Gender Identity
Gender can be kind of messy, so I should clarify a few terms:
Being gender non-binary/gender queer, for me at least, represents not really feeling like traditional gender ideas and gender roles fit who I am. I don’t always feel like a woman. I don’t always feel like a man. I sometimes don’t feel like anything. For me my gender identity is kind of like my moods, and my fashion tastes, it changes all the time. The overarching theme, though, is that for me the gender binary just isn’t applicable. Even when I feel like a ‘woman’, it’s kind of more like a human embodying the feminine, rather than a wholly female entity.
My biological sex doesn’t particularly influence my gender identity, except in the fact that when I feel more masculine I do not like to show off feminine traits such as breasts and hips. Some people, though, experience dysphoria in their bodies, knowing that their biological sex just doesn’t fit who they are. People who experience gender dysphoria are likely to suffer from depression and anxiety, as would you if you had to live in a body that didn’t fit your gender identity. If you are a man, imagine waking up one day in a woman’s body, everyone calling you ‘she’, insisting you’re a woman. If you are a woman, imagine the opposite. It would suck, right?
Whilst dysphoria isn’t something I experience; pronouns are still important. Most of the time I go by they/them, since this is what makes me feel comfortable personally. Adhering to pronouns is basic respect, but I do understand it can take time to get used to.
Yup, gender is confusing. A reason for this, I think, is that it isn’t entirely natural. Feminine and masculine ideals are culturally created, occasionally based on some real biological and physical differences between males and females. The thing to remember, though, is that the idea of biological male and female as being the only sex that exists isn’t accurate. People can be born intersex (where the biological genitals and sex isn’t entirely clear). Science suggests that ‘male’ and ‘female’ sex hormones are differentially distributed both between and within the sexes, meaning some men have more oestrogen than others, and some women have more testosterone. There are actually more differences within the sexes than between them.
The idea that there are fundamental and inalienable differences between men and women is often harmful. Guys, how many times have you been told to ‘man up’?, or that ‘boys don’t cry’?. How often have you felt like you need to be ‘macho’ to impress your friends? If that’s who you are, if you’re masculine and stoic, good for you; you’re tough and strong, but if it isn’t, that’s okay too, you’re beautiful and sensitive. That’s the problem with a lot of gender binaries; it prevents people who fit outside of them from being themselves. That isn’t to say that a really feminine girl isn’t valid, or a really tough guy isn’t too, it’s just to say that a more masculine female, or a more feminine male, is also valid. It’s about being authentically who you are.
For me, authentically who I am is someone who sometimes embodies the feminine, and sometimes embodies the masculine, and sometimes both or neither. I’m still in a stage where I don’t entirely know what this means, or if it even matters, but one thing I know for sure is that this is always how I’ve felt and having words to describe it is useful.
I can’t speak for everyone who identifies as gender-queer/non-binary (some people don’t like the term gender-queer for respectable reasons, I choose to use it because it feels right to me and I like reclaiming the word). It may come as a shock, but we aren’t all the same, and we don’t all agree, and that’s okay. Dialogue is useful, as long as respect can be maintained.
Gender can be kind of messy, so I should clarify a few terms:
- Transgender: an individual who identifies with the opposite gender to the sex in which they were born, e.g., male to female, female to male. This can also be an umbrella term for anyone who does not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth.
- Gender fluid: an individual who identifies with different genders at different times, e.g., masculine on one day, feminine on another, both or neither at other times.
- Gender neutral/gender-non-binary: an individual who does not identify with either male or female gender identities. This often also overlaps with gender fluid identities.
- Gender queer: a term which can encompass any of these identities, basically referencing the idea of not fitting into the gender-binary of strictly male or female.
Being gender non-binary/gender queer, for me at least, represents not really feeling like traditional gender ideas and gender roles fit who I am. I don’t always feel like a woman. I don’t always feel like a man. I sometimes don’t feel like anything. For me my gender identity is kind of like my moods, and my fashion tastes, it changes all the time. The overarching theme, though, is that for me the gender binary just isn’t applicable. Even when I feel like a ‘woman’, it’s kind of more like a human embodying the feminine, rather than a wholly female entity.
My biological sex doesn’t particularly influence my gender identity, except in the fact that when I feel more masculine I do not like to show off feminine traits such as breasts and hips. Some people, though, experience dysphoria in their bodies, knowing that their biological sex just doesn’t fit who they are. People who experience gender dysphoria are likely to suffer from depression and anxiety, as would you if you had to live in a body that didn’t fit your gender identity. If you are a man, imagine waking up one day in a woman’s body, everyone calling you ‘she’, insisting you’re a woman. If you are a woman, imagine the opposite. It would suck, right?
Whilst dysphoria isn’t something I experience; pronouns are still important. Most of the time I go by they/them, since this is what makes me feel comfortable personally. Adhering to pronouns is basic respect, but I do understand it can take time to get used to.
Yup, gender is confusing. A reason for this, I think, is that it isn’t entirely natural. Feminine and masculine ideals are culturally created, occasionally based on some real biological and physical differences between males and females. The thing to remember, though, is that the idea of biological male and female as being the only sex that exists isn’t accurate. People can be born intersex (where the biological genitals and sex isn’t entirely clear). Science suggests that ‘male’ and ‘female’ sex hormones are differentially distributed both between and within the sexes, meaning some men have more oestrogen than others, and some women have more testosterone. There are actually more differences within the sexes than between them.
The idea that there are fundamental and inalienable differences between men and women is often harmful. Guys, how many times have you been told to ‘man up’?, or that ‘boys don’t cry’?. How often have you felt like you need to be ‘macho’ to impress your friends? If that’s who you are, if you’re masculine and stoic, good for you; you’re tough and strong, but if it isn’t, that’s okay too, you’re beautiful and sensitive. That’s the problem with a lot of gender binaries; it prevents people who fit outside of them from being themselves. That isn’t to say that a really feminine girl isn’t valid, or a really tough guy isn’t too, it’s just to say that a more masculine female, or a more feminine male, is also valid. It’s about being authentically who you are.
For me, authentically who I am is someone who sometimes embodies the feminine, and sometimes embodies the masculine, and sometimes both or neither. I’m still in a stage where I don’t entirely know what this means, or if it even matters, but one thing I know for sure is that this is always how I’ve felt and having words to describe it is useful.
I can’t speak for everyone who identifies as gender-queer/non-binary (some people don’t like the term gender-queer for respectable reasons, I choose to use it because it feels right to me and I like reclaiming the word). It may come as a shock, but we aren’t all the same, and we don’t all agree, and that’s okay. Dialogue is useful, as long as respect can be maintained.
Pride 2020: Remembering and Looking Forward
It’s pride! (insert enthusiastic camp voice). The time of year where us LGBTQ+ people can celebrate being ourselves. This year it feels pretty weird, no massive parties or marches, no travelling to pride venues. While it might not feel like a time for celebration right now, what with everything going on in the world, this is a time to remember that pride started with protests, and to celebrate the brave individuals who paved the way for a world where I could marry my girlfriend (if I’m in one of the 30 countries where it’s legal), where, in the country where I live, there are laws against discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexuality.
There was a time where a gay man could face the decision between chemical castration or incarceration. One of these men was Alan Turing, the famous mathematician who cracked the enigma code and revolutionised thinking around artificial intelligence, and who committed suicide two years after his forced chemical castration. If he could see the world today, where he has been issued a posthumous apology (better late than never, I suppose) and would be able to have a public relationship with any partner he chose, I hope he would feel some vindication. So, how did LGBTQ+ rights come to be?
