She/He/They/Me

by Robyn Ryle

  What happens to you as a transgender or gender-expansive kid depends a lot on how the people around you respond to you.

  Your parents reject your transgender or gender-expansive identity. GO TO 28.

  Your parents accept your transgender or gender-expansive identity. GO TO 29.

  73

  You were assigned a feminine gender when you were born, and you feel like a girl. You’re cisgender, which means that your gender assignment and gender identity match up. But what exactly does it mean to say you feel like a girl?

  Maybe you’re a girl, but you really like looking at all the creepy-crawly things under rocks, even if you do get muddy. Maybe you like getting muddy. Does that make you feel less like a girl? What if you never cry? What if you hate baby dolls?

  Gender identity is the way we feel inside, and “girl” is one label to put on those feelings. But the truth is that even if you’re cisgender, not every part of your gender identity will necessarily match up with your gender expression, or the way your culture tells you to perform your gender. As Kate Bornstein, a transgender activist, points out, at some point gender as a system lets all of us down. At some point in your life, you will have a thought, have a feeling, or engage in some behavior that does not perfectly match the rules laid out for your gender. Another way to say this is that your gender expression won’t always line up with your gender assignment and your gender identity.

  CISGENDER

  adj. /(ˌ)sis-ˈjen-dər/

  Relating to or being a person whose gender identity corresponds with the gender the person was assigned at birth.

  Your gender identity, gender assignment, and gender expression all match up. GO TO 43.

  Your gender expression doesn’t match up with your gender identity and gender assignment. GO TO 44.

  74

  You were assigned a feminine gender when you were born, but it doesn’t feel right. You don’t feel like a girl, and you might start telling people as soon as you can. At as young as two or three years old, some children let their parents know that there’s something wrong about their gender. You might wonder why you have a girl’s body when you know that you’re really meant to be a boy. Gender assignment happened for you when you were too young to have a say in the matter, but now you’re asserting your own, deeply felt sense of who you truly are. If something about the gender you’ve been assigned doesn’t feel right, you might be a transgender or gender-expansive person.

  Transgender is the umbrella term that’s generally used to describe when your gender identity doesn’t match your gender assignment at birth. It can also refer more specifically to people whose gender identity is “opposite” or “across from” the gender they were assigned at birth. In your case, the “opposite” gender would be boy.

  The term gender expansive includes those who are transgender, but also anyone who expands their own culture’s commonly held expectations about gender, whether that means how they express their gender, how they identify themselves, or the norms they choose to follow or not to follow. People with nonbinary identities would be an example of what it means to be gender expansive.

  What happens to you as a transgender or gender-expansive kid depends a lot on how the people around you respond to you.

  Your parents reject your transgender or gender-expansive identity. GO TO 62.

  Your parents accept your transgender or gender-expansive identity. GO TO 27.

  75

  As a gay man, you might find that people expect you to live your gender in certain ways. That’s because of all the complicated ways in which gender and sexuality intersect in your culture. You might be expected to care more about your appearance than straight men do. People might expect you to talk a certain way—with a lisp or in a more animated style. There might be certain sports and activities—like gymnastics, dance, or choir—that people assume that you’re more likely to participate in. Maybe people assume that you know more about topics like musicals and fashion. In general, you’ll be expected to be and act more feminine than straight men, but feminine in very specific ways. For instance, no one will expect you to be better at taking care of children just because you’re a gay man. In fact, some people might feel that you shouldn’t be around children because of your sexual identity. Even though the overwhelming majority of men who sexually abuse children are straight, people might still feel that it’s dangerous to allow you access to kids.

  If you don’t conform to all these expectations, people will probably express surprise and maybe even say things like, “You don’t act gay” or “You don’t seem gay.”

  Chances are you’ll find yourself in a society that’s heteronormative, a place where being straight is assumed to be normal and right. Living in that kind of society will make a lot of things difficult for you, including finding someone to love.

  HETERONORMATIVE

  adj. /ˌhē-tə-rō-ˈnȯr-mə-tiv/

  Based on the attitude that heterosexuality is the only normal and natural expression of sexuality.

  GO TO 65.

  76

  You’re a gender-expansive kid who doesn’t feel like a woman or a man. That could mean that you also don’t identify yourself as any of the categories for sexual identity that are dependent upon gender. For instance, if you really don’t think of yourself as a woman, then you might argue that it makes no sense to think of yourself as a lesbian, either. After all, categories like lesbian, gay man, straight woman, straight man, bisexual woman, and bisexual man are all based on the assumption that everyone has some sort of gender that lines up with masculinity and femininity. If there is no such thing as gender, the categories for sexual identity become sort of obsolete.

