Does your gender or sex define you?

[Cavernio]

Poll: If you were to wake up tomorrow morning, and you were the opposite sex, would you forever after have identity issues?

My answer to this question is No, but I'm pretty sure I'm a minority. How much someone's sex or gender defines someone has always been interesting to me, especially because I feel like my sex largely defines me only for sexual purposes. Sure, if I were a man, my current relationship would likely fall apart and that would suck a lot, although I'm presuming I'd still like men. I think I'd end up being a gay man, but outside all of the romance and sex and dating, I truly believe I could go on being myself without much of an issue.

Now, the fact that I think most people would have serious problems having their sex changed, I can think of 2 fairly separate reasons why. 1) You would feel like you're in the wrong body, and this would affect you in everyday situations, because you no longer portray the inner identity that you have for yourself. 2) You would actually be much like myself, in that you don't feel like your gender much defines you one way or the other, but the fact that it would screw up your sexual relationships would just be too much. In this case, your romantic relationships are so integral to your life, and define you so much, that having them likely fall apart, and that you may never be able to be comfortable in such a relationship again, would be traumatizing.

I see 1 as being very different from 2. I could see myself in situation 2 in fact, at least if I had kids or something. But situation 1? Not really. When thinking about what defines me, I rarely think 'I'm a woman' first. I think 'I've had depression, I love what music can do to me, I love to learn, I strive to be open-minded.' I could be wrong here though, and if I were to have my sex changed, I'm just deluding myself into how much it would affect me.
I'm fairly certain I don't want to be a man, just that I wouldn't mind being a man. I don't mind being a woman either. I'm definitely not gay or bisexual though. Never fallen in love with a woman, don't get turned on by women.

I'm also coming at this very one-sided. I've never talked to anyone who's got gender identity problems, and only recently found out that someone here has them. I want to make it super clear I don't mean to offend, especially if I obviously don't 'get' something. Maybe all the stuff I said in the earlier paragraph isn't actually true for people who do feel like they're in the wrong body.

I think I have women's rights movements to thank for feeling as I do though. There's nothing that I want to do that I feel I can't because I'm a woman, and although I was raised with gender roles for many things (I'm still slightly bitter that my brother got to cut the grass outdoors and I got to clean the bathrooms, thanks mom), I was never under the impression that there was any field of work I couldn't get into because I'm female or anything like that. (Although now that I'm older I know this is not always the case.) I mean, if I felt like I being a woman meant I had a specific role in life, or that being a man meant I had specific role, I could see myself not feeling the way I do now.

[Blargthedestroyer]

Simply being a girl would mean I have identity issues. Sure, guys have identity issues too but it's not like anyone cares. It's more of a secret really.

If I woke up a girl I would then have to identify with my newfound womanlyhood and not my manlyhood. I've spent my entire adult life [that's the past 9 months] doing things because I had this image of what a man should act like and I acted accordingly. Of course you see I'd have to have issue with changing my entire reality simply because I'd no longer have the need to be manly but now womanly which are two completely different personas.

[Rubin0]

It would play an impact on my every day life, yes. On a social level I am expected to look a certain way as a woman and for that reason I have conformed. Mentally, I don't identify with either gender. I feel isolated from both and yet feel like I can identify with both. If gender weren't so stringent in this society I would definitely feel more comfortable to be more androgynous than I am now.

[Kilroy_x]

I wasn't sure how to vote on the poll since, well, y'know >_>

If I woke up tomorrow and was fully biologically female, I would be pretty damn happy. I'm going to try and address the rest of your thoughts directly rather than through the medium of the topic, since it seems specifically geared towards cis people and therefore I can't really answer in accordance with the thought experiment.

1) You would feel like you're in the wrong body, and this would affect you in everyday situations, because you no longer portray the inner identity that you have for yourself.

Yes. Believe it or not, having other people misread you for your entire life can be extremely upsetting, regardless of the personal importance of the aspect of you which is being misread. Being consistently or even universally seen differently from how you see yourself can be pretty lonely. It can make you question your sanity, since everyone says "you're X" without even thinking about it, yet no matter what you still always feel you're Y. Also, there are compounding effects. When people misread you, it means they develop expectations for you based on their impressions. It's difficult to socialize unless you fulfill at least some of those expectations, hence the "living a lie" trope.

