Feminism Friday - the sex/gender distinction
March 16, 2007 by thinking girl
A common claim in feminist theory is that sex and gender are different; that “sex” refers to biological characteristics like genitals and chromosomes, and “gender” refers to social roles and practices like masculinity and femininity. Continuing this distinction, the “sex” categories are referred to as “male” and “female” and the gender categories are referred to as “man” and “woman”. It’s been a useful rhetorical tool to talk about the social vs. the physical aspects of sex and gender, as well as to allow some wiggle room to open up in which people can subvert these roles by, say, being “female” and also “man”, or vice versa.
I don’t find this distinction helpful anymore. I also don’t think it’s particularly true.
I’ve been reading a fabulous book lately by Anne Fausto-Sterling, a feminist biologist, called Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. She talks about intersexuality, the state of being where one’s reproductive or sexual anatomy isn’t simply “male” or “female” according to genitalia, gonads, or chromosomes, but some combination of both. Intersexuality is not so uncommon as you might think: about 1.7% of births are intersexual. In a population of 20,000, that’s about 340. It’s significantly more common than albanism, the lack of melanin in the skin and hair - only 1 in 20,000 births, or 0.005%.
Intersexuality is considered a medical emergency. When an intersexual child is born, doctors rush to try to figure out what to do - cut off the bits of genitalia that don’t match the chromosomes, like an elongated clitoris or an external testes on an XX infant? try to reposition the urethral opening to save an XY infant the future humiliation of not being able to pee standing up? cut open fused labia to create a vagina? parents are told that their child is “really” a boy or a girl (not that they are intersexual), and that it is necessary to make its body match the “true” sex identity. They are told that they must act quickly, or risk their child growing up with severe psychological trauma because they won’t be like all the other kids. They are told that there are no other people they can talk to who have gone through the same thing, and anyway, tick tock, the more minutes their infant spends in this ambiguous state of limbo the more likely they will be traumatized later on. They are told if they want to be good parents, they must sign the forms and submit their infant for genital surgery.
And so, for the most part, intersexuality is surgically “corrected” right away. Sometimes, which “sex” the child is encouraged to be raised as doesn’t match up with its chromosomes, and is instead rather arbitrarily decided according to how large or small the penis is - if it is deemed “too small” it is simply removed, the head is made into a nub that is meant to represent the clitoris and surgically embedded into the genital area (if they’re lucky!), and a vagina is created, which often involves several surgeries and requires the infant or child have a dildo inserted into their newly constructed orifice so that scar tissue doesn’t develop and close off the new opening. One surgeon who specializes in this work has been quoted as saying “it’s easier to dig a hole than build a pole.” However, as the child develops, it is often necessary to undergo several more surgical procedures to make sure everything is working properly. Sometimes, intersexuals have one ovary and one testes, and later on the ovary is removed. Sometimes, gonads are fused together into one, called ovo-testes, and surgery is performed to remove whichever unwanted bits are there. Most often, the child is not told why they are undergoing additional surgery, and their medical history is kept secret from them. there’s a lot of ignoramce cultivated around intersexuality.
Anne Fausto-Sterling is arguing that this medical practice of eliminating intersexuality, thus creating only two sexes, is a social one. The existence of intersexuals disproves the theory that there are biologically only two sexes. We as a society have forced a false binary sex system on intersexual people because we have too much invested in the idea that there are only “male” and “female” people. It’s ridiculous!
And so, I don’t think we can really separated sex and gender. They are both social practices, having to do with creating false binaries and negating the experiences and bodies of real living people who have been “naturally” born as neither female nor male. It seems that the primary motivation behind creating two sexes is so that the people in question will not experience gender “confusion” as they grow up. Gender and sex cannot be so easily divided; they are intricately interwoven onto the bodies of us all, and especially intersexuals.
Sex/gender is a performance - there is no original, as says Judith Butler in Gender Trouble. And sex/gender cannot be separated from bodies; we are deemed to be “male” “female” “man” “woman” because of and sometimes in spite of our bodies - and if our bodies do not co-operate, they are tamed by surgical means into upholding our socially constructed and enforced binary sex/gender system.
