Gender VI

Now that I've danced around the subject of gender and presented my general view of it, what's the point of this series of dialogs? Many of us struggle through life without questioning our sex or gender identities, we just assume it's normal and applicable to eveyone else we encounter. But what if it isn't, meaning, not everyone, as I've described, don't have that stability in themselves, to know who they are or think they are from what they experience?

Does our sex or gender change our intelligence, temperament, and expressions of your work? In some ways yes, but in many ways no, it's just ourselves as human beings. Our sex and gender identities involves more of our personal and public presentation and behavior, the outward expression of our inner sex and gender identity. To many it's a given, but to some it's a confusion of conflicting identities or an enormous unresolveable divide.

And this is where many people don't understand. If you're comfortable with your gender identity, then you may not realize that anyone can be confused or divided, and why it would be so important to struggle with in their life and the world. It literally gets in the way of their life, and the resolution to change results in the reality of the world getting in the way of their life.

The irony with many people's view of transpeople is that they don't realize it that they've met them or even know them, but still decide it's not appropriate to change one's gender. They accept the binary condition in the face and weight of evidence that there are five or more sexes, and a lot of genders in cultures around the world. And even in their world, human expression is so diverse in the face of simplicity. To ignore those outside your view lessens your experience with the human race in all its diversity.

And I'm no different in my experience. I love the diversity of people, and have transpeople in my world. To me they expand my understanding of sex and gender, and of myself. To live in a shell of a world within your desired views of people limits your potential to be more of a person. To live in the larger world to see the diversity expands your potential as a person and human being, to challenge your very notions of people, to accept the diversity of human expression and experience.

I've danced around for five-plus columns the very subject of why I wrote these thoughts and ideas, but did you forget the purpose of the whole series of columns, my real-life adventure? It's my journey in life, the road to see, look, and find myself, to come full circle and be something I thought was there and didn't see it then. It's amazing, it's always the trip home when and where we feel good. We come back the same and different, realizing the same has blended to the different, into a new person.

I am still on the road, and still exploring thoughts and ideas, and exploring who, what, and where I am in life. And there will be days I'll sit down and jot in this journal my experiences on the road.