MGIRR. (More Gender-Issue Related Ramblings. )
I have several friends who are transgender in my life. They all coincidentally have some kind of involvement in teaching kids and all run into the same issues with both kids and faculty involving explaining to people why they are/aren't homosexual and just what in the world they indeed happen to be. Pronouns get twisted, write-ups happen, and some of them end up feeling like they've won something valuable and other end up feeling like they've just settled for less that they should have. Comments in a friend's recent post about a similar situation brought up the question of "Do we say to the kids, 'you can be a boy or a girl no matter what parts you have'?"
The root of the problem here is gender roles, in my mind. Many transgender people use gender-neutral pronouns because it does not assign them the gender roles associated with that sex. I feel like there may have been a point where sex and gender were pretty much the same thing. Now, however, we use the terms to differentiate between the biological makeup of someone, and then the societally expected behaviors that related to that specific makeup.
I am a firm believer that my penis should not dictate what I should and should not do in life, and alot of women/men would strongly agree with that. When I was little, I asked for a doll for christmas. It had shining lights and I liked shining things. Go figure. But my parents never said anything to make me feel ashamed for that and I didn't even think it was strange until a few years later. I have danced and done gymnastics--not activities stereotypically associated with the male/masculine gender role, but I've had alot of fun doing them and I'm as strong and fit as alot of guys my age.
I would LOVE to think that I don't classify myself or others according to what I've been socially programmed to classify them as. To clarify, I don't see that someone cooks or dances or sings or wears skirts and say to myself, "They must be a girl." I often think, "That is a woman who does A,B,C..." This applies to my non-stereotypical girlfriends as well. I see a woman who plays rugby or is a high-power lawyer or has short hair or who would rather pursue academic ambitions rather than marital ones. I can't any specific reason at this point, especially since I started dating a guy, as to why I identify as a "man/boy/guy/male/dickmonger/dude/fella/joe/whathaveyou" other than that's what my sex was identified as when I was born and that's what I was told I was. I have felt pressured to act certain ways in my life because of my sex, but only by the people I didn't particularly like or know--alot of adults, in fact. (Not my parents, thankfully) Still, alot of the time I was just me. I often wondered if I really acted like an average guy or not, but I really could have cared less when around my friends and family.
My big problem comes with the labels, then. I've always felt a little confused when my trans friends have said "I feel more male/female today." I think a)physically that would be QUITE odd unless you were a biological oddity and b) if its a concept of gender identity, that's still a way of identifying yourself using old gender roles! I think that a big part of the gender identity issue could be solved by abolishing those roles. (Easy, right?) I don't know if any of my trans friends would be okay with saying "I'm a man/woman/boy/girl ONLY because of my parts." assuming it meant they wouldn't have to act according to gender roles, so I get a little lost in that area. For some, it IS a biological thing. People will want the parts that they don't have and some are born already with both. Many often pick one, but some don't.
I feel it would be very easy to interpret this rant as being disapproving of people's choice to identify a trans. This would be off the mark. I feel that transgender identity can be a useful tool in communicating with people who are too fixed in their concepts of gender. It shows them that there's something else. I cannot say for sure but it seem to let the people who identify with it to pick and choose the gender roles they want to apply to them. I just wish that we didn't have to deal with the concept of gender roles in the first place. Would the transgender identity exist if gender roles disappeared? Conversely, are the male and female sexes too different in certain aspects for gender roles to be completely abolished. In that case, transgenderism would likely remain a necessary for those who felt they weren't either in particular.
I haven't resolved all of this into too specific a point, but that's because I write this partially to explore my own thoughts. So I will summarize some of my more basic thoughts at the risk of oversimplifying.
--It should be alright to refer to someone using a pronoun according to sex, but gender roles don't make that comfortable for alot of trans folks.
--Gender roles are the root of alot of problems extending beyond trans issues, but can they ever be abolished?
--It is possible that we as a society could maybe pare down the roles we attach to certain sexes. For instance: Only women give birth (without scientific intervention), Men are (on average) of larger build (this does not make them "Better")
Those are actually the ONLY ones I could come up with and I'm not fully okay with saying the one about men.