What’s more, sex/gender is also deeply tied to sexuality. You know how doctors determine whether sex/gender assignment on intersexuals is successful or not? Whether the person in question ends up being heterosexual. That is supposed to be the indicator of whether or not they chose the “right” bits to cut off and the “right” bits to encourage! If the person in question turns out to be gay or lesbian or bisexual, then their sex/gender assignment is considered a failure - because obviously, heterosexuality=normal in this strange society we live in, and anything else is deviant or abnormal! I mean, it’s so ridiculous it’s kind of mind-boggling, how desperately we cling to these false dimorphisms! We’d rather label whole segments of the population as “freaks” of biology than admit that our social system is fucked up.
So anyway, lots of interesting stuff going on in that book, I highly recommend it. As a jump-off for discussion, Fausto-Sterling recommends ending genital surgery on intersexual infants, and allowing them to be raised in whatever way the parent deems appropriate, and allowing the intersexual person him/herself decide later on, say at puberty, what they want to do: either have surgery to make their bodies less ambiguous, or stay the way they are. I fully support this proposition. What do you folks think?
And as a last link, I recommend taking a look at the Intersexuality Society of North America website to learn more. This is a wonderful group dedicated to helping families and intersexual people make informed decisions and alleviating the stigma of intersexuality.
I would definitely allow the child to decide. I left skin tags on my son’s face, to his dad’s objection, until he was old enough to ask to have them removed (about 8). It’s his body, his decision. And I wasn’t about to let them numb his face as an infant for something cosmetic.
But with an intersexed baby left to decide their own gender, what would you name him/her? And what pronoun to use? We won’t want to refer to him/her as it, do we?
I read a short story once about a baby named X. The parents wouldn’t tell anyone the gender, and they dealt with it all in good humour. I told my students I was going to do that with my baby, but it didn’t last long. Social forces that demand to know the baby’s gender are really strong. People actually get angry if you don’t tell them!
But that being said, I’d still leave it for if or when the child decides s/he wants it changed. But it would be a difficult path.
Sage - yeah, I’d for sure leave the kid as is until he/she could decide.
Mostly, I think, the recommendation is to raise these kids as one or the other gender… but perhaps not too extremely one or the other? Which kind of seems like good advice for raising kids anyway… and then if the child identifies as the other gender later in life, that’s alright, they can change if they want to.
Kind of reminds me of that skier, Peekabo Street, who named herself.
Also, a joke (which I promise isn’t offensive):
Baby is born. People ask the parents, “Is it a boy or a girl?” Parents answer, “We don’t know, the baby hasn’t told us yet!”
Interesting, we don’t mind referring to a baby as “it” until we know which sex/gender it is.
I dunno, I think all this speaks to the inadequacies of our language around sex/gender.
and by the way, I LOVE the X story!!
Thinking Girl
These issues are so incredibly complex and have hidden currents in the mind of the person in question. I agree absolutely that the person should be left to decide on their own with as much (relatively) objective information as possible. Surgery should be performed only with the complete consent of the patient. This rule should have extremly few exceptions.
As for the rest, what’s wrong with being male/Female by percentage, rather than absolutely one or the other. Mental states related to gender are still poorly understood.
Unconventional genital formation and the medical proffesions S.O.P. illuminates so much of what makes the the traditional Patriarchy so cleary bullyish and offensive.
While I agree with most of what you have written here, I would still argue that sex and gender and sexuality are each separate entities. This is not to say that they are completely independent of one another, but rather that they are likely linked through a combination of genetic and environmental factors. That being said, they each span a continuum of expression when taken individually and form an even more complex matrix of possibilities when combined. Therefore, as you suggested, there is no binary for any one of these elements, nor do they necessarily depend on one another for their expression.
As for the intersexed children, I definitely agree that surgery should be postponed, if not indefinitely. Gender identity is often formed early in development (regardless of subjective coercion), so it may not be too difficult to assign a “proper” pronoun. Sexuality usually comes a bit later and may or may not coincide with the expected role, but who cares? Just let us be the wonderfully complex creatures that nature made us to be.
