In a recent thread, I asked "what are masculinity and femininity?" and "If anyone has any personal insights as to the nature of or causes of a gender identity differing from one's biological sex, I would be very interested in hearing them?" What followed was an excellent discussion which explored these questions in depth, and to some extent raised more questions than I had originally envisioned. For that reason, I began a new thread rather than posting another reply to the original.
I googled some terminology, and found the following on Wikipedia. As the subjects are highly subjective, I see no reason to haggle about the veracity of Wikipedia:
"a) Masculinity (also called boyhood, manliness or manhood) is a set of attributes, behaviors and roles generally associated with boys and men. It is a combination of socially-defined and biological factors, distinct from the definition of the male anatomical sex......
b) Femininity (also called femininity, girlishness, womanliness or womanhood) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with girls and women. Femininity is often perceived as a social construct, which is made up of both socially defined and biologically created factors......
c) Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to, and differentiating between, masculinity and femininity. Depending on the context, these characteristics may include biological sex (i.e. the state of being male, female or intersex), sex-based social structures (including gender roles and other social roles), or gender identity."
I originally expressed the thought that masculinity and femininity were a social construct that simply allocated qualities that were present in both sexes, but for various reasons tended to be attributed more to one sex than the other. Reine, in her replies, went further and stressed the arbitrary nature of this attribution, as not being based on reality in regards to most qualities. (This is my own paraphrasing of her views, and she can correct me if I have it wrong). In any event, she got me to thinking that perhaps there is no such thing as masculinity and femininity, with the possible exception of a few biological differences between the sexes over which we have no control. Further, according to the above definitions, gender is simply the word which describes the sorting of things between these two concepts of masculinity and femininity. Thus we have the question that if there is no such thing as masculinity and femininity, then there is no such thing as gender, or for that matter transgender. We are simply the male sex or the female sex. (This of course excludes the other possibilities that sometimes arise such as intersex, in order to keep the basic question simplified to the basics.)
If gender and transgender are illusions, then the answer to my second question in the original thread, becomes an even greater mystery. Are we relying on a fallacy when we say we identify as being a woman, or for that matter a man, if we are physically male? In other words, do we actually know what it feels like to be either, or do we just know what it feels like to be us? 65 years ago, I had no idea why I felt the desire to wear women's clothing. 40 or so years later, I thought I was beginning to understand. Lately, I feel like I am back where I was 65 years ago.
I have some additional thoughts that arose from reading the replies, but as they are not totally on topic, and this is getting long, I will begin another thread.
Veronica