Was it Sigmund Freud who said, "Biology is destiny?" When really it's simply a self fulfilling prophecy, writes Ruth Walker of Logan Park High School.
When a baby is born, it's perfectly normal to enquire whether the child is a boy or a girl. Yet by this casual and amiable question, the child is immediately labelled and will spend its whole life under the influence of the expectations that come with the sex and gender they were assigned at birth.
They may never notice that everything, from what they wear, eat , watch on TV, who they're friends with and the way they walk and talk has been moulded and regulated by the gender rules of the society they're in. Martine Rothblatt, a Trans woman (a man who has transitioned to living as and being a woman) and the author of "The Apartheid of Sex" has pointed out what this could essentially be: a type of apartheid.
I spoke to James Burford, the OUSA Queer Support coordinator and Same-Difference Youth group facilitator, and discovered there are at least three main sexes; male, female and intersex. "When we're talking about [sex] we're talking about chromosomes, genitalia, [and] hormones". Intersex means "someone who might have been born with genitalia which is not either male or female, maybe female reproductive systems and testes". Rothblatt states that as many as 4 percent of births are to some extent intersexed, though "often internal and hence generally undiscovered."
Gender has a different meaning from sex. Gender covers the social roles and expectations we all carry round inside our heads. It's what makes us think of pink as a feminine colour and blue for boys. Gender is a cultural thing, a stereotype we're taught how to be. Children soon discover that whether you're a boy or a girl is for some reason very important. They notice the way so many things are separated into male and female. Names, clothes, hairstyles, toilets, sports teams, language (he, she, good morning boys and girls) toys, jewellery, makeup, job stereotypes (doctors and nurses). It isn't any wonder that as a child you accept there must be something fundamentally different about boys and girls from all this fuss.
In the book "Delusions of Gender" by Cordelia Fine, she remembers her son in kindergarten, asking if he could look at a classmate's book. "'No", the little girl told him. ‘Boys aren't allowed to look at books about fairies.'" It seems that once we have learnt the gender stereotypes, and told we are a girl or boy, we believe we should fit into one of them and become afraid of breaking the "rules" trying hard to be what's expected of us. As Burford says, we're all "policing each other on our gender expression". Fine describes a boy observed by David Woodward at a preschool "furtively dressing and undressing a doll under the table, looking over his shoulder to make sure he wasn't spotted by the other boys."
These gender roles become so ingrained we cease to notice them and the effect they're having. One mother in "Delusions of Gender" who attempting gender neutral parenting "insisted on supplying her daughter with tools rather than dolls finally gave up when she discovered the child undressing a hammer and singing it to sleep. ‘It must be hormonal', was the mother's explanation. At least until someone asked who had been putting her daughter to bed."
By this self fulfilling prophecy of gender, most people will stay cis-gendered (according to Wikipedia "individuals who have a match between the gender they were assigned at birth, their bodies, and their personal identity") their whole lives. Other people decide to do their own thing, finding a mix of sex, gender and gender identity that suits them personally. This can mean transgender, transsexual, cross-dressing, androgynous, intersex...a whole multitude of things.
The Trans movement developed during the 1980s and means "well, whatever Trans people want it to mean," says Burford. In "The Apartheid of Sex" it states the "guiding principal of the movement is that people should be free to change, either temporarily or permanently, the sex type to which they were assigned." For some people their gender is a fluid thing which changes over their lifetime, while for others it isn't.
Burford has friends who "were really happy being women as they were growing up and then realised that they had a desire to be men. And that's what they are now. It doesn't mean that they drink Speight's and go and watch rugby...but their gender identity and the way they understand themselves and want the world to see them is as men."
In our gender rigid society there are lots of things that can be changed to make it a more accepting culture. "Start with the basics...the forms we fill in all the time. Why do I need to say whether I'm male or female?" Using public toilets can be an "uncomfortable experience for someone who doesn't comfortably fit the gender expectations."
In our society, an easily identifiable gender is usually taken for granted, and along with age, ethnicity, and clothes, consciously or subconsciously used to make judgements on a person. It can make people feel awkward or confused when suddenly one of the tools subconsciously used for evaluating how to act toward someone isn't clear, but in a gender fluid society the idea of knowing someone's sex and gender when you first meet them would be gone. Instead of seeing them as a man or woman they would simply be a person.
I did want to know though, what's polite when you can't tell someone's gender and need to use a pronoun for them, can you just ask? "It really depends on the person, the context, but most of the time Trans people are generous and happy to say. I mean if someone's obviously presenting as a woman I think you can take that cue, but if someone has a more androgynous look then sure, ask".
It becomes clear there are an infinite number of ways to look at gender and sex, and to exist, different from the two cut and dried stereotypes taught to us as children. Instead of being labelled as pink or blue, people can pick their own place on a vast continuum of sex and gender. Maybe in the future people will excitedly ask new parents, "Is it a girl, boy or intersex?" and then not restrict the child's gender to a stereotype, letting them become whoever they want to be.
For more information, or questions, Same-Difference is a local queer/questions youth group. Email samediffdunedin@gmail.com