Forgive me, especially contradicting you on a first comment, but I think you’ve misunderstoood the sex/ gender distinction. At least this is not how I understand it.
As I understand it sex is physical, biology and as such somewhat fluid; not only are their intersex people, but some of us have three chromosomes, some XYs fail to react to testerone, some of us have non-typical brain architecture etc. But despite it’s fluidity, it is still a valid concept; in biology we can generalise about male and female plants and animals, including human animals - even if though, throughout nature, there are all sorts of fantastic mutations and variations.
However, gender is what society constructs around this and gender is absolute - if entirely locked into the particular prejudices of a given culture (thus it varies from age to age, culture to culture). It defines what masculinity and femininity are, and anyhere these should appear to coincide is considered an anathema.
Biological sex is fluid and accomodates difference - it has to, that’s nature for you. Gender, however, is completely and rigidly binary; it says that intersex people must be one thing or the other, they just must be. What’s more, as you say, the success is measured by heterosexuality - even though biology would acknowledge that in humans as throughout animal kingdom, sexual behaviour is by no means uniform.
Sex says a female is typically this size and this shape, these bits and pieces and this chemical activity - but there is massive variation. In human animals, for example, females average four inches shorter than males, but it is not at all unusual to find females taller than the average males. No scientist questions the femaleness of a woman who is 5′10″ or even 6′4″.
Gender says that a woman typically behaves like this, looks like this. Our feminity is questions when we deviate from those traits even in some slight small way. Gender says that a woman has these capacities, these desires, this rigid immovable role in life.
To me, the entire point of feminism is to take gender down. Because it is an artifice which defines who we are. Sex, however, is a fact, but as with very much in science, one with plenty of room for manoeuvre which reflects the wondrous variety of our nature.
On the subject of body image and sexual identity, I listened to this radio show last week and found it very interesting, it is about the fact that we have ‘a brain-based body image detailed down to the fine anatomy of the genitals’, and this body image doesn’t always match the ‘physical reality’ of our body :
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2007/1861116.htm
I honestly don’t know what I would do in that situation — bearing an intersexual child.
But, I had a few thoughts:
There are many gender-ambiguous names: Chris, Casey, Erin/Aaron (although that wouldn’t work as well on paper)…
And, well, my sister’s female+hetero roommate is named Spencer.
Also, using “child” instead of “son” or “daughter”: quite plausible.
To my mind the biggest obstacle to overcome is the acceptance that there aren’t “just two” genders (or that gender isn’t a limited set of options, but a continuum).
Steve - yes, the coercive nature of the patriarchy indeed! So coercive that it dictates genital surgeries on infants. I mean, wow. that is some serious coercion.
folkrockgirl - great screen name! Thanks for coming to visit.
you wrote: “they are likely linked through a combination of genetic and environmental factors.”
I don’t know… it seems to me that genetics doesn’t have a lot to do with sex. Sex as I’ve come to understand it through reading Fausto-Sterling is just as socially constructed as gender and sexuality - the medical and social treatment of intersexuality sort of proves as such. Is there a biological basis? Sure, but we’re ignoring, and surgically alterting and fiddling with, this whole other range of biological reality in order to cling to a two-sex model that simply isn’t true.
Goldfish - welcome! I see you over at Sage’s a lot, and have checked out your blog too, but only lurked.
I agree with you, that a range of fluid biological realities relating to sex exist. What I’m saying is that society doesn’t see it that way, and is instead trying to force a two-sex system onto all human bodies, a two-sex system that is based on gender, rather than the common perception that gender is based on sex. Remember, before the two-sex system we had a one-sex system, the Galenic model, where females were simply males but inverted, colder, not enough heat generated to push the genitals out. So medicine is socially constructing human “sex” to be a certain thing, that is, stable and binary, when really it is not. If you like, society is mapping sex onto gender. I think it all comes down to the social practice of science being androcentric. Science isn’t anything objective, not really, not when humans are practicing it and bringing to its table all kinds of their own baggage and prejudices and ideological frameworks.
