Wow... This thread is full ignorance and bullshit.
Gender and Sex are two different things. You can continue to claim they're the same or that your physical sex determines your gender, but it's bullshit, sorry.
What is the difference between sex and gender?
Sex = male and female
Gender = masculine and feminine
So in essence:
Sex refers to biological differences; chromosomes, hormonal profiles, internal and external sex organs.
Gender describes the characteristics that a society or culture delineates as masculine or feminine.
So while your sex as male or female is a biological fact that is the same in any culture, what that sex means in terms of your gender role as a 'man' or a 'woman' in society can be quite different cross culturally. These 'gender roles' have an impact on the health of the individual.
In sociological terms 'gender role' refers to the characteristics and behaviours that different cultures attribute to the sexes. What it means to be a 'real man' in any culture requires male sex plus what our various cultures define as masculine characteristics and behaviours, likewise a 'real woman' needs female sex and feminine characteristics. To summarise:
'man' = male sex+ masculine social role
(a 'real man', 'masculine' or 'manly')
'woman' = female sex + feminine social role
(a 'real woman', 'feminine' or 'womanly')
SourceSoph (for example) identifies as masculine, the preferred masculine pronouns are "he/him/his". Yes Soph is not biologically male. But that doesn't change his preference or his identity. Questioning his identity is akin to questioning one's autism, especially so if one's autism is part of their identity.
Being transgender is simply when one's gender identity does not conform with one's sexual characteristics:
Transgender is the state of one's "gender identity" (self-identification as woman, man, or neither) not matching one's "assigned sex" (identification by others as male or female based on physical/genetic sex). "Transgender" does not imply any specific form of sexual orientation; transgender people may identify as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, polysexual, or asexual; some may consider conventional sexual orientation labels inadequate or inapplicable to them. The precise definition for transgender remains in flux, but includes:
* "Of, relating to, or designating a person whose identity does not conform unambiguously to conventional notions of male or female gender roles, but combines or moves between these."[1]
* "People who were assigned a sex, usually at birth and based on their genitals, but who feel that this is a false or incomplete description of themselves."[2]
* "Non-identification with, or non-presentation as, the sex (and assumed gender) one was assigned at birth."[3]
A transgender individual may have characteristics that are normally associated with a particular gender, identify elsewhere on the traditional gender continuum, or exist outside of it as "other," "agender," "Genderqueer," or "third gender". Transgender people may also identify as bigender, or along several places on either the traditional transgender continuum, or the more encompassing continuums which have been developed in response to the significantly more detailed studies done in recent years.
SourceThis is not a whim, most people simply don't decide to be transgender (and those that do rarely are). It's far from easy or fun... Transphobic comments, whether intended or not, really hurt.
Transphobia (or less commonly, transprejudice and trans-misogyny, the latter referring to transphobia directed toward transwomen) refers to discrimination against transsexuality and transsexual or transgender people, based on the expression of their internal gender identity (see Phobia - terms indicating prejudice or class discrimination). Whether intentional or not, transphobia can have severe consequences for the object of the negative attitude. Many transpeople also experience homophobia from people who incorrectly associate their gender identity with homosexuality.[1] Attacking someone on the basis of a perception of their gender identity rather the perception of their sexual orientation is known as "trans-bashing," as opposed to "gay bashing."
SourceIt is really difficult to explain Transgender in a way that people who already don't agree with it will accept it. Meaning that any discussion here with so many ignorant bigots is
almost an exercise in futility. To put it as simply as possible; Biological sex characteristics are irrelevant, at least in this discussion. Gender identity, the internal identification toward a gender (which may or may not be male or female) is key. A transgendered person's pronoun preference is not for fun, but because that's how they identify.
Gender is not rigid. A male, say Odeon, is not exclusively 100% Masculine, he will have many feminine qualities and behaviours. That's the way people work. Obviously his identity is masucline as such those behaviours are preferred and more obvious.
People will flow from masucline to feminine and back again, very few people have a completely rigid gender identity. As such the terms "Male" and "Female" are absurd and almost entirely meaningless. There are some very masculine female-identifying women out there and same with vice-versa. There are even people who do not identify with either "male" or "female" and prefer either a bi-gendered identity, or a non-gender identity.
This makes for a confusing and difficult to understand topic, but just because you don't understand it doesn't make it invalid or wrong.
