"Joy and pleasure are as real as pain and sorrow and one must learn what they have to teach. . . ." -- Sean Russell, from Gatherer of Clouds

"If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right." -- Helyn D. Goldenberg

"I love you and I'm not afraid." -- Evanescence, "My Last Breath"

“If I hear ‘not allowed’ much oftener,” said Sam, “I’m going to get angry.” -- J.R.R. Tolkien, from Lord of the Rings

Friday, September 06, 2013

About That Either/Or Thing

with all the fuss the right is kicking up about trans people lately, I found this article particularly interesting:

Despite rich and varied histories that demonstrate it isn't so, most societies function on the premise that all humans are easily classifiable as male or female, and that we can identify who is who by looking at genitals, hormones, and chromosomes. Usually human experience (one of the things we call "culture") is juxtaposed with science in this regard. The science, we're told is more cut and dry. Only it isn't. Medicine and science has for some time documented that humans are not easily categorizable into one of two sexes. If you look carefully at the research, sexual diversity, on the level of genital appearance, hormones and chromosomes, is present and predictable in humans. To use the language of normativity, the fact that some of us don't fit into one of two boxes is as normal as the fact that some of us do.

I suspect a lot of the confusion, if I can call it that, in this area is due in large part to our tendency to think in dichotomies: everything is either/or, and therefore, people are either male or female. Unfortunately for those who are locked into that mode, we know that's not true.

This also ties into the confusion between "sex" and "gender." For some reason, people are reluctant to use the word "sex" when describing -- well, sex, as in male or female. There has been a growing tendency to use "gender" instead, which, as far as I'm concerned, just confuses the issue even more. (I suspect that's because of the American reticence about sex in general -- in spite of Hollywood and the advertising industry, it's not something a lot of people are comfortable talking about, due to the same mindset that gave us "either/or" -- it's dirty.) The same author came up with a nice, succinct description of the difference between the two:

Nothing in life is ever really black and white, or clear cut. But in broad terms, we can distinguish sex from gender by describing sex as something that is biological, and gender as something that is social and cultural. Or we might say that sex refers to the body, our genitals and our chromosomes, while gender refers to the meaning we put on our bodies.

That, of course, leads into the topic of androgyny, but aside from recommending June Singer's book of that title, I'm not going to go there.

Sex and gender and the variations within those categories are enough to think about this morning.

Thanks to Anel Viz at Nick's Place.

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