  So what do you do? Just because you don’t identify as a man or a woman doesn’t necessarily mean that you aren’t interested in having sexual and romantic relationships.

  Maybe you identify as pansexual. If you’re pansexual, it means that your sexual and romantic desires aren’t limited by categories of gender assignment, gender expression, or gender identity. Your attraction to someone isn’t dependent upon the gender they were assigned at birth or on how they live their gender or on what they feel their gender is. None of that matters to you. Your sexual and romantic desires basically have nothing to do with gender.

  If you’re in a culture with a strong link between gender and sexuality, being pansexual might sound sort of weird. But you could argue that pansexuality makes more sense than all the other categories of sexual identity, which when you get down to it, can be pretty confusing. Say you’re a straight woman. What is it exactly that you’re attracted to? People with penises? Or people who were told they were boys when they were born? Or people who dress, act, and think in masculine ways? Or are you attracted to people who feel like they’re men on the inside?

  PANSEXUAL

  adj. /ˌpan-ˈsek-sh(ə-)wəl/

  Being a person whose sexual desire or attraction is not limited to people of a particular gender identity or sexual orientation.

  For the sake of argument, let’s say that to be a straight woman means that you’re attracted to people with penises. That would include trans men who’ve had gender-confirming surgery that included the construction of a penis. It also assumes that the fact that someone has a penis provides you with important information about your sexual and romantic compatibility. Does it, though? If one of your nonnegotiable requirements for a partner is that they can make you laugh, does having a penis have anything to do with that?

  If you don’t identify as a woman or a man and aren’t using gender as a criterion for finding your soul mate, maybe you’re actually ahead of the game.

  GO TO 65.

  77

  As a lesbian woman, you might find that people expect you to live your gender in certain ways. That’s because of all the complicated ways in which gender and sexuality intersect in your culture. You might find that people expect you to dress like a man and wear your hair short. They might be surprised if you wear lipstick or fri
lly skirts. There might be certain sports—like softball—that people assume you’re more likely to participate in. Maybe they’ll assume that you are a feminist or that you hate men. Generally, people will expect you to act more masculine than straight women do, and they might be surprised when you don’t.

  Your lesbian identity doesn’t really affect how you express your gender, but in a culture like this, people will believe that it does. The power of those beliefs along with the strength of heteronormativity—the assumption that being straight is right and normal—will lead some people to make weird assumptions about your relationships with women. They might ask questions like, “Who’s the man?”—implying that even in a relationship between two women, someone has to be masculine and someone has to be feminine.

  Your experience of being a lesbian woman will vary depending on other identities that intersect with your gender and sexual identity. Being a lesbian isn’t necessarily harder or easier if you belong to one racial or ethnic group compared to others. But it’s also true that when many people picture “lesbian” in their head, that image is more likely to be a white woman than a person of color. That’s because white is generally the default in American society, and that extends to categories of sexual identity as well. Those perceptions, along with the particular history and culture of your racial or ethnic group, can shape what it means for you to be a lesbian. For example, when Arab American lesbians come out to family and friends, they are often told that there is no such thing as an Arab American lesbian.

  You’re an Arab American lesbian. GO TO 121.

  You’re not an Arab American lesbian. GO TO 65.

  78

  Already the path of your gender adventure is turning out to be fairly complicated, full of unexpected twists and turns. We could pretend that gender is the only or the most important thing that determines where you end up along the path of your life. But that’s not really how it works. We are all touched by gender, but also by other aspects of who we are, like our racial and ethnic backgrounds. Your race and ethnicity have a lot to do with what your gender path looks like and your experiences along the way.

  Your gender and your race probably intersect in your daily life, and that’s basically what an intersectional approach to gender means. It’s impossible to separate out what parts of your experiences have to do with your racial or ethnic background and what parts have to do with your gender. You move through life as both.

  One way to think about an intersectional approach is to always ask yourself the question, “Which people?” If someone tells you that boys underperform in school, you should ask yourself, Which boys? or Which girls? White boys? Asian American girls? Middle-class boys or working-class boys? Questions like these make us think about the fact that the experiences of all people of the same gender aren’t the same. Nor are the experience of all people of the same racial or ethnic background.

  Your racial or ethnic background will probably be an important part of how you experience your gender, but we can’t predict exactly how; however, there are some things that might be true.

  You’re an African American man. GO TO 132.

  You’re an African American woman. GO TO 133.

  You’re a Latinx woman. GO TO 134.

  You’re a Latinx man. GO TO 135.

  You’re an Asian American man. GO TO 136.

  You’re an Asian American woman. GO TO 137.

  You’re an Arab American man. GO TO 138.

  You’re an Arab American woman. GO TO 139.

  You’re a white man. GO TO 140.

  You’re a white woman. GO TO 141.