So which came first, the chicken or the egg? well, it’s likely that sex came first, but increasingly it seems like gender is coming to count before sex in our culture.
I don’t know if I agree with the idea that gender is rigid and absolute. I know you did add a disclaimer to say that gender can vary with time and place, but even still, if that’s so, how can we account for such changes? It’s not like at the turn of each new decade we see changes to gender. It’s more a gradual process in which more rigid gender roles of the time/place exist side-by-side with more revolutionary models. No monolith, even within cultures and historical eras.
I think just as much as gender needs to be taken down, we need to also be concerned about the construction of sex, as sex increasingly based on gender.
thanks for getting me thinking!
Sophie - hi again! oh I think this is really very true! I always imagine myself to be skinnier than I really am! what a shock when I get into the dressing room sometimes!
No seriously, the transcript of that show was very interesting to read. Thanks for the link!
nightgigjo - thanks for commenting - that was my first reaction too, actually, just remove the problem with a unisex name, etc. But then there’s the problem of clothing (have you tried to buy a baby gift lately? baby stuff - all baby stuff - is SO gendered! Lst time, I had to buy a white blanket. That’s the only thing in the whole baby store I could find that wasn’t pink or lavender or minty green or peach or blue. I mean, who cares, but you never know if the mom-to-be will care… so white, as impractical as white is for a baby, was all I could do!), and most importantly, there’s the problem of other people - it is Very Important to know the sex/gender of the person you’re interacting with, and also to display your own to them, so you know how to go about treating one another “correctly”. How about treating people like people? folks like folks? Ah, I dunno.
I checked out your links. To be able to accept ourselves & have others accept us as we are born is a wonderful thing.
Any day, I am going to be a new grandmother. Since my daughter is an staunch believer in “at home natural birth”, her whole family will be completely involved.
In that human spiritual moment when the baby is born, I’m going to resolve to respect him/her or intersex as a complete & worthy human being.
Oops, forgot the pronoun thing.
I tend to use monikers anyway, so saying “the little one” or “the baby” or terms of endearment like “sweetness” or “lamb” wouldn’t be so gender-heavy either.
Besides, using a noun instead of a pronoun: a bit more respectful to my linguist’s brain.
L>T - oh, how nice! Congratulations on the impending birth of your grandchild. And good for you for recognizing the importance of valuing and respecting the whole of a person. May your new grandchild be well-blessed in this life.
nightgigjo - yes, that’s nice! I had one prof who called people, singular “they” most of the time, despite the improperness according to language rules.
TG: I hadn’t thought about the baby blanket question. Don’t have any kids yet, so that’s probably why. I do, however, have in-laws who consistently hold up gender stereotypes (despite being really wonderful people! conflicted!) with their grandchildren (4 male, 1 female). So. Much. Pink. For that one little girl.
I was probably blocking that out. *shudder*
I also (now) don’t want to know the sex of any babies I might bear in the indefinite future, partly to avoid a blue-or-pink deluge.
White baby blankets: shows stains more, but easier to bleach without harming the color, so 6 vs. 1/2 dozen in my mind.
Yeah, and I wasn’t taking ‘other people’ (yes, including grandparents) into those thoughts (s’what I get for posting before fully awake). Even with the “don’t want to know the sex of baby” thing, I know I’m going to get a lot of flack. I can’t imagine (or rather, I can) the issues that would arise with my in-laws/parents if the sex (or rather, in their eyes, gender) of the baby was “yet to be determined” until well after the birth.
(Note to self: this is a blog worthy topic, apparently. Go with it.)
“Folks is folks.”
Yep. Love it. Wish it were as easy for people (myself incl!) to accept as it is to say. Oh well, I’m working on me.
Edit: I should have clarified that “environmental factors” include social pressures as well, so I agree that sex and gender and sexuality do not only have a biological basis. But that does not mean that sex (or gender or sexuality) are completely socially constructed either. A binary exists because that is what is most commonly observed and understood, even though we all agree that there are variations in nature. Therefore, it is the expectations of these roles, not the identity themselves, which are influenced by our classification system.
