits of feminism while subconsciously holding onto the benefits of masculine privilege. I know that this conflict drives my dear wife crazy. She gets quite upset when she sees trans individuals apparently narrowing the scope of femininity down to appearance.

I'll admit appearance and gender expression is the easiest way in our society to define gender. I'll also admit that I would adore it if the world suddenly decided that gender expression was a lot more flexible. At the same time that doesn't mean that gender expression is actually a very important part of what gender is, nor do I think appearance plays a large role in the eternal nature of gender. In the end I merely think that in our society gender expression and appearance are the most simple ways to define gender. It's not a very satisfactory answer, it's not even a very correct answer, it is just the easiest answer. I think this is important to remember. We shouldn't ever reduce gender merely to gender expression and we should always be seeking for a better way to really define what being a woman or a man means to us.

Kyle

Trans 101

Dear Readers,

So I’ve had my blog up for a little while now and I’ve had some great conversations with some of you. But inevitably the concept of being transgender is easily misunderstood, and I completely understand because it’s not an easy topic to wrap your head around. Here are a couple of common questions that I’ve run into:

So, does that mean you’re gay?

So, you are a drag queen?

Ok, ok, you just aren’t comfortable with masculine roles. Just avoid those and everything will be fine, right?

I think these are pretty common questions, and the problem stems from not having the vocabulary or experience to easily contextualize transgender issues. Issues of gender, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation aren't things that most people have to think about on a regular basis, so it’s easy to conflate them.

I think this whole discussion would be less complicated if I remembered to start by explaining the most basic concepts, so here is my best shot at re-explaining some of the basics in as straightforward a way as possible.

There are four spectrums that people generally use to inform their perception of a person’s gender, without even thinking about it, these are: gender identity, gender expression, sex, and sexual orientation. In fact, most people don’t think of them as spectrums, but rather as binary categories.

But rest assured, they are spectrums, and most people fall somewhere in the middle on almost all of them. I've found this diagram to be helpful in understanding this concept, and though it doesn't explain everything perfectly, it seems to work for me pretty well.

Now that you’ve looked at that, let me tell you where I fit on these.

1.)  Gender Identity.  On the first spectrum, I identify on the pink side of the scale. I feel female. People wonder why that is, and why I can’t just become comfortable with my maleness, but that’s a question I can’t answer, mostly because I don’t know why myself. I’ve tried to force myself into assuming a masculine identity and it just doesn’t work very well. In fact, an individual’s first response to gender dysphoria is often to attempt to retreat into the gender identity that society thinks they should be. That’s why there are constant stories about trans people who transition out of hyper-masculine or hyper-feminine roles and careers, because they’ve spent much of their lives trying to force themselves to match their self-perceived gender identity with their physical sex. It just tends not to be compatible long-term with a healthy mental state. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t think it’s bad being a man; it’s that vague feeling that ‘man-ness’ is amiss in my case every moment of every day that starts to get to me after a while.

2.) Gender Expression. On this spectrum, I’ll admit I’d rather be more towards the feminine end. I would love more opportunities to let my gender expression match my gender identity. Plus, I find traditionally male clothing to be kind of boring. Women have a lot more opportunity to express themselves through dress, and they also have better-looking clothes. I’m envious of this. However, I also understand that it makes a lot of people deeply, deeply uncomfortable to see a man wearing obviously feminine clothes. I’d rather be compassionate towards others and considerate of their feelings than perfectly true to my natural bent here. Clothes are, after all, mostly for the benefit of others—they denote our role and position in life to those that see us. I wear clothes to suit the male role I’ve chosen to fill for the moment, though I do tend towards androgynous clothing as much as possible. I find I don’t have to change my behavioral expression much though; it’s getting more and more accepted for guys to engage in things like cooking and knitting these days, so I pursue my interests fairly freely. My wife often loves this, as I love doing things like shopping and watching rom-coms, which are things a lot of women have trouble getting their husbands to do with them.

3.) Biological Sex. My biological sex is male, as anyone who knew me in diapers can attest. Obviously there is a conflict between my gender identity and my biological sex. My physical masculine characteristics feel wrong somehow, like I woke up in someone else’s body, but every day. It’s a really hard feeling to describe to others.

4.)  Sexual Orientation. This is the one that’s confusing, because many people define ‘gay’ as being attracted to people on the same end of one of these spectrums as yourself. I’m physically and romantically attracted to girls, but while most people, based on spectrums 2 and 3 for me, would say that I was straight because of this, most psychologists and trans people would prefer to use spectrum 1 and say that I’m a lesbian with the caveat that I’m in a male body. But it’s worth noting that sexual orientation differs in trans people just like it does among the cisgender (e.g., not transgender) populace.

With that rather lengthy explanation out of the way, let’s get some tl;dr takeaways:

Most of my struggle comes from the disconnect between my perceived gender identity and my biological sex. It’s a disconnect that I’d love to overcome forever and just be happy in my skin, but for the vast majority of people with gender dysphoria, that’s the impossible dream we all dream.

Gender, sex, and sexual orientation can be kind of complicated. So try and be open and be willing to listen if anyone ever wants to try and explain how they fit into some of these categories. It might be difficult to understand, but just trying to listen and trying to understand how a person understands themselves helps a lot.

Also, I like girls. In case you were wondering. J

Thanks for reading and being there for me, awesome readers. You all are the best.

Love,

Kyle.