  79

  You’re a straight man, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t implications for you of living in a society where gender and sexuality are connected. Because of the complex ways that gender and sexuality intersect, there are certain expectations that people think you should meet. People might expect you, as a straight man, not to put too much effort into your appearance. When there’s music playing, no one will be surprised if you don’t dance. Other men might try to get you to brag about having sex with women or to talk about women’s bodies with them. You might even be expected to engage in street harassment—yelling at women as they walk by on the street or in other public settings. People might assume that you enjoy pornography. If there’s a jar that needs to be opened or something heavy that needs to be lifted, you’re likely to be the one people will ask for help. There might be certain sports and activities—like football, fixing cars, or hunting—that people assume that you’re more likely to participate in.

  Because of the way that gender and sexuality are connected in your society, you’ll face the constant danger of being called gay or a fag. By and large, when you’re called these things, it won’t have anything to do with who you love or who you want to have sex with. These terms are used to patrol your masculinity, not your sexuality. High school boys call each other fag for a wide range of things that have nothing to do with sex or love—for tripping in the hallway or wearing the wrong clothes. As a straight man, society is set up to meet your needs, but you have to walk a very narrow line in order to fully benefit from the system.

  The good news is that because you’re in a heteronormative society, you’re in a place where being straight like you is seen as normal and right. That will make the process of finding someone to love significantly easier than it is for people who aren’t straight like you.

  GO TO 101.

  80

  In a culture where gender and sexuality are closely connected, there will be a set of expectations about how you’re supposed to be, even as a straight woman. Most of them will have nothing to do with who you want to love. As a straight woman, people might expect you to care a lot about the clothes you wear and how you look in general. They might expect you to have long hair and to wear makeup. If you get married, people might assume that you’ve been planning your wedding since you were a little girl. There might be certain sports and activities—like cheerleading, babysitting, or shopping—that people assume that you’re more likely to participate in.

  As a straight woman, sexual scripts will tell you that you’re supposed to be the passive partner in sexual interactions. A sexual script is a norm that tells us how to feel, act, and think about sex. For straight women, the sexual script says that you might have to be persuaded to have sex. Your culture tells you that you’re supposed to walk a very fine line between being sexually experienced—which is okay—and too sexually experienced—which is definitely not okay. It’s more accepted now than it was in the past for you to have sex without being married, but you’re still likely to be labeled a “slut” if you have too much sex. The men you have sex with probably won’t be labeled the same way, no matter how many people they have sex with, and that’s a good example of the double standard. The double standard dictates that certain behaviors, often sexual behaviors, that are seen as okay for men are punished and stigmatized when women engage in them.

  This sexual script about feminine sexual passivity might make your sexual and intimate relationships with men complicated. Though consent is an issue for everyone engaging in sexual activity, it becomes especially problematic with straight men and women, both of whom have grown up with messages telling them that women have to be persuaded and coerced into having sex.

  The good news is that because you’re a straight woman in a heteronormative society—a place where being straight like you is seen as right and normal—finding someone to love will be much easier for you than it is for your lesbian counterparts.

  GO TO 101.

  81

  In a society where gender and sexuality are strongly connected, even categories like bisexuality are still defined in relation to gender. Someone who is bisexual is sexually and romantically attracted to people of both genders. Though there are some expectations that go along with being bisexual, this identity is fuzzier as a social role, so there are fewer expectations attached to being bisexual than there are to being gay or stra
ight. Still, some people might think that as a bisexual man, you’re really just undecided. That is, they might assume that you’re really gay or that you’re really straight. Categories of sexual identity are structured to be discrete, which means that you have to be either one or the other. Being bisexual flies in the face of the assumption that, deep down, everyone is either gay or straight. People might treat your bisexual identity as something that you’ll eventually grow out of. They’ll see it as a temporary state.

  BISEXUAL

  adj. /(ˌ)bī-ˈsek-sh(ə-)wəl/

  Being a person who is romantically and sexually attracted to males and females.

  Because you’re in a heteronormative society—one in which being straight is seen as normal and right—you’re likely to find the experience of dating a bit more complicated.

  GO TO 65.

  82

  As a bisexual woman, you’re sexually and romantically attracted to both men and women, but your gender will still matter to how you experience your sexuality. Because you’re a bisexual woman, people might assume that you’re more promiscuous, or that you have sex with a lot of people. Some might think that because you don’t limit yourself to being attracted to just men or just women, your life is somehow a sexual free-for-all. People might ask you, “Are you attracted to everyone?”—which is a pretty stupid question to ask. People who are attracted just to other women aren’t attracted to all women, and people who are attracted only to men aren’t attracted to all men. If you’re bisexual, why should you be attracted to all men and all women?