I have worked with many people developing an understanding of their sexual orientation, and just as many having a similar process in coming to terms with their gender identity. One of the benefits of SCOTUS sanctioning same-sex marriage is the space it opens up to go further into a discussion of gender identity. That discussion is lately growing louder and subtler in meanings. If the people I have talked to in my practice -- both those who identify as gender minority and those who identify as cisgender -- are any indication, we will likely conclude that gender identity is as much on a scale as is sexual orientation.
Let's start with what we are made of.
Even considering the potential for infinite variations and mutations in phenotypes, hormone balance and chromosome complements, we are essentially -- in our essence -- equal parts male and female. We are the sum of our parts -- the parts, or ingredients, being our mother (50 percent) and our father (50 percent). We also always remain the parts of our sum.
From a biological perspective, no two people are exactly alike. Each one of us is unique. Sex differentiation determines our sexual organ assignment, which cannot be deemed absolutely binary when we consider intersex, an occurrence of sexual anatomy not fitting typical definitions of male and female. Among people who fall into "normal" categories, there is still wide variation of sexual characteristics. While sex organs determine how we will participate in procreation (if we do indeed wind up procreating), genitalia assignment does not ensure where and how we will use our sex organs. Nor does it necessarily indicate a single, unnuanced gender identification. Culture does that. Many different cultures unambiguously depict a range of gender expression that a contemporary Western mind has a hard time embracing. Essentially, because each of us is equal parts male and female in a unique configuration, we can access and express those parts in different ways. And we do, when allowed to. If a binary gender model were absolute, there would not be variation of gender expression across cultures.
There is no reason that any inner sense of self should not be able to align in a healthy way with the body in which it is housed except when we do not allow it. Beyond culture, gender is malleable. It is fluid. Until culture gets involved, we are each one of us naturally and unavoidably a gender minority of one.
The experience of the body and the inner sense of self not being aligned (an experience especially impactful during puberty) is not deviance as such, but disconnect from cultural norms. I would not be the first to observe that men who body-build with the aid of large amounts of steroids and body part implants are transitioning much the same as M-F's (male-to-female) and F-M's (female-to-male). Bodybuilders are transitioning from M-HyperM. Is theirs not the same process that a M-F or a F-M goes through: hormone supplementation, body part augmentation and reconstruction? Does that mean the bodybuilder feels that the body he was born with does not adequately reflect his degree of male identification? Or does it mean that he perceives that his body does reflect his authentic sense of self, and he is changing his body to erase anything less-than-male about his self-perception so that he can feel he conforms to the cultural norm? We can turn to culture, not biology, to understand how the standard for what it means to feel masculine is set, as well as what it is that prevents a man from having that feeling without resorting to extraordinary measures. Our culture extinguishes a fuller range of gender expression. Other cultures have allowed it, and other cultures allow it still.
Regardless of the messages given or the conclusions arrived at, the bodies of gender fluid people are never a mistake. I had a client who said, "How could God have made such a mistake as to put a woman in this man's body?!" No mistake was made. The mistake is a society's that does not let a person with particular reproductive organs express gender except within narrowly circumscribed parameters. We don't allow for two individuals in boys' bodies, one who likes to dress up in Dad's clothes and one who likes to dress up in Mom's clothes, both to comfortably express themselves in their unique way in their bodies. One of them, yes. The other, whose sexual characteristics indicate "boy," is not allowed to be female in a male body. And why shouldn't that person be able to identify that way when the brain is communicating that message? Why must that person deny that identification and hew to a boilerplate identity?
The youngster in a male body who wears Mother's clothes has some degree of identification with the 50 percent female ingredient, as well as -- or not -- some identification with the 50 percent male ingredient. Terror and trauma from the experience of unaligned gender identity prevents the safety to explore how the two 50 percent ingredients could peacefully co-exist and healthily inform a sense of self. Without the opportunity to learn how to express gender identity in the birth body, the choice of sexual reassignment surgery must make sense. After years of being told that a person does not think or behave the right away according to the structure of the body, reconfiguring that structure seems like the logical choice to create an aligned self. What would it be like if it were safe and affirming to be fully expressive in one's birth body? As things stand now, many people feel there is little choice but to change the birth body in order to find harmony between physicality and gender identity.
Sexual reassignment procedures are a valid option. For those who do not want to make that journey, other possibilities for achieving alignment between physical structure and gender identity are becoming more apparent. For a very long time, there was no space in the collective cultural consciousness big enough or safe enough to allow for nuanced thought and understanding about our individual gender identification. The culture had terrorized us into unconsciousness about the fluid nature of gender, and options for self-expression were severely limited. Let's remember we keep at bay that which appears dangerous and frightening. We bury in our minds material that we find intolerable. Lately, the broadening discourse about gender identity has started to dissolve fear, and greater awareness of self and of others has made it feel safer for some to take brave steps toward authentic gender expression.
Many people, including cisgender people, express personality and behavioral traits that are archetypal of the other gender of the binary model. There is growing curiosity about that phenomenon. I doubt the general population will burst out of the gender identity closet, yet more people are paying attention to the gender fluidity conversation. The longer that conversation persists, the less fear and shame will surround the subject of gender identity, and the more people will be inquisitive about their own gender expression in ways they never before even conceptualized. The basis of that new exploration of self will be the idea that each one of us is born woman AND man, with serendipity having a strong hand in that process, and culture having an equally strong hand in the expression of the final product.