fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2742 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2742 ⌋

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There are differences between males and females in terms of hormones and in terms of brain chemistry. There is definitely a biological basis for feeling like one should be in a man's body or like one should be in a woman's body.

This all breaks down when we get into phenotypical and social/cultural presentation. E.g. having "male" sex characteristics doesn't necessarily correspond to having "male" hormones/brain chemistry, and most of the roles that we assign to people based on "maleness" or "femaleness" doesn't correspond to biology. Everything that underlies the way we feel is, well...underneath the surface.

What does it feel like? Well, I'm not sure that it feels like anything when you're in the right body. It's when you're in the wrong body that it becomes noticeable, because you're going around with this sense that something's not quite right, and it can take a very long time for you to figure out what it is that's not quite right. I think it's kind of like when you get a gut feeling that something's off, or when there's something on the edge of your memory that you just can't access, but you know that it's something important.

I get there's a biological reality behind body dysphoria, of course. I'm just not sure how it corresponds to the whole idea of gender.

herpymcderp wrote a nice thing about gender and its biology - I guess that's the reason I never understand wtf people are talking about when they're discussing gender. I'm not very good at complex psychology; still worse at it when I'm having a conversation about something I personally do not experience.

It really doesn't correspond, and that's the tricky part, and the part that makes the whole non-binary thing feel very problematic to a lot of people.

Gender is basically just all of the social rules associated with being male or female. It's all made up. What's happening is that people who don't feel like they fit the rules (which, let's be honest, it just about all of us) are conflating this with actual dysphoria. But it's not the same; we don't fit the rules because the rules are nonsense, not because we're biologically different.

I'll grant that it can be really confusing. When I was around 12, I told someone that I thought I'd rather be a boy, because I was interested in things that were stereotypically associated with boys. But I didn't actually feel like I was in the wrong body; I just didn't like the box that I had been placed in, and I didn't have the words to express it at the time. I came to understand it by studying other cultures; the light bulb moment for me was realizing that, had they been raised in a different setting, the boys in my class might find it appropriate to wear skirts.

I wonder...do you notice the "rules" to any extent? Maybe that's the disconnect.

No, but apparently genders DO have a solid biological reality behind them (see herpymcderp's post)?

I agree that dysphoria has little to do with the psychosocial idea of "genders", but it is connected to what genders biologically are.

So non-binary genders are legit both in terms of cultural constructs and in terms of human physiology.

>I wonder...do you notice the "rules" to any extent?

Yeah, but I've always thought they were just dumb and I never bothered with them *shrugs* I don't see them as a particularly powerful thing. I guess for other people they are.

My understanding of sex and gender is such that what herpy is saying applies to sex rather than gender. But I appear to be "old school" sociologically. When I was learning about this stuff, everything that was biological and physiological was sex, and everything that was social and cultural was gender. The terms have become more fluid in recent years, and I'm not sure I'm happy with that.

But I suppose that's neither here nor there.

I will say that I do wish I could have your attitude about the "rules" and not be affected by them.

I think there's kind of two definitions of gender: one which is socially constructed, and one which would be more accurately described as the sex of your brain. Biological 'gender' is all about how your brain relates to your body, and can thus produce dysphoria. Whereas the other sort of gender is about how you relate to society.

[ SECRET POST #2742 ]

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