Now, Sexuality... Well that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish. (Why would you put fish in a kettle? "Mmm, a nice brew of fish tea." Blech)
Asexual:
The definition here is in flux as more people enter the discussion as to what asexuality is. The currently accepted definition is: "Someone who does not experience
sexual attraction.". Sexual attraction is different from physical attraction in that sexual attraction is the desire to have sex with the subject of attraction. Physical os aesthetic attraction is simply that you find the subject pleasing to look at, or interesting, engaging, with no sexual component at all.
Some asexuals still have and enjoy sex, but they don't experience sexual based attraction, or even the desire to have sex.
I'm asexual and I no have desire to have sex. I don't find anyone sexually attractive.
Asexuals can have romantic attraction, where they want to have a relationship (non-sexual) with someone. The romantic orientations are similar to sexual orientation, aromantic, biromantic, hetero, homo, pan and poly.
(
http://asexuality.org has more info)
Bisexual:
Bisexual is when someone is sexually attracted to either Male or Female. Here the gender roles and often sexual characteristics are important, as Bi people are only attracted to Male and/or Female.
Heterosexual:
Straight. Boring.
Homosexual:
Attracted to people of the same gender/sex.
Pansexual:
Here's where it gets interesting. Pansexual (and same for Panromantic without sexual component) are attracted to anyone. Of any gender expression. In any form. They can form a relationship with any person, regardless of their gender.
Polysexual:
Polysexual people are similar to pan, but are attracted smaller group. Similar in someways to Bisexual, but they prefer not to be restricted to the silly definitions of male or female.
SourceAnd like gender people can have fluid sexual identities... So consistency is quite irrelevant. If someone identifies with being homosexual, but actually find some females attractive that doesn't make them any less homosexual. The preference is based on the primary attraction, or the persons' stated identification.
I hope you've learned something...But if not and you still hold to your bigot opinions it would be best if you kept them to yourselves. Commenting on something you either have little knowledge on or are unwilling to learn about is rather stupid.
Damn, I should be asleep, but this one is too irresistible not to answer.
Ask 50 autistic people what it means to be autistic, and......
My whole point was that "transgendered" is too vaguely defined to be meaningfull. Hell, I'M transgendered by most definitions.
Transgender vs. transsexual
The word transsexual, unlike the word transgender, has a precise medical definition. It was defined by Harry Benjamin in his seminal book "The Transsexual Phenomenon". In particular he defined transsexuals on a scale called the "Benjamin Scale", which defines a few different levels of intensity of transsexualism; these are listed as "Transsexual (nonsurgical)", "True Transsexual (moderate intensity)", and "True Transsexual (high intensity)". Many transsexuals believe that to be a true transsexual one needs to have a desire for surgery. [18] However, it is notable that Benjamin's moderate intensity "true transsexual" needs estrogen medication as a "substitute for or preliminary to operation." There also exist people who have had sexual reassignment surgery (SRS) but do not meet the definition of a transsexual, such as Gregory Hemingway., while other people do not desire SRS yet clearly meet Dr. Benjamin's definition of a "true transsexual". Beyond Dr. Benjamin's work, which focused on Male to Female transsexuals, there are cases of Female to Male transsexuals for whom surgery is often considered to be not practical.
Outside of the above medical definition there is a wide range of gender expressions which are contrary to the norm. Cross dressers, drag queens, transvestites, transvestic fetishist etc. It is notable that many transsexuals go through one of those self identifications before realizing that they are in fact transsexual.
Some transsexuals also take issue with the term because Charles "Virginia" Prince, the founder of the cross dressing organization Tri-Ess and coiner of the term "transgender", did so because she wished to distinguish herself from transsexual people. In "Men Who Choose to Be Women," Prince wrote "I, at least, know the difference between sex and gender and have simply elected to change the latter and not the former". There is a substantial academic literature on the difference between sex and gender, but in pragmatic English, this academic distinction is ignored and "gender" is used mostly to describe the categorical male/female difference while "sex" is used mostly to describe the physical act.[25]
There is political tension between the identities that fall under the "transgender umbrella." For example, transsexual men and women who can pay for medical treatments (or who have institutional coverage for their treatment) are likely to be concerned with medical privacy and establishing a durable legal status as men and women later in life. Extending insurance coverage for medical care is a coherent issue in the intersection of transsexuality and economic class. Most of these issues can appeal even to conservatives, if framed in terms of an unusual sort of "maintenance" of traditional notions of gender for rare people who feel the need for medical treatments. Some trans people might express this by saying "I don't challenge the gender binary, I just started out on the wrong side of it."
SourceTransgender as stated above is often an umbrella term. Whereas Transsexual is quite specific. Genderqueer is another preferred umbrella term.
I'd be interested to know how you, Scrapheap, fit into Transgender?
