Sex, And Gender, And Freudian Slips.

[amp501]

Good evening all,

This is most definitely open to anyone reading, but I'm dropping this in the Rainbow section as it pertains, in largest part, to this side of life. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

So. My Sociology professor, author Michael Kimmel and the Sociology faculty staff at UNT, on a whole, define Sex as "A dichotomous grouping of people based on historically contingent, socially significant aspects of morphology, reproduction and sexuality." this definition was an exam question which proceeded to ask the student (me) to put it into my own words. that part wasn't particularly hard. It then goes on to ask about how this definition varies from it's "common sense" counterpart. That counterpart generally assumes one's sex is define by their physical features and sexual orientation.

Now, Sociology has opened up a black and a white side to the argument, I'd like to venture into the realm of gray. Anyone reading this, feel free to comment on how you describe sex, the noun, not the verb. Where do you fit in the sex color wheel? How do you define your basis of Sex?

Thanks!

if you need me to explain any part of this, feel free to ask.

[Sophie ♥]

Well, to me the term 'sex' appeals to biological standards... meaning male and female... and you know, the in between stuff.

But 'gender' is a different story. In all honesty, although society stereotypically groups us into two categories (of boys and girls) I do feel gender is all grey. I feel that it's a sort of spectrum... not to offend anyone, but all boys are girly and all girls are boyish in some way. I mean... if you take every emotion/attraction/hobby/feeling/thought/etc and categorize it as either "boy" or "girl"... you're bound to get at least one from each side that make a personality.

Eh... I'm sleepy and being confusing. Sorry.

-Sophie

[PrincessDragonette]

Well, to me the term 'sex' appeals to biological standards... meaning male and female... and you know, the in between stuff.

But 'gender' is a different story. In all honesty, although society stereotypically groups us into two categories (of boys and girls) I do feel gender is all grey. I feel that it's a sort of spectrum... not to offend anyone, but all boys are girly and all girls are boyish in some way. I mean... if you take every emotion/attraction/hobby/feeling/thought/etc and categorize it as either "boy" or "girl"... you're bound to get at least one from each side that make a personality.

Eh... I'm sleepy and being confusing. Sorry.

-Sophie

Made sense to me, and I agree totally . Besides, I'm far too tired to come up with something myself .

[KittenAB]

First, you are confusing gender and sex, sex is an act and a completely ideological status, while gender is the physical and genetic (the two can conflict) make up of a being. Here's the thing though, what we know of life is that it's not binary. So to categorize things based on a very strict system such as what one person believes it to be, is just irresponsible at best. While a majority of a species will tend toward one system of gender, sex itself is not naturally bound to any real rules other than survival of a species. When a species survival is not at risk then the sexual behavior of the species and their sex (the sexual identity) becomes varied based on factors which we seem unable to determine. In short, sex is just like one's taste if foods.

Some of this is opinion, but it's all based on top scientific research on the subject. I am nonsexual and have no gender identity to that extent. My gender identity only fits in the realm of fashion, as I am not attracted to anyone or anything sexually. Try asking your professor to explain that one.

[Bettypooh]

And how do they explain the Intersexed people-like Caster Semenya for Instance? And she's not alone at all. My best friend (RIP) came out of surgery for something else and had the surgeon tell him that they had discovered some atrophied female organs inside of him that they removed while they were in there I've met people who had both a functioning penis and a vagina- as well as other variations Even with physical sex there's no clear line discerning a split between M and F Please educate your educators for us- here's a start: Intersex Society of North America

In my 50+ years of living I find that there really is little "black or white"- most of the world falls into some "shade of gray" so when someone tries to make me believe in an either/or situation my BS detector goes full-scale and they're going to have to do some really good proving before I believe them If they cannot prove their belief yet refuse to admit their mistake my respect for their intelligence drops quickly Just because something is in a book and a teacher says it's correct doesn't necessarily make it true!

Bettypooh

[LILJIM]

Just because something is in a book and a teacher says it's correct doesn't necessarily make it true!

Bettypooh

I agree with this part!!! A boss at work asks me if I could divide a fraction & get the answer given. I could not because the problem in his text book was wrong. Anyone can get anthing printed that does not make it TRUE!!! As for the topic I feel it's gray too.

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

This being a techically deep topic. It is nescessary that one can use the lexicon and be prepared to handle the compexity

The best account I've heard of it comes from one of the LG's I met online. Her name is "Taffy" and she said "Sex is physical; gender is between the ears".

