Gender Introduction

The Difference Between Gender and Sexuality:

• Gender is who you go to bed as, while sexuality is who you go to bed with

What are the options?

Perhaps the easiest way to explain gender is with what I prefer to refer to as the Triangle Analogy; often, we discuss gender as a spectrum between male and female, but that isn’t necessarily accurate. There is male, female, and then a third “other” option. Each of these categories overlap with one another, with no characteristics necessarily being able to be pinpointed as one distinct gender’s attributes.

***I personally feel as if this is a smidge outdated as well; I feel as if the Square Analogy is more appropriate, with a fourth point representing a lack of gender. Gender can be considered in a variety of dimensions, but I personally believe that this is the easiest to conceptualize for people dipping their toes into identifying and discussing gender.

But what is it?

There are a few definitions that we can go with:

• World Health Organization: Refers to the socially constructed characteristics of women and men – such as norms, roles, and relationships of and between groups of women and men. It varies from society to society and can be changed. The concept of gender includes five important elements: relational, hierarchical, historical, contextual, and institutional.

• American Academy of Pediatrics: gender identity evolves as an interplay of biology, development, socialization, and culture

Philosophy:

• Judith Butler: Although her work has focused upon sexuality, Judith Butler is largely credited with the idea that gender is largely a performative construct, separate from sex. In fact, she specifically states that “gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original” and in reference to sexuality, “sexuality is precisely that which does not appear and that which, to some degree, can never appear.” One can take her stance on gender to imply that there is no basis for gender and it is simply socially constructed and learned. However, her ideas on sexuality seem more suited for the concept of gender; the idea that it is an internal feeling that one is trying to express externally. She does recognize that it is imperfect to equate gender expression with gender identity though, using drag as evidence: “Drag constitutes the mundane way in which genders are appropriate theatricalized, worn, and done; it implies that all gendering is a kind of impersonation and approximation” (Butler). People’s expression of gender may not necessarily match up with their internal sense of gender, but that doesn’t invalidate that internal sense of gender.

• The case of David Reimer: David Reimer was a man who had had a botched circumcision when he was incredibly young; seeking guidance, his family approached the doctor Dr. John Money who had fully believed in the theory that gender was entirely socially constructed and that you could raise someone to be a different gender. Under his guidance, Reimer’s family proceeded with sexual reassignment surgery and hormone replacement therapy for Reimer, raising him as a girl. He experienced significant cognitive dissonance and eventually established himself as a male again. He died by suicide and his family believes that this was the product of the distress that he experienced as a consequence of the imposed gender identity.

  • Reimer’s circumstances demonstrate how gender is not an entirely socially constructed experience. It is one that has a foundation within some indescribable internal identity. Many experience a similar identity, which results in the creation of gender categories like male and female. It is a feeling that you can't change or be convinced out of and directly dispels the myth of conversion therapy being an effective tactic to change one's gender identity.