I'd Be Very Interested To Know What Your Gender Feels Like

One of the most common and consistent mistakes we make as human beings is assuming that our experience of the world is the same as everybody else’s. Humans, simply by virtue of being human, have a great deal in common. But there are always gaps in our experience that can only be bridged by talking to each other.

In my article, Wait, Isn’t Everybody Non-Binary?, I wrote about the concept of gender identity. As the WHO describes it, the “deeply felt, internal and individual experience of gender." I confessed that I’ve never had any sense of this experience. Nor has anybody I’ve ever spoken to.

Mark tried to bridge the gaps.

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Mark:

This is a confusing one for me.

I’d happily consider myself non-binary as I’m a happy mix of masculine and feminine. But to your point, so is everyone else.

When people do identify as non-binary I imagine their gender identity feels very different to mine and I’m interested to know what that’s like. I think more identities can help people explain their experiences, so I welcome the evolving language and specificity.

I do question the phrase non-binary though. Just as I’d question non-living to describe a ghost. But ultimately I’m happy for people to choose their own labels.

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Steve QJ:

When people do identify as non-binary I imagine their gender identity feels very different to mine

I'd be very interested to know what yours feels like! I've yet to speak to anybody who could describe what their gender identity felt like at all. Aren't we just talking about personality here?

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Mark:

Yeah, most people want to do anything but take an honest look at their experience.

For me, it feels layered. Sex forms the base of my gender identity and is straight forward. It feels like firm ground and is the frame of reference for other comparisons.

Then gender builds on that and is way more confusing. And confusing in loads of different ways. I liked some things girls like and didn’t like some things boys like.
And it was built on a lot of false assumptions that I’ve now unraveled. Like I thought anger was OK for girls and not for boys etc.

It’s always been confusing and is still confusing. Probably least confusing in my teens when I was more strongly associated with masculinity.

So overall, my gender identity has some confusion, but I have firm ground to deal with the confusion. I happily identify as a man with a healthy mix of masculinity and femininity. Both of which confuse the hell out of me 😅

I guess that’s the difference between people with gender dysphoria. They aren’t able to build a congruent base, so it’s all a cluster fuck of pain and confusion without firm ground to build a gender identity.

And a lot of that going on unconsciously when they’re young while they do their best to hide it.

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Steve QJ:

I liked some things girls like and didn’t like some things boys like. And it was built on a lot of false assumptions

I'm not trying to dictate the validity of your feelings, obviously, but this sounds a long way from a “deeply felt, internal and individual experience of gender,” to me. It sounds like a collection of perfectly normal feelings, that I think everybody has some variation of, that you're looking to place into a specific box.

If anything, what you're describing sounds simply like a personality. Unique to you, with elements in common and contrast with lots of other people, that can't really be defined any meaningful way. I think everybody has the same experience. But no two people have the same one.

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Mark:

Yeah, I expect my experience is fairly typical. But I’m cisgender, so that’s to be expected.

I think of personality as the character you present and identity as the core.

I think there are useful distinctions. Like understanding why people have such strong reactions when they feel their identity is threatened.

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“But I’m cisgender, so that’s to be expected.”

Here’s something I’ve been wondering about recently; what if the very notion that there even is such a thing as “feeling like a man or a woman,” is a symptom of gender dysphoria? As I said above, I’ve yet to meet any “cisgender” people who can describe this feeling.

And even though I’ve never met a trans or non-binary person who can describe it either, at least without falling back on stereotypes that fail to represent most men or women, perhaps the notion that there even is such a thing is what leads to the distress.

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Steve QJ:

Like understanding why people have such strong reactions when they feel their identity is threatened.

I think that's just social conditioning. Some people react strongly to any questioning of their sexuality too. Call the wrong guy "gay" and you have a fight on your hands (although this is often a clear sign that there's some truth to the claim).

People hold very strongly to national identity or racial identity, but again, it doesn't "feel" like anything to be black or Norwegian.

The question of one's "core" is very interesting. I'd argue very strongly that there's no such thing. But that might get a little too metaphysical for the scope of this conversation. 😅

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Mark:

I actually changed the wording around core, because yeah —can of worms 😅

Identity as the roots of personality is a better. Thoughts on this?

Repressed homosexuality is an interesting one. Is it a failure to identify as gay or is it unconsciously identifying as gay and then rejecting your identity? Either way, the reaction formation isn’t pretty.

I guess identity is used to describe a tonne of different things and could use some untangling.

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Steve QJ:

Identity as the roots of personality is a better. Thoughts on this?

I think the entire concept of identity is trying to jam yourself into a box of stereotypes and then insisting on ever smaller subdivisions when you discover that you're too complex a being to fit.

For example, I don't "identify as black" I am black. Black is a descriptor. I fit some stereotypes and don't fit others and this doesn't bother me in the least because why on Earth should the colour of my skin be an "identity"?! Same for being a man, same for being heterosexual. Same for any other label one might apply to me.

Even my personality is subject to change. I'm a different person in some ways to the person I was 10 years ago. Which one is the "real" me? Or perhaps better put, which one is closer to my true "identity"?

In this vein, repressed homosexuality is clinging to an identity (heterosexual, "manly man", whatever) that doesn't fit. Again, you try to force yourself into a box, discover that parts of you don't fit, and get mad at the world when it points this out.

I don't think identity needs untangling, it needs dismantling. You are who you are. There is no label for it. No single word (or book!) that can define it. And best of all, it's all subject to change. That's why I think the word "personality" comes closest.

