2017.11.19 “Finding
Blessings on the Gender Spectrum”
Rev. Laura Bogle
Time for All
Ages: “Red: A Crayon’s Story” https://youtu.be/ytZ2fhuj6kA
Earlier this year
I was at a family gathering at the beach.
Picture this: 6 kids under the age of 8! Three were mine, two were my sisters kids,
one a family friend.
Picture this: in
the warm weather they are splashing in the water, running on the sand.
Picture this: they are so full of themselves,
un-self-conscious. Free. Happy. Strong. Comfortable in their bodies. Curious about everything. Totally fine getting *very* dirty. Most of them still fine to run around
shirtless without a care.
They are all girls
– at least so far as we know at this time in their lives.
And I worry and
think about:
When and how will
they lose that kind of abandon?
What can I do to help
them hold on to that kind of freedom? To
move how they want to move? To play
however they want to play?
Of course, I know
that by age 5, when most kids in the US enter the public school system, the
policing of gender norms has already started—what girls are supposed to do and
be, what boys are supposed to do and be.
It probably started the moment their parents announced their birth, and
the first question is so often – a boy? Or a girl?
Part of the
answer, for me, is to talk about gender with our children, and affirm gender as
a wide spectrum—one which has lots of options and possible expressions, so far
beyond the segregated aisles at Toys R Us.
And Part of the
answer, for me, for all of us who want to raise healthy and free children who
grow up into healthy and free adults, is for all of us to learn about, talk
about, and practice getting comfortable with a gender spectrum. To look for ways ourselves to move around a
bit more on that spectrum, and to make sure our kids get to experience adults
in their lives who don’t fit neatly into our cultural gender roles.
My hunch is that
the more we can expand our imagination around gender, the more healthy and free
we might *all* be.
In our culture
lately there’s been increased attention to transgender people and their lives
and concerns—in part due to high profile celebrities transitioning from one
gender to another, as well as more transgender children and their parents
fighting for equal and safe treatment at school.
While our
congregation held workshops back in 2013 for us to learn together about gender
as part of our Welcoming Congregation process, it is always useful to go back
to the basics—even in 4 years things change and develop.
So: I want you to
picture a gingerbread person—except this will be our Gender Bread person.
Holding this image
in your mind will help us disentangle a few terms.
We’ll start up at
the head, the brain—where Gender Identity resides. Gender
identity is the internal feeling you have about your gender. Do you identify internally as a Man? As a Woman?
As neither? As both?
One term that is
increasingly used is “genderqueer” or “gender fluid.” Terms used by people who identify as being
between and/or other than man or woman. They may feel they are neither, a
little bit of both, or they may simply feel restricted by gender labels. Some people choose to use pronouns that are
not gendered. For instance, the use of
the term “they” as a gender neutral pronoun is more and more in accepted
use. Or some folks may use terms like ze
and hir instead of he or her.
Remember: Gender Identity itself can exist on a spectrum and change
over time.
Gender Identity is
separate from Gender Expression. Think
about the outline of our genderbread person– the ways a person acts, dresses,
and presents their gender on the outside.
Is it more masculine or butch? Is
it more feminine or femme? Do you
present more androgynous? Or gender neutral?
Does it change depending on the day and where you are, who you are
with? How many of us feel like we have
to dress in drag to go to work or to our family’s Thanksgiving table?
Gender expression
is the place where very early policing and control of gender norms happens with
kids.
Sometimes this happens
overtly.
Tony Porter is the
author of “Breaking Out of the Man Box” and co-founder of the organization “A
Call to Men.” He talks about the moment
he realized how deeply differently he was treating his son and daughter, who
were very close in age. At the time they were 4 and 5. His daughter would come
crying to him and he immediately would cuddle and console her; call her sweet
names and let her cry it out.
His son would come
crying to him and he’d give him a few seconds before he told him to shape up
and stop crying. No hug. No consolation.
This is a kind of
enforcement of gender expression – what’s OK and not OK.
Many times this
enforcement happens subconsciously or implicitly—like what kinds of toys or
activities or clothes are offered or available for boys vs. girls; men vs.
women.
Did you know that
it’s kind of hard to find women’s dress pants that have deep pockets and enough
room to carry a wallet? I’m just saying. Sometimes, it’s the little things.
So, we’ve been to
the brain and to the outside expression. Let’s move down a little further on
our genderbread person and talk about Biological
Sex.
Biological sex is
the physical characteristics you are born with and develop that may include
anatomy, hormones, chromosomes, body shape.
While we don’t acknowledge it much, even biological sex exists on a
spectrum. There are some people who are
born with a combination of male and female biological markers—the generally
accepted term for this is Intersex.
There are some people who are born with generally male biological
markers, and who later decide to make changes—through surgery and hormones—to
shift their biology towards femaleness.
Or vice versa.
What gender
non-conforming people of all kinds have helped us to do is to de-link biology
from culture, identity, and expression.
So, when we think
about Gender Identity, separate from Gender Expression, separate from
Biological Sex—and recognize that all of these exist on a spectrum – the permutations
are endless!
You could have a
Genderbread person who Identifies as a Woman, who expresses a more masculine
gender, and who has female biology. A
butch woman.
You could have a
Genderbread person who Identifies as a Woman, who expresses a Feminine gender,
and who has or had mostly male biology.
