random gender question

Have you ever questioned your own gender?

Did you learn to understand your gender or identify gender from your family? (did that even make any sense?)

Early in life we know the difference between male and female and as a general rule, we grow up knowing in which catagory we fall though others take longer to figure it out or never feel like they fit in the category in which they are supposed to be. I am just curious how your gender was reinforced by your family and if you have ever questioned that

Gender is on a spectrum. I am female and have always felt that I am female... But I am not on the "girlie girl" end of female. I can polish up nice when needed and am an expert marksmen if needed .My mother dressed my foofy frilly as long as she could but that ended very quckly once I had a say. After that my family just let me be me. I know and love many people in many different places as far as gender identity. The most important thing is being true to yourself.

I have enjoyed watching my son as he develops his place. Having autism he doesn't give in to social pressures and feels more free to be what he feels. One year he was a pink pegisis with tons of sparkle for holloween the next he was a ninja... He day to day life is no ldifferent. I think we are born who we are but from the moment we are born and they wrap us in a pink or blue blanket we are told what society expects us to be.

I like what Omers has to say here. In my opinion, all human beings have varing "personnas". That is to say, we can embrace our feminine and/or masculine sides equally, or in parts. It can be very challenging to be okay with your feelings on many levels. This is just one of them and society can make it very difficult.

I was a "tomboy" as a child, known as "athletic" in my later teens. On into my later 30's I noticed the term became more like "masculine or androgynous".

Whatever.

My mother resisted my desire to dress like boys. "Nice little girls don't dress like boys" Yet she was happy for me to wear jeans and t-shirts for playing in. I abhorred the dresses I had to wear. They were so not me.

This is a good topic.

I don't necessarily agree with this "spectrum" business. It may be true in objective reality but in "life" (quite different from objective reality) I'm AMAZED (completely amazed) at how stiff and starchy the gender roles were back in the 1940's and 1950's in which I grew up. Not just what you may have been taught by your parents, but by everyone else as well, including all media at the time. Boys did this; Girls did that. Simple. If you did something appropriate only to the other group: BAM! Condemnation and/or hilarity! I remember becoming aware of this straitjacket around the age of four. Having certain ideas, I explained them to Mary, my nursemaid/au pair/babysitter, what have you. I believed that whatever you may have been as a child, when you Grew Up, you then chose the sex you wanted to belong to, which as far as I was concerned was to be female. Mary (probably around 17 at the time) erupted into gusts of (kindly) laughter, and told me that things really weren't like that; that (fortunately or unfortunately) one was stuck with one's sex at birth. You cannot imagine the shock this caused me. In our family, the person who had all the fun was Mom. Dad was the miserable person who suffered so that everyone else could have a happy life. Mary's words suddenly, and for the first time, threw me into dealing with the fact that I'd have to be like Dad, a bondslave, a sad and depressed worker ant. You haven't the vaguest idea how sudden and precipitous a down this was for me. Oh yes, I recovered and became an outstanding little boy. But, by God, I was NOT going to grow up to be like my Father! Take care!

Why is your avatar a photo of Sherman?

When I was younger I knew that technically I was a girl but didn't really feel like I was. I didn't understand why I was supposed to play with dolls and like pink, when all I wanted to do was go outside and play sports with my brother and his friends. There were a few years where I wished I was a boy just so I would be allowed to do the things I wanted to without family making fun of me or trying to stop it. It was reinforced by my family mainly by not allowing me to do things.

It was tough for a few years but luckily I'm comfortable with that aspect of myself now. It took awhile but I realized that just because I'm a girl I don't have to act girly. I can be myself, and even though some people dislike it then that's their problem

Hey, Notz: Well, he LOOKS (in this picture) like I FEEL. And I haven't been able to find any other such representation on the net. Sorry if you're from Atlanta or Charleston or any other target of his ire. I personally rate him as less obnoxious than Patton, who just loved killing for killing's sake. I think Sherman was a very mixed-up man who did what he sincerely thought was right. Which may have been right and may have been wrong. But I do love this picture of him, which could be me. Take care!

Saw a special on PBS on how genentically there is a 3% difference between male and female. If this is correct, one might speculate on how our environment influences our gender identity. So the question about gender can be is my questioning my gender identity genetic, environmental or both?

With that being said, I want to note that my synapsis are misfiring today so if what I wrote isn't helpful, please ignore.

Thank you Ygreck23. I left you a visitor message so I wouldn't hijack this thread. My apologies to all for posting before I thought.

Back to the discussion...

Aspi moment... "Gender is a spectrum" is Theory growing significantly and beginning to gain some scientific validity. In my lovely Aspiness I stated it as an out and out fact... As it is in my lovely little black and white world where everything is as it should be (LOL).

Culturally, especially given the diversity of cultures represented here, that is not yet recognized as fact. And in previous generations there is no way in h*** that would fly. A great deal off effort has been taken in society to make "male" and "female" two distinct groups. You can't go down the main isle of a toy store or toy section of a major store without seeing the clear "color coding" of the isles.

