Sex, Gender, or Sexual Orientation

[Queerasfck]

Originally Posted by Andrew, Jr.

I just say we are all human beings, and reaching out to each other for love. We are family. How someone id's is a personal choice.

Andrew

Umm, no I don't think it's a choice.

[Linus]

Originally Posted by Andrew, Jr.

I just say we are all human beings, and reaching out to each other for love. We are family. How someone id's is a personal choice.

Andrew

Originally Posted by EzeeTiger

Umm, no I don't think it's a choice.

Actually, I'd disagree, Ez. The actual term we use to define ourselves is the choice (e.g., I use transman while others just use man and yet others use tranny fag). The reason for who we are isn't. (My body and mind do not match)

I think that's what Andrew might have been referring to.

[Andrew, Jr.]

Linus,

Thank you for your help explaining what I was trying to get out.

Love,
Andrew

[Nat]

To me, the line between sex and gender is a little blurry just because I can't help but think that there is a biological component often to a person's gender experience, and once biology enters the picture - is it really sex or gender?

[Daryn]

Originally Posted by Nat

To me, the line between sex and gender is a little blurry just because I can't help but think that there is a biological component often to a person's gender experience, and once biology enters the picture - is it really sex or gender?

Hmmm... can you talk a bit about why you think there is a biological component to gender experience? Do you think it has something to do with the brain (one theory) or hormones that the fetus was exposed to or ?????

On the topic of choice, the only choices I have made in my life are to embrace who I truly am. I found it easier to embrace being queer (loving women) that to embrace my masculinity (long trip from tomboy to trying to be straight girl to androgynous to soft butch to butch to genderqueer guy with no plans to transition). Coming out was a couple of years and while I was in college. The gender journey was a couple of decades...

[Nat]

Originally Posted by Daryn

Hmmm... can you talk a bit about why you think there is a biological component to gender experience? Do you think it has something to do with the brain (one theory) or hormones that the fetus was exposed to or ?????

The first reason I think there's a biological component is because I think humans are basically animals and that it's possible that every part of us has some biological basis.

I know this is exactly the opposite of much of queer theory.

Though I think gender has a performative element, and the way gender is expressed is tied very much to cultural constructions, the part of gender I'm talking about is the stuff that feels innate. Not "gender identity" or "gender expression" but how one experiences one's own gender and sex.

If I feel like there's a guy side of me, is that my psychology? informed by my experiences? Some people might say yes. Is it something spiritual? I sometimes wonder that. But there is always going to be a piece of me that wonders about my own DNA, my own hormone levels, my fetal development, etc. I will always wonder whether my feelings stem from a biological (chemical, developmental, genetic) cause.

And when people talk about experiencing the "phantum phalllus" - how extraordinary is that in a way? I don't know how common that experience is, but I've had it sometimes. I have known many female-bodied people (many who are woman identified, several who are not butch, but most queer) who experience that all of the time. It's hard for me to not think that's biologically based.

But, whether it can be scientifically ever proven - god knows. And I'm not sure I'd want that proven, because if it were something people could affect or discern early enough, how many queer fetuses would be aborted?

The brain is a part of the body, and I think to say that gender is not biologically based would be to say that gender is a result entirely of nurture rather than nature.

With most people I've known, and with my own personal experience, there is some feeling of always having felt a certain way about their gender. I haven't run into a person who says, "when I found out my dad wanted a boy instead of a girl, that's when I started feeling like a boy on the inside." I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I just haven't been exposed to anybody who says they feel like some life-event or influence changed their gender.

I think this is an area where my opinion may be fiercely disagreed with. It's not the informed opinion of a person who's studied this stuff in school or in private scholarly study. It's just my own opinion based on my own feelings and observations, and beyond that, maybe the reason I cling to it so much is that it's a theory that feels supportive to my own experience.

[Daryn]

Originally Posted by Nat

The first reason I think there's a biological component is because I think humans are basically animals and that it's possible that every part of us has some biological basis.

I don't think knowledge or experiences have a biological basis and both of them shape what is intrinsically part of individual identity.

I know this is exactly the opposite of much of queer theory.

Though I think gender has a performative element, and the way gender is expressed is tied very much to cultural constructions, the part of gender I'm talking about is the stuff that feels innate. Not "gender identity" or "gender expression" but how one experiences one's own gender and sex.

If I feel like there's a guy side of me, is that my psychology? informed by my experiences? Some people might say yes. Is it something spiritual? I sometimes wonder that. But there is always going to be a piece of me that wonders about my own DNA, my own hormone levels, my fetal development, etc. I will always wonder whether my feelings stem from a biological (chemical, developmental, genetic) cause.

And the "nuture over nature gang" would see it totally opposite. But I don't necessarily agree with all of that either. I think it's likely a combination of genetics and environment.

And when people talk about experiencing the "phantum phalllus" - how extraordinary is that in a way? I don't know how common that experience is, but I've had it sometimes. I have known many female-bodied people (many who are woman identified, several who are not butch, but most queer) who experience that all of the time. It's hard for me to not think that's biologically based.