Just to confuse the argument further, I do not believe that the expectation of sex in society equates to gender. I still assert that these are separate and fluid in their own right. Nor should we confuse femininity/masculinity with gender and sex, as they too are independent expressions. As a result, I do not believe that the point of feminism is to bring gender down or negate its existence, but rather to remove the expectations and limitations imposed on these roles.
Maybe we are all saying the same things
Thanks for the thoughtful discussion.
Hi Thinking Girl,
Great post!
A related book you would probably enjoy is called “Normal” by Amy Bloom. The blurb on the back says “What does it mean to be male or female? Is who we are determined by sex or gender….” etc.
Sam.
i have been fascinated with intersexuality and gender ambiguity for a few years now (btw, there’s quite a few adolscent novels on the matter, including the well known “middlesex” and “fool for love” by lisa lees)…maybe b.c “finding yourself” is so emphasized in america, in our individualistic culture, and in turn, we “find ourself” through social labels (seems oxymoronic, right?) and, my original thinking was, gender/sex (in any implication of either word) is the biggest, most basic social catagory. if you’re not clear where you fit on THAT spectrum, then how can you even begin? but i think, slowly, perspectives are changing. intersex and trans activism are more visible, and people are learning to accept variety in families and love. i lived in a very progressive neighborhood once…many, many homosexual families with (mostly foreign adopted) babies, and the families were so cute…there are so many ways to be and so many ways to love and to me, ambiguity is beautiful and in some ways, even magical. hopefully, society will eventually celebrate diversity, rather than try to constantly enforce status quo.
TG, I haven’t gotten through all of your post (it’s dense!), but I just wanted to throw a few complexities your way in regards to sex/gender.
I think the problem is not the idea of sex and gender being separate, but rather forcing sex and gender into the binary of male/female. Female and male are just two ends of a diverse spectrum as The Goldfish pointed out.
Also, I think the use of “gender” is problematic because it encompasses (at least) two very distinct concepts. The first being gender roles, which are 100% constructed, and the second being gender identity, which might be partially constructed but the experiences of transgendered individuals suggests an innate component (biological, genetic… something along those lines). Again, putting these into a binary of female/male is highly problematic as well and doesn’t reflect the complexities of real life.
In short, I don’t think it’s the concepts that are the issue, but rather using them in an unrefined form that fails to capture even partially the complexity of the situation.
Anyway, I need to go back and read further into your post, but thank you for challenging the binary notion of male/female. I think all to often people want to ignore or otherwise shunt aside instersexual (and, for similar reasons, transgendered) issues because they don’t fit neatly into the box. But we, as feminists, don’t have that luxury. If we want to break out of the confining gender roles that we’re forced into, then we can’t perpetuate them ourselves.
Thank you tekanji for saying what I was trying to express, but doing it ever more eloquently
As a person with a transgendered individual in my life, this is becoming an increasingly important issue for me. Especially after discovering that many feminists or those who claim to be (like some associated with the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival) are rejecting the validity of male-to-female transsexuals. Likewise, many lesbians are denouncing the legitimacy of female-to-male persons and their experiences. I find this to be a very ugly trend and incongruent with the philosophy of acceptance.
Oh, and sorry thinkinggirl for accidentally having a dummy link to my blog before. It should be fixed now
nightgigjo - I know some couples who decided on names, then refused to tell anyone because they didn’t want anyone giving their opinions about what they had chosen. Now THAT’S willpower! I tend to blurt everything about my life all the time, so it would definitely be hard for me!
folkrockgirl - I like that, and actually agree: “I do not believe that the point of feminism is to bring gender down or negate its existence, but rather to remove the expectations and limitations imposed on these roles.” Yes.
hmmm… good points you raise. I think that what I’m trying to tease out, and these comments are helping, is that sex and gender aren’t binary but have lots of stuff going on in between and around the edges, and they aren’t “the same,” but that what seems to be going on is that society is making them the same, or perhaps, relying on gender to define sex, in part through the medical disciplining of intersexual bodies. Because there’s the biological model of sex, that Goldfish and you have pointed out, but then there’s the social model of sex that I’m pointing out. And they aren’t the same, you’re right. But they are getting conflated, mapped onto each other, and that is the scab I’m picking at.
does that make sense to you? I’m trying to work it out in my own mind, so please keep engaging with me on it.
