A Good Article "gender Is A Matrix Of Five Semi-independent Attributes"

[Guest DisDwarf]

I found this article pretty good

http://www.docbushong.com/pubs/what_is_gender.asp

It says gender is a matrix of five semi-independent attributes:

Genetic Gender: Our chromosomal inheritance.

Physical Gender: Our primary and secondary sexual characteristics.

"Brain Gender": Functional structure of the brain, along gender lines.

"Brain Sex": Love/sex Patterns, How we relate to others on a social and interpersonal as well as sexual level. "Love Maps." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_map

Gender Identity: Our subjective gender, our sexual Self-Map, how we feel ourselves to be: male or female.

It also contains an interesting theory of sexual orientation and how it changes after transition, explaining why a gynophilic can become androphilic after hormones, and even suggests that cross-dressers and transsexuals are just two different outcomes of the same basic condition.

But the most important idea in the article is that transition isn't only about changing our body but also about letting our fake male (for MTFs) or female (for FTMs) persona die and letting our female or male true self come into full life: "an individual's sense of happiness and success is directly parallel with the degree they have dismantled their male identity, not on their age, physical size, hormones, surgery, etc."

The idea that gender is a matrix is in tune with my intuition that gender is a puzzle, with some pieces being female and others male. My version of the puzzle had three pieces, the gender identity, the brain, and the body, with the last two pieces divided into sub-pieces (so an intersex would have some body pieces female and some male). The article's idea of gender matrix is very elaborate and I think highly accurate.

[Guest Elizabeth K]

A quick read - yes - I agree with much of it - AS THEORY

But this person is apparently NOT transgender.

Some of the assumptions are off.

I think this forum could really get into some DEEP discussion here!

It would be so good to get Dr. Bushong some feedback here! I don't see how, though.

Why don't people ask us about what they assume we are? We have very good brains ourselves.

Lizzy

[Guest Donna Jean]

Why don't people ask us about what they assume we are? We have very good brains ourselves.

Lizzy

Gee, Lizzy.....

Ya think that would work?

Ask us?

That's pretty way out there.......

Donna Jean

[Guest Joanna Phipps]

A quick read - yes - I agree with much of it - AS THEORY

But this person is apparently NOT transgender.

Some of the assumptions are off.

I think this forum could really get into some DEEP discussion here!

It would be so good to get Dr. Bushong some feedback here! I don't see how, though.

Why don't people ask us about what they assume we are? We have very good brains ourselves.

Lizzy

Doc Bushong is NOT trans, however he is one of the doctors at the largest gender clinic in (I think) Miami.

OOPS my bad, I had it wrong, Doc Bushong is in private practice but his philosophy and treatment model can be found here.

[Guest DisDwarf]

I didn't know this person, I found his article by luck while reading other stuff, do you know anything more about him? I liked his idea that gender is a matrix (or a puzzle as I like to think of it), and I thought something along these lines could perhaps help understand people who feel androgynous or bigender.

However you're right that we (as transgender) have much insight to give to the medical community. Some researchers just ask us to complete questionnaires and rarely talk with us as humans, and they could learn more by meeting us rather than by studying us. And yes, it surely helps if the researcher herself/himself is transgender, albeit I wouldn't rule out non-trans researchers either if they have something interesting to say.

Now that I gave this a bit more thought, I think the article's suggestion regarding sexual orientation differences between womyn and men needs more refinement.

He says men have a sexual orientation whereas womyn don't -- he says womyn just do what society expects of them, which I find it a very disturbing suggestion. I think that's a gross generalization. At first I tried keeping an open mind, but now I tend to think this suggestion is just wrong or in need of more refinement.

[Guest ricka]

Overall I liked the article and yes, Lizzie there is a good bit of mixing of fact with theory and assumptions and the latter is where Bushong gets a little murky. But my first read was positive in that it lays out some of the elements (and most likely not all) that make up either independently or in interaction with other elements one's place on the gender spectrum. One thing he does not seem to address is that the place we find on the gender spectrum is not neccessarily static but can be fluid or change over time. What I find positive about the article is Bushong's assertion for a complex biological basis to gender variance---something that most people have little if any clue about who are not gender identity-variant and/or experience a sexual preference outside the norm themselves. Where I thought he got out there were his statements about lesbians. There is research contrary to his statements.

Ricka

[Guest lucinda]

I came across the article a few years back and have since found it very useful as a sort of framework to set my own feelings.

I've used its principles as a basis for explaining my own feelings and desires to my wife; I think with some success.

[Guest Lynnx]

I didn't know this person, I found his article by luck while reading other stuff, do you know anything more about him? I liked his idea that gender is a matrix (or a puzzle as I like to think of it), and I thought something along these lines could perhaps help understand people who feel androgynous or bigender.

However you're right that we (as transgender) have much insight to give to the medical community. Some researchers just ask us to complete questionnaires and rarely talk with us as humans, and they could learn more by meeting us rather than by studying us. And yes, it surely helps if the researcher herself/himself is transgender, albeit I wouldn't rule out non-trans researchers either if they have something interesting to say.

Now that I gave this a bit more thought, I think the article's suggestion regarding sexual orientation differences between womyn and men needs more refinement.

He says men have a sexual orientation whereas womyn don't -- he says womyn just do what society expects of them, which I find it a very disturbing suggestion. I think that's a gross generalization. At first I tried keeping an open mind, but now I tend to think this suggestion is just wrong or in need of more refinement.

I think this is a very good theory. Obviously we are composed of many different things such as how our chromosomes are set up, and how our brain works. He might have got some of the details wrong, but the essence is there.

Regarding sexual orientation, he admits that his theories are controversial; I think that's good. And you'll note that he is NOT talking biological females or males, and he is NOT talking about people whose gender identity is woman or man. He is talking about Brain Sex which he argues is semi-INDEPENDENT of both. in otherwords, you could be a biological male, with a gender identity of female, and a brain sex of male. Indeed you could be any combination.

Also i think that he would agree that any one of those criteria (biology, brain gender, brain sex, gender identity, etc.) would be on a siding scale. In other words, you could have an Extremely Female brain sex, Female brain sex, Slightly Female brain sex, Androgenous brain sex, Slightly male sex, etc. etc.

He does have a male "brain gender" perspective: not integrating, but dissecting, and other stuff that i won't mention. ;-)