Why is our gender so important to other people anyhow?

[sandra-leigh]

Last night I emailed a friend I have known for 15-ish years, but not met in person. We don't communicate very often, but we catch up a couple of random times a year, and it was feeling like my turn to initiate.

I didn't have any particular inspiration, nothing special that has happened lately, but for whatever reason I decided it was time to tell him that I am transgender. So I composed something.. and threw it away. I then composed something else that was a bit less self-justifying and more straight-forward. I wasn't entirely happy how that came out either, but I was staying awake by pure will by that point and I said "Well, frick it!" and sent it anyhow.

Afterwards I was thinking a bit about how muddled my coming-out messages seem to get, and I was thinking about how in some ways a bunch of the message I had written was just padding to ramp up to the bare fact, and I was thinking about why it even seems necessary to refer to medicine or biology or internal psychology, and I was thinking about would he even care and about what there was about the fact of my being TG to care about. And that led me to the question:

Why is it so important to other people anyhow? Why does our talking about it become such a production? Why is it that so many people "invest" so much energy over what gender we are? It is important to us what we are, sure, but why is telling other people so much tougher and elicits so much a stronger reaction than us saying, for example, that we had given up on the Toronto Blue Jays and were now fans of the Detroit Tigers?

I am, of course, not speaking here about immediate families and especially not about SO's, but about those who are a little further away from us.

In asking this question, I have not forgotten that sometimes we choose (or filter) our friends by gender because there can be pressures to not enter into situations where one might be alone with a member of the opposite sex, lest sexual activity or a Relationship develop (I don't know -- does this get modified to "member of the same sex" for homosexuals?) A book I read a couple of years ago, "How to Affair-Proof Your Marriage" said much the same thing, that one should not have any such friendships outside of the relationship as it would take away or tempt your concentration on your partner. Is this a key factor for relationships, a sort of unspoken auto-censoring, a keeping of company with your own gender as a sort of communal chaperoning ?

So this question is part implicit rant, part psychological, part sociological, part socio-biological, part relationship dynamics... "Why does it have to be so hard?!?" yelled to the raging sea, but combined with "Okay, so are there specific factors in effect that we could examine?"

[Bree-asaurus]

Why does it have to be so hard?

It really shouldn't be.

Why does it have to be so hard for others to accept the fact that we are one gender rather than the other?

Our gender is a HUGE part of a person's identity. If you call a woman "he" she's gonna feel hurt, upset or angry. Our society heavily invests in gender being part of who we are, and we are a product of our society.

[KellyJameson]

For most people gender and sex go together.

A man sees a woman and he assumes she is heterosexual (particularly if she looks like his image of what a heterosexual woman looks like) and if he is heterosexual and "sexual" regardless of whether he is in a relationship or not he will be aware of her sexually and finding out she is not what he "assumed" could be a problem because it threatens his confidence in knowing the difference between illusion and reality in his own mind which he knows is necessary to survival.

A woman sits down in a coffee shop and strikes up a conversation with the woman sitting next to her possibly sharing things she would not have if that person had been a man.

If it was a man possibly not starting a conversation because of concern it would be misconstrued as a sexual advance or wondering if it is safe because of the fear he may be dangerous so possibly not even sitting down next to him in the first place.

Out in the world men and women are always maneuvering in relation to each other and it is ceaseless and this world of men and women completely flips when you go from living as a man to living as a woman because now you have changed sides in a weird type of war that is undeclared and neither side really knows that they are fighting but an outsider sees it clearly because they hold both perspectives.

Being TG is being affected by others sexuality and need for safety in relationship to each other as men and women.

Being TG means everyone is suspicious of you once they know you are (women, men,lesbians,gays,the religious,democrats,republicans) all for their own reasons and those reasons automatically mean you are a possible threat either as a traitor, infiltrator or provocateur.

I'm private and I do not tell people once it is clear they have already assumed who I am because I have learned it is almost impossible for most people to fit me into their reality afterwards.

