Defining Gender

Elinor Burkett’s New York Times piece, “What Makes a Woman”,  is thought-provoking in the way it raises questions about transgenderism and what comprises gender. It articulates my thoughts about gender roles that

so long as humans produce X and Y chromosomes that lead to the development of penises and vaginas, almost all of us will be “assigned” genders at birth. But what we do with those genders — the roles we assign ourselves, and each other, based on them — is almost entirely mutable.

Society’s rigidness in regards to gender is dangerous that it causes people to be boxed into labels. I wear polos and khakis just as much as I wear dresses, but I am not any less of a girl whether I dress in “girly” clothes or not. The dichotomy between females and males should not exist, because very few (if any) people are hyper-masculine or hyper-feminine. Rather, gender should be thought of as a spectrum, with people lying somewhere between the two extremes.

Transgenderism plays into gender stereotypes by insinuating that a person who does not conform the social gender norms of their sex should change into the opposite sex. However, there is no biological basis for why society designates pink for girls and blue for boys and assumes that boys like math while girls like art. These assumptions that society holds, and subsequently, foist upon children, causes people to question their sex if they do not fit in with social expectations. It is worrisome that people feel the need to trump nature in order to fit into some arbitrary molds that society sets for females and males. In order to decrease the amount of people who turn to self-mutilation and artificial hormones to switch to their “true self”, there needs to be a shift in viewpoints, a movement that accepts people’s choice of expression, such as their dress and activities, regardless of whether it fits into the traditionally male and female stereotypes. Only then will people be able to become truly free from the constraints of gender roles.