Olivia Goldhill gives a nice overview over recent research of relevance to the nature/nurture debate.
The best way of looking at this is not think of biology and culture as two separate systems that do not influence each other. The way we experience and express gender is rather the product of a more complex system that includes both body and mind.
Here is what neurogeneticist Kevin Mitchell has to say about the matter:
Huff Post presents
Asia Kate Dillon, leading actor in the TV series Billions.
Asia Kate Dillon says:
‘When I looked up the word non-binary, it said, “An umbrella term for any number of gender identities falling outside the boxes of man and woman.” Then it also said, “Some people may refer to this as gender fluid or genderqueer.”
I’d done research into the term genderqueer and I’m still in the processes of trying to figure out if that word is okay to use or not, actually. I’ve read one side that says, “Yeah, genderqueer just means you’re queer with your gender and it’s not a big deal.” I’ve also read that it’s a derogatory term that the younger generation doesn’t want to use any more.’
Agender: A term for people whose gender identity and
expression does not align with man, woman, or any other gender. A
similar term used by some is gender-neutral.
Androgynous: Identifying and/or presenting as neither distinguishably masculine nor feminine.
Bigender: Someone
whose gender identity encompasses both man and woman. Some may feel
that one side or the other is stronger, but both sides are present.
Binary: The gender binary is a system of viewing
gender as consisting solely of two identities and sexes, man and woman
or male and female.
Cisgender: A term used to describe someone whose gender identity aligns with the sex assigned to them at birth.
Gender fluid: A person who does not identify with a
single fixed gender, and expresses a fluid or unfixed gender identity.
One’s expression of identity is likely to shift and change depending on
context.
Gender non-conforming: A broad term referring to
people who do not behave in a way that conforms to the traditional
expectations of their gender, or whose gender expression does not fit
neatly into a category.
Gender questioning: A person who may be processing, questioning, or exploring how they want to express their gender identity.
Genderqueer:
A term for people who reject notions of static categories of gender and
embrace a fluidity of gender identity and often, though not always,
sexual orientation. People who identify as genderqueer may see
themselves as being both male and female, neither male nor female or as
falling completely outside these categories.
Non-binary: Any gender that falls outside of the binary system of male/female or man/woman.
Transgender: An umbrella term for people whose gender
identity and/or expression is different from cultural and social
expectations based on the sex they were assigned at birth.
Transsexual: A generational term for people
whose gender identity is different from their assigned sex at birth, and
seek to transition from male to female or female to male. This term is
no longer preferred by many people, as it is often seen as overly
clinical, and was associated with psychological disorders in the past.
Two-spirit: A
term that refers to historical and current First Nations people whose
individual spirits were a blend of male and female. This term has been
reclaimed by some in Native American LGBT communities to honor their
heritage and provide an alternative to the Western labels of gay,
lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.
In a significant milestone for transgender rights, California
legislators on Thursday introduced a bill that would make the Golden
State the first in the nation to create a third gender marker on its
driver’s licenses, birth certificates and state IDs. […]
Helping people get IDs that match their gender identity will
keep them safer, said Sasha Buchert, staff attorney and policy counsel
for the Oakland-based Transgender Law Center, who said the presentation
of a mismatched ID “just creates a really ripe opportunity for people to
experience harassment and discrimination.”
“Hopefully we’re working toward a day,” Buchert said, “where we don’t have gender markers on our documents at all.”
Bryone White reports on how research on the link between autism and transgender identities stops some autistic trans people from getting the help they need:
Research on the overlap between autism and gender diversity—a term used to define those who, either by nature or choice, do not conform to conventional gender-based expectations—is a relatively new field. Earlier this year, Spectrum, a website dedicated to in-depth analyses of autism research, published an extensive investigation that explores this relatively untrodden ground, explaining that over the past five years, there have been only a handful of studies that trace a co-occurrence between the autism and gender diversity.
In one of the first major studies, carried out in Holland, researchers examined 204 children and adolescents who identified as gender-dysphoric—a condition where a person experiences discomfort or distress due to a mismatch between their biological sex and gender identity—and found a 7.8 percent prevalence of autism.
Researchers in the field have speculated about the reasons behind this co-occurrence, but the social and cultural implications of this correlation are proving problematic for trans, autistic communities.