In my opinion you have to make a "either or choice"

Tell them immediately before they can make an assumption or never and I prefer never for myself unless I sense the person is so secure with their own core reality that nothing can shake it so they have an almost fearless approach to life.

Much of what we assume about others is automatic when meeting them based on what we see and this ability gives people some sense of security and the longer the relationship lasts the more that is assumed through each encounter so it shocks the persons reality (which they need to manage fear) when something is the opposite of what they assumed.

We avoid people whose reality is to different from our own because there is no common ground for understanding.

Everyone needs to bring order from chaos to overcome the feelings of dread that not doing so would create and this order is their reality and when it is threatened it provokes those very feelings of dread they were trying to avoid.

[I Am Paula]

Good questions Sandra-Leigh. As for your title question. Humans have an instinct to categorize everything. Every item in our lives has to fit neatly into a pigeon hole, or is rejected. I think this is the primary reason that those of us falling into a gender gap, and therefore defying categorization, are shunned. The second part re: auto censoring. Sorry, I can't see any connection between what gender you socialize with, and whether a relationship, sexual or otherwise, might develop. I have hung out with GG's, and been in a relationship with one or another, all my life. I have no desire to turn my platonic friends into any other type of relationship, and my wife knows this. I think it's more about personal choices than what gender/sex your friends and aquaintances are. My 2 cents. Celeste

[kimdl93]

Good answers, and I can't add much. I do think that its human nature to generalize. Our brains put things in compartments as part of the process of understanding the world. Unfortunately, we can also overgeneralize and have difficulty with disonant information. For a person who grew up thining of people using a binary gender classification, anything that departs from that binary can be confusing.

[docrobbysherry]

I don't think most people give a darn about anyone's gender. What they care about is how we DRESS!

They would simply prefer folks that look male to dress in men's clothes and visa versa! If we all COULD do that, I don't think we wouldn't be having this discussion, Sandra.

[Wildaboutheels]

It's simply EVOLUTION at work trying it's best to keep the Human race alive and kicking and nothing more. We basically want to know Male OR Female - possible sex partner - or NOT? Our most basic [and one of our most powerful {thank goodness}] DRIVES is to mate. Obviously this means finding a "suitable" partner of the opposite sex. For men, their best chance of carrying on their bloodline is to mate with as many females as possible whcih accounts for most men's willingness to "do it" with practically ANY willing female. Females have to be much more careful about partners, because THEY are the ones who will have to carry the child and tend to it for at least 10 to 12 years to give it "much chance". So Women are much slower and more careful about pulling their own triggers. Men have evolved to be extremely visual So they can "get ready" at a moment's notice. Which is WHY there are so many differences in women's bodies, many of which never even get mentioned here. They are [many of them totally] unconscious.

The various visual cues of a female body CAN be enhanced [and usually are] through the choice of both clothing and makeup. Women will always have more choices in clothing and or makeup because THEY are the ones who need to be attractive to catch a "better" man. Being "attractive" simply improves their odds but is no guarantee of course.

If men were the ones that became pregnant, things would be in reverse order and men would be "required" to spend all that time [that most women do] in being "attractive". Since we are doing such a fine job, as is, overrunning the planet, I don't think that is likely to happen anytime soon.

[Chickhe]

Read your own post tomorrow and you will see it. ...I don't think they do care. All people care about is interacting on some level that gives them satisfaction. If you read your own post, it is about how YOU felt the need to tell your friend about your gender.

I'm convinced most people just don't know how to react, they use scripts that have taken all of their lives to build...one for females, one for males, one for doctors, one for neighbors... etc etc... they don't have one for sometimes female, sometimes male or a combination.

[ReineD]

Why is it so important to other people anyhow?

Because gender is a fundamental part of who we are. Other than birth, death, and the daily things we need to do for our mere survival, it is the one single thing that has been consistent in humanity throughout the ages and it defines us in the sense that it ensures our survival as a species. We also want others to know who we are, so they can treat us accordingly.