One of the huge blessings for me in growing up Aspi is that lables didn't make sence to me so I just threw them out. I didn't get racism because there were two many shades of skin color for me to create distinct categories. I didn't understand socio economic status because again there was such a range of how much people had and what they saw as valuable. Gender was no different. Ageism didn't fly either (AKA no respect for people who had lived longer than I had but who had not demonstraited anything "worthy" of my respect). Admittedly this got me into lots of hot water but I wish everyone could grow up that "blind". I believe we are all born that "blind" but before we even learn words we start catagorizing people based on the culture we are emersed in.

I think the fact that we are discussing it is proof that when a man or a woman says that they are 'trapped' in the other gender's body.... it's not crazy...it's true.

While I don't ever feel like I'm a man, I am not girlie at all. So I'm proof that, just because I may act tom-boyish or like a man, I'm still attracted to men and don't feel like I'm the 'wrong' gender. I just happen to be a female who loves sports and outdoors and doesn't wear makeup or dresses very often.

I read a book in high school about a boy whose parents took him to be circumcised. During the procedure something went wrong and (I don't remember exactly how) but he ended up losing his entire penis. So the parents decided to raise him as a girl and had him go through surgery very young so he didn't remember it and raised him in dresses with dolls etc.... As a teenager he started saying that he felt like he just wasn't right....he felt like a boy. So even though his parents and society were telling this boy he was a girl, deep down he felt different.

That's where the whole nature vs. nurture comes into play. No matter what society or your family does or says, you can't change who you are deep down. I could pretend to be a girlie girl but that's not true to myself.

I agree that it is on a gradient. You have everything from the princesses of girls to the manliest of men and everything in between. Good thread!!

The impression I have of current thinking on the interaction between "nature" and "nurture" is that this is one heck of a complicated mess on any issue at all to which it has any relevance. Back when we were arguing one against the other we could indulge in simplicities. But now that we know for a fact that we have both and that they interact in all kinds of complex ways it's much, much harder to envision the real possibilities.

Non-scientific thought, the kind that all of us indulge in every day, is just not up to dealing with that degree of complexity. And this issue directly impacts discussions of the kind we're having here: talking about the "spectrum" of gender behaviors (as well as many other issues). I don't know that it's ever going to make sense (in terms of always limited resources) to try to tease apart in specific cases the almost infinite strands of nature on the one hand and nurture on the other. And since each individual is and will be different, that means (to me) that we'll never have any good and reliable generalizations either, at least below the highest level of generalization (i.e., at birth, from genitalia: "This is a boy;" "This is a girl").

So where does that land us? It lands us, (I think) with accepting each individual as an individual, not using the gross stereotypes utilized in the past, and taking as given that individuals will always be different one from another in many ways. Take care!

I was left to grow up as I felt right. I had a brother 2 years younger than me, and i generally played with his toys. I was a real tom-boy. Our next-door neighbours, from the age of 4 - 17, were 2 boys. So I had to fit in. Even today, I own 2 dresses. One from my graduation ball, and another I was convinced would look good on me by a friend.
I generally wear pants. I feel I'm one of the boys.
I'm glad my parents didn't make me conform to the norm of dresses and dolls. In school I played softball and hockey (Goalie) - more boy sports than girls. I ride horses (While it is a female-dominated sport, it takes a different type of female to do well in it)
I have had times where I was confused as to my sexual orientation, but at the end of the day I am happy with being a female, as long as I can wear my hoodie, sneakers and jeans!

Ygrec - I'm actually glad you mentioned this because boy and girl are not even generalizations. We just don't hear about the other cases. There are plenty of cases of hermophrodites. There are females with only 1 X chromosome which menifests as Turner's Syndrome. In the opposite case some women can have 3 X chromosomes. There are boys who can have XYY chromosomes as well as XXY chromosomes. Sometimes these can have no outward showing of physical abormalities and some can cause women to have very broad shoulders and necks like men but still be women.

My point is that even with broad generalities like boy and girl.....those are even generalities anymore. There are so many other types of chromosomes that people can have that put them somewhere in the middle.

I was a tomboy growing up and sometimes wanted to be a boy because I thought it would be "easier". Ha. Not so much.

I'm glad to be a girl, fine to be a girl, I am a girl. I suppose to me, that's just the way it is and just who I am.

I was a major league tomboy as a little girl. I loved sports, action figures, toy guns..I remember throwing a fit when my mom wouldn't let me have a pellet gun, LOL. I loved it all. I hated dresses and never showed an interest in wearing makeup or getting my ears pierced.

Now I am 29 and very happy to be a woman, however I am still not a girly girl at all. It's just not me. I love my hockey & music t-shirts and jeans. My officemate recently told me that she would change the lock on our office door if I ever came into work dressed up (there is no dress code). LOL That made me feel good in a way, like people like me for who I am and don't want me to change.