In June 1969, at the Stonewall inn in Manhattan, LGBTQ+ individuals began fighting back against police raids and violence. This occurred in Greenwich Village, where residents organised and pioneered the Gay Liberation Movement. A year later and we saw the first gay pride marches.
One of the pioneers involved in the Stonewall riots was Marsha P. Johnson, a founding member of the Gay Liberation Front and radical activist group Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (S.T.A.R.) along with Sylvia Rivera (another famous trans activist). The P., according to Johnson, stood for ‘pay it no mind’, a statement that humoured a judge enough to release her.
Another pioneer, Stormé DeLaverie, was a butch lesbian who is thought to have ignited the riots by forcefully resisting arrest. During the incident she was reportedly hit on the head with a baton for saying her handcuffs were too tight, and she also urged people to ‘do something’, sparking the riots as she fought her way out of a police wagon. Stormé was considered a ‘guardian’ of the lesbians in Greenwich Village, she was an entertainer and drag king (performing mainly in The Jewel Box), as well as a bouncer and activist.
Since the Stonewall Riots, LGBTQ+ rights have expanded to allow same-sex marriage in all 50 US states and the entire UK. From December 2002, thanks to The Adoption and Children Act, same-sex couples in England could finally adopt, and in 2005 this was also the case in the US.
Great, so, LGBTQ+ people can get married, have families, and are protected from discrimination. Everything’s rosy, right? Well, this may come as a shock, but, umm…no, everything is not rosy for the LGBTQ+ population. In 2016 a report found that there were around 29,000 sexual-orientation related hate crimes (per year) in the UK between 2012 and 2015.
According to a report from Stonewall, one in five LGBT people, and two in five trans people, experienced a hate crime/incident over 12 months. That’s just in the UK, one of the most liberal countries in the world. Homosexuality is punishable by death in 12 countries, 73 countries criminalise same-sex sexual activity, and in 15 countries transgender individuals are criminalised by ‘cross-dressing’, ‘impersonation’ and ‘disguise’ laws (Human Dignity Trust, 2020).
The Out of The Margins Report (2020) also states many troubling findings. For example, in Rio de Janeiro, trans men are often refused healthcare, and are unable to receive appropriate trans-centered healthcare. Trans individuals around the world are routinely deadnamed, misgendered, humiliated and mistreated, and heartbreakingly, research into young people in South Africa found that 70% of trans and gender-variant children and teenagers rated their stress above a 6 out of 10, and bisexual individuals showed the highest anxiety levels (68.1%).
In a sample of individuals from Nigeria, 30.6% had experienced sexual violence based on their sexuality. ‘Corrective’ rape (whereby an individual is subjected to rape with the intention of changing their sexuality) is common, and research from Lesotho suggests that underreporting of such incidents is prevalent, and complicated by the fact that many perpetrators of violence against LGBTQ+ people are police officers (Malelu, 2019).
The same report also cites how it is legal to beat one’s wife for ‘corrective’ purposes in Northern Nigeria (Nigeria CEDAW NGO Coalition, 2008), and that transgender women are the most common victims of violence, especially from law enforcement.
I could cite all of the heart-breaking statistics and facts, and take up many, many pages, but here’s the bottom line; LGBTQ+ people across the world deserve love and protection that is just not being granted to them.
Okay, I think there’s one more fact that needs to be brought to light. Transgender women of colour are among the most likely to be killed in the U.S., with 27 deaths of transgender/gender non-conforming individuals (most of whom were black transgender women) reported in 2019 (HRC, 2020).
In 2020 16 transgender/gender-nonconforming people have already been killed in the U.S.. Here are their names:
Muhlaysia Booker spoke out after being horrifically beaten outside her apartment and was found shot dead a few weeks later. So, while we’ve come a long way, it’s clear there’s so much further to go.
I’m lucky. I’m white, living in the UK with pretty liberal parents. I cannot forget that I owe my freedom, and my privilege, to protests and movements spearheaded by LGBTQ+ people of colour, and that there are so many people who don’t have the same privileges and freedoms as me, both in the UK and across the world.
This pride month I want to celebrate and amplify the voices of activist organisations across the world who continue to make strides for equality:
Links:
https://www.humandignitytrust.org/lgbt-the-law/map-of-criminalisation/
https://www.amnesty.org.uk/LGBTI-equality?utm_source=google&utm_medium=grant&utm_campaign=AWA_ACT_LGBT_lgbt&utm_content=lgbt%20rights
https://www.amnesty.org.uk/lgbti-equality/8-legal-cases-could-transform-lgbt-rights-around-world?utm_source=google&utm_medium=grant&utm_campaign=AWA_LGBT_lgbt&utm_content=lgbt%20rights
https://outofthemargins.org.uk/resources/out-of-the-margins-report-2020/
https://ilga.org/
https://www.arcusfoundation.org/blog/social-justice-lgbt/resources-for-lgbtq-communities-and-advocates-navigating-covid-19/?gclid=CjwKCAjw88v3BRBFEiwApwLevRyQVcV4JUxuYoixzpnwMxPzVU6tUNuNBQQDQhXQlaVOuDCMer4yTRoCTWsQAvD_BwE
https://www.ilga-lac.org/ayudanosaayudar/
It’s pride! (insert enthusiastic camp voice). The time of year where us LGBTQ+ people can celebrate being ourselves. This year it feels pretty weird, no massive parties or marches, no travelling to pride venues. While it might not feel like a time for celebration right now, what with everything going on in the world, this is a time to remember that pride started with protests, and to celebrate the brave individuals who paved the way for a world where I could marry my girlfriend (if I’m in one of the 30 countries where it’s legal), where, in the country where I live, there are laws against discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexuality.
There was a time where a gay man could face the decision between chemical castration or incarceration. One of these men was Alan Turing, the famous mathematician who cracked the enigma code and revolutionised thinking around artificial intelligence, and who committed suicide two years after his forced chemical castration. If he could see the world today, where he has been issued a posthumous apology (better late than never, I suppose) and would be able to have a public relationship with any partner he chose, I hope he would feel some vindication. So, how did LGBTQ+ rights come to be?
In June 1969, at the Stonewall inn in Manhattan, LGBTQ+ individuals began fighting back against police raids and violence. This occurred in Greenwich Village, where residents organised and pioneered the Gay Liberation Movement. A year later and we saw the first gay pride marches.
One of the pioneers involved in the Stonewall riots was Marsha P. Johnson, a founding member of the Gay Liberation Front and radical activist group Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (S.T.A.R.) along with Sylvia Rivera (another famous trans activist). The P., according to Johnson, stood for ‘pay it no mind’, a statement that humoured a judge enough to release her.
Another pioneer, Stormé DeLaverie, was a butch lesbian who is thought to have ignited the riots by forcefully resisting arrest. During the incident she was reportedly hit on the head with a baton for saying her handcuffs were too tight, and she also urged people to ‘do something’, sparking the riots as she fought her way out of a police wagon. Stormé was considered a ‘guardian’ of the lesbians in Greenwich Village, she was an entertainer and drag king (performing mainly in The Jewel Box), as well as a bouncer and activist.
Since the Stonewall Riots, LGBTQ+ rights have expanded to allow same-sex marriage in all 50 US states and the entire UK. From December 2002, thanks to The Adoption and Children Act, same-sex couples in England could finally adopt, and in 2005 this was also the case in the US.