Sam - thanks, I’ll look for that title, sounds interesting!
havemycake - great point, that we try to find ourselves by identifying ourselves with pre-existing stereotypical group identities. I think you hit the nail on the head with that!
I’m with you, hoping society begins to accept diversity and feel more comfortable with the messiness and ambiguity of postmodern identities.
welcome, and thanks for commenting!
tekanji - thanks for your comment. please check out my comment above to folkrockgirl, I think that might apply to what you’re talking about as well…
I’m not too sure about transsexual experiences suggesting an innateness of gender… I’ll have to sleep on that one. From my perspective, it seems that transsexuals identify with a different gender/sex identity than the one they’ve been assigned - but the one that they identify with better isn’t necessarily a natural one, right? whether you identify with one gender identity over another doesn’t mean both aren’t constructed.
folkrockgirl - yep, I agree. ugliness.
i’m with tekanji in that the binary nature of the concept of “gender” is problematic. our socially constructed roles, which, while they can be empowering and a large part of our personal idenity, almost always box us in…it’s such a catch 22. as humans, we NEED categories (ie stereotypes)…we are biologically programmed to seek out patterns and “connect the dots,” and (usually in some hideous way), stereotypes are in part, a side-product of this programming…but if we didn’t categorize or label anything, we would have no language or thought as we know it…so instead, i guess we “grow” socially by trying to make the categories larger and more inclusive…
TG: I absolutely don’t think that gender identity is constructed. And I think our ability to gloss over it — our innate feeling that we are, at the core, women — is part of our cisgendered privilege. We don’t think about our gender identity because it is in sync with our physical sex. It’s “normal” in our society for that to be the case, and so we don’t have to, and indeed are encouraged not to, see the difference.
This is not the case for transsexual, transgender, androgyne, and genderqueer people. Sometime in their lives, these people become aware of a dissonance between their gender identity and their physical sex. This may be, like in the case of transsexuals, a feeling that they are the opposite sex of their body, but it can also manifest itself in ways such as not feeling fully one or the other, feeling like one is both, or feeling like one is neither. Like with sexuality, there is a certain amount of fluidity in this identification, but just because someone might identify as straight for one part of their life and then change their identity to gay or bisexual doesn’t mean that sexual orientation is socially constructed or a choice. And so it is with gender identity — it isn’t always fixed, but it’s not the same as gender roles.
And, indeed, if it were the same as gender roles you wouldn’t have transsexual homosexuals, you wouldn’t have butch women or femme men. But you do, even despite the rule that used to be in place that a transsexual had to preform their gender roles to a T (no pun intended), you still had them coming out of the closet soon as they got their transition and were freed from the gender-normative constraints that their psychologist would place on them.
You can also make a connection between gender identity and intersexuals. I remember watching a documentary on a little boy who had been born with both sets of genitals. The parents told the doctors not to perform any surgery, but the doctors went against their wishes and chopped off the penis. Because of that, the child began growing up as a girl, but it soon became apparent to all involved that he clearly identified as male.
And, lastly, my argument for an innate component of gender identity is rooted in biology. There are certain differences between females and males. The feminist argument is, of course, that until we have clear evidence for a causal relationship between sexual differences and certain activities, then it is better to assume that there will be no difference, or negligible difference, between the sexes than to construct confining gender roles of “boys do this, girls do that”. This doesn’t, however, apply to gender identity. Gender identity isn’t, “I like to wear dresses, therefore I’m a woman” (that’s gender roles), but “I feel myself to be a woman, therefore I’m a woman.” And I don’t have time to find the research (gotta catch my plane) but if you do a search on Google Scholar you can probably find some articles discussing the biological/neurological component to gender identity.
Isn’t an “intersexual” baby simply some form of mutant? A genetic abberration?
What about conjoined twins? Are they part of some continuum of being, where simply being born to one body with one set of organs and chromosomes is merely a “social construct” that perpetuates the uni-normative bias of our culture?
