Gender and sexuality
This is a slightly rambling, possibly unintentionally insulting post. I apologise for both from the offset - the first is because its stream of consciousness, and the second I assure you is not what I’m trying to do and is simply misguided comments arising from trying to learn and understand.
Right, with that out there, here’s what I’m actually writing about - gender and sexuality.
A couple of my friends (one gay, one bisexual) have recently come forward and said that they are Transmen (ie - born female, but living as male emotionally and at various stages of getting towards physically too, from dressing and breast binding all the way through to hormone replacement and surgery). I’m happy for them and accepting because if they’re happy then that makes me squee. But it did throw up a fair bunch of questions for me.
One of them (who uses the handle DK so that’s what I will use!) gave me a few gender and sexuality theory books to read. One I found incredibly patronising and gave up on after the first chapter, so he gave me some personal perspective essays instead. They were very enlightening into the actual mindset of transmen-and-women (and many other points on the gender scale, like butch and femme women, and femme boys etc) and different sexualities. But still my brain keeps asking questions and making points, some of which I’ve since put to DK and discussed, others which I haven’t really figured out how to word (not that he wouldn’t answer them because he’s really good at letting me ask stupid questions!). So hence, blog!
Here starteth the rambling. My thoughts and questions in no particular order!
WTF is with the pronouns?!
I’m trying really hard to use ‘he’ instead of ‘she’, although when you’ve known ‘her’ for seven years old habits die hard. I actually feel really bad when I mess them up, even just in my own head. I’ll get there eventually thought I know I will. And at least I’m further on than Ash who is only comfortable with ‘it’ (which I find insulting on their behalf and have told him so. It’s progress I suppose).
The WTF refers to gender neutral pronouns. For those not in the know, instead of him/her and he/she, gender neutral would be hir and ze.
To me, these don’t make any sense. They’re fecking hard to actually say out loud. It’s like the speaking equivalent of chewing really fatty meat, although that can probably be explained by them being alien to my language use. But mostly, the literal make up of them doesn’t work for me. Ze I kinda like, but then I think it should be zir, nor hir. It just looks and sounds neater.
I’m aware that this is a very geeky annoyance to have…
I’m a heterosexual woman ok?
You can call me heteronormative. You can call me cis-gendered. But personally, I’d like it if you just let me be a heterosexual woman.
Cis-gendered (being a woman inside and out) I can accept, as much as I find it unnecessarily complicated, but I really hate the word heteronormative for a couple of reasons. Mainly, because it removes the sexuality part - when talking about sexuality sure that’s a key element to include? And I take it as saying I can’t be a sexual creature because I’m following a social norm (I know it isn’t saying that, but I do feel like it’s removed my sex life for some reason I don’t quite know). Also, replacing ‘sexual’ with ‘normative’ befuddles me, because it suggest to me that my sexuality is therefore the ‘normal’ sexuality, which is precisely what gay people are protesting about. Please tell me if ‘normative’ is derived from something else here because it would vastly improve my relations with the word.
Gay woman + operation = straight man?
If a gay woman transgenders to become a man, are they straight? DK has said that ironically some Transmen find themselves attracted to men and therefore end up as gay men (I assume it’s a hormone thing!). I just bet it’s a bit of a head fuck to have identified as gay for a large portion of your life and then wake up one day and technically not be anymore. I’d be interested in reading about personal experience of that.
There’re more than three genders? How
This is where I sound like a pig ignorant hick.
I get that gender wise we can have male, female and neutral (not identifying as either). They’re the three I’m comfortable with. What I don’t get is extra gendering the sliding scale idea that basically goes man, femme boy, neutral, butch, woman (femme).
There are probably more classifications in between, but for arguments sake I’ve gone for the extremes, the middle, and the middle of the middle and extreme (yay - confusing clarification!). I’m classing hermaphrodites as neutral, along with people who don’t consider themselves either gender.
Someone please tell me how this equates to more than three genders. A femme boy is still male, whereas a butch woman is still female aren’t they? If a butch woman decides he’s actually a transman, then they’re male (and vice versa). If they don’t want to identify as male but don’t feel they are female then they’re neutral. I just don’t get the concept of anything else existing. Clarification appreciated.
I’m born this way, but it’s not a biological thing. What?
The classic argument is ‘I can’t not be gay, I was born this way’. But then gay people are very opposed to the idea that there is a gay gene/ hormone/ synapse. Isn’t that a tad hypocritical?
To make that last comment less insulting - if you’re born that way, doesn’t that imply something in your make up that makes you that way. Say there is a gay gene, then there must also be a straight gene. It’s just logic. One isn’t better or more ‘right’ than the other. Just like there’s a gene that makes us black or white.