2) You would actually be much like myself, in that you don't feel like your gender much defines you one way or the other, but the fact that it would screw up your sexual relationships would just be too much. In this case, your romantic relationships are so integral to your life, and define you so much, that having them likely fall apart, and that you may never be able to be comfortable in such a relationship again, would be traumatizing.

I highlighted a bit of hyperbole in your post, which is the only thing that's really wrong per se about it. Believe it or not, I actually got to be fairly comfortable with my social life and even to an extent my body, although I can say my brain was never really comfortable being exposed to that much testosterone given the level of stress I was under even at my best moments. The fact this stress dissipated after getting my hormone dosages correct is also a good indication of this.

I don't really think much of my gender, but the fact is I feel anatomically incorrect. I don't know if you're familiar with computers, but being TG for me is sort of like having a piece of hardware physically installed on a platform when you don't have drivers for it. I've never been in a romantic relationship, or even tried for one, because I wouldn't know what to do with myself in one. But people talk a lot about love, there are expectations about it, it gets played up a lot and people who don't experience it are viewed as abnormal or inferior. So again, there are compounding psychological and social effects from not being able to have romantic encounters. I tried to teach myself to be ok with the thought of being chaste for life, and it took away a lot of the stress, but every now and then I would catch glimpses of what other people were getting out of love, or I would find myself attracted to someone, or even just generically aroused.

And again this plays into expectations. So there's a combination effect that makes the inability to have relationships into something extremely alienating. Everyone you know is either in a relationship, has been in one or has it as their goal to be in one, and you've given up on it because you don't have it in you to get into a relationship in your current body. And so you're already the odd one out, but then throw in the fact that everyone is expecting you to be dating, to throw your two cents in on "would you hit it" conversations and to talk about people you're attracted to, and it can be offputting to other people as well. And the first assumption is always that you're just gay, because that would be an easy answer, and it would still make you relateable because you would still have those same kinds of feelings, priorities, goals as other people, just directed towards a different gender. So again you get misread, and feel lonely, and that's just if people continue to associate with you under the false impressions they've generated. Nevermind when they get so weirded out they just decide not to deal with you.

But basically, there are very real expectations for different sexes, and there are also equivalent expectations for both sexes which are hard to fulfill when you don't identify with that sex. Having body parts you don't know what to do with, and in lieu of body parts which you would know what to do with is upsetting beyond description. If anyone has ever broken a bone, and a bone they use in the course of their day to day life, and waited for it to heal, they're probably familiar with a feeling of being trapped or being disempowered. Except in the case of TG people it's not just that you aren't able to use something you have well developed insticts to use, it's that it's been replaced with another thing which is completely useless.

I could write a lot more but I don't want to bombard you with a wall of text, which this already somewhat is. As an aside, as a result of feminism social expectations for women may have grown laxer, allowing women more freedom of expression in terms of gender presentation, but being an effiminate man is still very much enforced against in ways that being a masculine women is not. So your idea that there are no specific roles for the genders is extremely gynocentric, and also eurocentric in the sense that women's liberation doesn't really extend to the third world.

[Kilroy_x]

I would also like to point out that the topic title is an example of the hyperbole I take issue with. It seems to imply, intentionally or otherwise, that the only way one can be TG is to have a superficial sense of self.

[Reach]

Well, we know there are hormonal and neurological differences between men and women. This fact, combined with what we know about people that undergo sex change would lead me to conclude that for most people, waking up permanently stuck in the opposite sexes body with your same brain and hormonal chemistry would be highly traumatic in the long run, leading to unresolvable psychological problems. It's a psychological mismatch; everything you've known and everything you will believe in the future identifies with a sex different from your body.

Now, if you were a man, and woke up tomorrow as a female with altered brain chemistry and altered hormonal chemistry to match that of a typical female, I would think many people would be ok in the long run. Initially it would be a shock to your system, leading to a myriad of psychological problems, but you wouldn't feel like you were someone trapped in the wrong kind of body. Eventually it would feel normal. If you did get over your identity crisis, you would probably be fine in the long run.

