The importance of gender identity

[The A Life Team]

This time around the crew of A Life revisits an old topic well due for a revisit. Gender identity is something that the asexual community talks about often and maybe has a unique angle to.

Please do add your thoughts about the subject, but I urge you to listen to the show first. It will considerably clarify the poll and give tons of thought-provoking entertainment. You can find the show here:

http://alifepodcast.wordpress.com/

[chair jockey]

This is kind of a weird one for me. There is no ambiguity to my gender identity; I am 100% physically and psychologically male. Yet I'm also comfortably ace and no longer worry about "proving that I'm a man." The only way in which gender identity is important to me is when I encounter prejudice against men, man-bashing, misandric speech and behavior, and especially so-called "jokes" that denigrate men. In terms of just being me I don't consider my gender to be a big deal.

Michael

[Stormy Wether]

It's important to me to think that maybe one day we can forget about being shoved into one box or another and just be people. I just hope it happens in what's left of my lifetime.

[dooomninja]

agreed with wooly :D

[KAGU143]

I think that gender identity is an issue that is a lot more complex than the way that it is usually portrayed on AVEN.

There seems to be a prevailing idea at AVEN that gender-based behavior is nothing more that a cultural ideal which is forced upon children from an early age.

I don't entirely agree with this. Obviously, some aspects of so-called gender-based differences are rather absurd, especially the ones that involve superficial things like clothing and etc, but others seem to apply to human beings as a species, across all of the human societies and cultures that have been documented so far.

Perhaps the difference lies between those gender differences which are imposed from the outside and those which arise from within? I think the latter differences are primarily physiological rather than cultural, and are largely established before birth due to a combination of genetics and the intra-uterine environment.

I strongly disapprove when I see gender-related reponses being taken advantage of as a means of manipulatinge others, such as when certain types of women pretend to be interested in a man in order to take (usually) financial advantage of him, or when some types of men do essentially the same thing in order to take (usually) sexual advantage of a woman.

In any case, to answer the OP's question, I no longer give much thought to gender identity as it pertains to me personally. I am physically female but mentally I am just a "me." I call my gender "as needed" because that is precisely how I see it. I see value in almost all of the various gender-based behaviors depending on the circumstance.

There is a time to be nururing and a time to kill, a time to be yielding and a time to take charge, a time to co-operate and a time to say "Screw it, I am doing this MY way!" and so on ....

(And now I have "For Every Time There is a Season" stuck in my head!)

-gb

[P is for...]

in general, i think the time gender becomes the most important to many of us is when something goes awry with it, whether that something is internal or external. when everything's ticking along just fine, i don't think most people give much thought to it; evidence of that can be found in the confusion with which most people will respond to questions like, "what makes someone a man/woman?", or, "how do you know that you're a woman/man?" (and if you think those are simple questions, i'd ask you to try to answer them without referring to biology.) but as soon as something's Not Quite Right, whether that's an internal feeling of incongruence or an external challenge to one's gender, suddenly it becomes very important indeed.

people tend to minimize the importance of things they don't understand, things that fall outside the realm of their personal experience. it's true of any number of things--to someone who's never had one, a migraine can just sound like a bad headache, and to someone who's never experienced it, clinical depression can just sound like a bad case of the blues. if you don't know what they're really like, it's tempting to dismiss people who suffer from such things as whiners who are making a lot of excuses for not being able to get through the day. so to all the people in the world who can't see why some people make such a big fuss about gender, all i can really say is, they can thank their lucky stars they don't know why, and they might try to have a little compassion for the people who do.

[Shockwave]

I have no gender identity (in fact, I have no identity at all but that's another story entirely).

[Trix]

My understanding is that just as people are at different points along the axis of being sexual to asexual, so people are at different points of being gendered.

In asking questions such as, is gender socially imposed, my answer is "for who?"

I've talked to too many people, regardless of their social roles and gender expression, who feel they really ARE inherently male or female, to believe that it is all socially imposed.

There are people who strongly feel they have a gender, and that that is a relevant category in their self-description. Then there are people who feel no need for that category.

I don't relate to the category "my gender", so I answered "other".

[bligyn]

Myself, I am a woman, with some masculine tendencies and sympathy, but still a woman. I like to think gender identity is up to each person really. It doesn't matter to me that someone is transgendered or gender queer. People are people and very few are 100% any way. Most are enough to identify and feel fine with it, but alot of women have male characteristics, most I would say have some actually, and most men have some female characteristics. So gender identity doesn't matter to me much, but I can certainly understand for those who have to fight to be accepted, that it could mean a good deal.

[------]

I don't care.

That summarises my opinion.

[RandomDent]

Thing is... MY gender idenity is very important to me, but OTHER PEOPLE'S identity doesn't matter to me at all. They can call themselves whatever they like and change it every other day and I shall obey.

So as your questions asks about my identity, I would say yes, but not to everyone.

[epii]

I say "other". I'm male, and I don't think about it much. My gender is certainly an important part of who I am, but at the same time a man can't be asexual in this society without going against their "gender role". So I am ambivalent at best toward other people's ideas of what a man is, but at the same time I feel my gender suits me well.

[Lego M]

in general, i think the time gender becomes the most important to many of us is when something goes awry with it, whether that something is internal or external. when everything's ticking along just fine, i don't think most people give much thought to it; evidence of that can be found in the confusion with which most people will respond to questions like, "what makes someone a man/woman?", or, "how do you know that you're a woman/man?" (and if you think those are simple questions, i'd ask you to try to answer them without referring to biology.) but as soon as something's Not Quite Right, whether that's an internal feeling of incongruence or an external challenge to one's gender, suddenly it becomes very important indeed.

Wonderfully said, P. There's really nothing more I can add to this subject, you've summed up my feelings perfectly.

[Karret]

Just like how I don't care about sex stuff etc, so I don't care about gender identity.

I am me. And me looks like a girl. Such is the lot I was handed. It is was it is. xP