Great, so, LGBTQ+ people can get married, have families, and are protected from discrimination. Everything’s rosy, right? Well, this may come as a shock, but, umm…no, everything is not rosy for the LGBTQ+ population. In 2016 a report found that there were around 29,000 sexual-orientation related hate crimes (per year) in the UK between 2012 and 2015.
According to a report from Stonewall, one in five LGBT people, and two in five trans people, experienced a hate crime/incident over 12 months. That’s just in the UK, one of the most liberal countries in the world. Homosexuality is punishable by death in 12 countries, 73 countries criminalise same-sex sexual activity, and in 15 countries transgender individuals are criminalised by ‘cross-dressing’, ‘impersonation’ and ‘disguise’ laws (Human Dignity Trust, 2020).
The Out of The Margins Report (2020) also states many troubling findings. For example, in Rio de Janeiro, trans men are often refused healthcare, and are unable to receive appropriate trans-centered healthcare. Trans individuals around the world are routinely deadnamed, misgendered, humiliated and mistreated, and heartbreakingly, research into young people in South Africa found that 70% of trans and gender-variant children and teenagers rated their stress above a 6 out of 10, and bisexual individuals showed the highest anxiety levels (68.1%).
In a sample of individuals from Nigeria, 30.6% had experienced sexual violence based on their sexuality. ‘Corrective’ rape (whereby an individual is subjected to rape with the intention of changing their sexuality) is common, and research from Lesotho suggests that underreporting of such incidents is prevalent, and complicated by the fact that many perpetrators of violence against LGBTQ+ people are police officers (Malelu, 2019).
The same report also cites how it is legal to beat one’s wife for ‘corrective’ purposes in Northern Nigeria (Nigeria CEDAW NGO Coalition, 2008), and that transgender women are the most common victims of violence, especially from law enforcement.
I could cite all of the heart-breaking statistics and facts, and take up many, many pages, but here’s the bottom line; LGBTQ+ people across the world deserve love and protection that is just not being granted to them.
Okay, I think there’s one more fact that needs to be brought to light. Transgender women of colour are among the most likely to be killed in the U.S., with 27 deaths of transgender/gender non-conforming individuals (most of whom were black transgender women) reported in 2019 (HRC, 2020).
In 2020 16 transgender/gender-nonconforming people have already been killed in the U.S.. Here are their names:
- Dustin Parker
- Neulisa Luciano Ruiz
- Yampi Méndez Arocho
- Monika Diamond
- Lexi
- Johanna Metzger
- Serena Angelique Velázquez
- Layla Pelaez Sánchez
- Penélope Díaz Ramírez
- Nina Pop
- Helle Jae O’Regan
- Tony McDade
- Dominique “Rem’mie” Fells
- Riah Milton
- Jayne Thompson
- Selena Reyes-Hernandez
Muhlaysia Booker spoke out after being horrifically beaten outside her apartment and was found shot dead a few weeks later. So, while we’ve come a long way, it’s clear there’s so much further to go.
I’m lucky. I’m white, living in the UK with pretty liberal parents. I cannot forget that I owe my freedom, and my privilege, to protests and movements spearheaded by LGBTQ+ people of colour, and that there are so many people who don’t have the same privileges and freedoms as me, both in the UK and across the world.
This pride month I want to celebrate and amplify the voices of activist organisations across the world who continue to make strides for equality:
- The Equality Federation in the U.S., which has created many resources to help LGBTQ+ continue to connect during lockdown.
- Gender DynamiX in South Africa, which provides a Covid-19 Information Kit that includes mental health information and tips for accessing food and helplines.
- ILGA LAC for Latin American and Caribbean LGBTQ+ communities, which provides health information and resources.
- SAGE has a webinar for queer elders, and The National Resource Centre on LGBT Aging has many useful resources for older LGBTQ+ individuals.
- InterACT is for the intersex community to access resources on medical care and books to read/things to watch while at home.
- ILGA World has created a platform for creating digital postcards that spread hope and positivity to queer people around the world.
Links:
https://www.humandignitytrust.org/lgbt-the-law/map-of-criminalisation/
https://www.amnesty.org.uk/LGBTI-equality?utm_source=google&utm_medium=grant&utm_campaign=AWA_ACT_LGBT_lgbt&utm_content=lgbt%20rights
https://www.amnesty.org.uk/lgbti-equality/8-legal-cases-could-transform-lgbt-rights-around-world?utm_source=google&utm_medium=grant&utm_campaign=AWA_LGBT_lgbt&utm_content=lgbt%20rights
https://outofthemargins.org.uk/resources/out-of-the-margins-report-2020/
https://ilga.org/
https://www.arcusfoundation.org/blog/social-justice-lgbt/resources-for-lgbtq-communities-and-advocates-navigating-covid-19/?gclid=CjwKCAjw88v3BRBFEiwApwLevRyQVcV4JUxuYoixzpnwMxPzVU6tUNuNBQQDQhXQlaVOuDCMer4yTRoCTWsQAvD_BwE
https://www.ilga-lac.org/ayudanosaayudar/
LGBTQ+ Information For LGBTQ+ People
This is for all of the gaybie’s, the ones who are just coming out, who don’t really know how to identify yet, or are just getting into the LGBTQ+ community. It can be overwhelming when you first realise/accept your sexuality, or decide to do something about it, so here’s some advice:
If you’re worried you may have come into contact with HIV you can get emergency treatment called PEP on the NHS. PEP stands for post-exposure prophylaxis for HIV and is a combination of HIV drugs which you’ll take for about a month. You must start it within 72 hours, and you can get it from a sexual health or HIV clinic. It’s not guaranteed to work, and should only be used as a last resort, like if a condom fails. You are at higher risk of HIV if you have unprotected sex, especially if that’s with someone who injects drugs or has had a blood transfusion from Africa, eastern Europe, Asia, central/southern America or countries in the former Soviet Union. You can’t get HIV from hugging or kissing someone, only from sharing needles, having unprotected sex or coming into contact with blood infected with HIV.
Domestic abuse can happen in any relationship, and you should never be intimidated, scared, hurt or unsafe with a partner. Even when you’re in a relationship with someone you should never feel pressure to have sex when you don’t want to or feel guilted into it. If your partner ever does any of the following its domestic abuse:
You can call Galop’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans domestic abuse helpline on 0300 999 5428 or 0800 9995428.
As an LGBTQ+ person a huge fear can be experiencing discrimination or violence. Hate crime involves harassment (repeated abusive behaviour), abuse or physical assault based on a protected characteristic, including sexuality and gender identity. Hate crimes include verbal abuse, threatening or intimidating behaviour, physical assault, stealing or damaging belongings, sending abusive/offensive messages blackmail (e.g. demanding money not to out you), sexually threatening/violent behaviour or inciting others to target LGBTQ+ people. Even if you’re unsure of whether or not you have experienced a hate crime (it can be ambiguous if someone has acted in a prejudiced or hurtful way) you can still report it to the police. It’s advisable to write down details of any incidents straight after they occur, as memories can fade quickly. This will help you to give an accurate account should you choose to report an incident.
If you experience any kind of homophobia, biphobia or transphobia you can contact Galop’s hate crime helpline on 0207 704 2040. You can also go to the police. If you are unsure of whether or not you want to report an incident, Galop can give you confidential advice and support. You have the right to live free from fear of discrimination and abuse.
This is for all of the gaybie’s, the ones who are just coming out, who don’t really know how to identify yet, or are just getting into the LGBTQ+ community. It can be overwhelming when you first realise/accept your sexuality, or decide to do something about it, so here’s some advice:
- Don’t rush it. It can take time to get to know yourself and figure out how to identify, it’s not a big deal if you’re still unsure of yourself.
