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Genderqueer: the third "sex" (gender)? and bullying because of it.
First, Genderqueer. What is Genderqueer? Genderqueer is the whole non-binary gender group, that varies from "girly" men to "macho" women to people that are like neither. And, before you start shouting, this post WONT talk about physical, but psychological appearance AND from society's point of view. So, I don't care if you have a penis, a vagina or neither, what matters is you psychological aspects.
Second, I refer to it as the third sex cause that is what its usually called, the third "sex". Also, in spanish, both words mean the same, so I thought it might have meant the same :P Now, to the point. I made this thread after reading "The Golden Compass" trilogy, so those who have read it will understand me. Also, to hear your opinions. And yeah, I know there is already a club for this, but this is a discussion, sooooo. Yeah, to the point. This is my story. Spoiler:
What did I want to tell you with this? First, that even if you are bullied because of this topic, just do like me. If you are hit though, I suggest you do the usual: tell parents, headmaster, etcetcetc. Second, that society sees being gay, lesbian, etc as a bad thing, even if it isnt, and I dont understand why. And thats what I want you to debate on this thread! Is being a non-binary individual bad? Normal? Weird? Antinatural? Should it be considered a new "sex"? Should it not? WELCOME TO THE 90th HUNGER GAMES! (?) |
Sex is biological. Gender is social.
Let us use this framework to avoid confusing ourselves? Just a head's up. |
I find the use of gender very strange personally. I think that gender is a very very very personal subject and really should be regarded as an individual thing as opposed to something that you say, oh, I identify myself as that. I know it sounds really crazy but hear me out.
Gender, again, is a social issue. This means that, regardless of who you are, you are not really genetically "born" with a gender since a gender is defined by the culture you have. There are cultures that have many different genders that are very different from just the traditional sexes, Western culture is not traditionally among these. Of course hormonal differences exist, blah blah blah, I'm not saying that "feminine men" or "masculine women" are a bad thing, or even people who identify themselves as trans or genderqueer are bad. Of course not. However, these are ultimately social issues and the stigma associated with anything is purely a social issue. As such, I believe that the elimination of gender identity is really the cure here, because then it doesn't matter who you are, and I think genderqueer kind of highlights this point. Of course, I don't care if you currently identify yourself as anything, since I judge only on what you say, but yeah. I don't identify as a gender, and don't tell me that I'm some random "gender term" because I'm not, I'm just myself. I have girl bits. So I guess sexually I am female. But I don't "feel" like a man or "feel" like a woman and frankly the concept is beyond my comprehension, which is why I tend to avoid transgender discussions, not because they make me feel uncomfortable, but because I don't understand it and don't have anything valuable to donate to the discussion. Again, "feeling like a girl" or "feeling like a boy" is a purely socially rooted issue which basically means that it is based on social standards around you. You are yourself. If you feel like a "boy" or a "girl" it is because you are sorting yourself by the social standards of what is a "boy" and what is a "girl. Personally, I do not identify with either, and do not really think twice about my gender, because I don't feel like anything than myself. Ultimately this is the root of everything here. Sadly I cannot change society to change people to think that gender does not matter, and until the day that the majority realizes that its prejudice is rooted in our very society we will fail to accommodate and understand. |
Being mtf transgender myself, I guess it's only appropriate that I weigh in on this...but honestly I don't understand the whole gender binary/third gender thing. Pre-transition I always had people wondering if I was a guy or a girl and not knowing exactly how to address me or treat me. I felt much better when I started to associate more as a female. So I can't really relate to someone actually wanting to be looked at like that.
But at the same time I can understand it, because everyone has both masculine and feminine personality traits, even if we don't fully express all of them. And they all make up who we are. Some people just don't like having to suppress their feminine or masculine traits just because society says that they shouldn't express them. Gender roles are really arbitrary anyways, and I think people take them way too seriously... |
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Reading this over a couple times, what I'm saying isn't really in opposition to what you're saying, since you use genderqueer in the non-binary sense, and I kinda sell it as the opposite of cisgender, but whatever. |
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If you go by sex then it's easy. Man has man bits. Woman has woman bits. Easy peasy. But gender doesn't work like that. In many non-western cultures there are many genders that represent different things. The definition of gender itself isn't clear cut. Again, I still feel that your identity is yours and yours alone which makes the concept of gender pointless. This doesn't mean that you can't do what you think is right to be yourself - in fact completely the opposite; it means that because you don't have to abide by any identity that is "assigned" to you (which is the trouble that transgender people seem to face) you can do what fits you. Because society shapes who you are as a person, a society that rejects gender is a society that would never have the discrimination that transgender and related groups face. I might be mixing up my gender terms here - I think I was confusing it with genderfluid for some reason. Insomnia will do that to you. |
There are a few points I'd like to make. First though, I think it's good to have issues like this in the public eye because it's an opportunity to re-evaluate our social norms.
