mynhii85 (imported) wrote: Fri Jun 17, 2011 9:18 am
punkypink, thank you for your explanation.
I think that SplitDikIt's sayings somewhat make sense. Most men or women tend to associate their primary sex characteristic, penis or vagina, with their gender identity.
Let's say a man who has accident that damaged his penis, and it has to be cut off. I'm quite sure most of the time the man will feel very embarassed or less of a man even though he may be more feminine than I am. I'm probably one of the exceptions among men who don't link their genitalia with their gender identity.
When you say , it makes me think a lot. When I grew up, I always realized I has been more feminine than other men. Somehow I feel like there is a "force" inside me that controls my personality and makes me behave the way I do. I tried to be "man up" before, but it didn't work, only made me feel unnatural and more embarrassed. The same force drives me to make the decision of changing my genitalia. Maybe I'm a quarter on the scale of transsexuality. Maybe I'm in a completely different dimension.
We are probably 2 of the rare people who don't link our genitalia with our gender identity. That does not mean the most who do are right. We need to examine how society developed the concept of the male and the female, in light of changing wisdom about the human condition.
We have to remember in the past, and by past I mean the palaeolithic and neolithic times, when humanity was first evolving society, and struggling for survival as a species, the physical sex would have been a far more important factor. Not to mention, early man would not have understood something as complex as sex and identity, both because there wasn't any prior knowledge base regarding the subject, and because until the advent of agriculture, fire and cooking, the sort of nutritional values available from hunting gathering and from eating unprocessed food, meant that mental capacities would have been enough to focus on the basic needs of survival and not much beyond that.
It is with this history that has led society to a current point where they still define gender with genitals. But, is this because it is still instinctive? Or is it because today most just accept this as "fact" because we are told? Truth of the matter is, the reason people place so much of their identity in their genitals is largely because of social conditioning. Being conditioned to believe in something. The fact is, we need to examine why society has the common beliefs they do today, and whether those beliefs are ingrained into our most basic instinct, or whether they are simply one that has been generated by our own history.
As a student of history and archaeology, I have to study the role of gender as a social construct in the past, from the earliest of mankind, to modern day societies, and having had to study gender as a social construct in past societies, only further serves to convince me that we don't truly and instinctively base our gender on our genitals. We as a society just think we do, because most people are sheep to varying degrees and will just believe what society tells them. Tt takes people either with unusual circumstances, or unusually perceptive intellectual capacity, to realise that we don't truly and instinctively base our gender on our genitals.
Splitdik's saying only makes sense if you are in a position of ignorance. Just as explaining the universe to early man, explaining the concept of of earth not being flat to someone whose view of the world does not extend beyond their immediate physically visible surrounding, will sound as illogical as what I have pointed out about gender identity and gender instinct. Conversely, if someone told early man "earth is flat" it would make sense to early man because something we know to be untrue today, would make sense to early man as it fitted his limited observation and knowledge of the true nature of the planet earth.
In any case, you mention you've tried to "man up" before. My question is, why should you? With MY way of defining identity, your identity would not be invalidated, and you would be free to be whoever you are inside, and have whatever you want outside, without judgement. If everyone could see as I do, being a man would not depend on "manning up" or on "having the right genitals". For the scientific of mind, it would solely depend on the basic psychological instinct, for the spiritual at heart, it would solely depend on the soul, but whichever way you define it, it is still based on something inside all of us, that is deep, meaningful, and a fundamental part of who we are.