I've been told by a very feminine straight woman that she's experienced it.

But, whether it can be scientifically ever proven - god knows. And I'm not sure I'd want that proven, because if it were something people could affect or discern early enough, how many queer fetuses would be aborted?

The brain is a part of the body, and I think to say that gender is not biologically based would be to say that gender is a result entirely of nurture rather than nature.

With most people I've known, and with my own personal experience, there is some feeling of always having felt a certain way about their gender. I haven't run into a person who says, "when I found out my dad wanted a boy instead of a girl, that's when I started feeling like a boy on the inside." I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I just haven't been exposed to anybody who says they feel like some life-event or influence changed their gender.

I think this is an area where my opinion may be fiercely disagreed with. It's not the informed opinion of a person who's studied this stuff in school or in private scholarly study. It's just my own opinion based on my own feelings and observations, and beyond that, maybe the reason I cling to it so much is that it's a theory that feels supportive to my own experience.

And I am betting the truth is part of both...

[Queerasfck]

Originally Posted by Linus

Actually, I'd disagree, Ez. The actual term we use to define ourselves is the choice (e.g., I use transman while others just use man and yet others use tranny fag). The reason for who we are isn't. (My body and mind do not match)

I think that's what Andrew might have been referring to.

Maybe that is what he meant to say Linus but you could read the comment more than one way.
If you and Andrew are speaking strictly about one's own terminology then I would completely agree.

[The_Lady_Snow]

I am pretty sure that I was born Queer...

[Queerasfck]

Originally Posted by The_Lady_Snow

I am pretty sure that I was born Queer...

I agree Lady Snow. As far back as I can recall I was a big queer. I have no problem looking back and knowing that now. But when I was younger and it was actually happening I was pretty oblivious to my attraction to girls .

[The_Lady_Snow]

Originally Posted by EzeeTiger

I agree Lady Snow. As far back as I can recall I was a big queer. I have no problem looking back and knowing that now. But when I was younger and it was actually happening I was pretty oblivious to my attraction to girls .

Yanno I gave this A LOT of thought last night as I layed in bed... This is Snow coming from from *MY* experience so therefore I can speak with truth about it.

I chose to be straight so I would be left alone.. I was born queer, as far back as I can remember. I choose to identify my gender as femme, I choose to eat oreos one way, but how I was and have been, that is no choice, it just is.

[Queerasfck]

Originally Posted by The_Lady_Snow

Yanno I gave this A LOT of thought last night as I layed in bed... This is Snow coming from from *MY* experience so therefore I can speak with truth about it.

I chose to be straight so I would be left alone.. I was born queer, as far back as I can remember. I choose to identify my gender as femme, I choose to eat oreos one way, but how I was and have been, that is no choice, it just is.

Similarly, I chose to be straight for reasons like I didn't want to upset my very conservative Catholic family, specifically my mother. I made myself emotionally unavailable. I chose not to think about any feeling I might have about myself except for anger. I could do that one, it runs in my family.

[Nat]

Originally Posted by The_Lady_Snow

I choose to identify my gender as femme, I choose to eat oreos one way, but how I was and have been, that is no choice, it just is.

I think in this way, you and I just have a different structure/organization to the way we think about it?

For me there is a separation between how a person is and how a person IDs. As a person who also feels like I've always been queer, this is how I think about it for myself.

I was born queer - it's a natural part of me and I suspect it's biological whether or not a biological connection can ever be proven.

I can also ID as queer - which is a choice. What would my other choices be? I could choose to be one of those people who refuses to ID, who says, "love is just where you find it." I could hate the term "queer" because somebody called me that once and it made me cry (for example), and so I might embrace some other term that doesn't make me feel bad. Or I could ID as straight, etc. To me the term "ID" definitely has choice involved in it - the choice to own or not own an identity.

So I think what I am hearing (and I would never dare to speak for you because you make me tremble in my boots!) is that you feel that you are queer by nature / queer since birth - and to me that's not a discussion of "ID" as much as it's an honest open observation about your experience.

[Nat]

And to me there is an element of choice in "ID" that is different from the lack of choice involved in experience.

Am I a femme because I don't have a choice or am I a femme because I claim femme? I choose to claim the term femme because it fits me, but to me it's still a choice to have "femme" as my ID.

It is my experience that I feel both male and female. It is a choice whether I make that part of my ID. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. My choice as to whether to make it part of my ID is informed by my experience but also by other factors - social, political, personal.

I meet people *I* would think are butch, but it's not my call. I think it's the choice to claim an ID that gives you ownership of that ID. I don't know how a person IDs without making a choice.

I am innately queer, but I don't think my ID is queer until I make the choice to own my queerness.

Then again, that's what this thread is about - our different definitions.

[Queerasfck]

Originally Posted by Nat

I meet people *I* would think are butch, but it's not my call.

I was one of those people.