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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

So ... Does this indicate that you CAN be 'born the wrong gender'?

587 replies

Garrick · 31/08/2015 00:28

www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/im-girl-meet-twin-boy-6348318?

Summary: Twins Alfie and Logan, 4yo, are both boys. Logan has insisted on wearing girly clothes, doing girly things, and that he is a girl since the age of two. His mother, who sounds brilliant, reports him wishing his willy would fall off.

I'm somewhat flummoxed. When I were a lass, little boys like this were described as camp (behind their fathers' backs) and, as far as I know, mostly grew up to be camp and fulfilled their rightful destinies. Rather like Ugly Betty's brother.

But this is what some transwomen say they felt like as children, isn't it? And I have rubbished it because I find it hard to believe in gender as an innate feeling. I'm not sure whether I think little Logan proves me wrong Confused

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WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid · 01/09/2015 16:15

i think the trouble is I'm not very aware of social explanations for gender identity (unless you include the utterly ridiculous Oedipus complex).

If you could point me in the right direction on the web it would be appreciated.

(I've just realised I've asked you for information that has probably taken decades of work to put together - the response "piss off and do your own research"is completely acceptable) Smile

shovetheholly · 01/09/2015 16:30

I think one thing it's important to point out is that feminists themselves disagree over this!

The classic formulation would be something like "sex is biological, but gender is social". In other words, sex might be a matter of biological factors like genetics, hormones, but gender is a matter of behaviour/identity that are to a large extent culturally determined.

However, you do also have a feminism (e.g. Judith Butler) that goes a step further to argue that biology itself is a culturally determined thing that is very much 'of the science of our time', that is not constructed outside of social and power relationships, and not necessarily 'transcendentally true'. A lynchpin of a lot of these arguments is that people tend to simplify into a binary something that is much less obviously dichotomous. As you pointed out, when you look at it closely the biological side of sex is complex - Butler, Fausto-Sterling and others would have a field day with the difficulties inherent in determining femininity for the purpose of Olympic sport!

BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 01/09/2015 16:54

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Garrick · 01/09/2015 17:35

I'm feeling increasingly exasperated by your posts, When, because your central point of difference seems to be a matter of language. And so many people have tried in different ways to get past that. I can't tell you how relieved I am to see your the trouble is I'm not very aware of social explanations for gender identity - we might get somewhere now Grin

If you'll forgive me a self-repetition (for my mental health!) ... Gender is not the the fact that your brain/mind/body/self "knows" your biological sex.

Sex-related identity in human adults covers a range of different things. The most often discussed are sexual identity, gender identity, and biological sex - which is also part of the identity, but so rarely disputed until recently that we don't have a word for it.

Since nature randomises life, all three factors occur in ranges rather than either/or definites. Whether you think anomalies of biological sex are rare would depend entirely on your definition of anomaly.

I'm an abnormal female, but 25% of women have PCOS so I'm not that abnormal. I assume there's a corresponding (genetic, metabolic) bio sex abnormality affecting 25% of males, but I'm uninformed about men's sexual health so I don't know what it is.

There are undoubtedly humans with as-yet undefined genetic configurations that make them anomalous regarding biological sex; some or all of them might be what we'd call trans*. They would be people whose brain or mind or body or self doesn't "know" their biological sex.

This, however, is not what transwomen are asking us to agree upon. They're telling us they feel like a woman, then describing that in terms which relate only to gender - not sex. Hence the problem.

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FloraFox · 01/09/2015 17:36

The brains sexuality (fancying men or women and feeling like one sex or another) seems to be fixed in the womb

I don't think there is good evidence for either of these things and even if one is true, that wouldn't mean the other is true.

YonicScrewdriver · 01/09/2015 17:46

Plenty of XX women have stated they don't have a feeling that they have a gender identity. I would be curious to know if plenty of XY men say the same. Maybe the majority of XY men do feel a strong gender identity (rather than the absence of a gender conflict).

Are we comparing the wrong thing?

BertieBotts · 01/09/2015 17:53

Delusions of Gender is a good introduction to social theories of gender. It's not on the web, though.

Deianira · 01/09/2015 17:58

A lot of really good and interesting discussion here. If I may, however, I'd like to add a further problem with the conflation of trans* and sexuality issues in terms of how they're discussed as 'fixed' or otherwise, alongside the earlier point raised that someone having an established 'sexuality' as part of their identity is actually a really modern concept.

(And on that point, Anc. Greek and Roman men did not in any way consider themselves as having a 'fixed' sexuality which was something that they were stuck with, for them it was a case of when it was socially appropriate to be sleeping with men/boys, vs. women, and there was no idea that they would be primarily attracted to one sex or another - certainly most evidence we have suggests the idea that [all] men would be attracted to both. The case for women is more complicated, partly by lack of evidence of sexual agency at all. I am therefore somewhat dubious about the idea that we've only just become modern enough to accept the long-standing truth that everyone has a fixed, natural, biologically caused sexuality which previously (e.g. in Victorian Britain) they just didn't acknowledge - even in much more sexually permissive societies (as regards this aspect, anyway) this hasn't necessarily been the case.)

