Do you believe in Gender?

I put this in the blogs and then thought it would be better here

Anywhoo, I know what you're thinking "Of course I believe in gender,everyone is either male or female."

Nonono. Physically, you are male or female, but mentally there is, imo, no reason to be...which can be better explained by this lovely fellow, Micheal James [the first 2 mins are all that's needed for the explanation]


What are your views? Is there actually such things as male and female or is it all created by society?
EG: A mother goes into topshop // new look // any womens store and takes her son [we're talking toddler age here] he picks up a headband and puts it on seeing nothing wrong with it as he has not been taught what's masculine or feminine.

Everybody is born with a male/female mind, its just sometimes they don't match the body of the kid. Thats like transgender children.

But just raising a kid to be a boy or a girl won't do it, there was a special on TLC a while ago, about a family who had twin boys. They decided to raise one as a boy and one as a girl, so their baby was put under the knife to like...feminize his genitalia and throughout the kids' childhood they were very strict with the girls wear dresses and play with dolls, boys wear jeans and play with trucks or whatever thing.

When their "daughter" was 13 they finally told her that she was born as a boy because she had terrible anger problems and psychological side effects, depression and such, 10 years later he committed suicide.

... Tells you what your "inner gender" is

Who Stole My Pants?:

They decided to raise one as a boy and one as a girl, so their baby was put under the knife to like...feminize his genitalia and throughout the kids' childhood they were very strict with the girls wear dresses and play with dolls, boys wear jeans and play with trucks or whatever thing.

When their "daughter" was 13 they finally told her that she was born as a boy because she had terrible anger problems and psychological side effects, depression and such, 10 years later he committed suicide.

That's awful. O_O

ok, so if you are born with both female and male parts, it's ok to become one. But that story is just plain sick.

Who Stole My Pants?:

Everybody is born with a male/female mind, its just sometimes they don't match the body of the kid. Thats like transgender children.

But just raising a kid to be a boy or a girl won't do it, there was a special on TLC a while ago, about a family who had twin boys. They decided to raise one as a boy and one as a girl, so their baby was put under the knife to like...feminize his genitalia and throughout the kids' childhood they were very strict with the girls wear dresses and play with dolls, boys wear jeans and play with trucks or whatever thing.

When their "daughter" was 13 they finally told her that she was born as a boy because she had terrible anger problems and psychological side effects, depression and such, 10 years later he committed suicide.

... Tells you what your "inner gender" is

Ugh! Why would anyone use an innocent child as a scientific experiment?!?!

And to defend my point, the kid was brought up with parents forcing male and female labels on them. What if everyone was free to do whatever without having to fit into male or female catagories?
I know there's stuff in your genetics which causes traits of the sex you were born but if it was "okay" for men to be incredibly feminine, do you reckon they would?

Who Stole My Pants?:

Everybody is born with a male/female mind, its just sometimes they don't match the body of the kid. Thats like transgender children.

But just raising a kid to be a boy or a girl won't do it, there was a special on TLC a while ago, about a family who had twin boys. They decided to raise one as a boy and one as a girl, so their baby was put under the knife to like...feminize his genitalia and throughout the kids' childhood they were very strict with the girls wear dresses and play with dolls, boys wear jeans and play with trucks or whatever thing.

When their "daughter" was 13 they finally told her that she was born as a boy because she had terrible anger problems and psychological side effects, depression and such, 10 years later he committed suicide.

... Tells you what your "inner gender" is

I want to see proof of this.

NeoSteph:

Who Stole My Pants?:

Everybody is born with a male/female mind, its just sometimes they don't match the body of the kid. Thats like transgender children.

But just raising a kid to be a boy or a girl won't do it, there was a special on TLC a while ago, about a family who had twin boys. They decided to raise one as a boy and one as a girl, so their baby was put under the knife to like...feminize his genitalia and throughout the kids' childhood they were very strict with the girls wear dresses and play with dolls, boys wear jeans and play with trucks or whatever thing.

When their "daughter" was 13 they finally told her that she was born as a boy because she had terrible anger problems and psychological side effects, depression and such, 10 years later he committed suicide.

... Tells you what your "inner gender" is

I want to see proof of this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2000/boyturnedgirl.shtml

NeoSteph:

Who Stole My Pants?:

Everybody is born with a male/female mind, its just sometimes they don't match the body of the kid. Thats like transgender children.

But just raising a kid to be a boy or a girl won't do it, there was a special on TLC a while ago, about a family who had twin boys. They decided to raise one as a boy and one as a girl, so their baby was put under the knife to like...feminize his genitalia and throughout the kids' childhood they were very strict with the girls wear dresses and play with dolls, boys wear jeans and play with trucks or whatever thing.

When their "daughter" was 13 they finally told her that she was born as a boy because she had terrible anger problems and psychological side effects, depression and such, 10 years later he committed suicide.

... Tells you what your "inner gender" is

I want to see proof of this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer

Who Stole My Pants?:

Everybody is born with a male/female mind, its just sometimes they don't match the body of the kid. Thats like transgender children.