Sociology is a bad place to start for definitions. Sociology is about groups of persons. To have a group of anything you must have the individuals that make up that group. So you have to start with something more individually based. Since this means behavior-based traits, faculties and attributes, that means Psychology.

The only given is the physiology. which is for the most part dimorphous (basically the same creature but in two basic "models" the topic related traits of which occur in properly functioning specimens of each in variable amounts between 0 and x).

Observationally, we know that the brains of each model have structural parts to control their functions, that these parts differ in the two models and, as with general human nature. their use is learned, not innate.

Part of that is behaviors. These, along with sensory cues, indicate ability and readiness to act in that area

Being learned. the specific behaviors are optional and do not affect the physical structure Thus if johnny likes to wear dresses, that does not affect his ability to get it on (It may affect the perception of Johnny by self and others, but not the ability.) This differentiation of Form and Function has been part of, and in some ways the bane of, Psychology since the late nineteenth century with one "school" being called "Structuralism" and the ohter "Functionalism". with each saying that it's "ism" was the Holy Grail of psychology

Gender is the group of cues and behaviors that relate to sexual activity. They are associated with, but not a necessary function of this activity. As I said, Johnny can like to weard dresses, alice bands and carry a purse all hel wants and that will not affect his physcial make-up. Nur will it affect his sexuality except to say that most TG's and LG's that I've come across are flaming hetero. The problem can set in with perception of self by self and others.

For a personalized look at this, you should read my blog: "The Making of a Little Girl" and "Why I am NOT a Sissy". The point being Sex is physical and gender is learend. The nub is that it is learned at such a young age that by the time one can examine it intellectually, it is part of the one doing the examining. Since gender-wise one is usually one or the other. one can fall into the Fallacy of the Substitution of the Part for the Whole (I am masculine so that is how I define gender. I am feminine so that is how I define gender; or worse, one is more valuable than the other and the other is defined in the terms of the "more valuable" one). I will not even get into Edwards et al who attached "gender" to behavior and held that gendered traits exist normally in both sexes with one being predominant in one sex and the other in the other but not sharply delineated. That is more my outlook. I hold that the two genders are complementary and exist in each. If we did not have both, the the "opposite [complementary]" gender would be so alien that we could not rationally evaluate the persons that they are part of. Beyond that, I hold to a fundamental inequality of gender since they are not interchangeable, and replace gender equality with gender equivalence since they are different but of equal value. Look at it this way 3+4=7, 2+5=7. 2, 3, 4 and 5, are different values but the result of precess is the same; 7.

One problem can occur when the person believes that he is "trapped in the wrong body". I am perfectly happy with both of what I am. My "little" is a girl for our purposes here. It was in dealing with that, in the context of being part of the Transgener Gude forum that I cam up with the term "2G", since I and other TG's were perfectly satisfied with the bodies and gender roles that we had as a result of our physical structure and most of my LG associates were perfectly happy with what they were.

I am surprised that Freudianism still has any run. That was kind of archaic when I was mjoring in Psyche back in the 1970's, having long since been supplanted by soft-core Behaviorism/Experimental, Social Psychology. post-Freudian Psychoanalysis and Gestalt. As well as Developmental/Personality (Piaget, Erikson, Guilford et al) and let us not forget Physioligical and Sensory. It is enough to drive a sane person insane

However Structuralism and Functionalism still remain as two "themes" or "leitmotifs" in the field

I always thougt that a Freudian slip was what a crossdresser wore when he went to psychoanalysis en femme: I know; corenr time.

[Bettypooh]

....The point being Sex is physical and gender is learned....

Not true- Dr. John Money tried to prove that when a botched infant circumcision left a biological male twin child without a penis He convinced the parents to raise the child as a girl, which they did Never was it spoken of and care was taken to be certain the child (who had several genital surgeries) didn't hear about the error. But the child knew "she" wasn't a she , especially after puberty Finally the truth came out and the child went to the comfortable gender (in this case male). After several tries at life it became too much and David Reimer committed suicide In other similar cases the person was different, acted different, and couldn't accept the gender they were assigned and treated as Gender is partially learned but much of it is provably inherent, which is what TS's have been saying all along No amount of teaching or learning can make you believe something which you know is wrong based on what you know inside. You know who you are and what you feel from the start; what you do about that and how you interface with others is what is learned The bottom line here is that the more we learn and study scientifically, the more we know that the old ideas of binary gender and sex are wrong and that some things are the way they are from the start