As to the complicated-ness of telling someone, it need not be so difficult if it is someone who is at arm's length in your life. You could simply begin by saying something like:

"In the interest of honesty in our friendship, it has become important for me to disclose to you who I am, so I will begin by saying that I am transgender. This is a rather complex situation, "transgender" is a term that describes all manner of gender non-conforming individuals, it is independent of a person's sexual attraction to others, and it has taken time for me to come to this conclusion. I know there is bias against gender non-conformity in many pockets of our society, but I hope that you will still be willing to be my friend. I do welcome any and all of your questions if you do not know what being transgender is."

... and then, take it from there. Different things about gender are important to different people, also everyone has their very own definition of gender. :)

[Kaitlyn Michele]

why is it so important to you?? that's an honest question and perhaps it can guide in answering your own OP..

as reine points out...gender is fundamental..i'd say incomparably fundamental... other ways we identify and define ourselves pale in comparison to how gender defines and influences us
...it makes our problem uniquely difficult to solve..

fwiw, i found over time the less i said to friends the better...and they react better long term when they don't hear a sob story or lots of gory details about depression and angst (and i really laid it on the first couple of times in my disclosures!!)


just coming out and being you, and being strong and optimistic about your future is what good friends want to see...
by defining yourself as "happy" or "content" you give them something to focus on outside of the more confusing and possibly distressing challenges caused by your tg issue

[Laurie Ann]

As usual Kaitlyn hAs hit the nail on the head.

[Kathryn Martin]

i found over time the less i said to friends the better...and they react better long term when they don't hear a sob story or lots of gory details about depression and angst (and i really laid it on the first couple of times in my disclosures!!)

I agree with you Kaitelyn. Once we have left the coming out behind us there is little or no reason to keep going back to it. I composed one coming out letter to close family and friends and one for colleagues and clients. The former were sent about 4 months before the latter and were accompanied by face to face meetings. The latter were sent out and that was that. I never talked about my biographical challenges to anyone other than my spouse and a little on my blog which I took down a little over a year ago. I found for my friends, family, clients and colleagues focusing on the positive was the best and it was for me too. If I focus on what is bad then I fall into the trap of wanting to justify myself. There is nothing to justify. Essentially my answer to Sandra's question "why is this so hard" is because we make it so.

[ReneeT]

I have thought about this question a bit over the years, and I have come up with a reasonable theory, as yet unproven. *In Western culture, we are socialized from a very young age that different behaviors are expected from the TWO genders. *Furthermore, we are taught to interact in specific ways with people depending on their gender. *For example, males are expected to show deferential courtesy to women, as in opening doors for them, allowing them to go first, etc. *With other males, though, the expectation is that men are a bit aloof, less visibly emotional, and so forth. *These taught behaviors are also highly evident in women. *Of course, I am making generalizations, but I believe them to be accurate for a large percentage of people.

Given these behavioral expectations, it is important that we be able to quickly identify the gender of an individual we are interacting so that we can choose the appropriate behaviours. *If we are not able to make this identification, *we suffer confusion and uncertainty in which behaviours to exhibit towards the other person. *This, in turn, creates anxiety, which can be expressed as anger or avoidance.*

I believe that this behavioral paradigm also plays a part in the difficulty some people have in adapting to the gender *transition of another person with whom there is a long-standing relationship. *In the pre-transition relationship, patterns of behavior become established and entrenched. *It can be quite difficult to modify these imprinted patterns following transition, just as other behaviours are difficult to modify. *Consider how difficult it is for many to quit smoking or to lose weight.

So how might this understanding be useful? *Knowing where the reactions arise from can help us to anticipate and prepare ouselves for them. While we in general cannot do much to change the behaviour of others we can be flexible in our own behavior to accomodate others.

Note: *i anticipate the question, "why should we accomodate others?". My response is, " that's what civilized people do"