An Essay on Sex and Gender
Sex and Gender From the Perspective of a Trans Man
Introduction
As a transgender person, people tend to have one of two ideas about the way I understand the topic of sex and gender. They either think I’m mentally ill and have a misunderstanding of how it ought to be, or they expect me to have an understanding that is deeper, more nuanced, or more developed than that of cisgender people. These expectations are odd when we recognize that almost everyone has a relationship to sex and gender, and that each relationship is personal, individual, and unique. My understanding of myself, why I am, and how I choose to move through the world are ultimately mine and mine alone. Given the expectations placed on me as a transgender person, I figured I’d articulate what my experience of sex and gender is, given my unique perspective as a trans man.
The general idea of who I am is simple: I am who I am. That is the richest, most real, and deepest understanding I have of myself. It describes an experience that is beyond the limits of language by suggesting that language itself is an inefficient carrier for the weight of what experience truly consists of. As for both my sex and my gender, those are merely aspects of a larger amalgamation of systems, identities, and processes that co-construct my being as a human. The labels “female” and “man” represent partial aspects of identity, yet have the capacity to misconvey the experiences they are said to represent. They have the potential to misrepresent lived experiences because the definitions regarding such labels have not been fully agreed upon by us as a society. While the elements of both sex and gender have been fundamental in the development of who I am, they are not the sole dictating factors of my identity. These labels are tools to help me express and communicate my experiences, but they are not the experience itself, of which is beyond the capacity of language.
To begin, I think it is important to discuss the nuance between what sex and gender are.
What is sex?
Sex is the process and anatomy designed around reproduction. It is a biological system that allows an organism to perpetuate its species and lineage. The singular, consistent difference between the anatomy of males and females is the size of the gamete produced; that is it. While there are trends and patterns relating to sexual roles and function, there are none beyond gamete size with enough consistency to be a certain marker of sex. Hormones, chromosomes, genitalia, and other sex characteristics are all things that vary across sex in other species. Sex, when used as an identifier, is merely noting the type of gamete an organism produces.
Information regarding one's sex is relevant to the person they have sex with and to the professionals they work with, wherein such information is necessary. How one reproduces and if they choose to reproduce is not relevant or necessary information to the majority of individuals they interact with. Therefore, one’s sex is not a necessary topic of conversation unless a person is one of those stated above or is invited to have said discussion.
In addition to defining what sex is, it is important to note that sex is a mature concept. Sex should be explained and understood at an appropriate age. While the ability to reproduce is a natural and necessary aspect of being an organismic species, and it does not need to be taboo, it can still be inappropriate. Youth who have not yet developed the physical systems to reproduce or the cognitive skills to consent to sex should be taught about sex at an appropriate age. The appropriate age is not a hard line, but rather an evaluation of the experiences, environment, and the entity of the youth.
If gender is merely a representation of sex, then it is rather odd the way we force and depend on it. Why must a child be dressed in a specific color if that reason is rooted solely in how they may eventually reproduce? Why must a person be seen in a specific way if they have chosen that they don’t want to reproduce? When gender is solely based on sex, it falls apart quickly, as sex is not the sole experience or aspect of being human, and what it truly defines (gamete size) is not something that is necessary to most experiences.
What is gender?
While sex is the process and anatomy regarding reproduction, gender is the deep-rooted sense of self that is expressed and regulated through social systems. As a trans man, I did not wake up one day and decide, "I want to be a man!" I slowly began to recognize a consistent feeling: "I'd like to grow facial hair, my body feels more natural with a flat chest, I hear myself the way I want when I speak with a deep voice, etc." I understood that the ways in which I desired to genuinely express myself just so happened to align more with the experience of men than women.
Being a man is different from being male. Being male is the fact that a body produces a small gamete as opposed to a large one. Being a man is a complex arrangement of biological and social systems that trend together in comparison to varying gender expressions, which trend in their own ways. Dogs, cats, birds, flowers, trees, and so on can all experience maleness, yet each is void of the experience we call manhood. Manhood is a unique human experience in which multiple but indefinite aspects of experience overlap to create commonalities among people who consider themselves to be part of said demographic.
Gender as a whole is complex in the sense that there is nothing both unique and consistent enough within any aspect of the gender binary that can denote what being a man, woman, or gender-non-conforming person is with certainty. There is no sole defining characteristic that makes someone a man or a woman, and while it may seem as such, there are no physical identifiers that are universal enough to suggest how gender ought to be. There are trends to expressions that tend to pool into camps we call womanhood and manhood, and experiences that exist outside of such a binary. Yet these experiences are arbitrarily labeled and defined by human-constructed boxes. There is no universal rule to suggest that those who produce the large gamete should, say, have long hair and wear dresses, while the small-gamete-producing person should grow a beard.