Sheesh.
Tekanji - thanks, you’ve given me something to think about. I can’t comment right now, I need to consider whether or not my views about social construction of gender are indeed influenced by the privilege I have as a cisgendered person.
Shoulung - wow.
NO, intersexuals are NOT simply a form of mutant or genetic aberration. That’s kind of the whole fucking point of the post… that there are a significant number of people who are born intersexual, and that medicine and society are doing them a grave disservice by trying to force them into one of two constructed sex identities.
Do you not think even a moment before you post something? FUCK. Well, now you won’t need to think before posting, because you have been officially banned.
That is a real interesting post, TG. I will have to think about it. Transformation is painful, and society really really does not appear in a mood to transform. Irregardless of right or wrong, I am not sure I would want a child of mine to be carrying the flag for that change stamped in his or her [how odd, there is not way to get away from those his or her tags] flesh and sexual identity. That is a very heavy burden for a child. So, too, though, are repetitive surgeries and secrets. I will think more on this. I doubt I will find answers. But I will think.
Great post, Thinking Girl. And some really interesting points raised.
Tekanji, your argument about cisgendered priviledge and gender identity is really interesting. I’m not sure, though, that most cisgendered people don’t think about or question their gender identity. I mean, there’s a lot of anxiety in our culture surrounding the idea of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ - and, IMO, a lot of social problems that stem from individual insecurities people have about gender identity. Maybe they don’t explicitly name those insecurities as such, but they’re there. I see this as part of the problem with things like transphobia. What is so threatening about someone changing sex anyway? Yet you get this from a lot of cis people, even feminists and progressives. Like a transsexual is a threat to them, personally, or they have an emotional/visceral reaction to the idea.
A great book I once read was “Gender Outlaw” by Kate Bornstein. It’s been a while since I read it, but from what I remember, she tells the story of what it was like to go through surgery and how she became a ‘gender outlaw’ - neither man nor woman in terms of her identity. Born as male, she describes I think, how she identifies her gender as female, and went through transition. But she gradually came to the realisation that she had no way of ever proving she was a ‘real’ woman to herself, and finally decided to live as a third sex. She makes the fascinating point that actually, a cisgendered woman might be able to say, and believe “I am a Woman, and I feel as a Woman,” but really, how can we prove it, either? We don’t know, because we don’t experience, the feeling of what it is like to live in another woman’s body. So we can’t say absolutely that the feeling of gender identification (or not) that we experience is common to other people.
Actually, I think Bornstein puts it far better than that, unfortunately I don’t have the book at the moment.
I think the points Bornstein raises at least problematises the idea of “our innate feeling that we are, at the core, women” that you brought up at the beginning of your comment. Maybe I am seeing things kind of the other way around (it might just be an issue of semantics). The only way I know I am a ‘woman’ is that I am embodied as such. I don’t feel any particular gender when I am alone in a room. I don’t need to think about it. Is this just something that comes from cisgendered priviledge? Because, when I leave that room, I get reminded by other people all the time that I am a woman whether I like it or not. It’s annoying for me, hurtful at times, exhausting at times, but I don’t really want to change to become a man. I don’t think I would want to be boxed in as male either.
I can hardly imagine what this experience must be like for, eg, a person who absolutely refuses or does not identify with the idea of themselves as female, and really does feel male. I can see that the arguments that people raised about ‘are transsexuals maintaining the binary hierarchy of gender roles and supporting patriarchy’ might be useful, in a theoretical framework, to question the validity of the said binary. I don’t think feminism should be afraid to ask those sorts of questions. But I would never ask that a transsexual person deny their own experience, or be sacrificed to theory. Survival must be the priority. Humanity must be the priority. And it’s way past time that those people who go through this particular transition, or transformation, started getting respected and listened to on the subject of gender.
[...] conductas impuestas y no elegidas. Las cosas, sin embargo, no son tan sencillas, como se explica en Thinking Girl, pues el 1,7% de los nacidos (5 cada día en USA) son intersexuales o, en otros términos, gentes [...]