Gender - Why Only 2?

First off, I wanted to mention that DuWayne over at Traumatized By Truth is asking for your own personal definitions of addiction - so head on over there and help him out. 

A little earlier tonight I received an email from an individual who wrote the following:

"I'd love to discuss gender theory with you more in depth. Do you focus at all on queer culture or more on the binary?"

I spent a large chunk of time responding to this message, and in doing so two things happened. First, I got really, really into the subject matter (as I often do) which made me want to blog some more about it. And second, I depleted all of my cognitive resources in responding to this message, and so I had nothing left with which to sit down and write a whole new blog post. 

So what follows is the response I sent. 

As far as the issues I have gotten into with gender studies, I look at the similarities and differences between men and women, especially how children are raised and communication styles both verbal and non-verbal. Of interest to me is finding ways to raise boys and girls so that they can just be who they are, regardless of biological sex or sexual orientation. So for example, finding ways to create a culture where a little boy can play with dolls and assumptions about his sexual orientation are not made, where a teenage girl or young woman can be androgynous without being labeled. But it goes much further than that.

This is where transgender issues come in. If a man grows up feeling like he has always been in the wrong body - that his parts don't match his brain, so to speak - is it to some degree due to the fact that society subscribes to this binary gender where biological sex MUST match personality and outward appearance? I don't know how clearly I'm going to be able to express myself here with this because it's difficult to describe what I mean. I guess what I wonder is why some trans individuals feel so strongly that their biological sex must match their inner selves. And I don't say that in the "I just don't get it" kind of way, but in the "is there something about our society that makes it necessary" kind of way. Because the basic issue in societal acceptance is that people have a problem with other people dressing and acting as a different sex from what they were born as, even though it has no affect on them whatsoever. But when the parts match the appearance, it becomes acceptable. Why, in our society, does masculine have to mean male and feminine mean female? There is so much in between. I really hope this is making sense.

As far as gay and lesbian culture is concerned, I haven't really looked at it in terms of gender because I consider sex, gender, and sexual orientation to be 3 separate and distinct things. Homophobia, however, has everything to do with gender and socialization. It is much more common in men, but it tends to be selective homophobia - many of these guys are just fine with girl-on-girl porn and the like, but the idea of two men together is a real problem for them, because it challenges their masculinity. Women are much less likely to be homophobic (religion and upbringing aside). In my ideal world, if you change the gender rules, you eliminate homophobia. 

Sexual orientation and gender are probably related to some degree, but to what extent we probably will never know. There are hypermasculine gay men and feminine gay men. There are "femme" lesbians and "butch" lesbians. But the same spectrum exists among hetero and bisexuals. It's an amazingly complicated puzzle that I'm not sure my brain could even handle trying to put together. So I try to focus on just one set of pieces.

A whole new set of issues arise when you consider intersex individuals, especially those who were "corrected" as infants by doctors and parents who, quite frankly, have no fucking clue what they're doing or about the huge implications of a choice they're making for a child who cannot yet speak for him or herself.

It's dangerous stuff that people out there are fucking with. I've heard of doctors that try to force patients who are struggling with their gender identity to just get the surgery. "Gender Identity Disorder" is listed in the DSM-IV as a mental disorder, possibly in the same spot on the page where PMS used to be. It's fucked up that we try to shove people into one mold or the other, without questioning whether there might be something wrong with the molds and not the people who don't fit them.

That's where I hope my research will come in - examining these molds and determining if maybe we need more than just 2.