Recently I met a person who was born a female and now wants to be referred to as 'he'. This person is a college friend of my daughter's and, as we drove home, Emily and I had a lively discussion about the concept of changing one's gender. Having never given this very much thought, I nevertheless weighed in with several opinions, some uninformed, as is my wont. So here I am, faced with this interesting situation: a trans-gender person has come into the sphere of my awareness and acquaintance and now it has become necessary for me to understand what I think about that.
My first thought was this: I can acknowledge that this person was born into a body of a certain gender and does not feel at home in that body. We are fellow human beings and I wish this person well. However, just because someone wishes to be referred to with non-standard pronouns because of gender identity issues, that does not necessarily obligate me to modify my use of language.
My second thought was: this is extremely confusing. Here is a person with a very feminine face and hour-glass figure, and who is, genetically and plumbing-wise, a female, who wishes to be regarded and referred to as a male. My mind has a hard time reconciling the two facts and I want to understand why this is difficult for me to assimilate.
This is not just a linguistic problem of using 'he' or 'she'. It is far deeper than that. In fact, I would say that my awareness of your gender is absolutely fundamental to how I behave and communicate with you. I'm not talking about chivalry and role stereotyping. It's more subtle than that. When I come into contact with someone, one of the first things my mind does, totally unconsciously, is to place that person into one of two buckets: male or female. Even as I say that, I can feel the waves of disapproval from all the non-judgmental enlightened ones judging me in a very unenlightened way for my bigotry and intolerance. Fortunately, I understand that their disapproval is merely the result of their own ignorance and prejudice and so I do not judge them for it; it's just a phase necessary to their development.
However, at least from a linguistic standpoint, I am on firm ground in assessing and assigning gender as a prerequisite to speech because the English language, like almost all others, is replete with gender-dependent constructs. This means that one cannot converse with or about another person, except in a painfully rudimentary way, without taking into consideration that person's gender.
As I said before, this is not just a linguistic problem. By dint of introspection and reflection, I have tried to identify some of the conscious and unconscious ways that your gender informs my behavior. Women have different personal space requirements with other women than they do with men. Men have different personal space requirements with women than they do with other men. Men-men body language is different from men-women or women-women body language. Physical and emotional attraction only make it more difficult to NOT put people into their gender buckets. The plain fact of the matter is this: gender is a primary constituent of both our physical and psychological make up. We can't get past it and we can't get around it. It is pointless to try.
So, for now, here is my official stance on this matter: my assessment of your gender, and my placing you into a male or female bucket is based on the outward expression of your genes, not on your internal perceptions. To put it more simply, if you're plumbed as a girl, you're a girl. If you're plumbed as a boy, you're a boy. Many of the unconscious behaviors of my psyche are keyed to this distinction and there's not a whole lot I can do about it. You can be born a female and feel 100% that you are a male inside your brain, but you still won't be invited into the boys locker room. You can be born a male and feel 100% female, but that doesn't mean you're welcome in the girls locker room. Your entry pass into your respective locker room, for better or for worse, is between your legs.
As much as I hate labels, and this post is all about labels, I guess this stance makes me a "hardware-ist". If you disagree with me on a principled basis, then you are probably a "software-ist". If you disagree with me out of uninformed, knee-jerk multiculturalism, then you're an uninformed knee-jerk multiculturalist.
In my head, I have buckets for female and male. There is no such thing as gender neutral. You must fit into one my buckets or I don't know how to relate to you in a meaningful way. Nature has decreed this. I am not willing or able to create a new bucket for every person I meet. It's too much to ask. So the best I can do for now is to have a bucket for ambiguous gender. If I'm not sure what you are, we can be friends at a certain level, but it will take a very long time to build up a set of linguistic and interpersonal conventions that allow us to relate without awkwardness.
And by the way, this is not just me spouting off, nor is it a new topic. Even Saturday Night Live has dealt with the intractable nature of gender ambiguity in their inimitable way.
My first thought was this: I can acknowledge that this person was born into a body of a certain gender and does not feel at home in that body. We are fellow human beings and I wish this person well. However, just because someone wishes to be referred to with non-standard pronouns because of gender identity issues, that does not necessarily obligate me to modify my use of language.
My second thought was: this is extremely confusing. Here is a person with a very feminine face and hour-glass figure, and who is, genetically and plumbing-wise, a female, who wishes to be regarded and referred to as a male. My mind has a hard time reconciling the two facts and I want to understand why this is difficult for me to assimilate.
This is not just a linguistic problem of using 'he' or 'she'. It is far deeper than that. In fact, I would say that my awareness of your gender is absolutely fundamental to how I behave and communicate with you. I'm not talking about chivalry and role stereotyping. It's more subtle than that. When I come into contact with someone, one of the first things my mind does, totally unconsciously, is to place that person into one of two buckets: male or female. Even as I say that, I can feel the waves of disapproval from all the non-judgmental enlightened ones judging me in a very unenlightened way for my bigotry and intolerance. Fortunately, I understand that their disapproval is merely the result of their own ignorance and prejudice and so I do not judge them for it; it's just a phase necessary to their development.
However, at least from a linguistic standpoint, I am on firm ground in assessing and assigning gender as a prerequisite to speech because the English language, like almost all others, is replete with gender-dependent constructs. This means that one cannot converse with or about another person, except in a painfully rudimentary way, without taking into consideration that person's gender.
As I said before, this is not just a linguistic problem. By dint of introspection and reflection, I have tried to identify some of the conscious and unconscious ways that your gender informs my behavior. Women have different personal space requirements with other women than they do with men. Men have different personal space requirements with women than they do with other men. Men-men body language is different from men-women or women-women body language. Physical and emotional attraction only make it more difficult to NOT put people into their gender buckets. The plain fact of the matter is this: gender is a primary constituent of both our physical and psychological make up. We can't get past it and we can't get around it. It is pointless to try.
So, for now, here is my official stance on this matter: my assessment of your gender, and my placing you into a male or female bucket is based on the outward expression of your genes, not on your internal perceptions. To put it more simply, if you're plumbed as a girl, you're a girl. If you're plumbed as a boy, you're a boy. Many of the unconscious behaviors of my psyche are keyed to this distinction and there's not a whole lot I can do about it. You can be born a female and feel 100% that you are a male inside your brain, but you still won't be invited into the boys locker room. You can be born a male and feel 100% female, but that doesn't mean you're welcome in the girls locker room. Your entry pass into your respective locker room, for better or for worse, is between your legs.
As much as I hate labels, and this post is all about labels, I guess this stance makes me a "hardware-ist". If you disagree with me on a principled basis, then you are probably a "software-ist". If you disagree with me out of uninformed, knee-jerk multiculturalism, then you're an uninformed knee-jerk multiculturalist.
In my head, I have buckets for female and male. There is no such thing as gender neutral. You must fit into one my buckets or I don't know how to relate to you in a meaningful way. Nature has decreed this. I am not willing or able to create a new bucket for every person I meet. It's too much to ask. So the best I can do for now is to have a bucket for ambiguous gender. If I'm not sure what you are, we can be friends at a certain level, but it will take a very long time to build up a set of linguistic and interpersonal conventions that allow us to relate without awkwardness.
And by the way, this is not just me spouting off, nor is it a new topic. Even Saturday Night Live has dealt with the intractable nature of gender ambiguity in their inimitable way.
Comments
Well, nature and plastic surgeons. Don't visit Orchard Towers here in S'pore because the abundance of lady-boys may cause your head to explode. ;) What do you do when you find out that that attractive young woman is really a he? ;)