Jump to content

Is this contradictory?


Jean of Arc

Recommended Posts

Hello! You see, a couple of days ago, I was talking with my girlfriend about transgender people and gender expression, because I have felt a bit confused on my own gender lately. I said to her that gender is a social construction which we are involved since we are born, so it means a long journey before us, people, to get out of the boxes of masculine and feminine and feel more free as human beings. This way, sexism would decrease. But then she said (something like this, I don't remember her exact words) "but then, why do you consider that having you hair cut short and wearing boys clothes will make you more masculine? Or that letting your hair grow long and wearing dresses will make you more feminine? You are delimitating both genders". I was thinking that for transgender people, that was a necessary step in their begginings to feel more comfortable with themselves but...I didn't know what to answer because I felt I was being contradictory.

What do you think, guys?

Link to post
Share on other sites

While I agree that gender, as we label it at least, is a social construct that doesn't invalidate gender identities. Many things are social constructs, but that doesn't change the fact that they play a role in society and how we relate to ourselves and one another.

 

As far as clothes, hair, and the like are concerned...it varies. Some trans individuals need to change such things in order to be comfortable but others don't.

Link to post
Share on other sites

There are several things at work here.

One, transgender people not only want to feel good in their body but they also want to feel good socially. This - sadly - often means to try and adapt to social gender norms even if you don't necessarily want to. Like you don't want to always get misgendered so at some point you just start to give in and behave stereotypical. Not 100% of the time and not everyone does that of course, it varies, but it can be a problem.

Two, some just simply like the idea of having gendered clothing. That doesn't mean that people think that these clothes MAKE you a certain gender but it feels freeing to use the things that were assigned to your gender. 

Three, clothes are also sometimes practical. Want to hide your curves? Better put on some "male" shirts. Have a small breast from taking estrogen and want to show it to the world? Try "female" clothes who are drawing attention to your chest area. You know what I mean? Of course this doesn't make any clothes gendered per se but sometimes you need them to fit your body type. 

Link to post
Share on other sites

@Jean of Arc  

 

 

ok, so let's consider gender as a social construct. 

but, wait... the value of money is a social construct, the agreed upon "rules" of friendship are a social construct, memes and good art are socially constructed. ultimately the architecture of a building are a social construct - in fact, if you think about how the stakeholders of the building need to agree on what decisions to make, what risks are OK to take, to build the building under the assumption that its design will hold it for half a century or more - all of the building is in fact a social construct because of the mutually agreed upon assumption that the plan appropriately reconstructs the true workings of the world.

 

 

social construct may be arbitrary if you deconstruct their importance, and dismantle the agreement to share a certain value. but, those values have strong truth of meaning to those who are involved with it.

 

 

 

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I've come to realize that if everything that is socially constructed about men and women was exactly reversed, having been born a man I'd still be a transwoman. Even if I was born in a culture where gender was irrelevant to personality, I still would be trans. To explain this would take too long... but the point in mentioning it is, that my being trans doesn't come from me wanting the social construct. it is reverse - I want aspects of the socially constructed identity that we hold to represent femininity, because I am trans. Whatever it is that I see other women want, that brings interest for me to be a part of it. 

Link to post
Share on other sites
19 minutes ago, Teagan1 said:

ok, so let's consider gender as a social construct. 

but, wait... the value of money is a social construct, the agreed upon "rules" of friendship are a social construct, memes and good art are socially constructed. ultimately the architecture of a building are a social construct - in fact, if you think about how the stakeholders of the building need to agree on what decisions to make, what risks are OK to take, to build the building under the assumption that its design will hold it for half a century or more - all of the building is in fact a social construct because of the mutually agreed upon assumption that the plan appropriately reconstructs the true workings of the world.

I didn't realise that...it's true! I wrongly thought that something socially constructed was somehow bad, but it makes no sense, of course.

 

Quote

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I've come to realize that if everything that is socially constructed about men and women was exactly reversed, having been born a man I'd still be a transwoman. Even if I was born in a culture where gender was irrelevant to personality, I still would be trans. To explain this would take too long... but the point in mentioning it is, that my being trans doesn't come from me wanting the social construct. it is reverse - I want aspects of the socially constructed identity that we hold to represent femininity, because I am trans. Whatever it is that I see other women want, that brings interest for me to be a part of it. 

I'm a bit confused since I've reading a lot of information about gender these months and my head is full of terms and new data, and I'm not understanding it 100%.  How can we define the word gender? The human being amazes me, being so complex. What does it mean to identify as a man or woman, or what is even a man or woman? I end up making this question to myself when trying to see which gender I identify, but I never understand what I feel. So in the end, I'm lying on bed thinking what does it mean to be a human being. It's like when you look at the sky at night and start wonder and wonder what there is beyond and beyond.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I see gender as social, but being rooted in biology quite heavily. Being free from thought constrains doesn't mean we're frre from biology, cultural context or inborn personality traits like femininity or masculinity and their various aspects.

 

Of course, our concepts, as a society, of femininty and masculinity are not the only ones that are out there, take a look at the animal kingdom, and you'll realise how many different way there are to organise procreation. And even take a look at some less stereotypical people and how they couple up. 