[MetalAtlas]

I suppose it would all depend on the change. It depends how you look. (i dont mean in the shallow douchey way either) I mean like what if someone merely woke up with the 'parts' of the other gender. Noone would really know (to a degree) so for the most part you'd still be you just a different gender. Now obviously how people look at you would change if they ever found out, and romantic pursuits might be a harder to come by, but i think it would all be the same. People only feel bad or wrong based on what society is supposed to think. I mean at one point in time, African Americans were looked at badly, as well as 0 rights for woman. Now it's illegal immigrants, Arabs, Muslims, etc. Unfortunately society is always going to have things that they see as out of the normal and always have something to make fun of or cut down. If everyone actually had equal rights, or freedom of expression, I don't waking up a different gender would be as big a deal. And certainly not having identity issues.

[HoneyMelonCalibrator]

I’m having a difficult time fully understanding what you’re asking. I personally don’t see how someone COULDN’T have identity issues after waking up with an unanticipated sex change – both in the short run as well as the long run. The only way I could imagine someone not suffering an identity crisis after such a traumatic experience, would be if the person them self had been suffering identity issues prior to the experience. I say this because, as Reach had mentioned earlier, there are a significant amount of hormonal and (more importantly in this case) neurological differences between males and females. All in all, I don’t think it would be something you (or at least I) would be able to shrug off or become accustomed to. I say this because there are countless amounts of cases of people who suffer from some sort of gender identity crisis who generally are never able to fully overcome them. Our brains, more often than not, are hardwired for our respective genders from birth.

[Rubin0]

Gender is a social construct. The way we dress, walk, and talk has a lot to do with how society has taught us to behave. Wearing a dress has nothing to do with being female. So, no, if our brain "changed' when our sex changed it would not make the transition any easier unless you erased all of the memories that person had growing up.

And anyone on this forum that says no does not understand how much your life would change if you woke and were the opposite sex.

[Silhac]

Originally Posted by Rubin0

And anyone on this forum that says no does not understand how much your life would change if you woke and were the opposite sex.

Well here's a thing to consider. There are some of us (like myself) that honestly would be the happiest people in the world if this were to happen. I don't go through a single day without thinking how much happier I'd be with myself if this would happen. Call it dumb/obsessive/gay, but that's the way I am.

In a way, I didn't refute your statement at all, but just keep in mind that the way you worded it allows it to be extremely negative or positive.

[Rubin0]

I did not mean it in a negative or positive way. The bottom line is that men are treated very differently from women and vice versa in our society. Aside from the physical logistics you would have to deal with, the world would be looking at you completely differently and you would have to learn a completely new set of social rules that you were not subject to before. While I think life would be easier if I were a man and I probably would have made a better man than a woman, that doesn't mean that if I woke up tomorrow I would automatically know how to BE a man. Those are things you learn throughout your lifetime through trial and error.

[Xx{Midnight}xX]

Honestly not really besides the fact I'd be a lesbian woman and I'd have to piss sitting down.

Plus if I really cared to revert back to being a guy there's now surgery for that and hormones.

[Rubin0]

From a medical standpoint, transitioning from a female to a male is much more difficult than a man to transition to a female body.

[Kilroy_x]

Originally Posted by Rubin0

From a medical standpoint, transitioning from female to male is much more difficult than transition from male to female.

Yes and no. If you said "from a surgical standpoint" this would be accurate, as bottom surgery for FtMs is pretty abysmal at the moment. However, it's easier to masculinize a body than it is to feminize it. FtM's don't tend to need facial reconstruction surgery, even when they transition late. Voice will tend to deepen as a result of testosterone whereas MtF's get no benefit past a certain age. So basically, HRT does A LOT more for FtM's regardless of age than it does for MtF's, who either transition early or don't pass; at least not without as much as a hundred thousand dollars worth of surgery. The only major drawback for FtMs is bottom surgery.

[Kilroy_x]

Also, clearly the only explanation for why there are 17 "no" votes is because 17 of the voters are transgender, because nothing else would make any damn sense

[Rubin0]

Originally Posted by Kilroy_x

Yes and no. If you said "from a surgical standpoint" this would be accurate, as bottom surgery for FtMs is pretty abysmal at the moment. However, it's easier to masculinize a body than it is to feminize it. FtM's don't tend to need facial reconstruction surgery, even when they transition late. Voice will tend to deepen as a result of testosterone whereas MtF's get no benefit past a certain age. So basically, HRT does A LOT more for FtM's regardless of age than it does for MtF's, who either transition early or don't pass; at least not without as much as a hundred thousand dollars worth of surgery. The only major drawback for FtMs is bottom surgery.