Some health-care professionals are now telling trans individuals on the autism spectrum that the need to transition is a result of their autism—a classic misreading of causation versus correlation. And, as in Clarke’s case, the mistake appears to be limiting access to medical care.
Zagria is probably the most influential transgender history blogger around, and her
A Gender Variance Who’s Who is a treasure trove of information on transgender people, events and theories throughout history.
She sums up her understanding of crossdreaming like this:
There is narrative power in the Crossdreamer vision. It deconstructs the barrier between trans and cis, and perhaps unifies transsexual, transvestite, drag and dreamers more so than the word ‘trans’ does. It especially allows for the fact that we each dream of gender in our own way, and find different solutions. The transsexual path is not for all.
That was indeed one of the main objectives of creating that term.
Some people blame the Trump victory on identity politics and social justice warriors.
Trans activist Julia Serano argues convincingly that this based on a too simplistic view of prejudice.
Serano writes:
Rather than an all-or-none mindset, prejudice is better described as a spectrum, perhaps something resembling this:
On the far right side of this spectrum, we have people who are fully accepted — these are typically the people who constitute the dominant or majority group(s) in the culture. They are seen as the norm, and their identities are unquestioned and taken for granted.
At the other end of this spectrum are people who are fully stigmatized: They are considered to be abominable, immoral, and/or outright inhuman. Individuals who are stigmatized to this extreme degree may be openly ridiculed, disparaged, rejected, and perhaps even criminalized in the culture, and those who inflict or enable this abuse will probably not feel any guilt or remorse because, in their eyes, the stigmatized individuals “had it coming to them.”
But, as Serano points out, there are various predicaments that exist in between being fully stigmatized and fully accepted. She describes three “stages of acceptance” that can exist in the minds of people in the dominant majority:
Tolerating a minority group
Considering a marginalized group as legitimate
Realization that prejudices against this group are integrated in language, stereotypes, double standards, and systemic biases
Serano adds:
So how do marginalized and minority groups make such progress? How do they convince the general population to relinquish their prejudice and embrace increasing acceptance? Well, they do it by gradually changing social norms.
So we do need identity politics:
You know what: I would *love* to stop talking about being transgender. It would be absolutely wonderful to live in a world where I didn’t have to constantly consider that aspect of my person. But you know what? I don’t have the privilege of not thinking about it, because there are shit-tons of people out there who hate me, harass me, and who wish to criminalize and silence me *because* I’m transgender. “Identity politics” is not an expression of narcissism (as some pundits seem to believe), but rather a form of organized activism to resist those who wish to disempower and disenfranchise us.
Josie has written a very moving post on the struggle of reconciling a male persona with a strong female gender core.
“What I’m now being forced to face is that this isn’t as simple as sweeping a fetish under the rug. This is wrestling with my very core, my very essence. I’ve spent the last 5 years slapping a band-aid on a broken leg wondering why it still hurts. I don’t hate being a man. I don’t hate my body. It just doesn’t match who I am.
What I do hate is the internal struggle. I hate having a hard time being intimate with people because I’m not comfortable in my own skin. I hate fearing being found out. I hate feeling like if people really knew who I was inside they would run away.
I can’t deny being biologically male, but I can’t keep disrespecting myself by treating my femininity like a masturbation fantasy either. It’s tough to marry these two together, and I’m tired of living my life feeling incomplete. “
(I know that some transgender people dislike terms like “biological male”, arguing that trans women are always biological female. But when you are struggling with this kind of mind/body dissonance, you need a term that describes the fact that you have the body parts of a man. That is an important part of the problem for many transgender people.)
Decent write-up on the status on transgender research from The Guardian:
//Few questions in science are as fraught as those around gender. At worst, the politics deters researchers and funders, and leaves people needed to take part in studies feeling wary. As a result, most of the answers science has provided are on the less contentious basics: how girls are born girls, and boys are born boys. Why a person feels male when they are biologically female, or the other way around, for now remains uncertain.
“This is the key question at the moment,” says Qazi Rahman, a lead investigator into LGBT mental health at King’s College London. “We know much more about how nature shapes sexual orientation, and my view of the science is that nurture does very little, if any, shaping of sexual orientation. We know next to nothing about how people come to feel transgender.”//
Most researchers agree that there is a biological component to the creation of transgender identities as well, but that social, cultural and personal factors also play important parts.
