Many Ways to Be a Girl, but One Way to Be a Boy: The New Gender Rules

This article: Many Ways to Be a Girl, but One Way to Be a Boy: The New Gender Rules is on a topic that has lots of relevance to something that I am concerned about.  But let's look at the main point first.

Because of the tireless efforts of feminists, girls are gradually being liberated to present themselves in a variety of ways: all the way from being ultra-feminine to being almost ungendered, in the sense of having interests and dress preferences that are neither feminine or masculine, and personal styles that do not fit into those of their parents' generation.  Make no mistake: not all of these are endorsed with equal enthusiasm in every location, or by every society.  In some conservative hell-holes, a girl who wants to be a fireman or a police officer would be looked at with some concern, or even scorn.  But a boy who wants to dance ballet, or wear a dress, is regarded with almost universal distaste.

To make myself perfectly clear: it isn't literally true that there is only one way that boys are permitted to present themselves. There are increasing instances of boys who have creatively found ways of presenting themselves differently than the athletic, masculine, taciturn, "man of action" type of guy.  The beer-swilling, football-playing type of boy who claims to be uninterested in school is a stereotype that has had its day, certainly.  But this is, in some ways, the central stereotype from which boys dare to diverge in some ways, but usually not too far.  Depending on where you live, there will be young fellows who reject this 'norm' utterly.  They can be uninterested in athletics, perfectly articulate, interested in school, and satisfied with almost any drink but beer, and also depending on the locality, they may be called nerds, or some other uncomplimentary term, invented by the morons who find the old stereotype comfortable, and probably the only one they can aspire to.  But the point of the article above is a rather relative thing: girls can safely stray much further from the feminine stereotype norm, and with fewer negative consequences, than boys can stray from their stereotype; and this is what is being talked about: why not boys as much as girls?  Why isn't the spectrum of tolerated personality styles as wide for men as for women?

Now, boys who would like to wear feminine dress are not rare at all.  For example, Ronald Reagan's son, Ron Junior, who wanted to dance ballet, was often humiliated, but as anyone who has seen him recently will agree, is a man with a personality that will probably satisfy the most bigoted sexist.

Now here's my point: first of all, I deeply dislike the rush of some parents to gender modification of underage children.  A boy who wants to present himself in a more feminine style should simply be allowed to do so.  Often the parents are horrified by this situation, but more often it is the classmates and the school administration that is more uncomfortable with it.  Until we take a more aggressive attitude towards freedom of gender expression,  (I don't even know whether that is the proper term for what I want to talk about, but it ought to be clear) there are going to be kids---and some overenthusiastic parents---who want to settle the problem once and for all, but replacing the poor guy's genital apparatus with those of a little girl, or hitting him with hormones, with the intention of surgical 'improvements' later on.  And the same goes with girls who want to present themselves in the style of boys.

There certainly are children who are hermaphrodites by birth, where the gender assignment is ambiguous.  Not being one of those, or even knowing one closely, I don't know how traumatic that is for the child, though it is doubtless deeply problematic for the parents, especially in a society that views gender as a very dichotomous thing.  But those are the exceptions; the vast majority of children who feel themselves to be gender fluid in the sense of (a) not comfortable with their assigned gender in every regard, and (b) not satisfied with their assigned sexual orientation, should be permitted to express themselves in terms of personal style (clothing, hair, personal presentation, etc) any way they wish, without it being considered imperative that they should have surgery at the first opportunity.  In fact, they should not be permitted to have (and their parents should not be permitted to encourage) gender reassignment surgery until they're old enough to marry, for instance.  This is obviously an arbitrary choice of age, but considering that the surgery is not easy to reverse, this can be considered something that society should enforce for the protection of the minor.

If there was a way for a child to experience what gender reassignment is like without the actual surgery, (assuming it is not permanent,) it would be ideal, and that could be tried when the child is young, and not yet in a calcified gender state.  (In fact, it might be a good thing to moderate tendencies in certain young males towards sexual harassment, to let them experience what it feel like to be at the receiving end.)

These problems are very First World, admittedly.  For that very reason, unless we in the West do not address the issue ourselves, it is unlikely that anyone else will.  (Except, of course, that Japan might take the lead in this one, since their traditions seem to be more flexible in these sorts of matters.)

I'm still thinking about this problem, but for lack of a forum in which to talk about the issue, my thoughts on it are slower than molasses...

