Posted: Jan 12, 2011 3:44 pm
Yeah, gender =/= sex, but that is why I always felt uncomfortable with the word "transgender". I don't really feel like it's my socially-constructed sense of gender that has been in question here, if that makes sense. I really don't care about conforming to social expectations of male or female.
This is pretty much why I don't think it's appropriate to classify GID as, well, "GID" -- gender identity disorder. This is also why I don't think it's appropriate to imply that one's awareness of the fact that they are trans is due to conflict about one's "gender". Perhaps this is the case for some people, but it wasn't for me, and it wasn't for a large number of other people I know.
For the record, I know that I sometimes felt pressured to conform to male social expectations because of, well, pressure in general. I don't want to be abused or derided and that often means not making oneself stand out. But that pressure existed because I already knew I wanted to have a masculine body, not the other way around. I've often wondered if some trans people get it confused. They know that they, say, want to wear dresses and own cutesy things and think that is what makes them feel female, when really they may have already "felt female" or desired a female body and are sensitive enough to the social role of female that they want to incorporate every aspect of femininity into their lives, perhaps as a way of feeling "normal".
I've often felt pretty crappy about not being born with a body that I can tolerate, and it's pretty easy to overcompensate when feelings like that pop up.
This is pretty much why I don't think it's appropriate to classify GID as, well, "GID" -- gender identity disorder. This is also why I don't think it's appropriate to imply that one's awareness of the fact that they are trans is due to conflict about one's "gender". Perhaps this is the case for some people, but it wasn't for me, and it wasn't for a large number of other people I know.
For the record, I know that I sometimes felt pressured to conform to male social expectations because of, well, pressure in general. I don't want to be abused or derided and that often means not making oneself stand out. But that pressure existed because I already knew I wanted to have a masculine body, not the other way around. I've often wondered if some trans people get it confused. They know that they, say, want to wear dresses and own cutesy things and think that is what makes them feel female, when really they may have already "felt female" or desired a female body and are sensitive enough to the social role of female that they want to incorporate every aspect of femininity into their lives, perhaps as a way of feeling "normal".
I've often felt pretty crappy about not being born with a body that I can tolerate, and it's pretty easy to overcompensate when feelings like that pop up.