Sex, Gender, or Sexual Orientation

[Darth Denkay]

Currently threads addressing various identities are really prolific around here - which is a good thing. I read a number of them, but haven't participated much because I can only get on the site every few days so I stay a day or two behind. In any case, I've noticed a commonality that runs through many of the threads. We use identity labels as we understand them, but we don't understand them all the same, which makes it difficult for us to clearly communicate with each other. In particular, one poster may be referencing sex while another reads it as gender so we're frequently not on the same page.

To illustrate, I'm going to offer my conceptualization of a number of identities. I am not insinuating that these are the only understanding for each term, but I expect that folks will read through them and think "whoa, that's not how I use that term". So I give you Kayden's identity jargon.

First we have Sex, which I understand as a biological manifestation. There are three broad sex categories (in MY mind remember): female, male, and intersex. These identities are based on chromosomal makeup, hormone levels, genitals, and additional secondary sex characteristics. We're raised to buy into, really, a 2-sex binary, since intersex often isn't included. So when I read male or female, I interpret those terms as either referring to biological sex at birth, or a marker used by trans individuals. Chromosomes match genitalia in most cases, although intersex and trans folks prevent this being an absolute (which is a good thing!). I identify as female. My genitalia are female - I know you all really needed to know that. As far as I know, I have an X and a Y chromosome. I know my testosterone levels are extremely high for females (I don't take hormones, never have). In any case my sex is female.

Next we have Gender. I understand gender as an internal sense of self, related to sex but not bound by it. We are raised to believe in a binary gender system, female=woman and male=man. Our community busts that right open. We understand at least two additional genders - femme and butch (and we use other terms as well - two-spirit, third gender, other gender - but for simplicity's sake I'm going to stick to butch and femme). I identify as butch. In our community I associate butch with female. This is an assumption I make, that those who identify as butch are female (physically). If someone does not fit this description, then I am likely going to misunderstand their identity. Neither of us is right or wrong, but I see butch through a female lens, so I am going to assume that the butch in question is female-bodied. With femmes it becomes a little more complicated, because I can't assume that femme automatically means female, at least not in the sense of biological birth. Most femmes, I assume, are female by birth, but some are male or intersexed at birth so again, it's not an absolute. This is the reason I've never identified as a female butch - for me, butch assumes female.

Next we come to the gender descriptors, masculine and feminine. We are raised to associate masculine with male (and also equate that with man) and feminine with female (equated with woman). Once again, our community demonstrates that we can't make this assumption as butches possess masculinity proudly as females, femmes demonstrate femininity sometimes in a profoundly different way than females who do not identify as femme. And I'm not even going to address how femmes can demonstrate masculinity and butches femininity because then it gets ever so much more complex. Which is also why all of this can be colossally confusing. I identify as a masculine entity, just for the record. I'm also not going to go into man and woman, again because I don't really want to write a dissertation, and I doubt you want to read one. In my case, neither man or woman. Just masculine.

Trangender. This identity, to my mind, encompasses both sex and gender. In very simple terms, it is when one's sex and gender do not coincide the way that our binary sex/gender system expects them to. For some this may mean not identifying as man or woman, but not desiring to and/or taking any steps to change one's physical sex. For others, this means altering physical sex (if they are able) to match their sense of man or woman. I used to identify as trans, but I quit, basically because I didn't believe that term was adding any additional, useful information to my identity markers.

Sexual orientation. We have at least four categories here: heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, and asexual. Some folks use other terms as well (such as dyke, man who has sex with men, woman-loving-woman) but again let's keep this sorta simple. We tend to assume that folks on this site fall outside of the heteronormative box, particularly as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Of course, some of us may identify as gay/lesbian/bisexual when we arrive here, but as we become who we truly feel we are it is certainly possible we might embrace heterosexual. However, this heterosexual is qualitatively different from the heteronormative one (again, in my mind). Is sexual orientation related to sex or gender. I think we all understand it differently. However, it is attraction/behavior, which in my mind is related to sex and gender there is no one-to-one connection (i.e. masculine females must be homosexual).

Are you tired of reading yet. Are you even still reading? Okay, one more. Queer. Some folks use queer to describe their sexual orientation. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, all could be queer. Others use queer to describe their gender, simplistically not man or woman. In my mind, pretty much everyone on the site is queer - given my understanding of the term - although I know there are folks who don't identify as queer. And frankly, I don't spend any time going through the member list - queer, queer, definitely queer, queer, goose - but this term certainly can cover many identities.

Okay, I'm going to stop now. I just read over it, I think it makes sense. Not sure if this will spur any discussion, but I've been mulling over these terms for a while now so wanted to toss them out. This stuff can be really dense. And since we do not all use these terms in the same way, some of our misunderstandings are based in different conceptualizations of the same terms. Thanks for reading.