Okay, so all people have masculine and feminine qualities, right? That's just part of being human. How these manifest and which (if either) is dominant varies from person to person, but the poles are still there. So really, all people are already non-binary individuals in actuality, to whom we then mentally apply binary labels. Which leads nicely into my second point. As Sopheria pointed out, the labels of 'boy' and 'girl' are very useful social constructs. I think what is often forgotten is that they are socially constructed. It's the fallacy of confusing the map with the territory, eating the menu instead of the dinner, or in other words equating simple, clearly defined labels with the complex reality they represent. But they do serve a purpose, and have served it well. What I'm trying to say is that it's not the usage of the abstract terms, but confusing those abstractions with concrete reality that is a problem. And this basic confusion leads to my final point. If we introduce a third label to go along with the other two, we should be careful that we are not perpetuating and strengthening the original fallacy. 'Boy' and 'Girl' are only a general outline of one's total being in the first place. The same is true of 'Queer', or any other term. |
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However, another question arises, and albeit somewhat irrelevant to the OP, it's related. If I may be so bold, I think for a lot of gender dysphoric people, gender has a lot to do with sex. Looking up sexual dysphoria, it's (I believe incorrectly) synonymous with gender dysphoria. Which leads me to question what would become of dysphoria if gender is eliminated? Assuming, because gender is socially constructed, that gender dysphoria develops and is not inherent, while sexual dysphoria is perhaps the opposite, since you're born the sex you are (basically transgender != transsexual), will transsexualism still exist? I have never heard of a sexual reassignment surgery without "correct" gender alignment. I'm sure somewhere on the spectrum there are people who are purely transsexual, and not transgender. But for a majority of people, and I think this is why everything seems so similar, being transsexual has very much to do with the gender you associate with. Thus in a world without gender, if a person is born transsexual, it can be very difficult to ascertain without the constructs of gender that are linked to sex. I'm not even sure what I'm arguing anymore. Maybe I'm not even arguing, just wondering whether dysphoria can exist under a society that rejects gender. I'm making a lot of assumptions that may or may not correct. But basically I'm saying that despite sex and gender being completely different, there's a reason people erroneously clump them together: there's a connection, that albeit socially constructed, has immense importance (which I know you've acknowledged). For something that answers the OP, no, genderqueer should not be considered a new gender. Gender labels I think should be eliminated because of the whole spectrum thing (oh god this sounds sooo hypocritical), but without the elimination of the actual constructs and meanings behind them, which may or may not be possible. I use way too many appositives and parentheses. |
Technically, no. Transexualism would cease to exist simply because of the fact that you can't physically be "a man in a woman's body" because genetically (we're talking X and Y chromosomes here) you can only be one or the other, and if you are something different then you probably have a very severe birth defect and probably were miscarried.
THAT BEING SAID however simply physically being a male or female does not mean that one has to be a certain way, and because everyone's hormones are unique, our bodies are likewise unique. So in a... strange sort of way, we really do all have an independent sex if we look at our hormone balances instead of our chromosomes. The people who have marketed hormonal differences from what is normal to their sex may call themselves "transsexual" but probably a better term would be "Transhormonal". While everyone has the right to change themselves physically, I, again, can't help but feel that this is more of a social pressure than a hormonal pressure, if only because hormones are a part of who you are, while a social pressure is what is around you. Regardless of your physical sex your hormones will dictate a lot about how you grow and feel physically about yourself - a spike in estrogen in males or testosterone in females can have profound effects. Without a need to conform into what is a man or a woman, a person with different hormones have a lot less pressure to change their sex - not that they would stop completely - but a lot less than before, since there's no real meaning to "man" or "woman" and you just "are". Again, I never really identified as a gender because I failed to see the point. I label myself as female for practical purposes but I never acknowledge it. So...yeah. |
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Besides, why get rid of them? It's unnecessary to do so, for one thing. For another, language and representational knowledge are a key reason the human race got to where we are today. And if we did throw away just the gender labels, it would introduce new problems to deal with. For one, we'd have to invent a new language that doesn't use personal pronouns, and everyone would then have to learn it. That's not even feasible, really. And also, while the terms are simplified representations of reality, they are not meaning-less. Males are often more masculine, so we call them guys. Women are often more feminine, and so we call them girls. It's not like the labels are completely arbitrary. |
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From what I gather, trans folk take hormonal supplements to exacerbate the qualities of their desired gender, for a more 'complete transformation', if you will. |
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The topic is not fully meant to be about this, but the discussion seems to be bring it in, so I will say that being transgender often has nothing to do with the fact that society pushes gender-specific expectations on people. People who are transgender often hate their bodies, and their muscle structure, and their hair, and things that make them physically one gender when they feel like another. Society's norms aren't why they define themselves as one gender / sex over another.
