Thorough analysis and study of trans individuals’ sexual and gender identities, as well as their orientation, might help to separate highly interlinked ideas of sex and gender. Sex is mostly understood as a biological feature of a person, and it is primarily binary, which includes male and female. However, it can be considered as a social construct due to the fact that there are people who are born neither female nor male because they might possess different chromosomes or genitalia.
This is critically important because these individuals are mainly forced to fit in the traditional male and female category by surgical modifications (Touches 135). Therefore, it is important to understand that the notion of sex can be a social construct.
Furthermore, the idea of gender is mostly derived from one’s sex, and it includes predetermined traits and behavior. Transgender people not only challenge the notions of sex but also gender by expressing behaviors that are not socially accepted as normal. There is a subgroup among transgender individuals, such as trans*, who do not adhere to binary identities (Ryan 133). Therefore, one’s gender cannot be fully derived from sex because both of these features are socially constructed in order to ease the categorization. In addition, transgender individuals might undergo major physical changes in order to adhere to their true sexual identity, which raises the question of conformity.
However, these actions are not unique for transgender people only, because a person who identifies as a male or female and fits within the traditional binary system can also be pressured by conformity. For example, a cisgender woman can get a surgical intervention to increase her breast size, which is an attempt to conform to social connotations regarding sexual and gender identity (Westbrook 40).
This means that changes undertaken by transgender people are similar to the behavior of cisgender individuals, and thus, it cannot be regarded as abnormal. However, the discrimination of transgender people can be present even during major legislative changes, which accept same-sex couples, because they are not properly represented in the political arena (Ahlm 580). This means that the given group needs to be considered separately and with better care in order to avoid discriminatory acts.
Trans* individuals directly disrupt the traditional view of gender and sex, because it is assumed that gender is derived from sex. This subgroup of minority is not adhere to gender roles established within society. For too long, gender problems were invisible and indistinguishable, and today, when they became articulated, there are persistent attempts to blur, smear, dissolve them in a group of other, often far-fetched problems, in order to level out, drowning out their severity.
First of all, an encroachment on the pattern of two genders is carried out. The reasoning in the context of the fact that there are only two biological sexes does not mean that the two genders also do not find sufficient justification. On the contrary, the fact that the formal and logical structure allows for options and the freedom of social construction allows experimentation does not mean that the fictitious can be included in the real. There cannot be many genders, since their presence depends on diversity, on the number of biological sexes. Of course, arbitrarily, fictitiously, they can be constructed as many as you like, but problems arise with their legitimation and raising to the rule and norm.
The issue of gender discrimination when it comes to women and men is not only a question of fundamental injustice, but what is more important here, discrimination violates the essence of individuality and closes the possibility of creating a truly human culture and civilization. Today it is clear that transgenderism is no longer a matter of medicine, psychology or psychophysiology (Ahlm 577). Before people are new cultural realities that can be continued to be ignored, relying on traditional values, or still accept the indisputable fact that people live in a world where someone’s body or behavior model is the result of your inner feelings or the implementation of your life-meaning strategy.
Trans* people can be stigmatized by gay and lesbian communities (Ryan 127). It is interesting that in the process of the struggle of minority cultures for the demolition of a heteronormative society, there is often a substitution of concepts and, in fact, instead of a patriarchal, heteronormative structure, a homonormative structure is proposed as an inevitable alternative. Meanwhile, this model turns out to be no less rigid and inappropriate for the transmodern situation. Modern culture is much more varied and does not imply a constant, unchanging identity.
In a heteronormative structure, a biological trait assumes a constant binary. Feminist studies based on an essentialist approach indicate the presence of a mandatory female entity, denying it, for example, to transgender people. Thus, it is evident that trans* people bring new changes to the relationship between sex, gender, and sexuality. From the points mentioned above, it can be concluded that both sex and gender are social constructs, which are not necessarily interdependent. In addition, trans* people can be multi-gendered, agendered, or gender-fluid (Ryan 133). This means that there is a need for inclusiveness for all types of people, because the notion of binarity and heteronormative structure are not static.
Works Cited
Ahlm, Jody. “Transgender Biopolitics in the U.S.” Introducing the New Sexual Studies, 3rd ed., edited by Nancy L. Fischer and Steven Seidman, Routledge, 2016, pp. 574-581.
Ryan, Joelle R. “From Transgender to Trans*.” Introducing the New Sexual Studies, 3rd ed., edited by Nancy L. Fischer and Steven Seidman, Routledge, 2016, pp. 124-135.
Tauches, Kimberly. “Transgendering.” Introducing the New Sexual Studies, 2nd ed., edited by Steven Seidman, Nancy L. Fischer, and Chet Meeks, Routledge, 2011, pp. 134-139.
Westbrook, Laurel. “Transforming the Sex/Gender/Sexuality System.” Introducing the New Sexual Studies, 3rd ed., edited by Nancy L. Fischer and Steven Seidman, Routledge, 2016, pp. 33-42.