 

Even if free from norms, we have inclinations to certain traits, because it's instincts. Some people's instincts are normative, others' not. Gender is social, but not neccesarily made up or a product of learning. Social skills are pre-wired into our brains to a degree. So it's social as opposed to e.g. your shoe size. Shoe size is only material. (If we omit its impact on your social life :P ) Your behaviour is social. It can be authentic or inauthentic. More or less of an instinct. More or less learnt. 

 

sorry if I'm seeming chaotic, this doesn't conceptualise in a too linear way, does it? I hope I'm getting across my points?

Link to post
Share on other sites
Sleepy Skeleton

I think it all comes down to why a transgender person feels the need to call themself transgender. Everyone experiences it differently.

 

A lot of times when (cis) people are talking about transgender people, they forget that being transgender isn't always just about gender. For some people, it's about sex too. A common argument I see is that transgender people wouldn't exist if gender was completely abolished. This isn't true at all. Even if we had no concept of "masculine" or "feminine", there would still be female people who feel they are supposed to have a male body and vice versa.

 

Secondly, even if gender is a social construct, the rest of society is still going to be following gender norms and gender roles and all that fun stuff. If I wanted to be perceived as a boy, wearing "masculine" clothing and haircuts would help me with that. It doesn't matter how I actually feel about gendered things. To me, clothes are clothes. To most other people, women's clothes are women's clothes and men's clothes are men's clothes. It's not always about transgender people being comfortable with themselves, but also about other people interpreting. their gender. Wearing boy's clothes and having short hair will make you more masculine because that's way society sees those things.

 

tl;dr no, not contradictory.

Link to post
Share on other sites
2 hours ago, Jean of Arc said:

I didn't realise that...it's true! I wrongly thought that something socially constructed was somehow bad, but it makes no sense, of course.

The import thing to remember next, then, is that gravity affects all of us. but a social construct is the popular "truth" - so there could be minority truths, and there will always be room for the construct to change over time, become more advanced perhaps if that makes sense to the construct, or even to crash and burn disastrously. but, gravity won't change like this - it is less volatile, and the construct is determined by the people involved in it, not by the world. There is a way to incorrectly model gravity - but there is no true incorrect model with a social construct necessarily - tho with money and gender, patterns of consistency emerge, and even may be a result of more-real factors, and alternatively with architecture's structural competence demands - while there are options and also value in responsiveness to the dangers of the real environment, over time a better social construction to approach it will be found.

 

Link to post
Share on other sites
3 hours ago, Jean of Arc said:

What does it mean to identify as a man or woman, or what is even a man or woman?

This is individually experienced - so we can truly only speak for ourselves.

 

For me, I do not really feel gender directly in any way. In fact, I grew up with genderless identity, despite identifying that I was male readily - maybe I misunderstand the term but I believe this would fall under the category of cis-genderless. That - I had not personal identity as male, but becuase it made well enough sense i went along with it without, accepted it into my identity. But - I was always trans feminine - and the primary reason for that, for me, was that I would see women and want to be a part of their social groups. I would see other girls liking certain things, and also liking those things, even if I never thought of it before as interesting; I would see other boys liking certain things and if it was uninteresting instead I would be confused rather than empathetic. what's so special about football? versus, huh, I wonder what it'd be like to play dress-up :o and as time developed, this influenced who I was even more so so that I'd start to dream of being a woman. the effect of my trans-feminine nature would... lead me into more and more down the line of expressing myself as I feel a woman would express herself.

 

And there would also be a feeling of validation, if I felt comfortable doing feminine things, and a feeling of disgruntlement if people saw me as male or held male assumptions about me that I didn't really feel was "me".

 

But I didn't really see this as meaning I was trans until later - mostly because it wasn't necessary enough - I did know about trans folk and did wonder maybe I should sometime when technology advances better become a woman - but I felt at the time, that unless they could literally tell my organs to change to the feminine expression and etc. that it just would not be Quite "real enough" for me to feel comfortable and satisfied. so - I dismissed the idea and just went on living my life as I was.

 

When I did come to admit that I am trans - gradually over the course of 4-5 months I started to form an identity as a woman. And since then too, that identity has continued to solidify and develop. Despite having been born a cisgenderless transfeminine male,* in embracing my transfeminine nature I grew into an identity as female.

 

Ultimately, to be me it just feels like being me. I expect this would be true of most people perhaps even all - if they really did find self-acceptence and awareness of who this "them" is. The identity which I hold, are more along the line of identifying who this "me" appears to be - the patterns, behaviors, preferences, memories, and etc - to notice them and declare that a certain personality aspect is true of me - to declare that I am female, perhaps. And - ultimately there are verious ways in which emotionally or physically you can say I feel like a woman, but those are not nearly the same as just the fact that I purposefully, confidently, and persistently identify myself as one.

 

 

*I say cisgenderless to denote the self-identity I held, transfemine to denote my behaviors and preferences, and male to denote my body's male inheritance. as a youngster that was me, and now I am a female transfeminine demigirl - to denote how I am mostly male in appearance but moving towards a woman, and later in life due to changes from HRT as well as the development of my style, personality, and presentation - later I will say I am a female transfeminine woman, or woman for short ;)

Link to post
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...