Is the problem the idea that it makes gayness a ‘disease’? Like a missing hormone makes you diabetic (apologies if I’ve misunderstood diabetes!). At least the prescription to ‘control’ it would just be ‘shag your own gender’. I suppose the idea that people could develop a ‘cure’ is a worry. Flipped around that means we could ‘cure’ straightness too…
Again this musing may be very insulting and I do apologise because I don’t mean to be. I’m just thinking about what makes gay people gay and straight people straight, and with the born that way argument can only really think of hormones, genes or the way your brain is wired, all biological things which are theoretically changeable to their opposite. As a straight woman I would say that it’s something to do with how my brain fires rather than a hormone or gene, but I do accept that it is biological and changeable. I guess I wouldn’t be penalised by it though, so the concept doesn’t seem as horrific to me as it could do.
The idea that gay or straight is an emotional response or way of thinking I suppose could be the explanation. But I wouldn’t say you’re born with either of those, which would make sexuality a learned thing, or a choice. This is where I get confused, since I have no yardstick - I’ve always fitted the straight model and never had to realise that I was differing to a norm.
Cut off the cliterous to remove the penis. Huh?
One of the books DK lent me had a couple of essays from hermaphrodites. All were sculpted at birth to make them women (which was annoying because I never got the ‘male’ perspective as it were). The procedure was called a cliterectomy, and described as an operation where the penis is removed.
Quoi? It can’t just be me who doesn’t think that makes sense. Surely it’s a peniserectomy? Apparently the medical notes classed each one as ‘male’ until after the surgery where they then became female. A case of language misogyny do we think?
If my child came out with both genitals and there wasn’t a health risk, then I’d damn well leave them that way. Whichever functioned the most normally/ was the fuller developed would dictate what gender the child was legally given, but as soon as they were old enough to understand the difference between male and female (before school age definitely) I’d let them choose how they wanted me to refer to them and change the legal side if needed. And then if they wanted an operation when they were old enough to really understand I’d let them go under the knife, but if they didn’t want to then I wouldn’t force them to.
Whatever you look like outside or in, it sounds like we’re all the same really.
I think that if I were to have trouble accepting my trans friends going from female to male, then this one realisation I’ve had would get me a long way towards accepting it.
Reading the personal stories of transmen-and-women, hermaphrodites, gay people, straight people, asexual people and whatever else people out there want to identify as, a few central themes always came through.
Be we attracted to a different gender or the same, whether our outsides match our insides, whether we stayed what we were born as or not, it seems like everyone is looking for the same thing. We all worry that we’re not a real man or woman, or that our bodies don’t look the way we think they should, whether the worry is that we’re too fat or ugly or hairy or that the plumbing doesn’t look right. We want to be healthy, we want to be respected for who we are and what we do, and at the end of the day, we want someone special to come home to who will love us for our good parts and our flaws, regardless of what anyone else might think of us or them.
Really, none of us are so different in the end.
Ciao
~*Ruth*~
Right, with that out there, here’s what I’m actually writing about - gender and sexuality.
A couple of my friends (one gay, one bisexual) have recently come forward and said that they are Transmen (ie - born female, but living as male emotionally and at various stages of getting towards physically too, from dressing and breast binding all the way through to hormone replacement and surgery). I’m happy for them and accepting because if they’re happy then that makes me squee. But it did throw up a fair bunch of questions for me.
One of them (who uses the handle DK so that’s what I will use!) gave me a few gender and sexuality theory books to read. One I found incredibly patronising and gave up on after the first chapter, so he gave me some personal perspective essays instead. They were very enlightening into the actual mindset of transmen-and-women (and many other points on the gender scale, like butch and femme women, and femme boys etc) and different sexualities. But still my brain keeps asking questions and making points, some of which I’ve since put to DK and discussed, others which I haven’t really figured out how to word (not that he wouldn’t answer them because he’s really good at letting me ask stupid questions!). So hence, blog!
Here starteth the rambling. My thoughts and questions in no particular order!
WTF is with the pronouns?!
I’m trying really hard to use ‘he’ instead of ‘she’, although when you’ve known ‘her’ for seven years old habits die hard. I actually feel really bad when I mess them up, even just in my own head. I’ll get there eventually thought I know I will. And at least I’m further on than Ash who is only comfortable with ‘it’ (which I find insulting on their behalf and have told him so. It’s progress I suppose).
The WTF refers to gender neutral pronouns. For those not in the know, instead of him/her and he/she, gender neutral would be hir and ze.
To me, these don’t make any sense. They’re fecking hard to actually say out loud. It’s like the speaking equivalent of chewing really fatty meat, although that can probably be explained by them being alien to my language use. But mostly, the literal make up of them doesn’t work for me. Ze I kinda like, but then I think it should be zir, nor hir. It just looks and sounds neater.
I’m aware that this is a very geeky annoyance to have…
I’m a heterosexual woman ok?
You can call me heteronormative. You can call me cis-gendered. But personally, I’d like it if you just let me be a heterosexual woman.