Arch

P.S.
On a related note, perhaps it is time to insist that whenever an instance of pedophilia is discovered in clergy, that a huge fine be levied on the church, which must be given to state controlled charities.  I'm talking a fine of millions of dollars, which should not go to the victim, certainly not all of it.  Ultimately, I believe that the blame has to be placed on the church, for requiring or encouraging celibacy on the part of the clergy.

2016: Gender Reassignment, and the Transgender Phenomenon

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Since the question of how to deal with the needs of transgender citizens in our midst is becoming a major policy issue, I think we ordinary folks should take a look at the entire phenomenon.  Psychologists, obviously, have been looking at it for decades, but I tend to be just a little doubtful about their thoughts on anything; the psychologists who have affected public policy have been as often wrong as they have been right.  The entire pain management industry, though helpful to some people, indirectly contribute to the heavy use of narcotics across the country.  That might be considered an entirely medical subject, but I think psychologists have had their hands in it.

Gender is a complex thing.  It is both something that characterizes how an individual sees him- or herself, but almost, even more, how an individual wants society to see him or her.  I’m willing to bet that the attitude of anyone withing the group of people who are sensitive to the question of their gender identity, and to the gender identities of those whom they are interested in relating to, could change depending on the cultural environment of the moment.

Fifty years ago, gender stereotypes were so oppressively strong that only the bravest and most determined people even considered what was called back then a “sex change”.  In some present-day cultures, it is usual for males to take on aggressively masculine personas, and (possibly in response) for females to take on —what other sub-cultures may consider—  excessively feminine personas.  In such a social and cultural environment, life would be difficult for an individual who finds it unpleasant to fit into either the ultra-feminine or the ultra-masculine role that is considered appropriate.  On the other hand in those times, for some people the desire to change gender could be almost desperately strong, because so much is at stake.

Western society is gradually evolving into one in which extreme roles are not expected.  But, of course, because of the great cultural tolerance in American Society (though significantly less than that of certain European societies), there are innumerable cultural pockets in every population center, where the norms are different.  So one could easily find in a big city such as New York, Los Angeles or San Francisco, where gender roles are subtle and nuanced, certain neighborhoods in which a male is expected to be excessively masculine as a matter of course.

So, I am beginning to think that a child’s decision to stop being a boy and become a girl, or stop being a girl and become a boy, could be strongly influenced by the microculture in which it finds itself.  Some boys just love to wear dresses.  But what if that boy were in a local culture where dresses do not exist?  Dresses, after all, are an artifact of the culture; a way the culture chooses to express itself at a given moment.  There is very little intrinsically feminine in a dress; most of it is by association and usage.  If a boy in an entirely pants-wearing culture were to suddenly become enamored of dresses upon seeing one in a catalog, for instance, that would be interesting.  One wonders whether gender reassignment would be warranted in such cases, where in my opinion the child is much too young to make a decision of such great import.

More interestingly, because of the gradual drift of gender roles towards a more neutral middle-ground, and because of the tendency of fashions for young people to become more unisex, a trend we can expect to see increasing, it might not be something a young person actually needs, to be surgically altered.  These phenomena of unisex fashions and androgynous presentation of self are more often seen in big cities, and (interestingly enough) among more middle-class populations, whereas less-affluent sectors of society seem to favor the more strongly differentiated gender roles.  A couple of decades from now, we could hope to see a decline in gender-reassignment surgery, simply because it would gradually become easier, some day in the future, for anyone to express him- or herself comfortably at any point in the spectrum of gender identity without gender re-assignment.  We must hope that gender roles of any sort become possible without surgical intervention.  But by then, people might be more interested in becoming whales, or sharks, or something more interesting!  To my conservative eyes, it seems a better choice for an individual to work within the gender he or she has been born with, and use any avenues of costume or other means to create an environment in which he or she can interact in the way he or she desires with the companions he or she desires, than to go the route of surgery.  We hear from those who are happy with their gender transformation, but we ought to hear from those whose gender transformation paths have not been smooth.  Just as things such as surgical body enhancement have been a nightmare for some, so one cannot doubt that desire and attitude alone cannot guarantee success for everyone wanting to change gender surgically.  There have to be a significant number of failures out there which we have not learned about.  But my main thrust is that it may not be long before gender becomes more of a matter of attitude, behavior and choice than a matter of anatomy.

Arch
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