Why does everyone, and especially researchers in gender issues, make sex and gender an "or" thing, and mutually exclusive? Some psychologists have long argued there are no characteristics, expressions or behaviors which are universally inclusive to and mutually excluse of either gender. There are simply human characteristics where cultures and societies have establish general norms for each. And all have overlaps within those norms.
So why are researchers trying to prove this or that about human development as male or female when it's male and female. With the exception of a few very rare girls with no testosterone, we al were born with andl have throughout our life male and female hormones in our body and mind, which are necessary for the full operation and phyisiology of our body and mind.
We all have expressions and behaviors which cross sex and gender lines. Yes, everyone. We're all on the gender continuum from nearly all female and women to the nearly all male and men. It's simply the range of human beings. The median for each gender isn't that far from the center. And there is far more differences and a wider range of differences within one sex or gender than there are between the sexes and genders.
The only real difference is the reality of our genes, but even there, we're still a mix. We may have XX or XY chromosome but it's the genes inside and the epigenomes which determine matters, not the just the type of the pair. And some people have extra genes, some with conditions were the genes and hormones don't work, and so on down the line of people. Simply the normal and natural variation of people.
So, why do we persist in the binary rule of sex and gender? It never existed in evolution and nature and only exists as percieved social norm.
So, in the end, it's not about the "or" but the "and" between male and female. We're simply both and I find the continued work to define us as different absurb and ignores the commomality between the sexes and genders, all of them and not just two. We are simply people, living with what we're given and expressing and behaving as we know ourselves, just being.
If societies want to differentiate because of legal necessities and other reasons, ok, I'm cool with that. After all there are no good and valid reasons to differentiate,. And worse, to formalize the binary outside those needs isn't necessary when it discriminates people who don't fit the binary.
I've never understood it, why people must make that identity if something is male or female under the assumption it's mutually exclusive. Guys try hard not to be seen as feminine in any way or manner, forgetting they're already there to some degree, along every other guy. It's our society to make guys "male", even if it's dumb, stupid and wrong.
And even the self-help psychologists - and the pseudo one with fake degrees - reinforce it with the books on the differences between the genders, forgetting we're 98+% alike. Focusing on the small differences, which aren't universally inclusive or exclusive, doesn't help.
I'm not arguing evolution gave each sex and gender differences, and it's part of our brain and physiology. It was necessary for survival and becoming a thinking species. And many difference, experiments in nature, fell by the wayside as individuals didn't survive or pass on the traits. As animals, we're no different than the rest of the animal kingdom.
It's only our higher socialization and thinking which separates us now. But imposing social norms from that evolution is false, when you can find other cultures or societies which don't follow it or do the opposite. Norm is relative, not absolute and not scientifically based in our genes. And it also evolves with time and changes.
So, can we quit the male or female thing and try the male and female thing? It's far closer to reality and the truth. It's about the vastness of humanness we share that matters than the few and small degree of differences.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
No thinking out loud
Why is that many people on forums don't allow just thinking out loud? Why are they so touchy that if you ask questions you get verbally pummelled? And if you ask questions just to open the discussion to more than just a us-versus-them mentality, you really get verbally pummelled?
As I've long told folks, I'm a tavern conversationalist. It's about just being in a place where people relax and enjoy the company and the converation in an open, light but still serious, humorous, and everything else you know and expect mode in a tavern on a Friday night. Just people talking and thinking out loud. Sometimes challenging, but always in jest. And always with a smile.
But in forums, if you don't agree, they rail at you like you're the enemy of their group. And then they wonder why people stop posting, stop responding and sometimes just leave. Open discussions aren't the allowed. And above all, don't play devil's advocate or express sarcasm. But it's also the case where some longtime members are allowed to do that, even play devil's advocate to provoke or prod or say worse things than you, but they're excused because they part of the group.