Cis-gendered (being a woman inside and out) I can accept, as much as I find it unnecessarily complicated, but I really hate the word heteronormative for a couple of reasons. Mainly, because it removes the sexuality part - when talking about sexuality sure that’s a key element to include? And I take it as saying I can’t be a sexual creature because I’m following a social norm (I know it isn’t saying that, but I do feel like it’s removed my sex life for some reason I don’t quite know). Also, replacing ‘sexual’ with ‘normative’ befuddles me, because it suggest to me that my sexuality is therefore the ‘normal’ sexuality, which is precisely what gay people are protesting about. Please tell me if ‘normative’ is derived from something else here because it would vastly improve my relations with the word.
Gay woman + operation = straight man?
If a gay woman transgenders to become a man, are they straight? DK has said that ironically some Transmen find themselves attracted to men and therefore end up as gay men (I assume it’s a hormone thing!). I just bet it’s a bit of a head fuck to have identified as gay for a large portion of your life and then wake up one day and technically not be anymore. I’d be interested in reading about personal experience of that.
There’re more than three genders? How
This is where I sound like a pig ignorant hick.
I get that gender wise we can have male, female and neutral (not identifying as either). They’re the three I’m comfortable with. What I don’t get is extra gendering the sliding scale idea that basically goes man, femme boy, neutral, butch, woman (femme).
There are probably more classifications in between, but for arguments sake I’ve gone for the extremes, the middle, and the middle of the middle and extreme (yay - confusing clarification!). I’m classing hermaphrodites as neutral, along with people who don’t consider themselves either gender.
Someone please tell me how this equates to more than three genders. A femme boy is still male, whereas a butch woman is still female aren’t they? If a butch woman decides he’s actually a transman, then they’re male (and vice versa). If they don’t want to identify as male but don’t feel they are female then they’re neutral. I just don’t get the concept of anything else existing. Clarification appreciated.
I’m born this way, but it’s not a biological thing. What?
The classic argument is ‘I can’t not be gay, I was born this way’. But then gay people are very opposed to the idea that there is a gay gene/ hormone/ synapse. Isn’t that a tad hypocritical?
To make that last comment less insulting - if you’re born that way, doesn’t that imply something in your make up that makes you that way. Say there is a gay gene, then there must also be a straight gene. It’s just logic. One isn’t better or more ‘right’ than the other. Just like there’s a gene that makes us black or white.
Is the problem the idea that it makes gayness a ‘disease’? Like a missing hormone makes you diabetic (apologies if I’ve misunderstood diabetes!). At least the prescription to ‘control’ it would just be ‘shag your own gender’. I suppose the idea that people could develop a ‘cure’ is a worry. Flipped around that means we could ‘cure’ straightness too…
Again this musing may be very insulting and I do apologise because I don’t mean to be. I’m just thinking about what makes gay people gay and straight people straight, and with the born that way argument can only really think of hormones, genes or the way your brain is wired, all biological things which are theoretically changeable to their opposite. As a straight woman I would say that it’s something to do with how my brain fires rather than a hormone or gene, but I do accept that it is biological and changeable. I guess I wouldn’t be penalised by it though, so the concept doesn’t seem as horrific to me as it could do.
The idea that gay or straight is an emotional response or way of thinking I suppose could be the explanation. But I wouldn’t say you’re born with either of those, which would make sexuality a learned thing, or a choice. This is where I get confused, since I have no yardstick - I’ve always fitted the straight model and never had to realise that I was differing to a norm.
Cut off the cliterous to remove the penis. Huh?
One of the books DK lent me had a couple of essays from hermaphrodites. All were sculpted at birth to make them women (which was annoying because I never got the ‘male’ perspective as it were). The procedure was called a cliterectomy, and described as an operation where the penis is removed.
Quoi? It can’t just be me who doesn’t think that makes sense. Surely it’s a peniserectomy? Apparently the medical notes classed each one as ‘male’ until after the surgery where they then became female. A case of language misogyny do we think?
If my child came out with both genitals and there wasn’t a health risk, then I’d damn well leave them that way. Whichever functioned the most normally/ was the fuller developed would dictate what gender the child was legally given, but as soon as they were old enough to understand the difference between male and female (before school age definitely) I’d let them choose how they wanted me to refer to them and change the legal side if needed. And then if they wanted an operation when they were old enough to really understand I’d let them go under the knife, but if they didn’t want to then I wouldn’t force them to.
Whatever you look like outside or in, it sounds like we’re all the same really.
I think that if I were to have trouble accepting my trans friends going from female to male, then this one realisation I’ve had would get me a long way towards accepting it.
Reading the personal stories of transmen-and-women, hermaphrodites, gay people, straight people, asexual people and whatever else people out there want to identify as, a few central themes always came through.
Be we attracted to a different gender or the same, whether our outsides match our insides, whether we stayed what we were born as or not, it seems like everyone is looking for the same thing. We all worry that we’re not a real man or woman, or that our bodies don’t look the way we think they should, whether the worry is that we’re too fat or ugly or hairy or that the plumbing doesn’t look right. We want to be healthy, we want to be respected for who we are and what we do, and at the end of the day, we want someone special to come home to who will love us for our good parts and our flaws, regardless of what anyone else might think of us or them.
Really, none of us are so different in the end.
Ciao
~*Ruth*~