The point I actually wanted to ask about is what these arguments of 'fixed' sexuality determined before birth, and thus apparently similar to an internal sense of what gender someone is, do about bisexuality, or the reasonably mainstream idea that it may be more appropriate to consider sexuality on a spectrum rather than 2/3 fixed points. There are two problems here which I think would make sexuality a problematic analogy for how 'gender' is 'biologically fixed' - the first being that bisexuality exists at all, so even if you insist that everyone is 'fixed' biologically into one of 3 rigid, determined categories, does that not cause you some concern about the idea that there's apparently no correspondingly middle position in your ideas of being biologically 'fixed' as male/female in gender? (This is far too often ignored as something to be considered, and I wonder how often bi-erasure comes in as a limiting factor here, sadly).

Then, my second problem - if you allow at all for the idea that sexuality can be fluid, and change as someone's life goes on, and they experience different things (and indeed, are socialised differently!), even if it may have a determined trend in one direction or another which doesn't change, does that not also make it a terrible comparison for some sort of 'fixed' internal idea of your gender? Would you not also have to allow for more fluidity in this internal idea of what gender someone is, in order to say that they are both formed similarly by some biological root?

Or do you think that this is also impossible for sexuality, since effectively x amount of hormones (or similar) in the womb results solely in 'a' sexuality, y amount of hormones in 'b' sexuality, and thus the same happens with 'male' vs. 'female' 'biological gendering'?

I am not sure how coherent this is - just some ideas I've been mulling over, really, but I'd be very grateful for anyone who has thoughts. Even if I weren't rather firmly fixed on the radfem approach to gender and gender identity, I still think there's some stumbling blocks to work out on these biological ideas of such complicated things as gender and sexuality, that at the very least should make us wary of lumping them together the way some do!

YonicScrewdriver · 01/09/2015 17:59

There are lots of receptors for lots of things in the brain - serotonin, for one, which is linked to happiness/depression.

Suppose there is someday shown to be a biological marker - size of androgen receptor, say, though it's unlikely to be simplistic - for XY people wanting to transition? What would be done with that information? I don't know what the right action would be.

WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid · 01/09/2015 17:59

holly that's on my reading list

Regarding looking at sex from a non binary perspective, this article is really interesting.

www.nature.com/news/sex-redefined-1.16943

Deianira · 01/09/2015 18:00

PS: Just realised I should make clearer that I do know a lot of posters here are (rightly in my view) arguing that gender is definitely not 'fixed' biologically, and nor is sexuality - not sure how clearly that came through in my post!

WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid · 01/09/2015 18:13

^Gender is not the the fact that your brain/mind/body/self "knows" your biological sex"

I know - that's why I've been saying gender identity.

There is a theory (warning - it's a theory, there a good reasons to think this is the case but a lot of research would is needed).

Theory is the sexualisation of the brain in male mammals is done by androgens (ie testosterone). The same androgens masclinise the sex organs (eg penis).
Problem is these two things happen at slightly different times in the womb. So in theory (remember it's a theory) the brain can fail to the sexualised but later on the sex organs are masculinised normally.

Now this is a vast simplification of the theory. There are also likely to be other factors at play. Such as the activation of certain genes affecting brain development. And immune responses that could affect development.

I do agree with you that your biology is probably not a simple binary (the link I put on for Holly is interesting.

WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid · 01/09/2015 18:15

buffy if you are willing to take the time to explain the social stuff that would be appreciated.

I will try and get my head round it but no promises.

Garrick · 01/09/2015 18:17

It's a thrilling topic, Deinara, but nobody knows what 'causes' sexuality. Androgens sharpen the urge for sex and oestrogens soften it: they don't alter the preferred sex of partners. All studies of humans and other animals seem to show that, even where a strong preference exists, absence of the preferred sex will trigger desire for the other. Quite a few animals even change sex if none of the opposite are about!

Personally, I can say that I'm resolutely hetero despite having always been sure I'd be better off as a lesbian. My body simply doesn't respond to female bodies the way it does to male. But if I were restricted to an all-female community, this desire would likely transfer onto females. I've had a fair amount of hormone treatment in my time: although hormonal changes definitely altered the intensity of desire, they never affected my sex preference.

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Garrick · 01/09/2015 18:18

Buffy, love your free lessons Flowers Go for it!

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FloraFox · 01/09/2015 19:01

I think there is a strong desire to argue that homosexuals are "born that way" because it helps with moving conservatives to accepting that people are gay. It's unlikely to be caused by hormones in the womb otherwise twins would have the same sexuality and this is not the case. If you think being gay is a valid and positive life experience, it doesn't matter whether someone was born that way, socialised that way, chose to be gay or any other reason.