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Mark:

By disentangle identity I mean be specific with defining it.

It’s hard for me to agree we need to dismantle identity without checking we’re talking about the same thing. I’m struggling to understand the psychological structures involved in identity.

Like when Buddhists talk about being identified with thoughts or feelings—what are they talking about?

Practically, I think we’re on the same page. We want race to be a descriptor. Just as hair colour is.

We agree identity is being abused all over the political spectrum and few are using it constructively. I tend to align somewhat with Buddhists for trying to take the focus off of identity and realise the extent of our confusion. I like centrists for the same reason. And I’m totally with you on the goal being to help people let go of dysfunctional group identities and develop as individuals.

But maybe recognising increasing smaller subdivisions is part of this process? We need a working model of ourselves to function, and we develop this as infants, so it’s going to be messy and evolving.

I’m also interested in healthy use of identity. Dancers for example, seem to take a lot of meaning from this being an identity rather than a description. So, is there a risk of throwing the baby out with the bath water?

Isn’t the problem in your example with clinging to the wrong identity, rather than with identity? Isn’t gay a healthy identity for many people?

I suspect helping people develop new identities will be more effective than trying to dismantle old ones. Outdated identities dissolve when they’re no longer needed.

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“Like when Buddhists talk about being identified with thoughts or feelings—what are they talking about?”

Those of you who haven’t read my very earliest writings might not know that before my race writing origin story, I spent a lot of time writing about mindfulness and meditation. So it was fascinating to see Mark make the connection. It’s not often that Buddhism and identity politics intersect after all.

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Steve QJ:

Like when Buddhists talk about being identified with thoughts or feelings—what are they talking about?

Ah! This is right in my wheelhouse!😁 They’re talking about mistaking a thought or feeling for yourself.

For example, say you feel angry. You know you feel that because you feel a certain pattern of tension in your chest or face, perhaps your heart beats faster or your palms sweat. You didn't choose any of these things. You don't decide whether you're going to feel angry or not, but instead of recognising these as sensations and recognising your ability to choose how you react to them, you become angry. You are angry. It's no longer a feeling anymore, for however long you're ensnared by it, it's you. The principle of non-attachment in Buddhism is about breaking this cycle of identifying with your feelings.

The way we've come to use identity lately is similar. Your skin is a certain colour, your genitals are configured in a certain way. You didn't choose any of these things. But instead of recognising these things as incidental to who you are, some people define themselves by them. In this case, saying "I am black" isn't just a description of my skin, it's an identity. I identify with the suffering of people who lived hundreds of years ago, even though their lives have nothing to do with me. I define myself by oppression if I have black skin, even if I'm rich and famous and powerful. When a black person dies on TV, I'm invested in seeing it as evidence of that system of oppression, even if it's clearly unrelated.

My main issue with identity, as I said earlier, is that it forces people into boxes that are too small for them. This leads to suffering in numerous ways.

First, it makes people feel as if certain aspects of life are off-limits: "I'm a man, I can't let my emotions show." "I'm straight, I can't acknowledge my feelings for this person of the same sex."

Second, when people's lives change, the loss of identity puts them in crisis: “I'm a dancer, but I'm too old to dance as I used to or I broke my leg or my feelings about dancing simply changed. Who am I now?”

Third, and perhaps most importantly, it closes us off to other people who might otherwise be valuable additions to our lives. "O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love. And I'll no longer be a Capulet." (I kid, but you see my point.)

Weighed against that, is the sense of community identity can bring. But we all have a shared, irrevocable identity from birth to death. We are human. We understand so much about each other's desires and needs and vulnerbilities by just this simple fact. As you say, when you think about it, you need to recognise smaller and smaller subdivisions of these identities. And at the end of that process is a personality.

Acknowledging that we're complex and changeable is less secure than putting people in boxes and expecting them to stay there. Getting to know each other is slower and more difficult than slapping on an identity label. But it's better in every single way.

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Mark:

Thanks. That’s a clearer description than I’ve heard before.

Adding dissociation is where it gets really fuzzy for me. About 6 years ago, I realised I was split off from a lot of my emotions. I think in the process of trying to integrate feelings I became strongly identified with them. I went down some pretty gnarly trauma rabbit holes in the end and pulled the breaks on spirituality a couple of years ago.

I guess the problem for me is I haven’t learned to think without identifying with thought and I don’t know how to feel without part of me identifying with feeling.

I should probably download Headspace again 😅

I do push back on identity politics more than most, so we share a lot of viewpoints there. The weighing and looking for healthy examples of identity are important for me though, as I think there are bridges to be found there.

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Human beings are impossibly complex. Our relationships, our careers, our mortality, ourselves. We expend so much energy trying to make them manageable and predictable and safe. To give ourselves the illusion of control. But the truth is, we aren’t even in control of ourselves. 

Like it or not, we will all change in unforeseen ways throughout our lives. We’ll make decisions that shake our sense of who we are. We’ll surprise and disappoint and confuse ourselves. 

Human beings are walking, talking “grey areas.” And while paths to happiness are difficult enough to find, one sure path to unhappiness is forcing ourselves to be, if you’ll excuse the phrasing from a race writer, either black or white. 

I suspect that a large part of the mental health crisis we’re seeing in young people today is born out of this pressure to place ourselves in boxes. And while we're especially changeable at a young age, really, this labelling is a problem at any age. Our politics, our “race”, our gender, our sexuality, wouldn’t we all be happier if we could just be ourselves?