Why Exactly Am I So Sensitive Toward Gender?

[Guest Samurai_Kid]

I'm one of those people who wouldn't bat an eye at a guy wearing a dress. Someone who would give a boy a doll or pretty pink dress if I wanted.

Someone who just don't care about gender; people should do what they want and people should accept that. I think that gender roles shouldn't exist.

Yet I have a very.. Odd reaction toward gender related topics.

Like, for example, I had to donate something to charity for my school. The thing said for either boy or girl; I picked for men. Some conversations and stuff happened, and my parents ended up subtly talking about gender for like five minutes.

Enter an awkward feeling here. I don't know why but I basically panicked, or at least stiffened up.

My dad asked if I made sure I labeled it for a boy, because I may have put feminine stuff in it. I said "Boys and girls can have anything", or something to that affect, and he mentioned "I can just imagine a boy in a dress". I just grumbled a "Thats fine", but I doubt he noticed or cared.

When people call me a girl.. I don't like that, but I'm unsure. What's the difference between a boy and a girl? It's the social reaction that gets to me, I suppose. Gender is social; it doesn't exist in nature.

[Guest Sascha]

Very wise. I think you are right on all points. I personally think that gender (gender distortion & gender amplification) are responsible for many, many problems in this world, including war. Moreover, who teaches boys to play with guns? it's a social thing, too.

[Guest Elizabeth K]

Your title maybe should read "Why am I so tolerent toward the blending of the genders?"

Lizzy

[Sakura]

i don't flinch at boys playing with dolls and girls playing with tonka trucks but, gender in and of its self. i think is innate . and driven by evolution . both in humans and in nature . there have been many examples . of this . threw the 70s 80s and early 90s . common practice with child born with ambigouse genitalia . was to "fix" them. like boys born with a penis considered to small to be applicably considered to be a normal male penis . it was often decided . that for that childs benefit he should be made into a girl. and same for girls. but the failure of this became extreamly apparent as these children began to grow and become socialized in there assigned gender roles. most fought it instead prefering to play with toys more common of their original gender role . and wear clothing appropreate with their original gender role.

i know one such person personally , my boy friends cousin , at his birth his penis was dubbed to small to ever pleasure a woman. or for him to function as a man so he was . made into christina . while i didn't know him as a little kid. i have heard most of the stories . soon as he was old enough to make the difference . and even though his mom and dad .fallowed the dr orders and heavily socialized him. as a girl . he demanded toy guns and trucks for bdays and xmas . jeans appose to skirts . very atypical boy stuff . around 12-13 his parents finally came clean with him. about what was done to him........ he spent the next few years in a mental hospital . and when he came out he was . chris and filed a law suit against the hospital that did this too him. and they paid for him to have srs to correct it . and now doctors . are not allowed to "fix" but leave it up to the child when he/she is old enough. simply because in virtually every one of them they always wanted to be the original gender they were changed from. even transsexuals. we are raised . being told we are male or female . socialized as much as possible as or precived gender. and sooner or later become the men or women we always beleived our selves to be.

gender roles and recognition are also just as prevalent in nature as human society. male lion cubs are not taught to fight . or go out and seek a pride. its born into them . same goes for gender recognition. when a male lion fights for a pride and loses . a strange thing happens to his mane. it falls out. and looks like a large female females lions wont mate with him . and male lions no longer see him as a threat . and usually ignored as a challenger . the mane . is sexually dimorphic . and enables other liones to quickly tell if he is male or female and his status . a dominate male lion as a golden mane. a less dominate has a dark or black mane.

gender roles are a evolutionary construct more than. a social one. though. i believe they are far more amplified. now than they have ever been in the past. but with out life would come to a crashing hault. i suppose life might find a way. but life i imagine would be far more different. than we know it now with out gender .

Sakura

P.S not attempting to start a fight or debate. i just love these types of convos

[Guest Lily B]

I know exactly what you mean. It is true that gender is a social construct, but for some reason thinking about it makes me extremely emotional, too. Those ideas make me feel panicky and nervous, and I think to a great extent it comes from internal strife at being brought up in a certain way which disagrees with what you have figured out is true about yourself and the way the world works.

I think the best way I've found to deal with it is a "change of variables", basically.

Since the words male and female are so emotional for me I basically came up with different words which made sure were defined as precisely as I could make them.

And, sure enough, thinking about the same ideas in the new terminology makes me a lot less emotional, and I have an easier time thinking about it.

Granted, it still makes me emotional just not uncontrollably so, which is quite helpful and clarifying.

[Guest Sascha]

Interesting ideas, Sakura.

However, while we still have some of those instincts, I can imagine they will become (or partly became) rudimentary with the evolution of our brains. If I really wanna step on the crazy train: Maybe we are evolving right now into androgyne creatures? evolution is slow, but signs are here all around us. In any event, it could also be a psychological evolution.