Does anyone think that clothes really shouldn't have a gender. I mean we live in a world thats obsessed with this huge gender divide when really alot of people aren't really in possession of a specifically female or male personality they are just well a person with traits. its technically illogical to associate personality traits with a gender as anyone can have them. clothes are invented by society so why does their have to be this divide by what the genders can and cannot wear and associated colours with gender makes the least sense of all.
does anyone just think that all that gender stuff isn't natural and just made up by society's illogic and wouldn't it be better if anyone could just wear or feel or act anyway and it be normally acceptable with their sex? that would make sense and be uber cool. I'm surprised by how society's subconcious obsession with gender roles has given me such an illogical hang up about it and made me fixate on sterotypes i don't even believe in. I need a brain transplant
falseness
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DanteCarrie (FTM)
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Absaroka
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Gender and clothing are two different things. There is a very real biological construct of gender. It gets expressed in a great variety of ways, and some of these ways sometimes seem to have a relationship to personality traits. However personality is a very complex mix of a great many things, some learned, some biological. and some just a matter of choice.
Although gender as expressed in personality is often not cut and dried, gender as a division is found in every society on earth. I like the example of division of labor. Every society divides labor by gender but it's not always done in the same way. What is womens work in one society may be mens work in another. About the only rule of thumb is that in societies where there is a low population the men are considered expendable and given more dangerous tasks, and when the population is higher the women suddenly become more expendable. A fairly nasty form of birth control actually.
Gender is very real. If it was not, transexuals would not spend such large amounts of time, money, and effort to become what they consider their right gender.
All that aside, I think people should be able to wear what they want, and assume whatever gender or combinations of gender they feel is best for them.
Zari
Although gender as expressed in personality is often not cut and dried, gender as a division is found in every society on earth. I like the example of division of labor. Every society divides labor by gender but it's not always done in the same way. What is womens work in one society may be mens work in another. About the only rule of thumb is that in societies where there is a low population the men are considered expendable and given more dangerous tasks, and when the population is higher the women suddenly become more expendable. A fairly nasty form of birth control actually.
Gender is very real. If it was not, transexuals would not spend such large amounts of time, money, and effort to become what they consider their right gender.
All that aside, I think people should be able to wear what they want, and assume whatever gender or combinations of gender they feel is best for them.
Zari
everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon
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DanteCarrie (FTM)
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but don't you think yes biological sex ie male and female is true yes chromoones and all sure but gender? i mean anyone can have any personality traits and actually in modern society we see some traits we labelled as male are held by many many females and vice versa so is it not a false assumptions and useless generalisation to say traits belong to a gender.
and transexuals spend money changing their sex not just their gender.
you could argue that false gender roles that are synthetically made by man's ignorance are damaging as they cause things like gender confusion, genderqueerness, bigenderism, urge to crossdress etc and result in ostrisation when if there were not these gender lies we would still wear what we wanted, behaved as we are etc but it would never be called cross dressing or masculine or feminine because all clothes and traits would be associated with both genders.
sounds rather logical and happier to me. eliminate gender and just leave sex which can be rectified with surgery if it i the very sex itself which is wrong for a person.
also i hardly thing ones personality is a choice granted is debatably and fuzzy as to which is dominant nature or nurture but i don't think people can fight and fake who they are by choice and truly become that they will be unhappy inside. I think we develop into who we can and we do not choose it we react to experiences none is planned
and transexuals spend money changing their sex not just their gender.
you could argue that false gender roles that are synthetically made by man's ignorance are damaging as they cause things like gender confusion, genderqueerness, bigenderism, urge to crossdress etc and result in ostrisation when if there were not these gender lies we would still wear what we wanted, behaved as we are etc but it would never be called cross dressing or masculine or feminine because all clothes and traits would be associated with both genders.
sounds rather logical and happier to me. eliminate gender and just leave sex which can be rectified with surgery if it i the very sex itself which is wrong for a person.
also i hardly thing ones personality is a choice granted is debatably and fuzzy as to which is dominant nature or nurture but i don't think people can fight and fake who they are by choice and truly become that they will be unhappy inside. I think we develop into who we can and we do not choose it we react to experiences none is planned
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Carolynn
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You could make any number of arguments about the nature of gender, but anyone who has been or is TS can tell you that gender is real and lies between the ears, not between the legs. You have biological or birth gender that is physical, but who you are is a part of the sense of self and that lies in the brain. The body/mind mismatch to whatever degree may be caused by either fetal developmental processes or mutations on the AR or sex determination gene.