As an end note, I love the "For every boy... there is a girl..." poster. I think it is very representative on my feelings about gender roles. They constrict people and we should be careful about USING them to identify who we are. We just need to see people FOR what they do, not BY what they do.
*exeunt ranter*
The root of the problem here is gender roles, in my mind. Many transgender people use gender-neutral pronouns because it does not assign them the gender roles associated with that sex. I feel like there may have been a point where sex and gender were pretty much the same thing. Now, however, we use the terms to differentiate between the biological makeup of someone, and then the societally expected behaviors that related to that specific makeup.
I am a firm believer that my penis should not dictate what I should and should not do in life, and alot of women/men would strongly agree with that. When I was little, I asked for a doll for christmas. It had shining lights and I liked shining things. Go figure. But my parents never said anything to make me feel ashamed for that and I didn't even think it was strange until a few years later. I have danced and done gymnastics--not activities stereotypically associated with the male/masculine gender role, but I've had alot of fun doing them and I'm as strong and fit as alot of guys my age.
I would LOVE to think that I don't classify myself or others according to what I've been socially programmed to classify them as. To clarify, I don't see that someone cooks or dances or sings or wears skirts and say to myself, "They must be a girl." I often think, "That is a woman who does A,B,C..." This applies to my non-stereotypical girlfriends as well. I see a woman who plays rugby or is a high-power lawyer or has short hair or who would rather pursue academic ambitions rather than marital ones. I can't any specific reason at this point, especially since I started dating a guy, as to why I identify as a "man/boy/guy/male/dickmonger/dude/fella/joe/whathaveyou" other than that's what my sex was identified as when I was born and that's what I was told I was. I have felt pressured to act certain ways in my life because of my sex, but only by the people I didn't particularly like or know--alot of adults, in fact. (Not my parents, thankfully) Still, alot of the time I was just me. I often wondered if I really acted like an average guy or not, but I really could have cared less when around my friends and family.
My big problem comes with the labels, then. I've always felt a little confused when my trans friends have said "I feel more male/female today." I think a)physically that would be QUITE odd unless you were a biological oddity and b) if its a concept of gender identity, that's still a way of identifying yourself using old gender roles! I think that a big part of the gender identity issue could be solved by abolishing those roles. (Easy, right?) I don't know if any of my trans friends would be okay with saying "I'm a man/woman/boy/girl ONLY because of my parts." assuming it meant they wouldn't have to act according to gender roles, so I get a little lost in that area. For some, it IS a biological thing. People will want the parts that they don't have and some are born already with both. Many often pick one, but some don't.
I feel it would be very easy to interpret this rant as being disapproving of people's choice to identify a trans. This would be off the mark. I feel that transgender identity can be a useful tool in communicating with people who are too fixed in their concepts of gender. It shows them that there's something else. I cannot say for sure but it seem to let the people who identify with it to pick and choose the gender roles they want to apply to them. I just wish that we didn't have to deal with the concept of gender roles in the first place. Would the transgender identity exist if gender roles disappeared? Conversely, are the male and female sexes too different in certain aspects for gender roles to be completely abolished. In that case, transgenderism would likely remain a necessary for those who felt they weren't either in particular.
I haven't resolved all of this into too specific a point, but that's because I write this partially to explore my own thoughts. So I will summarize some of my more basic thoughts at the risk of oversimplifying.
--It should be alright to refer to someone using a pronoun according to sex, but gender roles don't make that comfortable for alot of trans folks.
--Gender roles are the root of alot of problems extending beyond trans issues, but can they ever be abolished?
--It is possible that we as a society could maybe pare down the roles we attach to certain sexes. For instance: Only women give birth (without scientific intervention), Men are (on average) of larger build (this does not make them "Better")
Those are actually the ONLY ones I could come up with and I'm not fully okay with saying the one about men.
As an end note, I love the "For every boy... there is a girl..." poster. I think it is very representative on my feelings about gender roles. They constrict people and we should be careful about USING them to identify who we are. We just need to see people FOR what they do, not BY what they do.
*exeunt ranter*