The rest of us, whether asking innocent or reasonable questions or just expressing our opinion, where everyone's opinion is equal and equally important, however, don't get the same response or treatment, even just being courteous or fair to all sides and views, but get treated like shit. That's not an exageration. They forget the discussion and go after the person.
And that's where they wonder why people get angry, and at them for being inconsiderate, unaccepting and hypocritical. They just don't seem to get what they have done and are doing. And when the owners and moderators support them, you begin to realize, it's never about being a forum. It's about a clique and club. A members-only club where others aren't allowed to participate at their level.
But then I've never been someone who just goes along. I've always asked the obvious question in opposition, always just to wake people up, make a point the discussion, or expresss alternative ideas. I like see all sides of an argument, even if I don't agree and even become angry. It's the right of people to express themselves and ours to listen. And it you aren't one of them, you become one of "them", the enemy. And I've been warned if not booted off forums for that (see past entries).
Anyway, it's just an observation. And I'll likely never stop being the one who asking those question and speaking from outside the box, but always tongue-in-cheek or with a smile. I'm only sad they just don't see that, take themselves too seriously and don't see their narrowness and attitude toward others.
As I've long told folks, I'm a tavern conversationalist. It's about just being in a place where people relax and enjoy the company and the converation in an open, light but still serious, humorous, and everything else you know and expect mode in a tavern on a Friday night. Just people talking and thinking out loud. Sometimes challenging, but always in jest. And always with a smile.
But in forums, if you don't agree, they rail at you like you're the enemy of their group. And then they wonder why people stop posting, stop responding and sometimes just leave. Open discussions aren't the allowed. And above all, don't play devil's advocate or express sarcasm. But it's also the case where some longtime members are allowed to do that, even play devil's advocate to provoke or prod or say worse things than you, but they're excused because they part of the group.
The rest of us, whether asking innocent or reasonable questions or just expressing our opinion, where everyone's opinion is equal and equally important, however, don't get the same response or treatment, even just being courteous or fair to all sides and views, but get treated like shit. That's not an exageration. They forget the discussion and go after the person.
And that's where they wonder why people get angry, and at them for being inconsiderate, unaccepting and hypocritical. They just don't seem to get what they have done and are doing. And when the owners and moderators support them, you begin to realize, it's never about being a forum. It's about a clique and club. A members-only club where others aren't allowed to participate at their level.
But then I've never been someone who just goes along. I've always asked the obvious question in opposition, always just to wake people up, make a point the discussion, or expresss alternative ideas. I like see all sides of an argument, even if I don't agree and even become angry. It's the right of people to express themselves and ours to listen. And it you aren't one of them, you become one of "them", the enemy. And I've been warned if not booted off forums for that (see past entries).
Anyway, it's just an observation. And I'll likely never stop being the one who asking those question and speaking from outside the box, but always tongue-in-cheek or with a smile. I'm only sad they just don't see that, take themselves too seriously and don't see their narrowness and attitude toward others.
What women assume
What women assume about their bodies, male to female transwomen must learn. That's probably the hardest thing for (genetic) women to understand what transwomen (in and post transistion women) have to relearn about their bodies and mind. During a transistion, hormone replacement therapy (hrt) and sex reassignment surgery - vaginoplasty (srs) changes everything. It's like going through puberty and menopause simultaneously in 2-3 years.
Women know what that would do physically and mentally and fortunately find 40 years between them to be their saving grace. But transwomen don't have that luxury, they already recognize and identify as female and women and want to transistion to physically be and live as women. It's who they are and what they go through to get congruence between the mind and body.
But many women just don't see and often wonder, some criticizing, transwomen for the whole array of issues, from just being trans to going through some periods which they knew years ago as girls. When you're older, becoming a girl and a meneopausal woman at the same time isn't often fun. Sometimes, you're a mental and emotional mess, but you plod through and get on with life.
And once you're through, you can be who you are, simply a woman and as female as medically possible today. You're not trans anything. You're still yourself of old, we all have histories. But they're now just one of many women in the world. And why that's hard to understand escapes me as transwomen aren't trying to change anything or stand up to force some issue.
