#gendertheory

I’ve been thinking a lot about the construct of gender. How did gender come to be? What is gender? What defines “woman”? My gender was assigned male at birth because of how my sexual organs appeared. I guess gender has always been around if we’re thinking about gender as congruent to sex. Humans assigned duties based on reproduction which tied hand in hand to survival. Throughout history humans changed these assigned duties/behaviors to perform. These have varied greatly based on religion, race, class, location, and culture. These were also often designed to elevate and maintain the power of upper class, cisgender, straight, white, males. But gender and sex are not the same. And sex can be determined by so many things. In the human species there are 8,324,608 possible combinations of 23 chromosomes that determine sex. Humans can be male because they were born female, but have 5-alphareductase deficiency and grew a penis at age 12. Or humans can be female because they have an X and a Y chromosome but they are insensitive to androgens, and so they have a female body. Humans can be female because they have an X and a Y chromosome but their Y is missing the SRY gene, and so they have a female body. Humans can be male because they have two X chromosomes, but one of their X's has an SRY gene, and so they have a male body. Humans can be male because they have two X chromosomes- but also a Y. Humans can be female because they have only one X chromosome at all. [1] #trans #transgender #gender #gendertheory #transisbeautiful #girlslikeus #oneofthem #livethex #tomboyx (at Myrtle Edwards Park)

If there truly is some inner masculinity or femininity, and men and women are usually polar opposites, how could we know? We could only know this if we lived in a world where boys and girls were treated exactly the same – and we don’t.

No woman’s experience of their womanhood is the same as another’s. Not everyone fits into the social constraints of expected roles based on sex. Men and especially women have been resisting gender roles forever. We’ve evolved past needing gender roles for survival. It relates to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. My basic human needs are met, so I don’t need to perform actions that hunter/gather societies needed to perform. My culture and time allows women and men to perform the same duties, same jobs, and same roles—of course not with equal opportunity yet, but still better than the 50’s or 1700’s. But humans have been presenting and conforming to gender roles opposite those expected of them since society began. Transgender people have always existed, even if not as widely/vocally/easily. I like to separate this term from transsexual, especially in this context, because sex can be physically changed with modern medicine and science. Plus plenty of species change their sex intentionally for survival and reproductive purposes. But gender and gender roles (separate from sex) have always been fluid and changing. Gender is only as real as we make it to be because gender is the understanding one has of them-self based on behavioral, cultural, and psychological relation to sexuality and physical form. I recognize gender is something we essentially created in order to survive, but gender roles are no longer necessary. Do what makes you happy so long as you’re not hurting anyone. My womanhood is important to me. It’s just what makes sense in my head. No one has the right to devalue nor invalidate other people’s experiences of gender. [2] #trans #transgender #gender #gendertheory #transisbeautiful #girlslikeus #oneofthem #livethex #tomboyx (at Seattle, Washington)

Biden's support for trans community | Pope Francis condemns gender theor...

Posted @withregram • @matisse.dupont Ask yourself... who am I doing this for and do I actually like it? . . . #gender #feminism #socialdistancing #queer #gendertheory #habits #habit #badhabits #zoom #virtuallife #queations #textpost #green https://www.instagram.com/p/B_H686PD2wZNWj9_oXqhQNCMLNuUYFsD7MOpNo0/?igshid=129il9v7vf965

-Leah