» Gender Space
I am definitely not an expert on this. I’m writing about it to clarify my own understanding. And perhaps my analytical skills can make the material more accessible.
Sex is a biological characteristic. Sex is a spectrum between male and female. Intersex people fall between those poles due to atypical* chromosomes or development. Intersexed people often receive medical treatment to push them to one end of the spectrum.
Gender is a social characteristic. Gender is a combination of two independent attributes: masculinity and femininity. An androgynous person is high on both, a neuter person is low on both.
One can distinguish between introspective gender and gender presentation. Someone may “feel like” one gender but be identified by their signs in society as another. Bigendered people (eg: crossdressers) switch between two genders depending on context.
Gender identity is a combination of sex and gender, forming a 3-dimensional space. There are widespread terms for four corners of that space: cisman and ciswoman for the majority of people, and transman and transwoman for the majority of the transgender minority. Everyone else is intergender, “genderqueer” or self-identified using jargon.
* Intersex people are not “abnormal”, they’re non-cissex.
You seem clear on the spectrum. Now what?
I think in terms of biology, it is important to recognize that the science used to determine gender is highly biased to heteronormativity. There are theories that suggest that sex is determined by far more diverse genes than just the x and y – but scientists and doctors just aren’t looking for those other genes, they only look for the presence or absence of x and y. It is suggested that far fewer people are straight up male or female than we currently believe. Who knows what we’ll discover about biological sex down the road.
Another consideration to add: Gender presentation (or performativity) is in large part determined by a set of social sanctions, hence the incongruities at times in gender identity. I would say that this is so significant an influence that you could call it as much a part of gender identity as sex and gender themselves.
tara
15 Jul 09 at 9:40 am
Jung talked about anima/animus. To some extent we all float in gender-space.
One of the tricks Jung has for relationships is to try to figure out what bits of your s/o’s personality are actually theirs and which are projections of your inner experience of their sex.
In screenwriting you can call that projection of the anim[a|us] The Shapeshifter, which gives rise to things like femmes fatale, La Belle Dame sans Merci, Zeus, Edward in Pretty Woman, etc.
Something similar is going on in Coraline, but that’s about the fickle nature of parents — Desire versus reality, the difficulty of separating the two.
And: Is “spectrum” right? Aren’t the points in the space discreet? Or is that your point — that an infinite gulf of gradation exists between the cardinal points?
Jack
15 Jul 09 at 10:48 am
You are so wrong and so ignorant. What you said right their
“* Intersex people are not “abnormal”, they’re non-cissex.” is so wrong and dose a disservice to intersex people. Intersex people are not cissex or trans. What you are doing is causing more harm and more damage to the intersex people everywhere.
Nicky
15 Jul 09 at 2:17 pm
@tara: I definitely have some thoughts about intersexuality that I will work into a blog post. Gender presentation is a pretty big area that I don’t know enough about.
Jared
16 Jul 09 at 10:33 am
Check out Judith Butler’s two books Gender Trouble, and Bodies That Matter. You may find them interesting.
tara
16 Jul 09 at 10:52 am
@Nicky: I think you misread my footnote. It says that “intersex” is the opposite of “cissex”.
I was unable to find a term that is used more than “cissex” to refer to people who are at either end of the sex spectrum. I admit that using the “cis” prefix both for sex and the sex-gender combination can cause confusion between intersexuality and transgenderism. I see that combating that confusion is the major theme of your blog – and yet your posts never appear to use a term to refer to non-intersex people (besides “normal”)?
Jared
16 Jul 09 at 10:56 am
[...] Jared on Gender Space@Nicky: I think you misread my footnote. It says t… »tara on Gender SpaceCheck out Judith [...]
Sexual, Romantic and Social Orientation | MentalPolyphonics
16 Jul 09 at 11:02 am
@tara: Yeah, they’re definitely on the to-read list.
I’ll think about whether I can summarize the concept of gender performativity…
Jared
16 Jul 09 at 11:16 am
I’m interested in reading He and She by Robert A. Johnson. Possibly also We.
Johnson’s a Jungian and the books are about deconstructing our minds using mythic structures. She, for example, uses the myth of Psyche and Eros to talk about the female mind. The male deconstruction-myth is The Fisher King, and We, which focuses on relationships, analyzes Tristram and Yseult.
Anyway, those books have affected how Hollywood thinks of us. Best for the influenced to understand the influences of the influencers, I reckon.
Jack
16 Jul 09 at 9:35 pm