Monday, September 9, 2013

Gender/Sex/Sexuality 2.0

The comments on my last post rather confused me.  I know that gender lies in the brain and sex is a physical expression of genetic coding.  Believe me when I tell you that I am all the other trans folk are walking expressions of that definition.  Our meat suits don't fit our gender, a gender which we know to be truer than true.  My gender is male, no question about it.  However....

What I was asking, what is it that makes a male, a Man.  Is it solely the having of a male body?  Can one be a man while living inside of a female body?   This might be a tricky concept for gender/sex matching humans to understand, due to the fact you've never had the need to question where you lie within the male/female continuum.   A time before your memories, you KNEW yourself to be male/female.  Just like myself and other trans folk knew, the only difference is the entire world, including their bodies told them otherwise.

No, what I'm asking is more basic.  If I were to show up in my girl suit to a gay men's group would/should I be accepted?  What are societies rules about claiming to be a man, but not looking nor sounding a thing like a man? 

Sexuality is yet another question.  Merriam Webster defines homosexual thusly:
1
: of, relating to, or characterized by a tendency to direct sexual desire toward another of the same sex
2
: of, relating to, or involving sexual intercourse between persons of the same sex

Technically, I'm straight as my sex is most definitely unarguably female.  Wikipedia mentions gender with sex in its description of homosexuality.  I'm going with the wiki definition, as it fits my world view. 

I KNOW who and what I am, male and gay, what I'm asking is about validation and acceptance in society.  There is a still a wide swath of GLB that hate up on all transgender humans.  If I've read it once, I've read it thousands of times from both sides of the gender aisle about why the T is even included in GLB because they aren't a sexual minority.  Honestly, from my side of the fence, the T's ARE a sexual minority, folk born within the wrong sex, and an even tinier minority than GBL's are.  One thing that really hurts T's  within GLBT groups, is that many of them categorically refuse to define their sexuality, straight, gay, bi, lesbian or asexual.  What's the major malfunction in labeling who excites you sexually?

At the core of my questionings is what is it that defines the state of being male, or female?  What makes a male a man?






4 comments:

  1. Well, as i said before, it's not genitals because a castrated man is still a man, so it's got to be something genetic, something coded in your DNA, hardwired to your brain.

    I mean, you're male, trapped in a body that does not look like the stereotypical male, but then your brain and genetics don't fit the ideal of what your body looks like.

    I guess I'm saying it's not the body, it's the mind, the genetics, the wiring.

    Men, and women, too, for that matter, are straight, and gay, and bisexual, and transgender. So, if a man can be all of those things, it must be in the genetics and not the packaging.

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  2. I believe that people should be accepted on the gender they feel most at home with. We ask our youth what gender pronouns they prefer, regardless of presentation, and try very hard to respect that. So I think you SHOULD be accepted in a gay men's group. I know in our gender mixed youth groups, it's stated preference over body or presentation.

    Peace <3
    Jay

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  3. Once again an excellent post, and a very thought provoking question.

    I don't think that it is anything intrinsically about the male body that makes one a man, I think that it is has to be a combination of things, of which viewing ones self as a man is the only real important piece, but after that I don't know. It just seems to be a quality, but it seems to exist beyond what the stereotypes would have us thinking makes someone a "man".

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  4. I don't think it's genitals. I think it's genetics. Maybe after all it's where you feel most comfortable.

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