Bettypooh

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

Not true- Dr. John Money tried to prove that when a botched infant circumcision left a biological male twin child without a penis He convinced the parents to raise the child as a girl, which they did Never was it spoken of and care was taken to be certain the child (who had several genital surgeries) didn't hear about the error. But the child knew "she" wasn't a she , especially after puberty Finally the truth came out and the child went to the comfortable gender (in this case male). After several tries at life it became too much and David Reimer committed suicide In other similar cases the person was different, acted different, and couldn't accept the gender they were assigned and treated as Gender is partially learned but much of it is provably inherent, which is what TS's have been saying all along No amount of teaching or learning can make you believe something which you know is wrong based on what you know inside. You know who you are and what you feel from the start; what you do about that and how you interface with others is what is learned The bottom line here is that the more we learn and study scientifically, the more we know that the old ideas of binary gender and sex are wrong and that some things are the way they are from the start

Bettypooh

I did hear about that one, although details were sparse, and others but the resuts are over the long run, inconclusive. In addition to that, Johns Hopkins quit performing sex change operation over 2 decades ago citing many dissatisfied customers. However, there is a kind of gender-related "psychotherapy" that teaches pre-ops to avoid being "read" while they still have their stock equipment. So there seems to be a wide lattitude, which seems to be the way with human studies: If a result can be only one of two predicted, it seems to be the rule that you will get a significant number of a third, and nobody is ready to jump ship. Since we don't know the intimate family dynamics, we don not know if any subtle clues were given. There is always the story of "Clever Hans" the counting horse; even the trainer probably did not know that he was sending the horse subtle signals. Also, in sight-related tasks I generally performed way over my 1/14 (both distance and near based on the nx mag to reach 20/20 levels) in one eye and 0% in the other specifications. I was between the second and third quartile in the Science Research Associates Reading Lab, higher in comprehension than speed (I was a voracios reader and a real bug for anything that could fly), and was pretty competitive with fully-sighted individuals. In high school I was in the second quartile in calss raning at an admissions based academy that could pick and choose its students and I didn't break until the requirements of visual performance got very high

But then also I was not addressing Transexualism or physical modification

Could you keep the emoticons down. it detracts from the post. Fewer is better. Certainly 8 in one paragraph is overdoing it

[PrincessDragonette]

Could you keep the emoticons down. it detracts from the post. Fewer is better. Certainly 8 in one paragraph is overdoing it

I like Bettypooh's emotes. They make her posts seem more festive and fun, and serve to convey a sense of emotion, something that would take far more text and effort to convey without them. So, for my vote, emote away .

[Bettypooh]

I did hear about that one, although details were sparse, and others but the resuts are over the long run, inconclusive....

What you heard was sparse- the case was well documented over decades and what's more, the conclusion went against the stated belief of Money, who was trying to prove the theory of gender being learned behavior He had the perfect situation with a birth-twin for comparison, totally cooperative parents, and no restrictions on applying his treatment ideas (including HRT) which were considered the most advanced of the time. It's all out there online and much more too. If my memory worked better I'd remember where and post the dozens of studies I've checked out on this topic Most I learned of from a TG newsgroup who actually puts effort into checking the links and info on it

So let's look at this one objectively: Every possible thing in your favor, no restraints of any kind preventing you from doing anything short of murdering the patient, the backing and assistance of the entire medical world, and you still can't prove your point. That equals epic failure Worse (if that's possible) is that some of the people re-doing the Gender Identity section of the new DSM still refer to this as a successful outcome and one to be recommended as a possible treatment

Going on about how well-learned you are doesn't impress me as much as your frequent misspelled words, which impress me in the other direction- especially coming from someone claiming to be an avid reader. And my usage of emoticons is no more annoying than your inanely repetitive avatar Rather than try to impugn someone's character, you'd do well to better educate yourself on matters which you comment on

Bettypooh

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

The thing is you're building on one case. Even the most ardent modern supporters of Structuralist theory do not support few-case science because of Bernoulli's Theorem: As the number of cases approaches infinity, the observed probability of a specific outcome approaches the actual probability. a single or even a dozen spectacular case does not make even a pilot study and nature vs nurture, well, that has been kicked around since the Jukes family case. This was a Systematic Observation and not even an experiment. In my grad school course "Giftedness and Creativity", we studied the Karl Witte ("WIT-ty) case where this guy was the father of a real dumb kid. He was some kind of intellectual and said that he could and would, just by psychological means turn the kid into a genius. Well guess what. You must also explain those who successfully manage (are happy with themselves. and I have communicated with enough of them) mixed and bi-genderedness in physicological terms and the fact is, we do not know that much about the brain and it's workings. The best you can say is that this was a spectcular case where the recommended protocols did not work. That is to be expected to happen in about 5% of the cases. And we never know which 5% and we never know why. Just look at the list of side effects of otherwise very good meds that you would not even imagine.

