Gender vs. Sex: Nothing is Black & White

I must admit I feel bothered by the fact that the subforum dedicated to gender is entitled "Ladies Forum." I do not wish to offend anyone, but I must put it out there that gender is a much more vast area of study than men vs women. I feel I must begin by clarifying the definition of gender, and how it is in no way equivalent to biological sex.

Sex is your biology, what genitalia you've got between your legs. To put it into categories for those who like labels, a person can be Male, Female, Intersexed, or Neutrois. A Male person has a penis, a Female person has a vagina, an Intersexed person has ambiguous genitalia, and a Neutrois person has no genitalia.

Now moving on to gender, gender is the culturally established definition of gender roles, deciding what each biological sex is meant to do in their lives. But because this isn't embedded biologically, but rather socially constructed, gender isn't the same thing as your sex. It can be, of course. Those whose sex and gender matched are "Cisgendered." But beyond that, there are those who feel they belong in the opposite gender role (i.e. a biologically male person who identifies with the generally female gender role would be known as Transgendered.) There are also those who do not identify wholly with one side of the spectrum or the other (this is possibly the most common), and these people feel masculine tendencies and feminine tendencies in their lives at varying levels, often changing over time. This can go by a multitude of names: Androgyny, Genderqueer, Genderfluid, and more. On top of that, there are also those who do not identify with any of the socially constructed gender roles, and their gender identity is not masculine or feminine, but "Agender" or "Genderless."

The list goes on, but I will stop there as to not overwhelm anyone. This might be a good time to consider your own gender: are you wholly masculine or feminine (i.e. cisgendered)? Do you feel like your genitalia opposes your gender (transgendered)? Are you a bit more fluid, containing a bit of both at times (i.e. androgynous, genderqueer, genderfluid, etc)? Or are you completely disconnected from socially constructed gender (i.e. agendered or genderless)? Gender does not change your biological sex, and your biological sex does not determine your gender. I hope we can all keep that in mind and be considerate of all genders, not just the "Ladies" of the temple.

I'm not quite sure what you're wanting to learn by finding out whether people here are cisgendered or that feel their sex don't match their gender...?

I don't have the statistics in front of me, but I don't think I'm amiss in saying the vast majority of the earth's population are cisgendered. A very small minority, but still sizable group would define themselves as transgendered. For the sake of numbers, let's say 90 to 10

At this Jedi temple I would venture another educated guess (educated in the fact that I've read a lot of Jedi posts here, seen Jedi intros, etc.) that we have a minority of transgendered, or differently labeled people than cisgendered, but form a larger percentage at this temple than the world at large. Again, for the sake of numbers, let's say 80 to 20.

Why is that?

I believe it's because the traditional religions only pay lip service to accepting everyone whereas this Temple really does accept them no issues whatsoever.

There is nothing in this Temple preventing a gay Clergy, a transgendered Master, or a Genderless Knight, or a bi-sexual Initiate. Nothing holding ANYONE back. I think that's what makes this Temple so great. We don't pay lip service to it.

You got to have a penis to be a Catholic priest or hold the Mormon priesthood.

You got to have a vagina to be a Nun

You have to be celibate as a gay person to be a Christian (in some Christian sects).

Not here!! Be what you are, and enjoy what this Temple has to offer.

For the sake of the thread you started, I am a "Cisgendered" male.

The first thing to say is that I believe that the Ladies Forum is not used an awful lot, presumably because those of us who class ourselves as 'ladies' are quite happy to do most of our conversing with everyone else.

I understand where you're coming from, and I agree with you on your explanation of sex and gender. I can definitely see why some people would find it a bit strange, possibly even offensive that there is a very specific gender-based subforum.

