What's gender got to do with it


You have breast and a vagina? You’re a woman.

You have a penis and testes? You’re a man.

Society classifies gender as how you look. Long hair, don’t care? You’re a woman. It wasn’t taken into account that some people define themselves as something they don’t look like because it didn’t fit the conformity society pushes. “Either/Or” was an article that told the story of a hermaphrodite. She was considered to be an amazing athlete that came from South Africa but when people started to question her gender she learned she had both male and female parts. It’s interesting to me that society can’t accept someone for who they are and that they have to continuously categorized people into pre-made categories that one may not fit into. If the roles were reversed and being categorized as one sex or being straight was seen as abnormal they would feel like an outcast and feel terrible about being different. Society would finally understand the pain they forced on other people who were just trying to live their lives. The link shows a video of how the roles in society are reversed and being something that is considered normal is actually abnormal in the video. The video is kind of lengthy and there's a trigger warning.

Personally, I don’t have firsthand experience with being classified as a gender identity that I feel I may not belong to. But, I can sympathize to what it feels like to feel forced to make a decision you are not ready for because you’re told you need to fit into one specific category. In this same article “Either/Or” men admitted to raping women who were lesbians because they believed they needed to “correct” them. There is no cure for lesbianism or being gay because it’s not a disease it’s part of their identity just like how being straight is seen as part of other people’s identity. I want to see the world when every identity is accepted as normal. Where nobody has to hide their sexual orientation or preferred gender. Where a trans female can walk down the street without the fear of being harassed.

In the book “Sexing the Body” written by Anne Sterling discussed the fact that doctors would take it into their own hands to determine an intersex baby’s gender, with or without parent consent. Parents lied to their children about different operations they had to endure because they didn’t want them to know they were different. Doctors played with the genitalia of young boys and made sure a dildo was inserted into a young girl’s vagina just because they wanted to ensure the child was considered of the one sex they “looked” like taking the choice to choose away from them. I can’t imagine how emotionally scarring this would be to a child who still can’t even grasp the full idea of why a boy is considered a boy and a female is considered a female according to society.

 
-Tatiana F.

Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 20, 2017 at 10:53 AM

    This is a really interesting blog post with a really powerful opening statement. Humans come in all shapes and sizes, which we've come to accept, so why do we still feel the need to categorize people into the rigid groups "woman" or "man." As you point out, even something like long hair has come to be so associated with femininity. I often find myself falling into this trap as well. I work at a day care center in town and there are many children who are too young for their gender to be identical. On two occasions now, I have called a girl a "he" just because she had short hair. Short hair may be more comfortable at this age, but most of the girls still have long hair, likely to display their gender. Why should someone as young as two years old be forced to be uncomfortable with their hair just to appease society already? This just shows the young age we begin forcing these standards onto people.

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