- You don’t have to change yourself or dress any particular way to fit into the LGBTQ+ community. The right people will accept you for you.
- Coming out is scary, but it can also be so rewarding. Do it when you’re ready and consider first coming out to the people you feel the safest around.
- Finding representation can be so validating, I recommend RuPaul’s Drag Race, Jane The Virgin, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Love, Simon, Cucumber/Banana/Tofu and Queer Eye. Also, find your icons, like Stephen Fry, Oscar Wilde, Hayley Kiyoko, Halsey, or anyone who helps you feel understood.
- If you’re worried about your family/friends accepting you and/or the consequences of coming out then try and find someone to talk to, even if it’s someone online; having a support system is really helpful.
- It’s okay to experiment with how you identify, present and act.
If you’re worried you may have come into contact with HIV you can get emergency treatment called PEP on the NHS. PEP stands for post-exposure prophylaxis for HIV and is a combination of HIV drugs which you’ll take for about a month. You must start it within 72 hours, and you can get it from a sexual health or HIV clinic. It’s not guaranteed to work, and should only be used as a last resort, like if a condom fails. You are at higher risk of HIV if you have unprotected sex, especially if that’s with someone who injects drugs or has had a blood transfusion from Africa, eastern Europe, Asia, central/southern America or countries in the former Soviet Union. You can’t get HIV from hugging or kissing someone, only from sharing needles, having unprotected sex or coming into contact with blood infected with HIV.
Domestic abuse can happen in any relationship, and you should never be intimidated, scared, hurt or unsafe with a partner. Even when you’re in a relationship with someone you should never feel pressure to have sex when you don’t want to or feel guilted into it. If your partner ever does any of the following its domestic abuse:
- Physically assaults you, e.g. hitting, punching, shoving.
- Sexually assaults you. This includes pressuring you to do things you don’t want to, even if you go along with it. It’s also assault if you are drunk and unable to consent.
- Verbally assaults you, e.g. calls you names, belittles you, threatens you.
- Becomes controlling, e.g. telling you what you can and cannot do, telling you that you can’t go out and/or see your friends, checking your phone/messages, frequently accusing you of lying/cheating on them.
You can call Galop’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans domestic abuse helpline on 0300 999 5428 or 0800 9995428.
As an LGBTQ+ person a huge fear can be experiencing discrimination or violence. Hate crime involves harassment (repeated abusive behaviour), abuse or physical assault based on a protected characteristic, including sexuality and gender identity. Hate crimes include verbal abuse, threatening or intimidating behaviour, physical assault, stealing or damaging belongings, sending abusive/offensive messages blackmail (e.g. demanding money not to out you), sexually threatening/violent behaviour or inciting others to target LGBTQ+ people. Even if you’re unsure of whether or not you have experienced a hate crime (it can be ambiguous if someone has acted in a prejudiced or hurtful way) you can still report it to the police. It’s advisable to write down details of any incidents straight after they occur, as memories can fade quickly. This will help you to give an accurate account should you choose to report an incident.
If you experience any kind of homophobia, biphobia or transphobia you can contact Galop’s hate crime helpline on 0207 704 2040. You can also go to the police. If you are unsure of whether or not you want to report an incident, Galop can give you confidential advice and support. You have the right to live free from fear of discrimination and abuse.
LGBTQ+ Information And Terminology For Family Members/Friends
So, there’s a lot of terms and acronyms to remember when it comes to the LGBTQ+ community. Firstly, in case you don’t know, LGBTQ+ stands for Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Questioning and plus (e.g. pansexual, asexual, etc.). So, here’s the low down of some terms:
• Lesbian= a woman who is romantically and sexually attracted to women only.
• Gay= a man who is romantically and sexually attracted to men only.
• Bisexual= someone who is romantically and sexually attracted to men and women.
• Transgender= an individual who identifies as the opposite gender to the sex they were born in (e.g. someone who was born into a female body and identifies as a man, or someone born into a male body who identifies as a woman).
• Questioning= an individual who is unsure of their sexual and/or gender identity.
• Pansexual= someone who is romantically and sexually attracted to all genders/attracted to individuals regardless of gender identity.
• Polysexual- someone who is romantically and sexually attracted to many but not all genders.
• Asexual= someone who does not experience sexual attraction.
• Aromantic= someone who does not experience romantic attraction.
There are many other terms, such as demisexual (someone who only experiences sexual attraction to people they have a deep connection with) and genderqueer (someone who doesn’t fit into the gender binary, e.g. isn’t a man or a woman). I’ll admit there are a lot of terms, and these sexualities and gender identities can seem ‘new’ because there weren’t any official terms for them in the past, but the fact is all of the gender identities and sexualities that now have a term have always existed.
I feel I should mention that your LGBTQ+ friends might use multiple terms/change their preferred terminology. For example, I sometimes use the term bisexual to describe myself, although I truly identify as pansexual. I do this because it can be easier to explain bisexuality in some cases, and most people have heard of bisexuality but might not have heard of pansexuality. Growing up, the only sexualities I was aware of was straight and gay. I didn’t know much about bisexuality and absolutely nothing about pansexuality, so my terminology and how I define myself has changed a lot since I’ve got more information. It is also common for people to first come out as lesbian/gay if they are transgender, for lots of reasons, like not knowing how to define themselves yet, or finding it easier to come out as gay/lesbian. It's different for everyone and the important thing is that it is okay for people to change their labels and how they identify; self discovery takes time. It is also possible for someone to identify with multiple terms, such as asexual and panromantic (this would be someone who doesn’t experience sexual attraction but has romantic feelings for individuals regardless of gender).
The important thing to remember about these labels is that they’re about how a person sees themselves, and what they’re most comfortable identifying with. Some people don’t want to identify with a label at all, because it can be restrictive, while other people find having a label easier because it gives them a way of explaining to other people what their sexuality/gender identity is.
There are disputes about some terminology even within the LGBTQ+ community. For example, some people feel that pansexuality refers to attraction regardless of gender, while others see it as attraction to all genders. Basically, the first would suggest no preference to any gender, while the second leaves room for a preference. I identify with the second definition, having a preference for women myself, but other people might disagree with that. Given that there are these disputes, and that terms can be confusing, it’s understandable that some people might feel out of their depth with all of this terminology and find it excessive/annoying. The thing to remember though, is that it’s okay to ask questions and to be confused, but it’s not okay to disrespect how a person identifies; that’s disrespecting them as a person.
With that in mind, I’ve answered (as best I can) some common questions and myths about sexuality/gender identity:
1. Isn’t pansexuality basically just bisexuality? That’s kind of like saying “isn’t liking rock music and rap music the same as liking all music?”. The difference between bisexuality and pansexuality is that bisexuality doesn’t include attraction to people who identify as non-binary (not fitting into being either a man or a woman/identifying with being both a man and a woman at the same time or a third gender), whereas pansexuality does.
2. Aren’t there only two genders though? Nope. Plain and simple. There’s loads of genders; gender identity is often on a spectrum between masculine and feminine, but some people fall outside of the spectrum and just don’t identify with it. Gender is a socially constructed phenomenon, and, given that there aren’t even just two sexes (there are many intersex individuals), why should there be just two genders?
3. Are bisexual people just kidding themselves? Although some gay people come out as bisexual first, either because that feels easier or their not totally sure themselves yet, bisexuality is very real, and not a phase or a just stumbling block to coming out as gay.
