Monday, Sept. 08, 2003 - 3:58 a.m.

Well, for what it’s worth, here’s my take on luvabeans’s thoughts about sex and gender:

Dear luvabeans;

Zero and infinity are my two favorite concepts. Both are, as near as I can tell, the only true magic in the universe. I can remember looking at my classmates with pure astonishment that they didn’t ‘get it’. To them, zero was just one more number, except that it was a number that came without a finger to count it on. Why would ‘nothing’ need a number anyway? They didn’t understand that zero isn’t a NUMBER… it’s a SUM! Zero is the answer you get when you add up every last number and every last thing in the universe.

That’s where you are when it comes to the issue of gender and sex. While most everyone around you is scratching their heads, you understand that there is a difference between sex and gender. And I think you’re right on the edge of understanding that orientation is a separate issue completely.

We as a species seem to hate chaos. We’re always trying to bring order and simplicity to our worlds. We get frustrated and afraid when we can’t get the upper hand over chaos, and it bothers us tremendously when we are forced to admit shades of gray in a world that would be so much easier to understand if it were all black and white. As a matter of fact, look at what I just said. I was getting all smug because I’ve learned to allow for some shades of gray in the world. But what about shades of magenta? Even the wonderful I am prone to oversimplification.

Well, anyway… if I’ve made any sense at all, I hope it’s sense in the direction that we would love it if people only came in one or two flavors. If there were only girls with vaginas who liked to kiss boys and boys with penises who liked to kiss girls, then the world would be so much easier to live in and understand. But there are girls born with vaginas who like to kiss girls. There are girls born with penii who like to kiss boys, and girls with penii who like to kiss girls. And we are only now starting to recognize a whole other category: girls born with both penii and vaginas and who like to kiss everybody. And boys born the same way.

It’s no longer possible to pretend that there are only two kinds of sexual makeup. There are dozens. When it comes to physical sex, there is male, female, both (so-called hermaphrodite) and neither (ambiguous). Gender is a little more complicated. It’s more of a sliding scale between masculine and feminine. We all have some of both qualities to varying degrees.

Sexual orientation is only slightly simpler. Some people like to kiss boys. Some would rather kiss girls. The really lucky ones in my humble opinion like to kiss both, while some poor passionless people don’t want to kiss anyone.

So… when you add sex, gender and orientation all together, you get an amazing diversity; something which has been for most of history a very frightening thing.

But you already understand all this. You’re only struggling to apply it to yourself. How do you know you’re a woman? I asked myself the same question in a different way when I wondered ‘what does it FEEL like to be a woman?’ The answer is, to me, a very surprising one.

It goes back to gender and the fact that it’s a sliding scale with no real tests. Sex… genetic sex… is subject to some rather strict scientific tests. If your sex chromosomes are the XX twins, you’re a girl. Period.(no humor intended). If your X dances with a Y, you’re a boy and no amount of hormonal experimentation or surgical modification can change that. Those little Y’s will be forever running in tiny little circles in every cell of your body, trying in vain to get someone to listen to them that they are little men. Or whatever. And if your X’s and Y’s throw a party that ends up with extra Y’s and X’s, then you’re intersexed forever. I was amazed to learn that there can (rarely) be XXX, XYY, XXYY, YXX, and a ton of other combinations of sex chromosomes. Who knew?

Its’ the same with orientation. It’s seemingly precisely defined… kinda. People like to kiss boys, girls, both or neither. It’s cut and dried. Unless you start looking at the people who like to kiss shoes, or animals. The subject of fetishes is one we haven’t really started to explore, but they’re out there, adding still more diversity to this whole sex question.

Back to gender and your own question. What are you? How do you know? How CAN you know?

The answer is frustratingly simple I think. I believe with all my heart that the lonely small person who lives in the space between your heart and the backs of your eyeballs chose in the first months of her life to be a girl. I know for sure mine did. I can remember first thinking it and then saying it. I said out loud that I wanted to be a girl, and the response I received was so overwhelmingly negative, that the little person inside me got her feelings hurt and spent the next lifetime trying to be ‘good’ by being a ‘good’ boy. You on the other hand, because you possessed the physical attributes of a female, you met the expectations of everyone around you when the little one inside chose to be a girl. For you, being a girl was ‘right’ for me, it was ‘wrong’.

I swear up and down all day long that I’m an atheist and like any good atheist, I don’t believe in magic. But I come very close to believing that there is a soul, or a spirit, if you will. It’s that little child. And that child doesn’t have to be told who she is. She knows it from the start. You can kiss boys, girls, or big green frogs. You can make soufflés or drive racing cars. Wear coveralls or a tu-tu… you have always been a woman and will always be a woman.

It’s in your nature.

I’m real proud of you.

Awww….. P.S.

I tried to post these thoughts, but I couldn’t. Something was unsatisfying. Something was left unsaid. I think it has to do with the idea that the inner person.. the spirit… just ‘knows’. That may or may not be true, but saying it feels like a cop-out. A cop-out is something people did in the sixties. It wasn’t a good thing.

So I have to add my final thoughts on how we know who we are. I think it has to do with another brand of magic. Hormones.

Anyone who doesn’t believe in the power of hormones should endure a few menstrual cycles, or an early menopause, or, as I have, should see what can happen when hormones are manipulated artificially. I think it’s just possible that the ‘decision’ of that inner child is influenced to a great degree by the mixture of hormones in which the growing embryo is bathed during gestation. Do I understand it? No. I don’t think anyone does just yet. But a lot is known about the timing and makeup of hormones released by mom during pregnancy. We know that hormones from the mother initiate and control gonadal differentiation and development in the fetus. And so it seems reasonable to suspect that hormones also have an effect on the developing nervous system.. e.g. the brain, and that ultimately, it may just be these chemical messengers in the blood you shared with your mama that told you you are a woman.

That kind of brings a whole new level of meaning to the term ‘mixed message’ doesn’t it?

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