Fandango’s Provocative question # 111

Do you believe that a person’s gender is inextricably tied to his or her sex at birth, or do you believe that a person can legitimately identify as a gender different from his or her birth gender? Why do you believe what you believe?

            In this day and age, our society has come a long way. We enjoy a level of security such as having a relative stable government, a strong-armed force, a justice system, and a health care system; although not the best in the world, at least it serves the needs of most of the nation’s population.

What does this mean? Well, it means that the nation has evolved to the level that it can pay attention to the type of issues that would be an exception to the norm. The current issue that defers from the norm that is now getting attention is that of sex and gender.

For most creatures in the biosphere, there are two types of sex, male, and the female. What determines the sex of a male or female is defined by the physical reproductive organs.

The second thing is gender. The gender is defined by the role and culture of the society. Usually it is based on the sex of a person. The person will be taught to be the provider or the nurturer. But we find that the role of being the provider or nurturer are often skewed and that either sex can fulfill those roles.

With the advancement of Women’s rights, it is now an accepted norm to have stay at home Dad’s. Or females being the household bread winner. This is something that is a recent development during the past half century.

So, this is the answer to the question whether a person’s gender is inextricably. That the gender role of an individual does not have to be what it is expected.

Then there is the question of sexuality. This is about who a person is attracted too. Fifty years ago, someone who is sexual attracted to the same sex was considered mentally ill. Before that it was taboo. That people who are attracted to the same sex kept it a secret, even to the point of having a traditional relationship with the opposite sex. But will still seek relationships outside the traditional relationship with the opposite sex, with a person of the same sex.

Within the last fifty years, the homosexuals started to get political active. The end result for the homosexual was the inclusion of gay rights within the Civil Rights bill.  

So now the next level of gender and sex issues that has the nation’s attention, is that of the transgender. This factor is not biological but psychological. People who fall into this category feel that they were assigned to the wrong gender.

So what is different between a transgender, and a person who does not follow the traditional gender roles?    

The transgender is a person who was assigned a sex identity, based on their physical reproductive organs; feels not only that they have been assigned the wrong gender, but they have been born with the wrong reproductive organs.

This is where the confusion lies. One does not have to conform to gender roles, even if one feels that they are not  assigned the correct physical gender. But to feel like one has been born into the wrong body; is a psychological factor, it is called “Gender Identity Disorder, or Transsexualism.”  

Anyway, the trans sexual will go to the extreme and not only wear the clothes of the sex they identify with; they will also seek medical intervention to transform their sexual identity

But physically unless medical science has come to the point that a sex re-assignment surgery could allow a male to transition to a female with the sexual organs of a female, and is able to have a menstrual cycle, and carry a fetus for nine months. For a female to transition to male, if he can produce the sperm of a male. Have the muscle mass, and physical prowess of a male.  Then despite the surgical gender transition, the transgender will never experience the full potential of the sex they transitioned too. To keep up appearances, they have the burden to take hormonal suppression drugs for life. This makes the sex-reassignment illegitimate.