That gender is a social construct does not mean you can just
dismiss it. Gender is not a material reality like the body, this is true. But
material reality isn't the only reality. Social constructs can shape material reality. For example the social practice of footwear can and has changed foot structure. In our society’s very individualist
view of things, there isn’t an allowance for the fact that social pressures and
assumptions do define the borders of how we are or can be. Gender has power and
force and is not easily thrown off. It
is true that without coming to the understanding that gender is a social
construct, I wouldn’t have found the psychological strength to transition.
Prior to that understanding, however, I have battled with my personal gender
one way or another for the whole of my life. Now I specify my personal gender
here because of course that is not the only way gender is used oppressively. Of course there is the oppression of gender supremacy, but for now I want to focus on oppression rooted in what gender is thought to be.
I have found that there are at least four different
categories of social pressures and assumptions concerning what gender is:
- Gender expression: clothing, hair, make-up, affectations, etc.
- Gender roles: Mother, Father, Truck Driver, Nurse (ways in which our society assigns gender to activities or interpersonal relationships)
- Gender “norms”: Ways in which we gender personal qualities; emotional vs stoic, good with math, nurturing, etc.
- Gender identity: Your own personal resonance (or lack thereof) with gender.
Prior to understanding gender as a social construct, it became
clear to me that categories 1, 2 & 3 were not determined by the binary sex
one was assigned at birth. That people who never questioned their gender
identity could and did challenge expectations of their expression, roles, and
assumed norms. This clarity was no doubt informed by being a teenager during
the second wave of feminism. And the enforcement of these first three
categories was oppressive. However the fourth category, that of personal
identity, that WAS “biologically” determined (under the prevalent misunderstanding
of biology as limited to binary sex categories.)
And yet, that was my primary struggle. Expression was never
all that important to me. Roles were more of an issue, but due to privilege that
was given to me because it was assumed I was male, most roles could be worked
around (except motherhood, but that’s a whole essay in and of itself.) Norms
were more challenging. Initially, as far back as first grade, it was clear to
me that my personality, the qualities I possessed were much more like those our society considers normative for women than men - that they would be more acceptable if I had been “born a girl” (the language I had at the time.) For the
longest time, I thought that if these “norms” were challenged enough, if our
culture could allow for “both” genders to be who they were inside, that would
be enough.
Sometime in college it finally occurred to me that there was
something deeper going on. It wasn’t simply a matter of acceptance of qualities
I had, it was something else. It had to do with an interiority, a sense of
self, what mattered to me within myself, what I found valuable about me, and
even deeper what resonated with something that wasn’t even conscious. Trouble
was, I didn’t have the words for this something else. What I did know
instinctively was that if my primary and secondary sexual characteristics were
different, this something else would be recognized in some manner. And that absolute lack of recognition
I felt was oppressive.
So when finally, the social construct understanding came to
me, it allowed for me to see that gender identity itself was something other than one’s sexual characteristics,
and I could finally admit out loud that I was transsexual. It was freedom, it felt
like an escape from oppression. It allowed me to embrace my interior gender. The
thing is, I now understand on some level that what I refer to as my interior
gender is something that is still bound by social constructs. Transsexual, transgender,
genderqueer, agender, gender fluid, non-binary, these are all cultural
understandings that exist because of the social constructs of gender in our society.
In a different culture, in a different time and place, none of these terms
would make any sense at all. To assert any of these terms is not a dismissal of
social constructs, not an escape from them, but rather attempts to create new
constructs that better fit the experience of those oppressed by the limits of
the prevalent social constructs.