4. Have Millennials/Gen-X just made this all up? Throughout history there have always been bisexual, pansexual and genderqueer people, but there hasn’t been acceptance of gay/lesbian and transgender people, let alone anyone else, so people generally didn’t talk about sexuality/gender identity. In other cultures, you can see that we haven’t just made this up; look at India, which has traditionally acknowledged four genders and a ‘third gender’ called hijras.
5. Why isn’t there straight pride? The main reason there isn’t straight pride is because every day is like straight pride day. Just like why there isn’t an international men’s day, or a cisgender pride day, there isn’t a straight pride day because straight people don’t need it. Straight people don’t get assaulted on a bus for refusing to kiss their partner to give some guys a show (e.g. Melania and Chris who were attacked on a London bus) or thrown in jail if they go to certain countries, or even killed in some places. Straight people get better sex education and didn’t have to fight for the right to marry for hundreds of years. Straight people don’t get disowned by their families and put out on the street. Straight people don’t have such high rates of self-harm, suicide and other mental health problems. 47% of transgender individuals are sexually assaulted at some point in their lives, and according to the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, 17% of respondents who stayed in homeless shelters were sexually assaulted at the shelter because they were transgender. That’s not even mentioning the fact that ‘corrective rape’ (where people are raped to ‘turn them straight’) is used frequently across the world. Back in Britain, the LGBT in Britain Trans Report (Stonewall UK) found that 48% of trans people don’t feel comfortable using public toilets through fear of discrimination or harassment.
6. What if someone is pretending to be trans to use the female toilets? Would you go through the fear of harassment, discrimination, disownment from family, job loss, homelessness and the pain and difficulty of gender reassignment just to use the female toilets? Seems kind of excessive.
7. What if I say the wrong thing to my LGBTQ+ friend/family member? Honestly, if you’re caring enough to worry about that we aren’t going to get mad. People make mistakes, and terminology can get confusing. I can’t speak for everyone, but the only reason I would get upset is if someone purposefully said something hurtful to me or continued to use terms/phrases that make me uncomfortable even after I’d explained that I don’t like that. It is possible that people might get defensive/upset if you say something, even if you meant no harm by it, because of negative experiences and/or the fear of being hurt. Just listen to, love and accept your LGBTQ+ friends and family members, and all will be rosy.
8. What should I say/not say to my LGBTQ+ loved ones? You’re allowed to say whatever, it’s a free country, but if you want to be respectful maybe stay away from asking intimate personal questions that you wouldn’t ask a straight/cisgender person, or at least preface questions with ‘you don’t have to answer this’. It’s okay to be curious but be polite about it.
It’s always good to start conversations about these things to raise awareness and understanding, and not all LGBTQ+ people are going to have the same views/experiences, so educate yourself and above all, be kind.
So, there’s a lot of terms and acronyms to remember when it comes to the LGBTQ+ community. Firstly, in case you don’t know, LGBTQ+ stands for Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Questioning and plus (e.g. pansexual, asexual, etc.). So, here’s the low down of some terms:
• Lesbian= a woman who is romantically and sexually attracted to women only.
• Gay= a man who is romantically and sexually attracted to men only.
• Bisexual= someone who is romantically and sexually attracted to men and women.
• Transgender= an individual who identifies as the opposite gender to the sex they were born in (e.g. someone who was born into a female body and identifies as a man, or someone born into a male body who identifies as a woman).
• Questioning= an individual who is unsure of their sexual and/or gender identity.
• Pansexual= someone who is romantically and sexually attracted to all genders/attracted to individuals regardless of gender identity.
• Polysexual- someone who is romantically and sexually attracted to many but not all genders.
• Asexual= someone who does not experience sexual attraction.
• Aromantic= someone who does not experience romantic attraction.
There are many other terms, such as demisexual (someone who only experiences sexual attraction to people they have a deep connection with) and genderqueer (someone who doesn’t fit into the gender binary, e.g. isn’t a man or a woman). I’ll admit there are a lot of terms, and these sexualities and gender identities can seem ‘new’ because there weren’t any official terms for them in the past, but the fact is all of the gender identities and sexualities that now have a term have always existed.
I feel I should mention that your LGBTQ+ friends might use multiple terms/change their preferred terminology. For example, I sometimes use the term bisexual to describe myself, although I truly identify as pansexual. I do this because it can be easier to explain bisexuality in some cases, and most people have heard of bisexuality but might not have heard of pansexuality. Growing up, the only sexualities I was aware of was straight and gay. I didn’t know much about bisexuality and absolutely nothing about pansexuality, so my terminology and how I define myself has changed a lot since I’ve got more information. It is also common for people to first come out as lesbian/gay if they are transgender, for lots of reasons, like not knowing how to define themselves yet, or finding it easier to come out as gay/lesbian. It's different for everyone and the important thing is that it is okay for people to change their labels and how they identify; self discovery takes time. It is also possible for someone to identify with multiple terms, such as asexual and panromantic (this would be someone who doesn’t experience sexual attraction but has romantic feelings for individuals regardless of gender).
The important thing to remember about these labels is that they’re about how a person sees themselves, and what they’re most comfortable identifying with. Some people don’t want to identify with a label at all, because it can be restrictive, while other people find having a label easier because it gives them a way of explaining to other people what their sexuality/gender identity is.
There are disputes about some terminology even within the LGBTQ+ community. For example, some people feel that pansexuality refers to attraction regardless of gender, while others see it as attraction to all genders. Basically, the first would suggest no preference to any gender, while the second leaves room for a preference. I identify with the second definition, having a preference for women myself, but other people might disagree with that. Given that there are these disputes, and that terms can be confusing, it’s understandable that some people might feel out of their depth with all of this terminology and find it excessive/annoying. The thing to remember though, is that it’s okay to ask questions and to be confused, but it’s not okay to disrespect how a person identifies; that’s disrespecting them as a person.
With that in mind, I’ve answered (as best I can) some common questions and myths about sexuality/gender identity:
1. Isn’t pansexuality basically just bisexuality? That’s kind of like saying “isn’t liking rock music and rap music the same as liking all music?”. The difference between bisexuality and pansexuality is that bisexuality doesn’t include attraction to people who identify as non-binary (not fitting into being either a man or a woman/identifying with being both a man and a woman at the same time or a third gender), whereas pansexuality does.
2. Aren’t there only two genders though? Nope. Plain and simple. There’s loads of genders; gender identity is often on a spectrum between masculine and feminine, but some people fall outside of the spectrum and just don’t identify with it. Gender is a socially constructed phenomenon, and, given that there aren’t even just two sexes (there are many intersex individuals), why should there be just two genders?
3. Are bisexual people just kidding themselves? Although some gay people come out as bisexual first, either because that feels easier or their not totally sure themselves yet, bisexuality is very real, and not a phase or a just stumbling block to coming out as gay.
4. Have Millennials/Gen-X just made this all up? Throughout history there have always been bisexual, pansexual and genderqueer people, but there hasn’t been acceptance of gay/lesbian and transgender people, let alone anyone else, so people generally didn’t talk about sexuality/gender identity. In other cultures, you can see that we haven’t just made this up; look at India, which has traditionally acknowledged four genders and a ‘third gender’ called hijras.
