First of all, why have I never heard the term “gender journey” before? It is a term Ariadne Kane uses in the very short article entitled “Introduction: Looking for Understanding” from the International Journal of Transgenderism. This term alone has some interesting implications. Sure, there are many many many people that have issues identifying with the male/female gender (and sex) dichotomy. So what is a gender journey? Is it an introspective inquiry attempting to define one’s gender, whether it is defined as either male, female, a combination, or something else entirely? This concept could be interesting for a lot of people, especially in the sociological and psychological studies of sex and gender. But when it comes to just that pure struggle that everyone goes through to try to understand who they are, their very essence, isn’t it a bit restricting to endeavor on a “gender” journey? After all, isn’t it labels that pertain to gender the restrictions one would be trying to avoid or transcend when taking that inward journey of learning/knowing/loving thyself? My handy love-of-my-life Oxford English Dictionary defines gender as a few things: The first is a very long explanation basically referring to the nouns and pronouns that correspond or relate in any way with a person or object’s sex or sexlessness. 2) “The state of being male, female, or neuter; sex; the members of one or other sex.” And 3) “Sex as expressed by social or cultural distinctions.” The word apparently comes from the “Old French gendre (mod. genre) which comes from Proto-Romance from Latin genus, gener-; see GENUS.” The history and definition of the word “gender” entail strict classification and labeling. Don’t get me wrong, I am completely aware that classifications, labels, and generalizations are not only a natural human inclination, but are, for many reasons, absolutely necessary. My only qualm with this whole idea of a “gender journey” is that when it comes to knowing thyself, how much of each dynamic and diverse individual existence is being overlooked or misunderstood when trying to be understood based on these systems of classification? (Whether they involve the possibility of only male and female, or those two plus 300 others.) What does “gender” really mean when it comes to introspection? Based on the way the human mind works, how capable are we of understanding anything outside of systems of classifications and/or generalizations? If we can understand anything without them, it seems it would be our own individual selves. Just some thoughts…
Interesting that I went off for so long on those two words when I thought that Kane’s piece, while interesting, was easily the least important of the three we read for this Monday. In Susan Kessler and Wendy McKenna’s piece, “Who Put the ‘Trans’ in Transgender,” they take their readers on a very brief journey through the history of the terms “transsexual” and “transgender,” introducing different possibilities for why “trans-” is used instead of some other prefix, which actually ties into one of my favorite points of the next and last reading for this Monday: Judith Shapiro’s “Transsexualism: Reflections on the Persistence of Gender and the Mutability of Sex.” “Trans” can mean three things: change, across, and beyond or through. Up until this point, when I think of all the variations of being transgender or transsexual, I relate it to the movement to transcend sex and gender (as you may have guess from my first rather long paragraph), but that’s not generally accurate at all. I found it incredibly interesting that in fact, most transgendered (both with and without reconstructive surgery) people adhere to the male/female binary gender norms more strictly than the average bio-male or female. Most are not trying, nor would they want to try, to redefine any social or cultural definition of the binary gender system, but are merely trying to redefine which category they fall under.
This is one of those points that seems like it should have been totally obvious based on the very nature of changing from male to female, female to male, or some variation thereof. I just never saw it before. And that’s not to say that the goals and lifestyle of a transsexual individual is any more or less normal, logical, sane, etc than I or anyone originally thought. All it shows is to what extent transsexualism is absolutely taken for granted as many things it is not, and widely widely widely misunderstood.
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2 comments:
sometimes i wonder if gender, sexuality, expression, roles, mentality, et al shouldn't be just as fuzzily classified as the religion vs. spirituality conversation going on.
let people classify, pigeon-hole, define, defy, construct, deconstruct, and in general make it up for themselves.
the age of aquarius seems ripe for the iconoclastic ecclecticism running amok. pretty soon, "alive" will be just another state of mind...
not that i have any problem with this. after all, i've met many people who were less alive than my dearly departed grandmother who's a dozen years in the ground.
"Reflections on the Persistence of Gender and the Mutability of Sex." goddess! i love that word: "mutability." not that sexuality, gender, or any of that is really breaking new ground. these concepts and activities have been around for eons. "nothing new under the sun," as they say. we're just coming into an age where these things are finally acceptable (to a degree) to discuss openly.
one day --soon, i hope-- we'll all finally get over ourselves and realize that it's all just part and parcel of the human experience.
until then, we'll have to deal with the traditionalists, gender fundamentalists, gender revolutionaries, sexual pioneers, and all the labeling, pigeon-holing, and category-stuffing that goes on. part of it's the necessity of language, which does reveal the subconscious mentality of a people. people need these definitions, if only for themselves, and if only to give them some point of reference to hold onto as they navigate the murky waters of "mutable sex," or any other debated definitions.
it lets them know where they stand in relation to everyone else. maybe one day we just won't care what labels people live by, because we'll realize it's really none of our damn business.
=) may the Funk be with you.
Very well said my dear shoe-loving twin of the iGoddess! But I have one thing to add:
You said:
"one day --soon, i hope-- we'll all finally get over ourselves and realize that it's all just part and parcel of the human experience."
It is interesting to keep in mind that discourse pertaining to the term "sexuality" has not always been around. In fact, it is from the invention of "sexuality" (which led to the invention of "heterosexuality" and "homosexuality," both fairly new terms, along with a whole shebang of other terminology) that all of this conflict has arisen. Decades later the best answer is to get the "traditionalists, gender fundamentalists, gender revolutionaries, sexual pioneers, and all the labeling, pigeon-holing, and category-stuffing" to lay off and "realize that it's all just part and parcel of the human experience." Back where we presumably started. (I wasn't there, so I wouldn't know. And the very evidence in favor of saying that this was the attitude of the times is the lack of evidence that there was a discourse of any similar nature at all! Whew, that's a complex notion.)
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