Gender

    Society is structured around the concept of two sexes, male and female. They're pretty clear-cut, it's either born with a penis, testosterone, and such, or it has a vagina and estrogen. When a child is born, the first thing that's said is "it's a boy!" or "it's a girl!". From there gender roles are born. Little girls wear dresses and pink and play with dolls, little boys wear pants and play with trucks. That's the stereotype, and in many ways the root of gender roles. Girls are supposed to act "female," and maybe not to follow every guideline in the realm of what we consider feminine, but at least to conform to the vast majority of them. The same principle is true with boys. That's how patriarchy begins, with people of different sexes being divided into different spheres and being told to behave in certain ways. The basic problem is that there aren't two genders like there are two sexes (I realize that I'm glossing over some things, but they aren't relevant to my contentions).

     Gender is an incredibly vast spectrum, with people who are in a body which isn't the same gender they are. This is a difficult concept to understand. It took me years and years to grasp even the basic idea, and I know people who are transgendered. The easiest way to see transgenderism, for most people, is to imagine that you woke up tomorrow in a body of the opposite sex. You'd still be you, but your body wouldn't be who you are. That's how transgendered individuals live, only they're born that way. Some choose to have sex-reassignment surgery, to become biologically members of the opposite sex. Some choose travestitism. Some act like members of the opposite sex, and some stay within the gender role in which they were born (which is often quite destructive to them, but there aren't really safe options when one challenges fundamental ideas, which is why I think it so important that they be included in the queer community). I believe transgendered individuals are the sex and gender they consider themselves, self-identification is everything. However, an important aspect of transgenderism which I'm just now learning about is transcension of classical ideas of gender in the interest of finding one's self, not just a label or a body of the 'proper' sex.

     Transgendered individuals are far from the only challenge to a dichotomous idea of gender. People can be neither male nor female, or both male and female. The former is angrogyny, the latter hermaphroditism. These don't really have a surgical option, nor are they particularly understood. The concept of male and female essentially ceases to apply. I'll address androgyny because that's where I identify, and thus I have some understanding of it. Androgynes are male or female born, but don't feel comfortable with either gender role. However, that isn't all of it, we have a separate gender, one which exists within itself, and is not simply whatever's left when one doesn't fall within any of the other categories. I couldn't really articulate the nature of the androgynous category, except for what it means to me. I see it as a recognition that my spirit is not the same as my body, that it is sexless, and something else beautiful and whole and creating its own ideal of gender. That's the closest I can come to explaining it such that it can be the least bit understood within our system of two distinct genders.

     I have hitherto addressed gender as a concrete subject. I've mentioned categories into which genders fit. I do so because that's how genders are viewed, as rigid areas into which certain behaviors and identities fall. I don't like this system at all. People are individuals, provide labels with which they can identify themselves, but don't see labels as being rigid codes of conduct. People should, in fact, make up their own labels if they're tired of the ones they're provided with. Most importantly, people should have fun with gender, because what's anything without a sense of play? Be male, female, and androgynous all at once. Earn the title of "other." Play with disconnections, blur things. Gender is a vast universe of possibilities, why should we need walls and distinctions?