Even the best brains can be fooled, looke up the case of N-rays. Uri Geller had credibility with enough physical scientists to sell himself as a psychic: Until the self-admitted illusionist/conjuror Janes Randi came in, did everyting Geller did and on command, which Geller said could not be done

I'm really no fan of the DSM so I can't comment on it.

I think the most we can say is that function is hard-wired, content is not. Gender is a matter of content.

AS for my "insanely repetitive avatar" that is at least in one place and not in the text, your emoticons are spread all over the place and as to "misspelled workds" If I did the kind of editing I'd like to do with the tools I would like that would not be. I use a reverse field, white on black layout. I would not even be able to use a black on white layout. the spell-check uses a dark red underline, nor do I choose the foht size of the input box. I would have it bigger and the spell-check underline to be yellow. An over-abundance of emoticons, by being much larger than the font, disrupts the visual gestalt of the text and also gives the appearance of being childishly egocentric ("Who's trying to tune all the bells that he rings" form Buffalo Springfield's NOWADAYS CLANCY CAN'T EVEN SING); not good in technically oriented psots, like too may exclamation points and there is also "enough already!" . That was more an FYI than a criticism. NOW it's a criticism Typos are unintentional. the (over)use of emoticons is premeditated.

the question was not how well-learned I am, but what was the driver (Structuralism or Functionalism) and it is from a first person perspective (so it's Real People, meaning it has presence, and not an abstract case). I note it , and others, Clever Hans and Karl Witte as cases where psychology was the driver and sometimes trumped the physical. I was not aware of what was in play because I was focused on the material and it was something I wanted. I am not impressed with my "well-learnedness". I think of myself as being an ordinary person who figured it out and that did not take a mega-brain, it just took "minding the store" and thinking "I can" until it is proven to me that I cannot. But that is another discussion.

[KittenAB]

What you heard was sparse- the case was well documented over decades and what's more, the conclusion went against the stated belief of Money, who was trying to prove the theory of gender being learned behavior He had the perfect situation with a birth-twin for comparison, totally cooperative parents, and no restrictions on applying his treatment ideas (including HRT) which were considered the most advanced of the time. It's all out there online and much more too. If my memory worked better I'd remember where and post the dozens of studies I've checked out on this topic Most I learned of from a TG newsgroup who actually puts effort into checking the links and info on it

So let's look at this one objectively: Every possible thing in your favor, no restraints of any kind preventing you from doing anything short of murdering the patient, the backing and assistance of the entire medical world, and you still can't prove your point. That equals epic failure Worse (if that's possible) is that some of the people re-doing the Gender Identity section of the new DSM still refer to this as a successful outcome and one to be recommended as a possible treatment

Going on about how well-learned you are doesn't impress me as much as your frequent misspelled words, which impress me in the other direction- especially coming from someone claiming to be an avid reader. And my usage of emoticons is no more annoying than your inanely repetitive avatar Rather than try to impugn someone's character, you'd do well to better educate yourself on matters which you comment on

Bettypooh

While I agree with many of your assertions, there is already a lot of stuff the medical corporations get away with. Plastic surgery is abused in other ways, by putting restrictions on one, another form of abuse always seems to crop up. As for the no restraints, doctors can still pretty much do whatever they really want, they just have to do so with a different reasoning. All in all, the system will never be perfect, but forcing changes has only been making things worse not better, which also has the added effect of allowing them to raise their costs to whatever they want.

The rest ... well, I agree. But also add that there is a gender identity that can change based on many factors and even conflict with the gender of a person. I know, a monkey wrench.

[sarah_ab]

ahh freud,... a personal hero of mine

anyone who can convince the world that dream of a rat crawling up your anus means you want to fuck your mother deserves incredible respect and reverence!

GO FREUD!!!!

[WallaWalla]

I am that I am.

Get to know me and project whatever identity you want onto me.

Any further explanation is superficial and unnecessary.

[belinda_sue_fox]

I see no science here.

I'll consult the mad cat woman and get as much sense.

[KittenAB]

I see no science here.

I'll consult the mad cat woman and get as much sense.

You called?

[aleyxsis]

Blah Blah Blah!! someone sure likes to use big words to show how smart they are .Don't impress me much oh no emocons !!!!

[Sophie ♥]

Posts shorten dramatically. That's kinda weird.

-Sophie