A Male to Female transgender person.
You could have a
Genderbread person who Identifies as Gender queer, who some days expresses a
more masculine gender and some days expresses a more feminine gender and has
male biology.
And on and on….
Then there are
those of us who are Cisgender. Cisgender
is the term used to describe someone whose gender identity, gender expression,
and biological sex generally match up based on the cultural gender binary.
I am Cisgender. I feel myself to be a woman, I generally
express myself in more feminine ways (though to be sure, I don’t fall to the
extreme of that spectrum), and I was born biologically female. Cis means “on the same side” and is used in
contrast to “trans” which means crossing over.
What very often
gets tangled up in this conversation about gender is sexual and romantic orientation—who you are attracted to. I almost didn’t even want to talk about it
today, but I think it’s important because there is often so much confusion
about it. And I invite you now to
envision the heart of our Genderbread person.
Imagine that sexual orientation and romantic orientation – who you are
attracted to—resides in the heart. It
can be separate from what gender you feel yourself to be, how you express your
gender, and what your biological sex is.
For so long in our
culture the options have been two boxes:
The Man Box: Male = Masculine = Man = attracted to women
OR
The Woman Box: Female
= Feminine = Woman = attracted to men
And there’s a host
of qualities, and characteristics, and behaviors associated which each of the
boxes.
What we know is
that while that equation might work for some people, there are very many of us
for whom that equation doesn’t equal our own experience. We change the variables into so many
different kinds of patterns, creating all kinds of beautiful expressions of
being human.
We also know that
it is dangerous—emotionally and sometimes physically—to transgress these two boxes,
or to dare to make different combinations.
Kids get punished.
People get told
they are in the wrong bathroom, or refused service at a restaurant, or turned
away at a church door, or from a family gathering.
Some people are
assaulted and killed.
Later today we can
show up for the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance vigil, and help
memorialize all the transgender and gender non-conforming people who have lost
their very lives in the last year, because of who they are, who they dare to
be. We can hear the names of the ones we
know about, and remember that they represent even more loss and names we don’t
know. We can understand that most trans
people who are assaulted or killed are Transwomen of Color. We can reflect on how that represents a deep,
deep fear of gender transgression in our culture; and a deeply ingrained toxic
kind of masculinity that teaches boys and men to fear and suppress and exorcise
their femininity.
And I have to name
here—if we didn’t enforce this kind of masculinity on men and boys, we wouldn’t
be seeing the endless revelations of sexual harassment and assault on women,
the stream of #MeToo stories that is filling our social media and news stories. As we memorialize lives lost to violence
against trans people, we can also memorialize the lives damaged by a kind of
masculinity that equates being male with being dominating, aggressive.
But I want us to
do more than show up to memorialize. I
want us to think about what further steps we can take to support resilience and
health for all of us on the gender spectrum.
Our congregation
states that part of our mission is to celebrate diversity. It is central to our faith to recognize that
beauty and worth and dignity and goodness shows up in many ways and forms. It is central to our faith to remember that
when some are not free, none of us are free.
How might we all,
especially those of us who are cisgender, work towards making gender diversity
visible, accepted, celebrated—not just tolerated? So that we might all find more freedom?
One small option
that can make a difference is for all of us to take on some of the risk and the
burden of communicating about our gender identity.
Some of you might
have noticed that on my e-mail signature under my name it now says “Preferred
pronouns: she/her” This is my way of
making explicit what is often just an assumption other people make about me.
People look at me
and put me in a particular gender box: woman.
There was a time when I was around 10 or 11 and had very short hair, when
people repeatedly assumed I was a boy.
So rather than
make assumptions about someone’s gender when they walk through the door here,
let’s try to practice not gendering
people until they let us know what gender, pronouns, name they want to be
called. And we can signal a welcome by
communicating our own preferences. At
the greeters table there are stickers available for you to indicate on your
name tag what your preferred gender pronouns are. And there are blank ones – so you can really
decide what works for you. An
invitation, not a requirement.
We are not always
going to get it right. We are going to
mess up sometimes, We are going to
misgender or misname each other sometimes.
When that happens, may we be strong enough to acknowledge it, to
apologize, to try again, to extend grace to one another.
Transgender
activist Patrick Califia asks: “Who
would you be if you had never been punished for gender inappropriate
behavior? …. What would happen if we all
helped each other to manifest our most beautiful, sexy, intelligent, creative,
and adventurous inner selves, instead of cooperating to suppress them?”
I want to invite
us to all, especially those of us who are cisgender, and especially the
cisgender men among us, to think about ways, comfortable to you, that you might
transgress the Man Box. I know a father,
for instance. You could say looking at
him that he usually presents very butch.
He is married to a woman. He
works on a construction crew. He has two
daughters, one of whom is transgender.
Recently I saw him and noticed his fingernails were painted. A small thing; and yet, a hugely rare thing.
Imagine the message that sends to his children.
Imagine the conversations it opens up with other men. Imagine the level of internal security of
self it takes to transgress that gender norm.
Imagine the ripples of possibility and freedom it creates.
Tony Porter says
he remembers asking a 9-year-old boy “What would life be like for you if you
didn’t have to adhere to the man box?”
And all he said was, “I would be free.”
May we create ever
more ways to find that kind of freedom from boxes, for ourselves, for our
children, for us all.
Amen.
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