How do sex and gender relate?
While not the same, gender is still related to sex. Oftentimes, male and female people will feel comfortable with the social systems assigned to them; they feel aligned with the typical biological markers that signify they are male or female and reinforce those traits with social markers. For example, women tend to grow larger breasts than men. The social norm around such characteristics is to wear a bra. Yet when men, on occasion, have fatty tissue that is greater than average and more consistent with women, we don’t see these men buying bras. Yet women with flat chests, who naturally don’t grow larger breasts, will still buy and wear bras. The presence of breast tissue, and wearing a bra is something we often think of as being a female thing (present) or a male thing (not present). Yet when it is really considered, there is no definite rule to suggest that women will always present with breast tissue and that men won’t, or that women should wear bras and that men should not.
The same thinking goes for all physical identifiers of male or femaleness. Even down to the appearance of genitalia, large gamete producing people can naturally be born with anatomy that developed more similarly to a male, and vice versa. These are called intersex people, and their experiences of sex and gender are not any less real, important, human or valid than that of others.
The typical idea of sex is constructed around various things, such as chromosomes, hormones, and primary and secondary sex characteristics. And while it is argued that biology can’t be changed, I’d argue that there are indeed aspects of biology that can, even though there are aspects that cannot. The defining aspect of sex, being the larger-gamete or small-gamete production, cannot be changed, nor can the chromosomes that determine the body’s trajectory of development, but hormones and primary and secondary sex characteristics are all things that can be altered.
In addition to the reality that some biology can be changed, biology is not the sole factor for how gender is constructed or perceived. Gender is immersed in social factors that are not related to biology, such as how one presents themselves through clothing, hairstyle, and mannerisms. As a trans man, I feel more comfortable expressing myself in ways that tend to be more commonly associated with men. I did not transition to fit a social role; I transitioned because the ways my body naturally developed felt misaligned and incongruent with the ways I wanted to represent myself. I did not transition to become a man; I felt a sense of what is called manhood within me while also experiencing a disconnect from the experience of womanhood, and therefore made a conscious decision to delve into the sensation that made me feel like myself. The experience of delving into gender is not an experience limited to trans people; cisgender individuals do things all the time to enforce and express their idea of what their gender means to them.
How do people relate to their identity?
Everyone has a relationship to both sex and gender. In our society, people are born with bodies typically expressing sex characteristics that align with a common trajectory of gender expression. These bodies are then determined to be a gender from the first day of existence. We are then socialized to enforce gender, its binary, and the social systems around such ideas as normal and universal. The true reality regarding sex and gender is that sex is important, but ultimately irrelevant to activities outside of reproduction and sexual health. Gender is a human construction that is essentially arbitrary and fluctuating, and while it is useful, it is not a fundamental or necessary requirement for a functional society.
Being beyond gender
What would a society without a gender construct look like? People would do what people do, yet they would do it based on ability, skill, and more personal and relevant reason, rather than for reasons related to gender. The strong would do activities that require strength, the intellects would do what needs intelligence, the gentle would take care of what needs grace. People would be free to do what best suits them, rather than what is placed onto them. People could still express themselves as they do, but they would do it because of authentic and genuine desire rather than a desire to fit in. People would attract others based on authenticity rather than a mirage of what a person should do to be attractive, and those with the capacity to reproduce may or may not choose to while those without such opportunities may or may not choose to build families with alternative methods.
Why is gender necessary?
Gender is relevant to systems where division of people is necessary. Systems that subjugate one group compared to another, such as patriarchy, use gender to do so. Without such systems, people are much harder to divide as the human experience overlaps and varies in such complex ways. Without rigid norms being perpetuated generation after generation, it becomes incredibly difficult to group people based on things that seem basic to us, only because they have been perpetuated for generations and generations. The question of gender’s necessity is answered by the individual and their view on the systems that utilize such construction.
Conclusion
Sex and gender are simultaneously simple yet complex; it is a cross between the objective and the subjective, and a blend between nature and human will. Our inability to agree upon a defining factor of gender and the insistence on it being related to sex only perpetuates the need for a system that ultimately boxes the free nature of identity, experience, and humanity into rigidly defined categories.