Vaginas and Penises Don’t Make Girls and Boys (Society Does).
Tags: Work, Feminism, Transgender, LGBTQ, Women

My first memories are populated by identical twins who were more like brothers than friends. I was two months old when they were born and we often shared a single crib.

They became the keepers of my secrets and some of the closest friends I would ever have. We played and fought like triplets and were often confused as such.

We snuck out of our beds to watch Saturday morning cartoons in their basement and slept under the stars on their trampoline more nights than I can count. We were brothers.

Summers on their family farm were the embodiment of my childhood. We knew the woods and streams like the backs of our hands by the time we hit double digits.

The picturesque Ozark Mountains (hills, if you ask my mother) would paint a backdrop for our imaginations to run wild.

We made up games where we would slay monsters and explore caves (sometimes literally) for beasts and treasures. They were intricate and based on rules that had been discussed ad nauseam and lead to many a scuffle.

We loved each other like brothers so we fought each other like brothers. When we disagreed on something it often became physical before we cooled down and called a vote.

When the votes finally came in I was always on the wrong side of the same issue.

It may seem trivial (reasoning the twins never hesitated to use) but my “hero” character could only ever be “0.999(to infinity)% “ as good as theirs.

I was still allowed into boy’s only clubhouses and trees because they knew me well enough to know I wasn’t “like other girls”. But when someone from outside our group would appear, and they were male, I would find myself excluded.

And of course, we would always end fighting a boss that would ironically be exactly “0.000(to infinity)1%” stronger than me.

(Yes, I know that’s not a real number now)

I would get captured.

They would have to come in and save me.

Because I wasn’t a boy. Because I was a girl. What’s a girl?

Image credit and interesting link: http://www.womenyoushouldknow.net/girls-deserve-a-better-life-better-than-the-inane-stereotyped-version-marketed-to-them/

While I was still very young, maybe five or 6 years old, I was asking a trusted family friend/uncle about a religious commitment he had recently made.

“How do you know (uncle)? I mean, how do you know that’s what you’re supposed to do?” I remember asking him.

“Well, how do you know you’re a girl?” he asked, and after a brief pause he said, “you just do”.

A quarter century has come and passed and I still mulling over that question in my mind.

What exactly does it mean to be a girl/woman/female in the society I was raised?

And who better to look to than the emerging, powerful trans community? Who else is still trying as hard as I am to define being a woman?

“Experiences of trans men can provide a unique window into how gender functions in American society.” states this fascinating ny times article by Charlotte Alter.

She continues, “Over and over again, men who were raised and socialized as female described all the ways they were treated differently as soon as the world perceived them as male. They gained professional respect, but lost intimacy. They exuded authority, but caused fear. From courtrooms to playgrounds to prisons to train stations, at work and at home, with friends and alone, trans men reiterated how fundamentally different it is to experience the world as a man.”

Woman’s actions and appearcances are also under much more scrutentiy in school and the workplace than their counterparts.

According to Lisa Burn, the contributor for this forbes.com article, “Designers, fashion stylists and other experts say (…) women make an array of mistakes, from dressing too casually to not paying attention to fit.”

Her words of caution continue “If your clothing is overly revealing, you may have difficulty getting attention for your ideas. But baggy clothing that’s two sizes too big can be just as detrimental. If your clothing is shapeless, you’ll end up looking sloppy.”

As Ms Atler’s article (ny times) states, “Many trans men (…) said they had no idea how rough women at work had it until they transitioned. As soon as they came out as men, they found their missteps minimized and their successes amplified. Often, they say, their words carried more weight: They seemed to gain authority and professional respect overnight.”

This expectation that a person, depending on their gender identity, deserves more or less respect or compassion is absurd.

It’s like some kind of sick trade off.

Trans women also shared experiences with Ms. Atler “Joan Roughgarden, a professor emerita of biology at Stanford and a transgender woman, says it became much more difficult to publish her work when she was writing under a female name.

‘When I would write a paper and submit it to a journal it would be almost automatically accepted,’ she said of the time when she had a man’s name. ‘But after I transitioned, all of a sudden papers were running into more trouble, grant proposals were running into more trouble, the whole thing was getting more difficult.’

‘As a man, you’re assumed to be competent unless proven otherwise,’ she says. ‘Whereas as a woman you’re presumed to be incompetent unless proven otherwise.’”

Clearly, taking a either option in a binary society presents limitations. But these are social ramifications, not definitions of what either option means.

The best answer often being the simplest I decided it was high time I googled it.

The result was disappointingly misogynistic so, I thought perhaps “female” would return better results.

According to that definition, I may or may not be female. (I’ve never successfully reproduced).

My boyfriend thought it was only fair to give the same consideration to the other binary option, so I googled “man” and got this gem:

All that sounds rather ok, but to be fair I checked up on “male” and found equivocal results. (My boyfriend may not be male… He has no children for proof anyhow. Jury’s out!)

This also means that children are, by default, exempt from such definitions and should be treated accordingly.

Honestly, I wouldn’t want to limit my (theoretical) child to either socially recognized gender category.

What is the point of possibly hindering the potential for compassion or leadership in anyone, young or old?

Is it so we can quickly identify prospective sexual partners for the purpose of reproduction or long term cohabitation associated with said union?

They have that, it’s called match.com.

And if you’re not sure, or commitment (payment) isn’t your bag you can join millions on okcupid.com.

School nor work are appropriate places for either of these services or related activities. Children aren’t allowed on these sites for a reason.

So why do we allow these topics into toy isles and educational instatutions? Why do they effect the comfort and practicality of clothing and shoes for millions?

Why is gender still expected to be presented along with your credentials in an interview or anything that follows?

Why do I still get .77 for every dollar the other half earns? Maybe because I was willing to take 0.999(to infinity) just to play the game…