I don't see how a sense of whether one is male or female can develop in the womb or even what it means to feel make or female. A foetus could not have body dysmorphia as they can't see what they look like. I'm not aware of parents reporting baby boys being distressed at their penises. It seems to coincide with the age when children learn that boys have willies and girls play with dolls.

KevinAndMe · 01/09/2015 19:05

Garrick thanks for the explaination but I have to say, please remember that not everyone has already thought about all these issues at length and have a clear understanding of what the difference is between gender, sex and 'biological' sex.
Just as not everyone has an idea of what 'ontological and epistemological assumptions' are.

It's nice for all the 'newbies' in the discussion to not be told off for not knowing.

As far as I am concerned, this thread is fascinating. I have a real issue with the idea that men/women can be defined as per their level of testosterone (that's the Olympics isn't it?) and not the XX or XY chromosomes because it's an hormone and of course, hormone levels vary. They vary between individuals of the same 'sex' (ie XX or XY) but they also vary in time in the same individual.
Using a hormone as a way to define the (biological) sex of an individula is crazy.

Im also at loss as to how you can have such discussion about sexual identity and gender when both of those are clearly interlinked. How on earth can you actually separate what is a sexual identity (which could be different from your biological sex) and gender?

WhirlpoolGalaxyM51 · 01/09/2015 19:14

I think out of all of this interesting thread I agree with Flora:

"People who argue there is a biological basis for transsexualism seem quite blinkered about where that line of thinking leads. You might find a biological cause for transsexualism but surely the conclusion would be that transsexuals have a type of intersex conditions, not that MTTs are actually women. "

Because the problem for women and girls, is that if transwomen are in fact, quite literally, female human beings, biology and all, then there is no way left to describe the group that the people with the wombs and stuff belong to. And loads of things get done to that group because of the wombs and stuff. So if we can't say who they are (women) then we, as feminists, have a big problem.

There was something upthread about how do you know you're a woman then, and for many of us it's when some fucker shouts "show us your tits" out of a van. Many women, according to threads on here, don't have this internal gender thing going on. We just "are", until we menstruate or give birth or have the menopause or get sexually assaulted, and at those points we're reminded (often not very pleasantly) of our female-ness.

Some women do have an internal gender identity obviously and of course if goes without saying that trans people do. Do men, on the whole? No idea. But the question posed upthead about whether we're comparing the right groups / asking the right questions, is a good one. Maybe a noticeable internal gender identity is something that some people have and some don't. And so of course the ones who have it think the questions from the ones who don't are simply disingenuous and obstructive, and the people who don't have a gender ID are left flailing around with literally no idea what the others are talking about.

Anyway, it's all very interesting.

Garrick · 01/09/2015 19:14

I didn't realise I had been patronising. I apologise.

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WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid · 01/09/2015 19:24

I didn't find you patronising. I like things explained simply.

I think the problem is a language one. A lot of the posters on the feminist boards are regulars and the same topics come up again and again so you guys are used to talking about them.
A newbie like me does have a lot of language to understand and get my head round.

FloraFox · 01/09/2015 19:51

whirlpool on another thread I asked a well-meaning transactivist what is the name for those people with vagina, womb etc. she said there is really no reason for such a word because there is no reason to talk about that group of people as a group. [despairs]

Garrick · 01/09/2015 19:53

Thank you, When - and, yes, it was this board that pushed me to understand the differences!

Kevin - at loss as to how you can have such discussion about sexual identity and gender when both of those are clearly interlinked.

I would say they're completely separate, only linked by current social expectations.

Think of a builder who is a lesbian. There are a fair few around :) Suppose her interests are football, engines and real ale. She doesn't wear makeup and prefers practical clothes to dresses and heels. She is pregnant.

Are you saying she can't have a female identity because she doesn't do female gender? I think her physical sex identity is female. Her gender identity might be 'female', 'male', or 'fuck off with that gender nonsense'. Her sexual identity is homosexual. How do you see it?

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WhirlpoolGalaxyM51 · 01/09/2015 19:56

Is sexual identify the same as sexuality then?

Gender (as in socialised roles) includes sexuality, the assumption that children will be straight, the strong socialisation that straight is "normal" and for many children no other options are even offered (around the world). That is a very strong aspect of gender role.

WhirlpoolGalaxyM51 · 01/09/2015 19:58

I also think that sexuality and gender ID and sex are getting all mixed up when they're not the same thing at all.

Possibly because they are all relevant or interesting to people when it comes to sexual intercourse and so people lump them all in together in a prurient sort of a manner.

WhirlpoolGalaxyM51 · 01/09/2015 20:01

That last wasn't aimed at anyone BTW! Just these things are all actually very different so I'm not even sure why they are all put in the same conversation and I suspect it's because they've all got things to do with sex as in intercourse.