5. Why isn’t there straight pride? The main reason there isn’t straight pride is because every day is like straight pride day. Just like why there isn’t an international men’s day, or a cisgender pride day, there isn’t a straight pride day because straight people don’t need it. Straight people don’t get assaulted on a bus for refusing to kiss their partner to give some guys a show (e.g. Melania and Chris who were attacked on a London bus) or thrown in jail if they go to certain countries, or even killed in some places. Straight people get better sex education and didn’t have to fight for the right to marry for hundreds of years. Straight people don’t get disowned by their families and put out on the street. Straight people don’t have such high rates of self-harm, suicide and other mental health problems. 47% of transgender individuals are sexually assaulted at some point in their lives, and according to the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, 17% of respondents who stayed in homeless shelters were sexually assaulted at the shelter because they were transgender. That’s not even mentioning the fact that ‘corrective rape’ (where people are raped to ‘turn them straight’) is used frequently across the world. Back in Britain, the LGBT in Britain Trans Report (Stonewall UK) found that 48% of trans people don’t feel comfortable using public toilets through fear of discrimination or harassment.
6. What if someone is pretending to be trans to use the female toilets? Would you go through the fear of harassment, discrimination, disownment from family, job loss, homelessness and the pain and difficulty of gender reassignment just to use the female toilets? Seems kind of excessive.
7. What if I say the wrong thing to my LGBTQ+ friend/family member? Honestly, if you’re caring enough to worry about that we aren’t going to get mad. People make mistakes, and terminology can get confusing. I can’t speak for everyone, but the only reason I would get upset is if someone purposefully said something hurtful to me or continued to use terms/phrases that make me uncomfortable even after I’d explained that I don’t like that. It is possible that people might get defensive/upset if you say something, even if you meant no harm by it, because of negative experiences and/or the fear of being hurt. Just listen to, love and accept your LGBTQ+ friends and family members, and all will be rosy.
8. What should I say/not say to my LGBTQ+ loved ones? You’re allowed to say whatever, it’s a free country, but if you want to be respectful maybe stay away from asking intimate personal questions that you wouldn’t ask a straight/cisgender person, or at least preface questions with ‘you don’t have to answer this’. It’s okay to be curious but be polite about it.
It’s always good to start conversations about these things to raise awareness and understanding, and not all LGBTQ+ people are going to have the same views/experiences, so educate yourself and above all, be kind.
Gender and Sex
Gender can be a really confusing topic, especially when it gets confused with sex. So, basically, sex is to do with the genitals you’re born with and what chromosomes you have (XX or XY, normally). But did you know that there aren’t even just two sexes? Yup, there’s also those who are intersex (both with neither or both a penis and vagina). People can have just one X chromosome (leading to Turner Syndrome), one X chromosome and some percentage of another (leading to mosaic Turner Syndrome), XXY chromosomes, and more, but this doesn’t usually have much of an effect on outward sex characteristics (what genitals a person has or if they have breasts or not), though it can lead to things like delayed puberty (in the case of Tuner Syndrome). So, even though the female sex is defined as having two X chromosomes and female sex characteristics, and the male sex is defined as having one X and one Y chromosome, and male sex characteristics, not everyone neatly falls into these categories. And sex is considered the simple bit!
Gender on the other hand, is how we express our identity as either masculine or feminine, neither or a mixture of the two. It’s not got that much to do with the sex we’re born as, except for the fact that people born with vaginas typically do identify as a woman, and people born with penises typically identify as men. This is the general state of affairs, but, as with everything biological, it’s a little more complicated than that sometimes. Some people are born into bodies that don’t feel right for them, and this can lead to gender dysphoria and an individual wanting to transition to the opposite sex. One theory is that, in these cases, while the baby is in utero, the sex hormones that normally make the brain ‘male’ or ‘female’ (testosterone and oestrogen) don’t get released in the normal way. This can be because, for example, the Y chromosome, which generally releases a lot of testosterone, isn’t fully activated, so less testosterone is released, making the brain more ‘female’, leading to a person being born into a male body but feeling like a woman. This is just one theory, and there’s still a long way to go to fully understand why some people are born feeling they are in the wrong body. One thing that is clear, however, is that people who are born this way often feel like something is wrong from a very young age, and can experience depression, suicidal thoughts and other mental health problems later in life if they are not able to fully be themselves. Plus, for most people who are able to transition/express their gender identity in an authentic way, such emotional/mental health problems tend to go away.
Some people prefer to identify as non-binary; not fitting into being either a man or a woman. They might be gender-fluid, meaning they may feel like a boy/man at one time and a girl/woman another time. Some people might be bi-gender, feeling like both a boy/man and a girl/woman at the same time. Other people identify as agender; not feeling as though they fit into the gender spectrum at all. Some people like the term genderqueer as an identifier, while others do not. It’s important to remember that even though these terms might seem new, these different gender identities have actually always existed, as far as history can tell us. For example, in India individuals who do not fit into the gender binary have been referred to as Hijra’s for a long time. These individuals are officially recognised as a third gender in countries in the Indian Subcontinent, being considered neither fully male nor fully female. In India in 2014 the Supreme Court recognised the third gender in law, something that has been fought for since the 20th century. Unfortunately, although a lot has been accomplished, Hijra individuals still often have to work in the sex trade to survive, and often live in poverty and under threat of exploitation.
Around the world and throughout history different gender identities, other than men and woman, are recognised.
Other facts of note include:
• Plato referred to a third gender, which was both male and female, as part of human nature.
• The Chukchi people in Siberia, Russia, identified seven genders in addition to male and female.
• The Bugis ethnic group in the Indonesian island of Sulawesi recognises three sexes and four genders, as well as a fifth meta-gender group known as the bissu.
• Fa’afafine are a third-gender group in Samoa, who are mostly biologically male but express their gender as both feminine and masculine.
• The Buddhist term Metta means mental union and loving kindness and has been used to identify transgender people and same-sex couples since ancient times.
• In Saudi Arabia Islamic Hadith (report of the deeds and saying of the prophet Muhamad) state the prophet issued rulings regarding the personal rights of gender-variant people, including inheritance.
The thing is, gender is kind of a weird thing, especially when considered in terms of gender expression. In the Victorian era blue was considered a ‘girl’ colour, and pink was considered a ‘boy’ colour. It was also fashionable to dress both boys and girls in frilly dresses and headpieces when they were toddlers. Nowadays pink is considered to be for girls, and blue for boys. Toys are sectioned off as for boys or for girls, and from a young age girls and boys are treated differently. If you don’t believe me try and think about the terms ‘man-up’ and ‘boys will be boys’. Harmless phrases for the most part, but they do highlight the simple fact that we do treat our children differently based on gender. If you are a woman who has a male sibling, were you allowed to do the same things as him? If you are a man who has a female sibling, were you allowed to do more than your sister?
Sorry to get all psychological, but an interesting study was conducted by Smith and Lloyd, called ‘the baby x study’. Basically, babies were dressed either in pink and called a girl, or blue and called a boy. Adults were then invited to play with the infant, and had a range of toys around them, from stereotypically male, to stereotypically female and gender neutral. Can you guess what happened? Yup, the ‘boys’ were given ‘boys’ toys (like trucks and dinosaurs) and the ‘girls’ were given ‘girls’ toys (like dolls). Why the quotation marks? The ‘boys’ dressed in blue were actually girls, and the ‘girls’ dressed in pink were actually boys. ‘Boys’ were also encouraged to be more adventurous, while ‘girls’ were encouraged to be more dependent. This study shows how adults treat children differently according to gender and suggests a lot of boys and girls interests might be more socialised than innate. You can watch a lot of variants of this study on Youtube, and one thing I always find kind of funny about them is that even when the infant clearly isn’t interested in a certain toy that’s associated with their supposed gender, adults will often try and get them to play with it anyway. It seems like kind of a fitting metaphor for how many people are told to ‘fit in’ with their assigned gender even when it doesn’t fit who they actually are.
