howwillthestoryend-deactivated2 asked: Hello. I've just started following you because I find what you post really interesting. Ugh, I have absolutely no idea how to express what I want to say/ask, because I'm ashamed to say I have never met or even really heard of anyone such as yourself. I am really intrigued by this male-and-female-not-being-defined-by-genitalia idea. And even that makes me sound even more ignorant. I am a complete believer that education about everything is the key, that's where all our issues come from -religion, race, homophobia whatever, so I really really want to understand this. I am so so sorry if any of this is coming across offensive to either you or your followers. It seems to me first things first. Could you possibly explain how you would define gender? Thank you so much, and I'm glad to hear that your transition went well.
Thanks! And for what it’s worth, nothing you said came across as offensive to me, at least.
One way to look at it is pragmatically - by and large, when you interact with people, you don’t interact with their genitals. Since gender is a large factor in how we interact with each other (whether this is a good thing or not is immaterial here - the fact is that it is a factor), no meaningful definition of gender should be talking about genitals at all, because very few people (relatively speaking) ever even see them.
So, we need a better criteria for defining gender. Behavior and outward physical appearance are an option, but they are still a terrible option, because defining gender that way is sexist and gender-normative, to say nothing of how cissexist it is. It also just isn’t useful, because it doesn’t lead to consistent definitions - different societies and even different people have differing conceptions on what constitutes masculine or feminine features and behaviors.
The only option we really have, then, is to define gender via identity - that is, allowing people to assert their own gender identity, and using that and no other criteria to define gender. My resulting definition of gender, then, is:
Gender is an innate quality of consciousness that many people possess. The two most common gender identities are ‘man’ and ‘woman’, although there are many others. Many people announce their gender identity through gender-coded expression - mannerisms, clothing choices, etc. - but this is not a reliable way to ascertain someone’s actual gender, since it is sometimes at odds with perceived gender, especially in the case of non-binary gender identities (people who do not identify as either male or female).
Some people would then take this and say ‘but genitals have to mean something!’ and try to establish a difference between biological sex and gender. I would point those people here, for starters:
http://genderbitch.wordpress.com/2009/09/22/male-female-broken-language/
For my part, I discount the validity of ‘biological sex’ as a useful concept for a number of reasons, of which Kinsey’s post is one.
At any rate, with my above definition of gender, we can also define the terms cisgender and transgender succinctly, like this:
Someone is cisgender if the gender they were assigned at birth matches their gender identity. Someone is transgender if the gender they were assigned at birth does not match their gender identity.
I hope this helps answer some of your questions. There are a lot of good resources out there for getting a better handle on this - The Feminist Hub is one, Kinsey’s site (linked above) is another, and this may also help:
http://tranarchism.com/2010/11/26/not-your-moms-trans-101/
Or, just google ‘trans 101’ for a lot of reading material (of varying quality).
