Regarding the gender memo, we are the Rebel Alliance!!!

We recently learned of a memo in the federal government intended to redefine gender as the sex (genitalia) present at birth. We don't know exactly what they intend to do with this, but it is certainly intended to harm transgender individuals, and perhaps others as well. Once we know what they intend to do we will develop our attack. In this battle, we are the Rebel Alliance.

Throughout the Star Wars saga, the Rebel Alliance consistently faced what appeared as obscene odds against the Empire. Right now that is exactly how this feels. However, the Alliance was able to tap into hope at each turn, and defeated the Empire (the Emperor) each time to continue to rebuild. They were sometimes a rag-tag team of very unlikely heroes, but they held on to hope and overcame the evil in the galaxy.

This memo is nothing short than evil. It is being put forth by the Empire, and we as the Rebel Alliance are being called forward to fight against and defeat it. Please know that whatever they try to do with it, we will fight, and ultimately overcome. We may take some steps backwards in the process; progress is rarely consistently forward. We are stronger and more connected than we have ever been; we are a force to be reckoned with. We will pull out our blasters and lightsabers, invite the wookies, droids, and porgs to join us, and we will not be erased by this memo. We are the Gender (Rebel) Alliance, and we will survive and prosper. May the Force Be With Us.

When did we invent gender identities?

I found this quote on Facebook. Lately we've been hearing about all of the "new" gender identities, as if we are suddenly creating all of them. Fact is, they've existed since we've existed, but it's only now that we are recognizing that gender is more than man/woman or even trans/cis. At this point there are quite a few gender identities that are being used, and sometimes I get a little confused trying to understand exactly how an identity is different from all of the others.

The diagram above shows some of the most common ones, but there are lots of others. I'm not going to try to explain them all here, but I did want to share the initial quote and give a bit of an explanation. I do think it is important to acknowledge that gender is (and has always been) so much broader than was recognized; now we just have the language to describe it.

Butch-Femme research

When I was in graduate school at the University of Memphis, I was fortunate to be able to do some research in the area of the lesbian gender identities butch and femme. I am posting the titles here if anyone is interested in checking any of them out. If you are but are unable to access a copy, let me know and I'll try to set you up.

Hiestand, K. R., Horne, S.G., & Levitt, H. M. (2007). Effects of gender identity on experiences of healthcare for sexual minority women. Journal of LGBT Health Research, 3(4), 15-27.

Hiestand, K. R., & Levitt, H. M. (2005). Butch identity development: The formation of an authentic gender. Feminism & Psychology, 15, 61-85.

Levitt, H. M., & Hiestand, K. R. (2005). Gender within lesbian sexuality: Butch and femme perspectives. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 18, 39-51.

Levitt, H. M., & Hiestand, K. R. (2004). A quest for authenticity: Contemporary butch gender. Sex Roles, 50, 605-621.

Levitt, H. M., Gerrish, E. A., & Hiestand, K. R. (2003). The misunderstood gender: A model of modern femme identity. Sex Roles, 48, 99-113.

Also, although it was never published, the title of my dissertation was The role of butch identity in a model of self-esteem among sexual minority women.
 

What is gender?

What is gender? Much of the work I do involves gender, so it is certainly something I think about on a regular basis. However, our understanding of what gender is has changed over time and in different societies. The history is absolutely fascinating, but for the purposes of this post, I want to focus only on how it is conceptualized now in our society, and give brief descriptions of some of the gender identities being used.

When most people think about their own gender, they use their physical bodies, and more specifically their genitalia, to define their gender as either a man or a woman. This works fine for many people, because their gender identity and their physical body are in agreement. However, it is not always the case that gender and physical body agree (I am saying physical body instead of sex intentionally. Often the word sex, or biological sex, is used instead of physical body, and while that often works, their are also folks whose physical bodies - genitals and secondary sexual characteristics - don't match their hormonal levels or chromosomal make-up. For this reason I use the phrase physical body, to avoid conflating any of the above factors when they really shouldn't be).

Okay, so then gender identity can be thought of as a person's internal sense of who they are as a gendered being, or what gender they identify with. It used to be, in our society at least, that gender was limited only to male and female, and was assumed to be consistent with physical body, so something that couldn't be changed. Last century, some brave individuals and their medical providers started exploring the idea of gender and physical body not matching, and looking at ways to bring them into alignment. One of those ways was attempts to use therapy to help a person change their gender identity so that it agreed with their physical body. Therefore, if someone had a penis and the ability to grow facial hair, they were encouraged to open themselves to the "fact" that they are male and should identify as such. Likewise, someone with a vagina and breasts would be encouraged to identify as a woman, even if that went against their internal sense of self.

That treatment failed dismally, with people simply being unable to changed their gender identity. Consequently, some individuals and their medical providers explored ways to change their physical bodies to be more aligned with their gender. Today we understand this process as transitioning, which may include the use of hormone therapy and gender-confirming surgery (but not always).

Another shift that we have seen more recently is the idea that gender is not limited to only male or female, pick one, for each individual. Certainly for many people they are able to choose one, and it is the same as the one assigned at birth. For others they can also pick one, but it is not the one they were assigned at birth. However, there is a portion of the population whose internal sense of gender does not fit neatly into the categories of male or female. There are a number of identities being used now that describe gender beyond just male or female. Some of them include agender, genderfluid, genderqueer, bi-gender, and nonbinary.

Agender, genderfluid, nonbinary, and bi-gender describe someone whose identity is not man or woman, may fall on a spectrum that includes masculinity and femininity, or feels as though they do not have a gender. Genderfluid indicates that gender may shift for some people, such that some days they feel more masculine and some days more feminine. These gender identities are all real, as we realize that gender is much more complex than the male and female boxes we have tried to put everyone into up until recently.