Gender pervades life, and for people who don’t fit into the gender binary, or feel their assigned sex doesn’t match their gender, things can be really difficult, especially when they aren’t believed or respected.
Obviously I don’t understand everything about different gender identities, and I get confused by it all sometimes, but you know what? If I have questions I’ll ask politely and think first about if it’s even appropriate to ask (I wouldn’t like to be asked about my genitals or sex life!). If I mis-gender someone I’ll apologise because that’s the kind thing to do. Gender identity is often a really integral part of a persons identity, and when something so important isn’t respected it’s obviously going to be hurtful. So basically, just be nice.
Here’s some references if you want any more information:
• The biosocial theory of gender: https://amberlouisepsychology.wordpress.com/2014/12/09/the-biosocial-theory-money-ehrhardt/
• A review of sex-labelling studies: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.470.8753&rep=rep1&type=pdf
• A map of gender identity and sexual orientation across the world and throughout history: https://www.unfe.org/system/unfe-74-SEXUAL_ORIENTATION_AND_GENDER_IDENTITY_ARE_NOTHING_NEW_PDF.pdf
• Article on India’s third gender: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/style/india-third-gender-hijras-transgender.html
Gender can be a really confusing topic, especially when it gets confused with sex. So, basically, sex is to do with the genitals you’re born with and what chromosomes you have (XX or XY, normally). But did you know that there aren’t even just two sexes? Yup, there’s also those who are intersex (both with neither or both a penis and vagina). People can have just one X chromosome (leading to Turner Syndrome), one X chromosome and some percentage of another (leading to mosaic Turner Syndrome), XXY chromosomes, and more, but this doesn’t usually have much of an effect on outward sex characteristics (what genitals a person has or if they have breasts or not), though it can lead to things like delayed puberty (in the case of Tuner Syndrome). So, even though the female sex is defined as having two X chromosomes and female sex characteristics, and the male sex is defined as having one X and one Y chromosome, and male sex characteristics, not everyone neatly falls into these categories. And sex is considered the simple bit!
Gender on the other hand, is how we express our identity as either masculine or feminine, neither or a mixture of the two. It’s not got that much to do with the sex we’re born as, except for the fact that people born with vaginas typically do identify as a woman, and people born with penises typically identify as men. This is the general state of affairs, but, as with everything biological, it’s a little more complicated than that sometimes. Some people are born into bodies that don’t feel right for them, and this can lead to gender dysphoria and an individual wanting to transition to the opposite sex. One theory is that, in these cases, while the baby is in utero, the sex hormones that normally make the brain ‘male’ or ‘female’ (testosterone and oestrogen) don’t get released in the normal way. This can be because, for example, the Y chromosome, which generally releases a lot of testosterone, isn’t fully activated, so less testosterone is released, making the brain more ‘female’, leading to a person being born into a male body but feeling like a woman. This is just one theory, and there’s still a long way to go to fully understand why some people are born feeling they are in the wrong body. One thing that is clear, however, is that people who are born this way often feel like something is wrong from a very young age, and can experience depression, suicidal thoughts and other mental health problems later in life if they are not able to fully be themselves. Plus, for most people who are able to transition/express their gender identity in an authentic way, such emotional/mental health problems tend to go away.
Some people prefer to identify as non-binary; not fitting into being either a man or a woman. They might be gender-fluid, meaning they may feel like a boy/man at one time and a girl/woman another time. Some people might be bi-gender, feeling like both a boy/man and a girl/woman at the same time. Other people identify as agender; not feeling as though they fit into the gender spectrum at all. Some people like the term genderqueer as an identifier, while others do not. It’s important to remember that even though these terms might seem new, these different gender identities have actually always existed, as far as history can tell us. For example, in India individuals who do not fit into the gender binary have been referred to as Hijra’s for a long time. These individuals are officially recognised as a third gender in countries in the Indian Subcontinent, being considered neither fully male nor fully female. In India in 2014 the Supreme Court recognised the third gender in law, something that has been fought for since the 20th century. Unfortunately, although a lot has been accomplished, Hijra individuals still often have to work in the sex trade to survive, and often live in poverty and under threat of exploitation.
Around the world and throughout history different gender identities, other than men and woman, are recognised.
Other facts of note include:
• Plato referred to a third gender, which was both male and female, as part of human nature.
• The Chukchi people in Siberia, Russia, identified seven genders in addition to male and female.
• The Bugis ethnic group in the Indonesian island of Sulawesi recognises three sexes and four genders, as well as a fifth meta-gender group known as the bissu.
• Fa’afafine are a third-gender group in Samoa, who are mostly biologically male but express their gender as both feminine and masculine.
• The Buddhist term Metta means mental union and loving kindness and has been used to identify transgender people and same-sex couples since ancient times.
• In Saudi Arabia Islamic Hadith (report of the deeds and saying of the prophet Muhamad) state the prophet issued rulings regarding the personal rights of gender-variant people, including inheritance.
The thing is, gender is kind of a weird thing, especially when considered in terms of gender expression. In the Victorian era blue was considered a ‘girl’ colour, and pink was considered a ‘boy’ colour. It was also fashionable to dress both boys and girls in frilly dresses and headpieces when they were toddlers. Nowadays pink is considered to be for girls, and blue for boys. Toys are sectioned off as for boys or for girls, and from a young age girls and boys are treated differently. If you don’t believe me try and think about the terms ‘man-up’ and ‘boys will be boys’. Harmless phrases for the most part, but they do highlight the simple fact that we do treat our children differently based on gender. If you are a woman who has a male sibling, were you allowed to do the same things as him? If you are a man who has a female sibling, were you allowed to do more than your sister?
Sorry to get all psychological, but an interesting study was conducted by Smith and Lloyd, called ‘the baby x study’. Basically, babies were dressed either in pink and called a girl, or blue and called a boy. Adults were then invited to play with the infant, and had a range of toys around them, from stereotypically male, to stereotypically female and gender neutral. Can you guess what happened? Yup, the ‘boys’ were given ‘boys’ toys (like trucks and dinosaurs) and the ‘girls’ were given ‘girls’ toys (like dolls). Why the quotation marks? The ‘boys’ dressed in blue were actually girls, and the ‘girls’ dressed in pink were actually boys. ‘Boys’ were also encouraged to be more adventurous, while ‘girls’ were encouraged to be more dependent. This study shows how adults treat children differently according to gender and suggests a lot of boys and girls interests might be more socialised than innate. You can watch a lot of variants of this study on Youtube, and one thing I always find kind of funny about them is that even when the infant clearly isn’t interested in a certain toy that’s associated with their supposed gender, adults will often try and get them to play with it anyway. It seems like kind of a fitting metaphor for how many people are told to ‘fit in’ with their assigned gender even when it doesn’t fit who they actually are.
Gender pervades life, and for people who don’t fit into the gender binary, or feel their assigned sex doesn’t match their gender, things can be really difficult, especially when they aren’t believed or respected.
Obviously I don’t understand everything about different gender identities, and I get confused by it all sometimes, but you know what? If I have questions I’ll ask politely and think first about if it’s even appropriate to ask (I wouldn’t like to be asked about my genitals or sex life!). If I mis-gender someone I’ll apologise because that’s the kind thing to do. Gender identity is often a really integral part of a persons identity, and when something so important isn’t respected it’s obviously going to be hurtful. So basically, just be nice.