But at the same time, I do think that there are plus points to it that have to be taken into consideration. There is, I suspect quite a significant male/female inbalance here at the Temple, and I think that it's good that the Ladies Forum is there as a sort of beacon of 'look - you don't have to be a man to join TOTJO'! I also think that somewhere in the threads about the suitability/purposes of the Ladies Forum, some good points were raised about very specific female issues that people might want to discuss. Although you could counter that by saying that other genders will have their own specific issues, I think again it comes back to that there are less women here than men, and by posting about such things in the Ladies Forum, you feel confident that hopefully some other ladies will notice and offer female points of view based on personal experience. Whereas if men post in the general forum, you can pretty much guarantee that other men will read it. And I believe that there is nothing stopping anyone from posting on things in the Ladies Forum, so it is not exclusive.

Now, of course, as you say, there are other genders at TOTJO who are in even more of a minority than ladies. But I guess there's an element of having to consider whether there are actually enough people of other specific genders to merit a subforum for them. If there are only a few people and they don't feel that they would use it very often, then there probably isn't much need for other gender-specific forums.

So in conclusion, I think that there are pros and cons, and I understand your concern. I personally don't really use the Ladies Forum, but I wouldn't begrudge those who feel that it is helpful for them to have it. I don't think that anyone uses it as a means of excluding others. In relation to other genders - I would have thought that if people feel particularly strongly about creating a new subforum for them, then if enough people want it it would surely be taken into consideration.

This forum was created a long time ago because of the temple needs. We can certainly disband this forum now as we have many active females who interact with the males as if there was no gender for the most part.

This is not to segregate the women, and during it's creation it was put out there that men should get their own forum to (to which they declined).

Also to hit on what Vicki said,

the female Jedi (by anatomy, not by gender choice or association) have very unique issues. For example, we have breasts and periods. Men just don't have those things. So how we train, what we wear, how we sacrifice is totally different than for men.

Hi Ace, you probably already know, given how open I am about it but I'm a transsexual/intersex woman myself. I agree with your description of things overall though have a minor disagreement in that I don't believe gender is strictly socially constructed. I think how we express that gender is almost purely socially oriented but that our internal feelings about who we are, while potentially societally impacted, are more rooted in our true selves and our biology. For this reason I usually split Gender into "Gender Identity" and "Gender Expression". When they are lumped together, if you were to be charting things out, crossdressers would fall very near to transsexuals, whereas when split apart, they may be similar in expression but identity will show the difference.

In response to Master Perris, I'm sure this may have been simply word choice but I think I need to clarify it. Firstly, while gender expression may be choice or association, gender identity isn't. Gender identity establishes itself for human beings around ages 3 or 4 as the brain development reaches certain stages. Secondly, I was declared male at birth and yet I have breasts and a period, though since I lack certain organs I don't menstruate. I get bloating and cramping, I become a little irratable. These are not just because of my intersex condition though. Every other trans woman I've spoken to has these things. The only significant areas, where we differ from a cisgendered woman is in our ability to bare children, for which I personally struggle with regularly as my "biological clock" still ticks away in my head, regardless of my ability to do anything about it, and socialization, which within 3 or 4 years of transition, is almost unnoticeable unless the person in question has seen crippling descrimination.

I know this has something to do with the topic, but isn't the issue at hand, but it goes along nicely with what's being said, I think.

I found a test a while back about gender and took it. I plan to take it again and decided to share it here: http://transsexual.org/cogiati/index.php?lang=en

It's very interesting, in my opinion.

COGIATI is an interesting test, but its a bit biased toward gender stereotypes. That particular website in general is sadly. They don't account for things like my favorite author Julia Serano who's a butch lesbian feminist trans woman.

I'm not exactly sure how/why an author you like would determine anything? I'm not trying to be rude, I'm asking sincerely. I could understand if you liked her because of the fact she is what you described.. maybe? lol
Can you explain that to me??

Oh I just like her work, she's got an interesting way of thinking and I enjoy her poetry as well. She writes non-fiction mostly though. The fact that she's my favorite author was an anecdotal statement. More to say that cisgendered women often fall under the "male" gender range if they're butch identifying when they take the COGIATI as well. So an individual who is transsexual but also butch COGIATI is going to say isn't trans.

TANGENT: She has some interesting ideas on gender and misogyny as well as their impact within the feminist movement. http://www.juliaserano.com/