Ain't I a human?

Teach your parents well, Their children's hell will slowly go by

From Gender Development, by Susan Golombok and Robyn Fyvush (1994):

"Kohlberg argued that the major developmental task facing children is coming to understand that gender is constant and cannot be changed regardless of surface features. Based on extensive interviews with young children, he posited that children develop through three stages in coming to understand gender. At the very beginning, children do not use gender to categorize themselves or others at all…essentially, they do not have any understanding that gender is an unchanging characteristic of an individual. At about 2 years of age, children enter stage 1, called gender identity. Children are now able to label themselves and others consistently as female or male, but they base this categorization on physical [???-Ed] characteristics [length of hair, attire, etc-Ed]. If these superficial physical characteristics change, then gender changes as well. At about 3 to 4 years, children move into stage 2, called gender stability. They now understand that if one is a female or male at the present time, then one was a female or male earlier in life and will remain a female or male later in life. Little girls will grow up to be mommys and not daddys and little boys will grow up to be daddys and not mommys. Thus stage 2 children understand that gender is stable across time. However, they do not yet understand that gender is stable across situations. If a male engages in female-typed activities, such as doll play, stage 2 children believe the male might change into a female. It is only at about age 5 when children progress to stage 3, called gender constancy, that they understand that gender is constant across time and situations. Now children claim that gender will not change regardless of the clothes worn or the activities engaged in. They have come to understand that gender is an underlying, unchanging aspect of an identity. Research has confirmed that children do indeed progress through Kohlberg's three stages of understanding the concept of gender…"

A funny thing happened as I was growing up. I didn't achieve gender constancy. I don't believe in gender stability. And I have a different definition of gender identity.

I exist. I have grown up. There are ten's of thousands of people like me. Am I a failure at life if I don't believe that gender is constant over time and situation? Have I failed to grow up? To hear that I have failed at what is "the major developmental task facing children" is quite disheartening. Maybe I need to go back and give it another try.

Obviously, I think there's something wrong with this picture. So what's the problem? I suppose it could be that Kohlberg was just plain wrong, but then what about the research? It may be that Kohlberg's research and the research of many who have come behind him hasn't allowed for the existence of people like me. It may be that Kohlberg's theory is correct as far as it goes, but that it does not apply to everyone. Or it may be that our society refuses to accommodate people like me. Or, possibly, it may be that some people do go through those stages of development, but later de-evolve their gender.

First off, Kohlberg and the many researchers who have come after, indeed most of society, believe in the equation "gender = sex." It's not difficult to see why this happens. If the researchers are correct that children learn that the equation is inviolable, then those researchers must believe in gender constancy themselves. Hence one might think that they would tend to disbelieve any evidence to the contrary. Belief in gender constancy must color the questions that interviewers ask children. But even if the questions did allow for us, it is doubtful that people like me would register in any studies, since our existence is generally hidden from young children. Much of society sees us as something "unclean." I don't register in a child's consciousness as anything but a fairy tale.





I don't believe that "gender = sex." I believe that sex is of the body and gender is of the soul.

It is possible that gender develops according to Kohlberg's stages, but that some children develop a gender which is not in accord with their sex. Indeed, that's what "the theory" has declared about transsexual people. If that is the case, I have to ask why that information is kept from children. Can you imagine what it must be like to grow up not knowing you exist, having to adopt someone else's conception of what your gender is? Do you know what it is like to be emotionally, verbally, and even physically bullied into behaving the way other people want you to? No, I don't suppose you do. And that's really sort of sad. People don't have any idea what it is like to be differently-gendered. It's a non-feeling to them. It's on a par with knowing what it is like not to have a sixth toe on your left foot.

Of course, I understand that people might be wary of young children finding out that they could grow up to be the gender that they identify with rather than the gender their parents, their teachers, and much of the rest of society think they are. I suppose that there is some fear that there might be an epidemic of such occurrences. I really don't think so, unless there are more people that are unhappy with their gender than most people believe. And if there is an increase in gender-variance, why must that be viewed as a bad thing? Don't we want people to be happy with who they are? Is it more important that society be happy with who each person is? Should "society" have that much control?

When I was a child, I understood the difference between boys and girls. I understood the futility of wishing that I could grow up to be a woman. Then I discovered, at about age 7, just that could happen for some boys, but I was still convinced that it couldn't happen for me. My only appeal during my childhood was to a mother who didn't understand, didn't have the knowledge, and couldn't help. I spent most of my life living as a boy and a man, just so other people would be comfortable. It made me extremely unhappy, to the point where I became suicidal four times. The last time, a part of me did die: the part of me that was a man, the facade I had erected to keep other people out, but which unfortunately also kept me in. It fell away and I became someone else.

I have had to reconstruct myself from that point on and I have done so by examining every inch and every second of who I am, what I do, and what I believe. In the words I like to use, I have become real.

There were steps along the way. Not being a man, I first was certain that meant I must be a woman. That belief might have taken hold, but the community around me wouldn't allow it. To those around me, I was "a transsexual," said negatively, or worse. So I studied, I learned what it meant to be a transsexual and found out that I could be proud of being transsexual, as just one more facet of who I was. Transsexual people are, on the whole, the nicest people I know and I am proud to be in their number.

My understanding of gender has changed over time. The more I have studied it, trying to pin down a precise definition, the more amorphous it has become. Gender is…fuzzy…or maybe it's fluid…or maybe it's not really there at all.

I'm not naive. Gender is. Gender is limiting. Gender is a force of social control. Gender can be a prison. I don't like to divide people into groups at all, but where most people divide humans into males and females, I more often find myself dividing humans into those who enslave themselves to strict rules of gender and the trans/bi/third/un/differently-gendered, wondering just who is sane here. Gender is a slice through the mass of humanity. I live on the edge of the blade.

Well, those are the kind of things I think about. When people ask me what gender I am, I answer, "I am Robyn." I am other. I am gender-deficient. I am gender-variant. I am a gender nomad. I am gender-resistant. I am whatever anyone wants to call me.

But ain't I a human?