At the same time WtMs have to go not only through bottom surgery but also top surgery. And from what I have heard, the plastic surgeons don't really put that much effort into removing a woman's breast for aesthetic reasons...at least not as much cares as they take with women with breast cancer.

And a voice can be trained to be higher. It is much more acceptable for a woman to have a deep voice than a man to have a high pitched voice, at least in my opinion.

[Reach]

Originally Posted by Rubin0

Gender is a social construct. The way we dress, walk, and talk has a lot to do with how society has taught us to behave. Wearing a dress has nothing to do with being female. So, no, if our brain "changed' when our sex changed it would not make the transition any easier unless you erased all of the memories that person had growing up.

And anyone on this forum that says no does not understand how much your life would change if you woke and were the opposite sex.

This phrase 'social construct' is thrown around nonsensically a lot. Specifically, your sex is not a social construct and has nothing to do with society. Gender can mean a lot of things, and in many contexts gender is not social in origin. I think you're referring specifically to gender roles, which is entirely another basket of issues.

Regardless, just because the way we dress etc is shaped in part by society doesn't mean it doesn't have a foundation in the fundamental biology of sex.

If you don't mind, explain to me how changing your chemistry to that of the opposite sex would not ease the transition from one sex to the other. Just because it wouldn't make the transition simple doesn't mean it wouldn't facilitate the transition. I don't see how this could possibly not be the case, so I have no idea what point you're trying to make.

Of course the transition is going to be hard. My point was that, if it is to work at all, the only way would include a fundamental change in biological chemistry in conjunction with any other changes that are made. Otherwise, the transition is doomed to failure.

[duddychuck@yahoo.com]

If I was a chick Id masturbate all day.

[Rubin0]

If we lived in the jungle, didn't have language, logic, and had no sense of what a man was or what a woman was, yes then the transition would be simple. If my male dog woke up as a female dog tomorrow, he probably would not even realize what happened. However, as human beings we put everything into categories and we find it very difficult if not impossible to break the "rules" that we apply to those categories.

Just to add to this since I don't seem to be making myself clear. How many men would honestly know what to do if they go their period tomorrow? Would you know how to insert a tampon? If you woke up as a heterosexual woman would you even know how to go about flirting with a man? If I woke up as a man I wouldn't even know how to bathe properly with the new equipment. I wouldn't know how to walk like a man or even talk like a man. Even if my brain chemistry changed, this would not facilitate any of these things because it is what we learn as we are growing up.

Also, the nonsensical "gender is a social construct" is nonsensically used as a definition in most universities around the country. Sex and gender are two completely different things.

[Reach]

Originally Posted by Rubin0

If we lived in the jungle, didn't have language, logic, and had no sense of what a man was or what a woman was, yes then the transition would be simple. If my male dog woke up as a female dog tomorrow, he probably would not even realize what happened. However, as human beings we put everything into categories and we find it very difficult if not impossible to break the "rules" that we apply to those categories.

Also, the nonsensical "gender is a social construct" is nonsensically used as a definition in most universities around the country. Sex and gender are two completely different things.

If we lived in a jungle without language we would still develop our own personal sense of what a man and a woman is. The transition would still not be easy by any means.

Also, I seriously question the fact that your dog would not notice. He most certainly would know. The fact that your dog would not respond the same way as a human has to do with differences in intelligence between humans and dogs.


I've been attending university for a long time, and I've never heard the sentence 'gender is a social construct' used, ever, without further explanation, since the term is semantically ambiguous and can mean any number of things.

Even then, we have to be careful. When most people use the term social contruct, what they really claim is that gender is not an inevitable result of biology, but contingent on social factors, which is a fancy way of saying what I already said; biological factors still matter.

Just to add to this since I don't seem to be making myself clear. How many men would honestly know what to do if they go their period tomorrow? Would you know how to insert a tampon? If I woke up as a man I wouldn't even know how to bathe properly with the new equipment. I wouldn't know how to walk like a man or even talk like a man. Even if my brain chemistry changed, this would not facilitate any of these things because it is what we learn as we are growing up.

Despite your awkward examples (I've seen a tampon being put in, I think I would probably figure it out...), I see what you're saying.

You're arguing something completely different to my point. I'm not going to argue against the fact that I would not possess much of the knowledge necessary to act as a woman would within the social constraints of society.

That wasn't the type of transition I was referring to. I was referring to psychological transition and the ability to cope with your new challenges.