Transgender Voices: Beyond Women and Men

2: Self-Definition: Birth through Adolescence

2 Self-Definition: Birth through Adolescence I knew I was di=erent from other children because I was a boy who desired to be a girl, but a strong sense of fear compelled me at that early age to conceal my desire. Perhaps this concealment predisposed me to identify with comic-book super-heroes, many of whom have two completely di=erent identities, one of which remains a well-kept secret , which is sometimes threatened by exposure. I even invented my own comic book hero named Vov, on whom I happily conferred a secret identity. From what I knew of anatomy at a young age, I made a link between the letter “v” in Vov’s name, and my wish to change my body: turned upside-down, the letter “v” encoded this wish. (Andrea , MtF) Growing up I preferred dolls to sports. As boys attacked me I developed friendships with girls. One night I had a dream where I looked in the bathroom mirror and a pretty girl looked back. I felt my hair, my skin. I was certain I had turned into a girl. I was happier than I had ever known. Then I awoke and saw it was a dream and wept bitterly. I began two things: a lifelong study of dreams and cross-dressing. In both cases I was desperate to bring back the girl in the mirror. (Lynnea, MtF) The doctor exclaiming, “It’s a girl!” or “It’s a boy!” is a well-known and comfortable image. As infants are dressed in pinks and blues, gender is foisted upon the newborns as a fait accompli. This is more complicated in the case of intersex infants, but the goal is the same: to establish gender before the one source of confirmation is available—the gender identity proclaimed by the child. The visible biological evidence of sex will be interpreted within the gender frameworks of the culture. Devor (1989) feels that schemas are a natural product of the way our minds work but that a gender schema in particular is learned. While there may be other ways to organize the social world, gender is what children are encouraged to learn. They come to see gender as connected to behaviors, use it to form expectations of others, and plan their own behavior accordingly. Devor writes: Most societies use sex and gender as a major cognitive schema for understanding the world around them. People, objects, and abstract ideas are commonly classified as inherently female or male. The attributes, qualities, or objects actually associated with each class vary widely from society to society , but most do use gender as a most basic groundwork. Gender, then, becomes a nearly universally accepted early cognitive tool used by most children to help them understand the world. This means that children learn that gender is a legitimate way to classify the contents of the world and that others will readily understand them if they communicate through such a framework. Children also learn from those around them what to allocate to the categories of male and female, what elements of all things are considered to fall under the influence of the feminine principle, and which are classified as within the masculine sphere. In North American society, the gender schema most widely in use is biologically deterministic. (1989, p. 46) The point that Karen (MtF) makes reminds us how early this training begins: Children are encouraged to categorize everything around them, well, the first thing they categorize is other people or themselves in terms of, you know, are you a boy or are you a girl? And they turn that question on themselves, too. Am I a girl or a boy? And they explore that in terms of well, that’s what girls do therefore because I’m a boy I shouldn’t do that. Family Influences Parents, siblings, and other relatives are major influences on ideas of gender because family roles are strongly gendered. Mothers tend to act out woman/mother/wife roles, and fathers carry out societally reinforced man/father/husband roles. Children observe and learn to model these binary roles. They learn what is expected and what is acceptable. Toys, clothes, and chores are part of the gender socialization that occurs in the family setting. Male dominance is passed along, often in subtle ways; fe52 TRANSGENDER VOICES Self-Definition 53 male subordination is similarly reinforced. The...