Here’s some references if you want any more information:
• The biosocial theory of gender: https://amberlouisepsychology.wordpress.com/2014/12/09/the-biosocial-theory-money-ehrhardt/
• A review of sex-labelling studies: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.470.8753&rep=rep1&type=pdf
• A map of gender identity and sexual orientation across the world and throughout history: https://www.unfe.org/system/unfe-74-SEXUAL_ORIENTATION_AND_GENDER_IDENTITY_ARE_NOTHING_NEW_PDF.pdf
• Article on India’s third gender: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/style/india-third-gender-hijras-transgender.html
Turner Syndrome
Genetics are weird. Sometimes chromosomes go missing, or extra chromosomes sneak in. This leads to a wide variety of genetic disorders, like Downs Syndrome, Fragile X Syndrome and Turner Syndrome. I’m going to be talking about Turner Syndrome because it’s a genetic disorder that affects me directly (by messing up my genes).
Turner Syndrome is a chromosomal disorder affecting approximately every 1 in 2000 female births. It involves full or partial deletion of an X chromosome from the 23rd pair of chromosomes. When only part of the X chromosome is missing, this is called mosaic Turner syndrome (that’s what I have).
You’d think missing part of your chromosome would be really, really bad, since that’s a slice of you. Actually, it’s not as dramatic as you might think, but it can cause a whole host of problems. I’ll go through just a few of them, since there is a lot.
The symptoms that affect pretty much every woman with Turner Syndrome are short stature and underdeveloped ovaries (sometimes leading to infertility). The lack of oestrogen caused by those darn missing chromosomes leads to delayed or even non-existent puberty. This is usually remedied by medication, including Loestrin and Ethynolestrodol. These are hormone replacements which allow the body to develop fairly normally by adding extra oestrogen. Another treatment for Turner Syndrome is growth hormone, usually taken via injections. This has allowed me to reach an impressive 4ft 11. Doesn’t sound like much, but I would have been even smaller without it, hard to imagine, right?
Thankfully, after the age of about 15, growth hormone injections are usually no longer needed, but medication is still necessary up until much later in life (usually around the time an average woman would reach menopause). Despite the tablets, for most people with Turner Syndrome, life goes on as normal. We tend to have good academic achievement and normal to high IQs, even if maths and memory abilities aren’t so good.
That’s the plus side, on the down side, social interactions can be very difficult for those with Turner Syndrome. Basically, a load of studies demonstrated poorer emotion recognition and less successful peer relationships in those with Turner Syndrome compared to their ‘normal’ peers. This might be due to amygdala abnormalities; one study used brain imaging on women with Turner Syndrome and controls. It was found that those with Turner Syndrome had poorer fear recognition, along with less amygdala activation, compared to controls, who had fancy bilateral activation while looking at fearful expressions.
It can be difficult for people with Turner Syndrome to maintain friendships; we can be a little…weird. Sometimes we take a minute to understand what you mean, sometimes we don’t get your sarcastic jokes. There is also a 200X risk of autism in Turner Syndrome, which does not help. I have a few symptoms myself; obsessiveness, occasional sensory overload and misreading social cues. Having worked on it myself, however, I know that this doesn’t have to be a big deal. Besides, everyone’s weird anyway, it’s just that I know where some of my weirdness comes from.
People with Turner Syndrome are all very different; some can have lymphedema (swelling of feet and legs), some can have webbed necks, some can have distinct facial features, some can have heart problems (in my case a bicuspid valve, not too bad compared to other issues). There are even really random things we’re at heightened risk for, like diabetes and osteoporosis, which at first seem unrelated to missing a sex-chromosome. When you realise how much oestrogen does for your body, however, they make much more sense.
In recent years I’ve come to accept that having Turner Syndrome has affected me in multiple ways, from my confidence to my relationships, but it’s certainly not my defining feature. Having a genetic disorder is only one piece of you, there’s also the thoughts that pop into your head randomly, the things you love, your favourite music. While having a ‘condition’ can seem pretty big, it really doesn’t have to be. Humans are all different, our DNA is what makes us, and everyone’s is different. So what’s the big deal if yours is a little more ‘different’ than other peoples?
Genetics are weird. Sometimes chromosomes go missing, or extra chromosomes sneak in. This leads to a wide variety of genetic disorders, like Downs Syndrome, Fragile X Syndrome and Turner Syndrome. I’m going to be talking about Turner Syndrome because it’s a genetic disorder that affects me directly (by messing up my genes).
Turner Syndrome is a chromosomal disorder affecting approximately every 1 in 2000 female births. It involves full or partial deletion of an X chromosome from the 23rd pair of chromosomes. When only part of the X chromosome is missing, this is called mosaic Turner syndrome (that’s what I have).
You’d think missing part of your chromosome would be really, really bad, since that’s a slice of you. Actually, it’s not as dramatic as you might think, but it can cause a whole host of problems. I’ll go through just a few of them, since there is a lot.
The symptoms that affect pretty much every woman with Turner Syndrome are short stature and underdeveloped ovaries (sometimes leading to infertility). The lack of oestrogen caused by those darn missing chromosomes leads to delayed or even non-existent puberty. This is usually remedied by medication, including Loestrin and Ethynolestrodol. These are hormone replacements which allow the body to develop fairly normally by adding extra oestrogen. Another treatment for Turner Syndrome is growth hormone, usually taken via injections. This has allowed me to reach an impressive 4ft 11. Doesn’t sound like much, but I would have been even smaller without it, hard to imagine, right?
Thankfully, after the age of about 15, growth hormone injections are usually no longer needed, but medication is still necessary up until much later in life (usually around the time an average woman would reach menopause). Despite the tablets, for most people with Turner Syndrome, life goes on as normal. We tend to have good academic achievement and normal to high IQs, even if maths and memory abilities aren’t so good.
That’s the plus side, on the down side, social interactions can be very difficult for those with Turner Syndrome. Basically, a load of studies demonstrated poorer emotion recognition and less successful peer relationships in those with Turner Syndrome compared to their ‘normal’ peers. This might be due to amygdala abnormalities; one study used brain imaging on women with Turner Syndrome and controls. It was found that those with Turner Syndrome had poorer fear recognition, along with less amygdala activation, compared to controls, who had fancy bilateral activation while looking at fearful expressions.
It can be difficult for people with Turner Syndrome to maintain friendships; we can be a little…weird. Sometimes we take a minute to understand what you mean, sometimes we don’t get your sarcastic jokes. There is also a 200X risk of autism in Turner Syndrome, which does not help. I have a few symptoms myself; obsessiveness, occasional sensory overload and misreading social cues. Having worked on it myself, however, I know that this doesn’t have to be a big deal. Besides, everyone’s weird anyway, it’s just that I know where some of my weirdness comes from.
People with Turner Syndrome are all very different; some can have lymphedema (swelling of feet and legs), some can have webbed necks, some can have distinct facial features, some can have heart problems (in my case a bicuspid valve, not too bad compared to other issues). There are even really random things we’re at heightened risk for, like diabetes and osteoporosis, which at first seem unrelated to missing a sex-chromosome. When you realise how much oestrogen does for your body, however, they make much more sense.
In recent years I’ve come to accept that having Turner Syndrome has affected me in multiple ways, from my confidence to my relationships, but it’s certainly not my defining feature. Having a genetic disorder is only one piece of you, there’s also the thoughts that pop into your head randomly, the things you love, your favourite music. While having a ‘condition’ can seem pretty big, it really doesn’t have to be. Humans are all different, our DNA is what makes us, and everyone’s is different. So what’s the big deal if yours is a little more ‘different’ than other peoples?