Agender people often feel wrong being referred to as either gender, and genderqueer I feel should be sort of the same thing? They don't really feel like either one of the two stereotypes, so they pick one or switch up and go with it. To me that seems like they worry more about gender expression rather than physically hating their bodies, so I wouldn't call it a "third gender / sex", really - but I could be wrong. It might depend on the person. There are so many labels, that it seems to me like everyone is different and everyone wants a label for exactly what they are and what they feel, so we have 309284 different LGBT labels, and it seems very extreme to me. To give a simple answer to the thread's title, I don't really see genderqueer, agender, or genderfluid people as necessarily male or female, I see them as what they wanna present themselves as on particular day, however I don't think it's a third gender. I also don't agree with bullying because of it, and it sucks that it happens, though people are bullied for a lot of reasons. People judge genderqueer people because they're not the norm, people bully butch lesbians because they're guyish when they're female, people bully feminine gay guys, people bully the kids with funny glasses. It's all disgusting. People should be able to represent themselves however they'd like, without being judged. |
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Humans use symbols to represent reality. Those symbols are the basis of language, commerce, religion, and art. To stop using symbols completely, we'd basically have to dispense with civilization. We could go back to caveman days, or we can move forward into a future where we use symbols without mistaking them for the forms they represent. Either one technically solves the problem by making the gender binary a non-issue. |
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Basically, if we all contain qualities of "girls" and "boys", then these symbols aren't accurately representative of the people. A third-gender however encompasses everyone, making every other symbol obsolete, or inaccurate. The whole idea of accurately expressing gender linguistically is something that just doesn't seem feasible. |
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This is the kind of stuff that really makes me iffy about attempting to balance hormones manually though, if only because every person is unique and we literally cannot predict how it will affect that individual considering all the factors that are in place. |
I feel that genders are associated with gender roles. Without these roles, a gender is meaningless. Therefore, a gender is exclusionary - if you had a gender that included everybody, it wouldn't have any meaning. The male gender has a positive definition of what it means to be a man, so does the female gender. If you had a "gender" which wasn't defined positively, it'd be a non-gender really. I think it's impossible to have a third gender for most societies because genders have a social context and you can't pull those out of thin air.
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On that, cultures that accept more than 2 genders actually do have separate roles and aren't really pulled out of thin air, however your conjuncture would be more valid in a culture that normally only accepts 2 genders such as modern western society. You can't really pull it out of thin air but your culture can adjust to accommodate them and integrate them into society instead of ostracizing them. Of course, one could do without gender in the first place and avoid the conflict and judge individually but no culture has since done this. |
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sex = biological/physical gender = psychological/social/emotional Eh... that's probably the best way for me to put how I see those interpreted.(not the best way to put it but I tried) Now, let me go into detail about how I see it... To me, sex is purely your physical/biological state: male or female--or intersexed, if you're both or neither. Males are (usually) bigger, hairier, more forceful, etc; females are usually thinner and/or more agile, and have less hair(except on the head). Then there's the obvious sex-specific parts. Not much there. Gender, on the other hand, is less physical. Males tend to be more stubborn, brave (for reasons ranging from prior experience all the way to shear stupidity), violent (to varying degrees), etc. Females tend to be more sensitive to others(empathy, sympathy, compassion, etc), they tend to have a nurturing nature, can be more creative, etc. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who sees that. However, there are some views that I really don't understand/agree with. You know, those thoughts that men should be though/macho and fearless and strong and should like sports and crap, or those thoughts that girls should be slim and 'sexy' and sweet and should do what they're told and that they like dolls and pink things and dresses and whatnot. Those thoughts really just irritate the hell out of me because they're ridiculous and unnecessary. If anything should be discarded about gender, I'd definitely say its those cliche stereotypical misconceptions about males and females. The way I see it, being trans is basicly not feeling like you're the right sex or feeling that you'd be better as the opposite sex(that's my experience from middle school, though). Being genderfluid is feeling that you could be either sex and/or gender and you could do so any time--although not physically of course(again that's from my experience). I see genderqueer as basicly the same thing as genderfluid, really. So basicly my answer is: No, genderqueer should not be considered the third sex or a new sex since its basicly just between the basic two or the state of being able or feeling that you can transition from one to the other. Okay I probably didn't contribute anything to the discussion but at least I tried. XD |
What you're addressing are gender roles; like I said in my last post gender roles are often confused with gender, but it's really a child entity of gender. However, I totally didn't notice that OP said that "genderqueer" should be considered a third sex, which is... makes no sense because it's GENDERqueer and not sexqueer (that's called a hermaphrodite and someone born that way is, again, on a chromosomal level, born either male or female).
