I mean, everyone's assigned a sex at birth against their will, but in most cases it turns out to be congruent with their gender identity.
I cannot prove, but I suspect that connection is more fraught for more people than is usually considered--I don't think most people have the language to explore the feelings of disjunction--some of us are more compelled to than others. Again, there's a reason "you make me feel like a natural woman" works unproblematically for many ciscentric people as a pop lyric, or that "cross-dressing" is central to theater and carnival practices, even in western culture. What's weird about this cultural moment in how the western mainstream talks about sexed bodies is that intersexuality is so not thought about. If common broadsides are any indicator, early modern English speaking folk were much more aware that intersexed people existed than most people now--there needs to be a lot more thinking on why that is and how that came about. If we did, we might think more about the distinctions we make between chromosomes with 4 squiggles and chromosomes with 3 squiggles and wonder if we're missing something through the rigid templates we're applying to how we look at them, or that if the environments impacting our bodies can change our hormonal balances, is sex/gender really a stable unvarying state throughout any of our lives. And I really went on and on here--sorry!
How do you talk about these things if you refuse to make a distinction?
I don't think anyone is born a woman, not cis, trans, or otherwise. I think people are born men to the extent that man is synonymous with our English concept of person, but not male. Which can make me a real pain in the ass to talk to for someone explaining how they were born in the wrong sexed/gendered body. The best I can do is shut the fuck up and listen when someone is sharing, and share mine only when there's appropriate space for it. I'm still trying to figure out how to respectfully accept differences in this view and also hope for respectful acceptance of mine.
And yes, I think the defensiveness around non-binary identities is a function of cisgender = normal.
Agreed. I think it's also compounded by the idea that people think of sex as something separate from gender and as binary. Many are willing to see gender, unlike sex, as nonbinary, but do consider it less authentic than they would if they saw it as essential--as if our social beings can be shed merely by being named, and as if we'd want to. "I was born this way" is a necessary defense (not that it is only that) for many trans, gay, and lesbian identities in the face of that, even if it drives fairly rabid constructivists, like me, batty.
I'm sorry about erasing race, because obviously you can't ignore it.
I'm also struggling to understand the intersections here.
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Date: 2009-07-24 09:21 pm (UTC)I cannot prove, but I suspect that connection is more fraught for more people than is usually considered--I don't think most people have the language to explore the feelings of disjunction--some of us are more compelled to than others. Again, there's a reason "you make me feel like a natural woman" works unproblematically for many ciscentric people as a pop lyric, or that "cross-dressing" is central to theater and carnival practices, even in western culture. What's weird about this cultural moment in how the western mainstream talks about sexed bodies is that intersexuality is so not thought about. If common broadsides are any indicator, early modern English speaking folk were much more aware that intersexed people existed than most people now--there needs to be a lot more thinking on why that is and how that came about. If we did, we might think more about the distinctions we make between chromosomes with 4 squiggles and chromosomes with 3 squiggles and wonder if we're missing something through the rigid templates we're applying to how we look at them, or that if the environments impacting our bodies can change our hormonal balances, is sex/gender really a stable unvarying state throughout any of our lives. And I really went on and on here--sorry!
How do you talk about these things if you refuse to make a distinction?
I don't think anyone is born a woman, not cis, trans, or otherwise. I think people are born men to the extent that man is synonymous with our English concept of person, but not male. Which can make me a real pain in the ass to talk to for someone explaining how they were born in the wrong sexed/gendered body. The best I can do is shut the fuck up and listen when someone is sharing, and share mine only when there's appropriate space for it. I'm still trying to figure out how to respectfully accept differences in this view and also hope for respectful acceptance of mine.
And yes, I think the defensiveness around non-binary identities is a function of cisgender = normal.
Agreed. I think it's also compounded by the idea that people think of sex as something separate from gender and as binary. Many are willing to see gender, unlike sex, as nonbinary, but do consider it less authentic than they would if they saw it as essential--as if our social beings can be shed merely by being named, and as if we'd want to. "I was born this way" is a necessary defense (not that it is only that) for many trans, gay, and lesbian identities in the face of that, even if it drives fairly rabid constructivists, like me, batty.
I'm sorry about erasing race, because obviously you can't ignore it.
I'm also struggling to understand the intersections here.