Yes, there are many degrees of maleness or femalness, and they can be represented as points on a continuum with overlapping bell curves to represent the gray or shared areas, and the extreme ends of the overlapping curves the extreme feminine or extreme masculine. Primate and rodent studies have revealed the role of mother's hormones, birth order in multiple offspring litters, and spacing/time between litters/pregnancy, and how that can affect development. Essentially, if pregnancies occur too close together before the mother has time to recover from one birthing (physically and nutritionally), the offspring will show more anamolous behaviors (as measured in terms of average sexual behavior and aggressive/passive behaviors). On the other hand, mother's behavior toward offspring can also affect the offspring developmentally.
Most TS folks will use the expression "trapped in a male (female) body", and recent research seems to suggest that there is more accuracy to that statement than not. There is research that suggests that the sex determination gene can have extra segments making it longer, and these seem associated to a limited degree of correlation with being TG. Other genetic characteristic can have mutations or be affected by "gene jumping", and can result in intersex conditions. An intersexed individual may have mixed genes (xxy rather than xx or xy for example) and people who have xy (male) genees but are anatomically (external mostly) female due to failure of the testosterone receptors to take up androgen and make testosterone. This is also a mutation and is sex linked, occurring in the mother. The AIS body makes estrogen and the condition is referred to as Androgen Insensitivity syndrome. There are others as well. None of these birth defects are the same as hermaphrodism, which is where two functional sets of organs are present in the one body. Most intersex folks are sterile.
When it comes to cds, gender queer and others, you find a mixture of motives and potential developmental characteristics that could explain their existence, but little research has been done on these groups other than abortive attempts at studies by psychologists who often have some theroretical axe to grind, and some of who equate such behavior with paraphillias (same category as paedophilia and necrophilia). This research disparity is there despite the fact that there are more cd/gq etc. than TS, but since the TS are forced to seek them out to have surgery letters, that is where the research goes.
Carolynn
Yes, there are many degrees of maleness or femalness, and they can be represented as points on a continuum with overlapping bell curves to represent the gray or shared areas, and the extreme ends of the overlapping curves the extreme feminine or extreme masculine. Primate and rodent studies have revealed the role of mother's hormones, birth order in multiple offspring litters, and spacing/time between litters/pregnancy, and how that can affect development. Essentially, if pregnancies occur too close together before the mother has time to recover from one birthing (physically and nutritionally), the offspring will show more anamolous behaviors (as measured in terms of average sexual behavior and aggressive/passive behaviors). On the other hand, mother's behavior toward offspring can also affect the offspring developmentally.
Most TS folks will use the expression "trapped in a male (female) body", and recent research seems to suggest that there is more accuracy to that statement than not. There is research that suggests that the sex determination gene can have extra segments making it longer, and these seem associated to a limited degree of correlation with being TG. Other genetic characteristic can have mutations or be affected by "gene jumping", and can result in intersex conditions. An intersexed individual may have mixed genes (xxy rather than xx or xy for example) and people who have xy (male) genees but are anatomically (external mostly) female due to failure of the testosterone receptors to take up androgen and make testosterone. This is also a mutation and is sex linked, occurring in the mother. The AIS body makes estrogen and the condition is referred to as Androgen Insensitivity syndrome. There are others as well. None of these birth defects are the same as hermaphrodism, which is where two functional sets of organs are present in the one body. Most intersex folks are sterile.
When it comes to cds, gender queer and others, you find a mixture of motives and potential developmental characteristics that could explain their existence, but little research has been done on these groups other than abortive attempts at studies by psychologists who often have some theroretical axe to grind, and some of who equate such behavior with paraphillias (same category as paedophilia and necrophilia). This research disparity is there despite the fact that there are more cd/gq etc. than TS, but since the TS are forced to seek them out to have surgery letters, that is where the research goes.
Carolynn
"It’s not given to anyone to have no regrets; only to decide, through the choices we make, which regrets we’ll have,"
David Weber – In Fury Born
David Weber – In Fury Born
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DanteCarrie (FTM)
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thats interesting. I've always believed sexuality was biological and from birth possibly because of research done on prenatal hormones I suppose there could be a connection with gender too.
I do still think it is an illogical negative that society focuses so much on gender because of unecessary generalisations and i do think this can exagerate a person's discontenment with their birth sex or gender because these sterotypes of what they should be are always being shuved down their throat.
I know I'm pretty sure of who I am and what I feel but its the way people percieve me that sometimes makes me feel like I'm suffering and have to keep doing more percieved masculine things. But I am very interested in the science side of it though like you say evidence thats actually purposely been researched is highly limited.
do you think whatever causes transexuality is the same thing that causes genderqueerness and other things? if so then why are some people not fully trans why are they sort of both male and female mentally and have this desire to be both which is perhaps even more complex and difficult to achieve.?
I do still think it is an illogical negative that society focuses so much on gender because of unecessary generalisations and i do think this can exagerate a person's discontenment with their birth sex or gender because these sterotypes of what they should be are always being shuved down their throat.