They're just tryiing to get through life and work. And while women can and usually are gracious (ok, most women) with other women about what they go through, why can't they find the same graciousness with transwomen? And post-transistion women face many of the same health issues and risks, their bodies adapt to some of their family's history with women.
Even though women assume what they've learned over their life physically as girls and then women, it's all brand new to transwomen. While it's not the same, it's very similar. Female hormones have the same effect on the body and mind of both, one only has a different starting point from and with their genes.
The sad gift of being born with a body which conflicts with their mind and identity. That's all. And fixable. But with a huge learning curve not just to compress the physical and mental changes of puberty, often on an older (male) body, but also the social changes of living, just being in the world with the rest of us.
I won't ague that all transwomen pass what we normally expect of women, especially physically, but it doesn't change their heart and mind. They have to live with it and try. The rest, those who does pass, seems to escape the same judgement and criticism because we don't know. So what's the difference with just accepting all of them?
Even though we accept women who aren't the norm, but being born women, we give them the grace to be different. We don't condemn all women when we don't like a few. But some, and even women, do for the obvious transwomen. They assume the few are the all, and nothing could be further from the truth as the vast majority of transwomen pass and never discovered.
But they all go through the same process, the transistion, with all it's issues and problems. Ones women assume as normal and natural. But to transwomen, it's all brand new and need of help and support from women to understand and live with. Is it so hard you can't share and be a friend?
Both learn, the transwomen to just be women and women to have a new friend and renew what they already know. And you might even be surprised to learn something new about yourself too.
Women know what that would do physically and mentally and fortunately find 40 years between them to be their saving grace. But transwomen don't have that luxury, they already recognize and identify as female and women and want to transistion to physically be and live as women. It's who they are and what they go through to get congruence between the mind and body.
But many women just don't see and often wonder, some criticizing, transwomen for the whole array of issues, from just being trans to going through some periods which they knew years ago as girls. When you're older, becoming a girl and a meneopausal woman at the same time isn't often fun. Sometimes, you're a mental and emotional mess, but you plod through and get on with life.
And once you're through, you can be who you are, simply a woman and as female as medically possible today. You're not trans anything. You're still yourself of old, we all have histories. But they're now just one of many women in the world. And why that's hard to understand escapes me as transwomen aren't trying to change anything or stand up to force some issue.
They're just tryiing to get through life and work. And while women can and usually are gracious (ok, most women) with other women about what they go through, why can't they find the same graciousness with transwomen? And post-transistion women face many of the same health issues and risks, their bodies adapt to some of their family's history with women.
Even though women assume what they've learned over their life physically as girls and then women, it's all brand new to transwomen. While it's not the same, it's very similar. Female hormones have the same effect on the body and mind of both, one only has a different starting point from and with their genes.
The sad gift of being born with a body which conflicts with their mind and identity. That's all. And fixable. But with a huge learning curve not just to compress the physical and mental changes of puberty, often on an older (male) body, but also the social changes of living, just being in the world with the rest of us.
I won't ague that all transwomen pass what we normally expect of women, especially physically, but it doesn't change their heart and mind. They have to live with it and try. The rest, those who does pass, seems to escape the same judgement and criticism because we don't know. So what's the difference with just accepting all of them?
Even though we accept women who aren't the norm, but being born women, we give them the grace to be different. We don't condemn all women when we don't like a few. But some, and even women, do for the obvious transwomen. They assume the few are the all, and nothing could be further from the truth as the vast majority of transwomen pass and never discovered.
But they all go through the same process, the transistion, with all it's issues and problems. Ones women assume as normal and natural. But to transwomen, it's all brand new and need of help and support from women to understand and live with. Is it so hard you can't share and be a friend?
Both learn, the transwomen to just be women and women to have a new friend and renew what they already know. And you might even be surprised to learn something new about yourself too.
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