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What is gender? How do I know my gender?


em54

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When I first realized my sexual/romantic orientation I also questioned my gender for a bit. I didn’t think anything of it though as I was confused about other stuff and I didn’t really understand gender much then. Recently though my friend has talked a lot about questioning his gender and being non-binary and I started thinking about it randomly and I realized, I didn’t know what gender was. I though I was cisgender and happy with being female but suddenly I am questioning it all, what is gender really? I don’t know if I actually believe in gender(for myself, I don’t mean to offend sorry)gender doesn’t feel very real for me anymore. Would this make me agender?

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You're right to question gender.  Cause from a technical standpoint, sex and gender and two different things (tho are often confused:) sex is what an infant is biologically  defined as at birth  (male or female --- often mistakenly and imperfectly, especially when one is born intersexed,) while gender is a purely social construct of what roles a given society defines as  being primarily "male" or "female", which can differ depending on culture, what era you were born, etc.  More and more ppl today reject the idea of both traditional gender roles AND having to fit into one of two binary sexes. So... now that you know the difference between sex and gender, (again, one is biology, the other a social construct.) you can begin to think about which (or both) you find arbitrary and/or flawed by heteronormative expectations, and decide what you are.  And the great thing is, YOU get to decide.     

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Presumably you would be agender. Though I'm inclined to think that many people don't have a very strong sense of being male or being female. If I ask someone what being male or female actually feels like, they would be able to say they identify with cultural proxies of maleness and femaleness, or at least say that they do not actively feel like something else, but they would not be able to tell me what it feels like to be male or female. (I say this because I've asked people and these are the answers I get). Gender could have underlying physiological causes. It could be a state of mind, or a predisposition towards certain things. 

Whether you see gender as biological, or acquired there's definitely room for someone to be agender. 

 

In all of this I'd say—just don't get caught up in a trend. It's worth while to think about who you are and what you want. Are you just now distancing yourself from femaleness, or have you never really identified with it? What could contribute to that? If femaleness does not define your womanhood then what does or are you disconnected from that idea as well? Are you rejecting gender or femininity? People have likes and dislikes that we don't attribute to anything but personal taste. Femininity could be one of those things for you. 

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