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@Flushed
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What I am suggesting is that we stop expecting the world to conform precisely to the labels we have thrust upon it. Such a course of action would not be incompatible with introducing a catch-all genderless pronoun to use (and it would be genderless, because as Kanzler pointed out, 'feminine' has meaning only in contrast with something non-'feminine', a.k.a. 'masculine'). But if we only remove or replace the binary label, and we do not address the confusion about the relationship between labels and the reality that they represent, we haven't gotten anywhere. Say that we introduced the pronoun haun (pronounced 'h-ow-n') to replace he/she. Would that change the fact that my rough and tumble male coworkers would still make fun of me for being girly? Of course not. My boss would probably fire me, and I would be very angry with haun. And I would have no way of even communicating how I was done wrong, because I wouldn't be allowed to use the phrase 'girly'. We wouldn't have boys and girls anymore, only hauns. ----- But what would also not happen, and what is perhaps more important in this entire issue, is a recognition on the part of my male coworkers that they also have feminine tendencies. Men who are girly are, by and large, perceived as being weak. And male strength is valued so highly, that value runs so deeply within the stream of human consciousness, that to be a weak man is paramount to a crime against nature, family, and God haunself. Men had to be strong to kill the animals that both fed the family when dead, and threatened the family when alive. Our survival did not depend exclusively on male strength, but it was hugely important all the same. Fast forward to today, when the security and prosperity of the family is much less dependent on male strength than at any time in human history. That societal development is so recent that our culture has not yet caught up. What's important to note, before continuing, is that without a society that does not rely heavily on male strength to survive and thrive, we cannot even begin to have a discussion about the overvaluing of male strength. Which is why the conversation is happening now, and did not happen in ancient cultures to any meaningful degree. Now, even as we change our expectations of men and women, we have to work with the fact that men are expected not to show weakness. That's the world we live in. So what we ought to examine is how that expectation leads to homophobia and homophobic violence. Say I am a man. Which I am, last time I checked. Now say that any effeminate qualities that I have are a threat to my self-sense because I am expected not to show weakness. In order to be strong, I have to disown my feminine aspects, I have to pretend that those qualities are not there. But because they *are* still there, they now show up in the only way that they can - as external objects, coming from other people. And because I fight these qualities within myself, I also fight them in whomever else they (seem to) appear. Other guys around me may or may not actually be girly, but this is irrelevant because the girliness that I'm fighting is always with me. This is basic psychology, and the phenomenon I have just described is called projection, because I am projecting unnacceptable qualities of myself, or unnacceptable desires or thoughts, onto someone else (or in some cases, everyone else. If you find yourself surrounded by clean freaks whom you just cannot stand, see what happens when you consider your own desire to have things neat and orderly). And I'm fairly certain that this is another fundamental problem that we have to deal with if people are no longer going to be abused for being homosexual or genderqueer. There is even evidence to support that psychological projection is the origin of homophobic behavior and attitudes. I once read about a study that was done in which men were shown various erotic images, and the researchers monitored the levels of sexual arousal in these men. What they found was basically that the men who where the most homophobic got the biggest boners from gay porn. ----- @Merak Quote:
----- @daigonite: I think I understand how gender roles are different from gender, but not how they're derived from it. The way I understand the word gender is that it is short for 'gender identity'. Are you saying that you first identify with either one gender or the other, and then choose your roles accordingly? |
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