Yes, for the longest time I have heard people say that if you like to dress "butch" or you played with boys' toys growing up, you must be a lesbian. Not true.

Yes, I was much happier going to the range with my dad and our beloved M16 (that the B*****d sold without giving me first dibbs) than going looking for prom dresses with my mother (still have the dress but would have gladly kept the gun instead).

Going into my junior year of high school I had extremely long hair. One day I just decided I was sick of it and chopped it all off. I went from having hair that went half way down my back to Annie Lennox type short hair. I loved it. But everyone at my school called me a lesbian. When I would ask why their only response was "well you cut all your hair off". In fact, I had a boyfriend that I had been dating for several months. I was really surprised that simply the length of hair could make me seem like a lesbian. Then again it was high school. Now I cut about 10 inches off every year. At the beginning of spring I cut it all off and just let it grow out the rest of the year. No one calls me a lesbian anymore lol then again I'm in grad school now.

In my ethnicity, if you're female you are expected to look perfect. You have to be drop dead gorgeous, thin, wear sexy expensive designer clothes, have your nails done, have your hair perfect and look like a super model or they'll think you're a lesbian. Also if you're not married by 25-30 there is something wrong with you.

It's a lot of pressure.

With men, they're expected to show off machismo and be THE MAN or else they're labeled gay.

Gender is a social construct that is waining as society has become more androgynous. However there are parts of the brain that do react differently for males and females and this is often is due to the reproductive processes. Modern pharmaceuticals too have a profound affect on these areas of the brain especially SSRI's. Its interesting that a huge proportion of returned female veterans are living in homelessness and have huge adjustment problems when trying to re-enter a society that does have gender as its values. We really have not thought this one out very well have we?

In regard to many transsexuals (not all) we have to ask, is this delusional paranoia that is mishandled. After all, if a person went to a doctor saying they were Jesus Christ, would they crucify him/her? But, go and say your a member of the opposite sex and "WONDERFUL" the cash registers ring and treatment begins.

Gender needs a good bit of thought and a lot more research although personally, I think we have gone too far already and, too many live in shame and poverty due to acceptance of Liberal Middle Class Values.

Are you asking if the deep belief that one is in the wrong body is delusional paranoia?

Yes I am! Having done a huge amount of research on the subject there are too many inconsistencies to support the general "born in the wrong body" assumption. One can only assume that research stopped in the 1950's, because there has been little objective research done ever since. The current evidence is exceptionally subjective and carried out in the main by transgendered people. Research into early childhood development prior to (the magic age ) 4 years of age would indicate an image realtionship with the main parent as being at the root of the delusional event that often arises in the late 30's to 40's. Males dominate this age group as most of the caring parents were their mothers.

Children that express gender maladaptation in their pre-teen period often do have a maladaptive body brain situation and these are possibly genuine transsexual candidates.

Assuming is a dangerous thing to do. Objective research takes money and the only people who make any real money on transsexuals are surgeons and therapists.

Let me see if I understand this. Children who have some sort of dillusional relationship or event with a primary caretaker, will manifest as transsexual in the late 30's and 40's? So males who feel as though they are in the wrong body feel this way because of a skewed relationship with the mother? Or in the case of females, with their father?

So if they express these feelings in the teen years, they are truely transsexual candidates and therefore deserve to be treated as such?

What of children who express gender identity issues almost from the time they can walk and talk? Or people who were raised in such an environment where things like this were not dicussed and it was not until they were older (say in ther 30's or 40's) that they felt safe enough to even express these feelings?

Much research needs to be done. That goes without saying. some of the research that has been done do conflict with some saying it is social, and some saying it is bilogical.

Due to India as an emerging economy and the social changes taking place there one can often find a lot of research into transsexuality and its treatment. As a patriarchal society Indian women have been subjected to male dominance and the figures indicate that roughly equal males and female try to access TG treatment (who would want to be a childless female in the Indian culture) where as in western cultures and places like Iran (where it is an escape from being shot for homosexuality) it is predominantly a male problem. This would indicate other factors present other than birth incongruities, which as with other maladies would be roughly equal in both sexes. Early-childhood experiences are indicated in most narcissistic personality problems and to rule out a mother child relationship issue would be remiss. Traditional narcissism is self-love however, in the case in question, the mother image deeply impressed in the child's earliest memory becomes the focus of the person's delusion and is often released (" the bell going off scenario") after a serious trauma - be-it emotional, physical, economic etc. I am not sure of the numbers of ex-military who report transsexual issues but from my own research it is quite a high proportion in the USA. Often this is a direct result of the trauma they experience. The manifestation of their mother comforting image overwhelms them and they subsequently seek to be her (A female just becomes more like her mother and so does not present with an issue other than depression, hence the higher incidence of depression in females) Information on the net and "support" groups only reinforce the ideation. Many of these people subsequently after transitioning suicide but, the figures no longer show up as male TS but as 'female.' They die with their dream.