Male, female, hetero, homo: does the binarism really exist or are we making it up?
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RedditThis post is by Sara Aguirre.
Each time we want to discuss sexual orientation we ask people who identify themselves as LGBT. By doing so we are in a way accepting that heterosexuality is the norm [and hence the “normality”] and homo/bisexuality the exception. That is, there is something ab-normal that we need to explain/control. Scientists have never wondered if heterosexuality is chosen or if it is a product of our genes: it has been taken for granted that it is “natural”. And this is the power of questions: no matter how innocent or well-intentioned, they re-produce ideology.
I do not identify as LGBT but this does not prevent me from having many questions regarding my sexual identity and orientation, as I am also a sexualized being. My starting point is do heterosexuality and homosexuality actually exist?
Raised in a particular culture (Western) and society (Spain), I have been taught from the cradle that humanity is divided into two: women and men. Consequently, there are two possibilities regarding your sexual orientation: to either favor someone of your same sex or to prefer someone of the opposite -a word that already speaks volumes.
But then you realize that there are many different ways of being “a woman”, as well as many different ways of being “a man”, and even different ways of being an individual that was born with the physical characteristics of both. And this makes me wonder: is this male-female binarism really out there or are we making it up?
Maybe this is the question we should ask ourselves, although I am aware it can be an uncomfortable one. It can disturb feminists, like it did me at the beginning, because if women “don’t exist” the political subject of feminism disappears. It can disturb people who identify as LGBT because then the demand of recognition for their sexual identity loses its sense. And of course it can disturb people that have a great stake in the sexual division of all the spheres of life – work, economy, politics, family, time, spaces- because this questions the status quo.
According to what do we classify people into these two sexes? Shall we base the classification on the physical appearance? The behavior? The attitudes? The roles? The hormones? The genitals? The chromosomes? The biologist Anne-Fausto Sterling analyzes this in her book Sexing the body, a historical review of how sex and sexuality have been constructed and a critical analysis of modern biology and the scientific paradigm.
For me, the answer is no, there are no women and men from an essentialist point of view. There are human beings that have different characteristics of what our cultures consider femininity and masculinity – not only from a social and psychological perspective, but also biological. We are much more complex than these two molds which we are prompted to fit into. Of course, this binarism was/is easy to establish given that there are in fact some visible differences [penis, vulva]. But there are visible differences in skin color, eye color, size… and we do not classify people according to these – or at least we no longer do so, since fortunately the biological concept of race is not accepted today. However, the biological concept of sex still is.
We can actually draw a parallel between the molds and how culture shapes the bodies – literally. Last February I attended a conference held by the anthropologist Verena Stolcke and I cannot forget the question with which she began her speech: “Is it easier to change biology than society?”
Apparently it is. Sterling described in her book the cases of intersexual babies (that is, those who were born with genitals of both sexes or whose genitals were not clearly either male or female) who were operated to make them “fit” in one of these two labels we have established as “normal”. When it is not clear if the baby should be a he or a she [i.e. the penis/clitoris is too short to be a penis and too big to be a clitoris] then a standardized measure is used. This is how we create a girl or a boy. This is in fact the way culture shapes the body, not only symbolically but literally.
The eternal debate concerning “nature or nurture” is fundamentally wrong since culture and biology intertwine up to a level where culture is able to modify biology. Then this may not be the question we should debate about. We should, rather, analyze the intersection among both realms and the social implications of this sexual division. Because, although I think “the woman” and “the man” do not essentially exist, women and men exist in a political and experiential sense. Reality is not a mere social construction: experiences are lived through and on the body. And despite the fact that the division of human beings into these two main categories is culturally built, the effects of it are not. Discrimination and oppression is a shared experience by women all over the world, as it is for LGBT, ethnic minorities, immigrants, disabled people, native people and a long list of people whose characteristics are considered “the exception to the norm”.
As for me, I don’t think that there is anything in me that makes me essentially woman nor essentially heterosexual, but I do experience life as a woman since my life experiences are incarnated in my body. The world sees me, feels me, perceives me, behaves towards me and thinks of me according to a dual preconception and I do see, feel, perceive, behave and think the world according to this incarnated experience. And my sexual orientation is also there, confined within the borders of the binarism. The preconception is so entrenched that it has become me and it would probably need a lot of courage to break it.
In my point of view, we could be able to love and feel attracted to any person – which doesn’t mean everybody; personal characteristics play an important role –… if we dare. This is a liberating thought full of hope because this means that human sexuality actually has many more nuances, complexities and endless possibilities. Human beings could be freer.
Sara Aguirre (Spain) holds a Master’s degree on gender studies (Universidad de Valencia) and is currently finishing a second one on migration and ethnic relations (Universidad de Valencia + Malmö University). She has lived in Spain, France, Canada, and currently resides in Sweden.
Freedom?
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10:59 pm
“As for me, I don’t think that there is anything in me that makes me essentially woman nor essentially heterosexual…
And that is for you and of you. But please do not think this is universal. Your own experience, and the questions you can draw from it, does not necessarily resonate with other people. It doesn’t with me, and I’m a heterosexual woman myself. Despite we both sharing those things, I don’t think I could be more different.
I am one of those people who knew my sexual orientation at a very early age and has never doubted it. Usually you will hear stories of gay people talking about knowing their sexual orientation at a young age, because they are more likely to speak up to counter theories that say homosexuality is something learned or chosen. There’s only rarely a reason for someone like me to talk about this, although perhaps I should do so more often giving where the whole discussion about binarism sees to be heading. But suffice to say I am far from alone. There are heterosexuals like me who have parallel experiences to gays who knew they orientation at a very young age and who never experience attraction contrary to that orientation.
Just like gay people who know that they can never change their orientation while remaining true themselves, there are straight people like me who are just the same. This is why I’ve always related more easily to gay people than to bi or queer people who say they have more variance in their attractions. It’s not about whether we aren’t challenging ourselves to broaden our capacity for attraction. It’s simply our authentic selves–for us, physical gender traits and gender identity of our partners factor in very strongly in our attraction. Surely, we don’t speak for everyone–I think we are simply one variant on a very wide spectrum of human sexuality. Furthermore, I don’t think this is either the ideal or the norm, and likewise I don’t think it is inferior to people who experience either more fluidity or ambiguity in their orientation. It’s just one way human sexual orientation expresses itself.
As for identifying as a woman, I identify very comfortably as a woman, but not at all with gender conventions for women. I see my womanhood as broader and more fluid than gender convention allows. So even if I fall outside of convention often, I see everything of me as woman, because it comes from me. In other words, womanhood is defined by those who identify with it and thus possess it, not by what society says it is. I have autism, and like many autistics, I struggled with understanding my gender identity because of the many conflicts with conventions I have had. I was even misdx’d with “gender confusion” as a teen (my autism at the time went undx’d). This is significant, I think, because I can honestly say that for much of my life I did not live “as a woman” but rather “as a person who saw myself as a woman while society treated me like I was trying to not be woman.” Despite that, I didn’t doubt my womanhood–I only questioned why society had to be so cruel to me and struggled painfully for many years with trying to articulate that I wasn’t “confused.” I eventually came to the realization that my experience of gender is what is authentic, not what society says my experience should be. Therefore, I am the one who should define what womanhood is-I am not essentially a woman but rather my expression of womanhood is defined by my own essence.
9:24 am
I think you exemplify and illustrate the entire point of this article nicely. Gender is indeed a complex mix of biology, development, experience, politics, and identity. Well done!!
2:43 am
Excellent thank you! Most of these posts the last couple of days on the binary and nature/vs. nurture have been wel-written and stimulated further discourse in my online community.