But just raising a kid to be a boy or a girl won't do it, there was a special on TLC a while ago, about a family who had twin boys. They decided to raise one as a boy and one as a girl, so their baby was put under the knife to like...feminize his genitalia and throughout the kids' childhood they were very strict with the girls wear dresses and play with dolls, boys wear jeans and play with trucks or whatever thing.

When their "daughter" was 13 they finally told her that she was born as a boy because she had terrible anger problems and psychological side effects, depression and such, 10 years later he committed suicide.

... Tells you what your "inner gender" is

that is disgusting and revolting. someone who would do that honestly needs to be in a freakin asylum. that's not right.

Guys before you go calling this revolting and attacking the parents, research the full story

Who Stole My Pants?:

They decided to raise one as a boy and one as a girl, so their baby was put under the knife to like...feminize his genitalia

That's not exactly true, they didn't just "decide" to do this. His circumcision went wrong and destroyed his penis, and thats why they decided to raise him as a girl. They didn't just decide "Damn, we wanted a daughter!" and then did all that, they had a reason.

However I can't help but think there must have been an alternative.

Kurtni:

However I can't help but think there must have been an alternative.

iawtc

Surely if they put the effort in to construct female genitals it wouldn't have been much more difficult to re-construct male genitals?...and this would most likely save A LOT of trauma throughout his life. "/

Kurtni:

Guys before you go calling this revolting and attacking the parents, research the full story

Who Stole My Pants?:

They decided to raise one as a boy and one as a girl, so their baby was put under the knife to like...feminize his genitalia

That's not exactly true, they didn't just "decide" to do this. His circumcision went wrong and destroyed his penis, and thats why they decided to raise him as a girl. They didn't just decide "Damn, we wanted a daughter!" and then did all that, they had a reason.

However I can't help but think there must have been an alternative.

Well I mean I know that, they burned him didn't they? And then holy crap who was the doctor involved? Well, I believe the guy actually succeeded in writing a book about his "discovery" or whatever but didn't mention any of the negative side effects.

OK, what I find immensley interesting is that with my three different birth certificates, my Thai one is the only one with three options for gender; male, female, and also like transgender, where there are male and female characteristics.

My British and Canadian birth certificates only show two options. Thailand is notorious for its laxed stance when it comes to transgenders and transvestites and I just think its interesting, culture wise, that the two Western cultures I also come from dismiss other possible genders.

Girls and boys.

Rebel!:

Girls and boys.

Yes, sex wise, in that girls have vaginas and boys have a penis...but personality wise ALL girls don't do everything considered female and visa versa.


Personally, I believe it'll sort of just...fizzle out in years to come.
EG: It's totally acceptable for girls to wear trousers but not for boys to wear skirts.
I just don't understand it.
I'm hoping maybe in a few years the gender boundaries will blur and...who knows

See, now that "inner gender" quiz just told me I'm a guy. And granted, I'm a tomboy - I play hockey, I hate the idea of nail polish, I'd rather play sports than go shopping, etc etc, but I don't ever think of myself as a guy in a girl's body or something like that. I am a girl, and except for once a month I'm pretty okay with it.

I don't know about the whole "gender is a myth" thing. I think there are...ah, I don't know how to put this right, but I think sometimes - quite often, really - someone of one gender has some characteristics that stereotypically belong to the other. And I don't think a child should be raised strictly to be one way if he or she feels right the other way. But I really don't think gender, as it currently is for most people, will ever disappear from culture or anything like that. I could be wrong. But that's the way I see it.

OneVoiceInAMillion!:

Kurtni:

However I can't help but think there must have been an alternative.

iawtc

Surely if they put the effort in to construct female genitals it wouldn't have been much more difficult to re-construct male genitals?...and this would most likely save A LOT of trauma throughout his life. "/

"He, and other physicians working with young children born with abnormal genitalia, believed that a penis could not be replaced but that a functional vagina could be constructed surgically, and that Bruce would be more likely to achieve successful, functional sexual maturation as a girl than as a boy."

Because they thought they could condition the child to function as a female I guess they thought it was a safer option. The fact that he still retained male behavioral characteristics damaged him mentally and at the time this was something they could not predict.

I'm not saying that what they did wasn't wrong but it would have been a terrible decision to make.

Instinct is also a big part of this. I mean, think about it. There had to be someone who started acting like male/female, and I think that it was the first people. Men instinctively act like assholes (no offense) and women instinctively act different than men, even though I think that all people are assholes, the fact of the matter is that we don't act like this because of society, society just strengthened the instinct.

^________^
i agree with the girl above, I think it is alot to do with instinct, but maybe not natural instinct. I mean before society chose whats 'right or wrong' .. people were pretty free to do as they wanted, its a stupid example I know, but what about as far back as the Cave people? I mean, there wasn't any judgement allll those years ago, or anyone telling us how we should be, so why should there be now? I think people should be able to be free to do what they wish with they way they look, their sexuality and even gender. But do I believe in Gender .. ? Yes. I just dont believe that Gender should prevent people from being who they are.

mabye it is the way you were to raised to believe what you are. If you're born as a girl, they buy you dresses, and if you're a boy, they buy you overalls or something.