I know I'm pretty sure of who I am and what I feel but its the way people percieve me that sometimes makes me feel like I'm suffering and have to keep doing more percieved masculine things. But I am very interested in the science side of it though like you say evidence thats actually purposely been researched is highly limited.
do you think whatever causes transexuality is the same thing that causes genderqueerness and other things? if so then why are some people not fully trans why are they sort of both male and female mentally and have this desire to be both which is perhaps even more complex and difficult to achieve.?
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Absaroka
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The brain/mind mind connection is an intriguing and terribly complex one, and the mind body connection even more so. I agree that gender exists in the mind but I do think there is a reason that so often it seems to correlate with the body in some way.
As for personality being a choice, I do strongly believe that there are moments when we do have choices that determine who we are. I'm not speaking of gender so much as broader areas. I have always liked the two wolves story.
A wise old man was explaining life to a young boy and said "there are two wolves fighting for possesion of your soul. One is hate and the other is love" the boy asks which wolf will win. "The one that you feed" I think that we are given opportunities, often ones that pass without recognizing them till later, to decide which wolf to feed. Of course the love/hate dichotomy is far more basic and important than the male female dichotomy.
Since for most of us our gender conforms sort of to our physical body, it's pretty easy for us to decide which wolf to feed. I suppose for someone who was 50-50 balanced between the two, if we could even figure out what that was, they could make some choices.
In any event the question of what gender one might wish to present as, or how one might wish to view their expression, is a smaller issue. The larger issue is the one Virginia likes to pose. Here I am, and God did not make a mistake. And what is needed is an acceptance that just because many people fall into traditional gender roles, that not everyone does, and that those who don't should not become "the other"
I'm pretty traditionally male. Many of my personality traits would be labeled as feminine-I'm pretty nurturing, artistic, and emotional. My daughters like to say I am the drama queen of the family. My answer to this is that because I am male, then these are obviously male traits. But when similar traits are expressed by my wife, who considers herself female, they are then female traits.
Back to clothing, which is how this started. For me, and this is about me, and not someone else, wearing a dress is a male thing. It's something that is fun because it is precisely what I am not. Perhaps this is what appeals to you about stuffing your pants to appear male.
I have a friend who is intersexed. He was born female but the secondary physical male characteristics emerged at pubery. he has the ability to present as either gender. He views this as a chore, but I have to admit I think it would be an interesting thing to pass from one to the other.
One the other hand we can be informed by the experience some have had with passing through racial boundaries. Those who are able to present as either Black or White have writen that it is a very disillusioning process. It gives the opportunity to witness far too many human failings.
Nice topic and discussion and I doubt there will be agreement on anything except the need for people to be accepted for what they are, within the moral boundaries of not harming others of course.
Zari
As for personality being a choice, I do strongly believe that there are moments when we do have choices that determine who we are. I'm not speaking of gender so much as broader areas. I have always liked the two wolves story.
A wise old man was explaining life to a young boy and said "there are two wolves fighting for possesion of your soul. One is hate and the other is love" the boy asks which wolf will win. "The one that you feed" I think that we are given opportunities, often ones that pass without recognizing them till later, to decide which wolf to feed. Of course the love/hate dichotomy is far more basic and important than the male female dichotomy.
Since for most of us our gender conforms sort of to our physical body, it's pretty easy for us to decide which wolf to feed. I suppose for someone who was 50-50 balanced between the two, if we could even figure out what that was, they could make some choices.
In any event the question of what gender one might wish to present as, or how one might wish to view their expression, is a smaller issue. The larger issue is the one Virginia likes to pose. Here I am, and God did not make a mistake. And what is needed is an acceptance that just because many people fall into traditional gender roles, that not everyone does, and that those who don't should not become "the other"
I'm pretty traditionally male. Many of my personality traits would be labeled as feminine-I'm pretty nurturing, artistic, and emotional. My daughters like to say I am the drama queen of the family. My answer to this is that because I am male, then these are obviously male traits. But when similar traits are expressed by my wife, who considers herself female, they are then female traits.
Back to clothing, which is how this started. For me, and this is about me, and not someone else, wearing a dress is a male thing. It's something that is fun because it is precisely what I am not. Perhaps this is what appeals to you about stuffing your pants to appear male.
I have a friend who is intersexed. He was born female but the secondary physical male characteristics emerged at pubery. he has the ability to present as either gender. He views this as a chore, but I have to admit I think it would be an interesting thing to pass from one to the other.
One the other hand we can be informed by the experience some have had with passing through racial boundaries. Those who are able to present as either Black or White have writen that it is a very disillusioning process. It gives the opportunity to witness far too many human failings.
Nice topic and discussion and I doubt there will be agreement on anything except the need for people to be accepted for what they are, within the moral boundaries of not harming others of course.
Zari
everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon