I.
Introduction
As
one of humanity's most prominent, universal, and (increasingly)
variable ways of organizing and understanding itself, gender provides
an invaluable vehicle with which to examine personhood. Traditional
understandings of gender and sex as inextricably bound categories
have begun to fade as gender roles, sexual orientations, gender
presentations, and gender identities have diversified. In response to
this unraveling, I find it necessary to ask the following questions:
how does gender relate to the nature of the self and of human beings?
How permanent is gender, and upon what set of conditions is its
flexibility contingent? In
this paper, I will argue from within a constitution view of
metaphysics that gender and sex are both contingent, rather than
essential, properties, and that, due to this contingency, they may be
subject to fluctuation. After I cover my reasons for operating within
a constitutional perspective, I will explain how the experiences of
trans* and bisexual people persuades my conviction towards gender
contingency as opposed to gender essentialism.
II.
Definitions and Framework for the Purpose of Establishing a
Constitution Framework
Firstly,
as to the nature of the body, soul and mind: for the purposes of this
argument, I will define the body as the biological network of organic
matter and processes constituting a living organism, including the
brain (simply a network of neural tissue); the mind as the composite
of the brain and its functions, which are experienced differently
than other biological functions; and the soul as a theoretical
personal entity inhabiting but existing separately from either the
mind or body. I offer the following as support for the objective
metaphysical nonexistence of the soul:
It
is more parsimonious to assign objective metaphysical existence to
nothing which cannot be tested and confirmed to exist, although
subjective existence (that which resides within the mind) may be
preserved for anything which is experienced or believed without such
evidence. There is little evidence for the objective metaphysical
existence of a soul because it has no physical presence (unlike the
body) and those traits assigned to it are more explainable by
observed physical (neuroscientific) or mental (psychological)
phenomena than the acute disruption of these phenomena. These fields
of study – neuroscience and psychology – examine the brain and
its composite functions, which covers my definition of the “mind.”
Therefore, any experiences or properties assigned to souls can be
considered within the realm of the mind. Only because there is a
distinct observable function to neural tissue, namely consciousness,
which is completely subjectively experienced, should the mind be
considered a distinguishable entity from the body, and not because it
is inherently distinguishable from the rest of the body.
Given
that the traits “sex” and “gender” must, then, be properties
of the mind and/or body, the ways in which these two traits have been
observed to interact with and distinguish themselves from one another
should be addressed. Sex is an objective bodily trait encompassing
chromosomes, sex organs, secondary sex characteristics, and hormones,
while gender is a subjective mental trait referring to identity as
“woman,” “man,” or something in between or other from these
categories, influenced but not defined by social role, form of
communication, and personal association. Both gender and sex come
about by way of genetic, hormonal and lived conditions, and thus are
related, but not inextricably bound.
III.
Description of First Argument in Contention
The
traditionally accepted relationship between sex and gender is that
sex causally determines gender, as well as many other traits
associated and conflated with gender (especially sexual orientation
and gender expression). The argument is that because binary gender is
an essential property of not only personhood but societal structure,
any divergence from the “norm” with regard to gender or sex
should be corrected to prevent socio-psychological strain, as in the
case of medically unnecessary operations on intersex babies'
genitals. Gender and sex are objective, not subjective, realities,
and are permanent in this view.
IV.
First Argument (with Response to First Argument in Contention)
I
maintain that gender is a subjective, and not objective, reality, and
that both sex and gender have capacity for impermanence. The view
described above is very quickly falling out of popularity because
although binary male/female gender has a rough correlation with
binary male/female sex, much research has been done to support that
neither flows causally from the other. Rather, they are understood to
flow causally from similar sources, such as prenatal hormones and
societal discourse opening possibility to conceive of personhood
outside of existing categories (Garcia-Falguerras) (Butler).
In
practice, as well as in research and theory, gender and sex clearly
do not always move together in to two mutually exclusive and
permanent categories. Transgender people have a variety of
experiences and identities diverging from the expectation that
assigned sex corresponds to a certain gender identity. Many (though
not all) among the trans* community have a condition with latent
symptoms similar to Major Depression called Gender Dysphoria, product
of a discrepancy between internal sex (the mind's expectation of a
bodily experience) and external sex (physical reality of body). In
combination with social dysphoria and bodily dysphoria (conscious
mental discomfort with social identity and sexed bodily traits
respectively), this creates a need for the mind and the body to be
reconciled to achieve bodily, mental, and social health. This
transition is undergone at abnormally high rates of success, where
only 1-2% regret undergoing treatment, and only due to misdiagnosis,
social marginalization, or poor surgical results (Kuiper). This leads
me to conclude that gender cannot be determined by or inextricably
bound to sex, because harm is averted and not caused by the ability
of trans* people to align their bodies (considered to be objective)
with their self-identified genders (considered to be subjective).
V.
Second Argument in Contention
At
first, this seems to indicate a different gender essentialism, since
trans* people, regardless of assigned sex, often have deep and fairly
unwavering intuition of their own genders and internal sexes. Many
theorists and their popular followings claim that transsexuals must
transition because their beings and all beings – perhaps our souls,
but more often our “pre-wired” brain structure – are
essentially the gender that they are. This is the same cultural trend
tending toward the notion popularized by Lady Gaga's song by this
title that all LGBT people, particularly monosexuals, are “born
this way.” Although this seems affirming and progressive,
especially in contrast to the more prevalent gender essentialist
theory entailing obligatory permanence of gender in alignment with
assigned sex, a deeper, less binary exploration of trans* and bi
experience identifies several deep problems with this philosophy.
VI.
Response to Second Argument in Contention
Non-binary
experience and transition provide good reason to deny the permanence
of gender. Among those with transgender identity that is not binary,
satisfactory transition is often achieved even when the individual is
fairly genderfluid. They may alter their physical sex by getting
surgery or going on a dosage of other sex hormone and be completely
comfortable with their physical transition at that time. But they may
also have any number of gender expressions and identities over time,
sometimes cutting their hair short and passing as a man, sometimes
wearing skirts and blouses to pass as a woman, and sometimes living
neither gender. Many such people transition after years living as the
gender assigned to them, never encountering Gender Dysphoria. But yet
all of these traits are completely authentic to the individual
expressing them, despite their impermanence, and these traits are
sometimes mutually exclusive. That this is possible reveals that
fluctuation is possible, removing credibility from both the stance
that gender is unchangeably determined by sex and the stance that it
is an essential inextricable quality of its own accord. Natural
fluctuation in gender identity and expression makes it very difficult
to assert that there is any one gendered trait that is determined at
conception or during fetal development.
VII.
Second Argument
I
now aim to propose a more distinct description of the nature of
gender, if it is indeed nonessential. My claim is that the nature of
gender (as explored above) can be compared to other, similar traits,
and concluded to be best understood of as a trait of becoming
rather than being (Butler,
43). Although most gender identities do not fluctuate
considerably, non-gendered traits may do so as well. For example, a
knack for maths and sciences may or may not be a fluctuating trait
for a given individual, but that fluctuation or the lack thereof does
not necessarily implicates either inseparability from the very nature
of that mind or the invalidity of this disposition. Therefore,
neither the incongruity of sex and gender nor the fluctuation of
gender provides sufficient reason to assert that gender is an
essential trait. Like predisposition to maths and sciences, gender
and sexuality may be contingent on any number of (largely
unidentifiable) genetic, hormonal, and sociocultural factors. These
factors continue to impact the individual over time, creating
potential for change. Therefore, becoming traits may never change,
but are also not bound by past or present states of being, and thus
are not essential traits.
VII.
Third Argument (with Reference to First and Second Arguments in
Contention)
Queer-,
pan-, bi-, and other nonmonosexual-identified people often experience
significant fluctuation in the degree to which they are attracted to
certain genders and gender expressions over time, providing reason to
reject the essentiality of gendered traits as a whole. Fluidity of
queer identity sometimes leads to a shift in label identification
over time (for example, from gay to bi to queer to gay again)
(Diamond). Genderfluid individuals in particular often experience
fluctuation in the degree to which they are attracted to other
genders as their own genders shift. Once again, this makes it seem
extremely unlikely that any one of the gendered traits with which
they identify (manhood/womanhood, genderqueerness, various sexual
orientations) are essential to human nature, even if they are linked
to one another, impact one another, and cannot be manipulated by
volition into something outside the realm of potential for an
individual at a given time. While identities must be respected and
legitimized even in their temporality, fluctuation of orientation in
relations to other sex and gender related experiences that all fall
outside of conventional categories is simply too common for gender
essentialism of either tradition addressed to hold ground.
VIII.
Conclusion
The
position I have advocated for stands that fluctuations in gender and
sexual identity provide ample reason to affirm the validity of
nonbinary identities and reject the notion that gender and sexual
identities must not or cannot change due to their essentiality. I
have defended a contingent philosophy of gender by explaining the
superior credibility of a constitution view of metaphysics as well as
the ways in which this system and the possibility of gender
incongruence, fluid gender, and fluid sexual experience implicate the
nonessentiality of gender. With this understanding, more
possibilities for individuals falling outside the expectations of
limiting essentialist perspectives might be opened, allowing
potential for each individual's experience and not societal
restrictions to govern their identity and performance over time.
Works
Cited
Butler,
Judith. Gender
Trouble.
New York: Routledge, 1999.
Diamond,
Lisa M. "Female Bisexuality From Adolescence to Adulthood:
Results From a 10-Year Longitudinal Study." Developmental
Psychology 44.1,
5-14 (2008).
Garcia-Falgueras,
Alicia, and Dick F. Swaab. "Sexual Hormones and the Brain: An
Essential Alliance for Sexual Identity and Sexual Orientation, in
Endocrine Development." PubMed 17
(2010).
Kuiper,
A.J., and P.T. Cohen-Kettenis. "Gender Role Reversal among
Postoperative Transsexuals." The
International Journal of Transgenderism 2.3
(1998).
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