Talk:Passing (gender)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject LGBT studies, which tries to ensure comprehensive and factual coverage of all LGBT related issues on Wikipedia. For more information, or to get involved, visit the project page.
Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class.

[edit] Origin

This article was recently split from Passing (sociology) and Talk:Passing (sociology) may contain some previous discussion on this subject. --AliceJMarkham 06:32, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] gender

you do realise that this should be entitled passing (sex), right? you're not trying to pass as another gender, gender is a social construct, it's chosen by society, you can't do a bloody thing about it. if a female passes for male, she is passing on sex, if she comes off as an effeminate male then her gender has not changed (assuming she was feminine beforehand - most females behave that way). perhaps her goal was to be masculine also, but she is able to behave masculine without trying to pass as male. it really is a shame that gender even exists, just like race and class and any other silly social construct. but if you buy into the gender = sex crap, then you're just perpetuating the problem that trans people have in the first place, i.e. the belief that they cannot express their true "gender" without being the socially acceptable sex for that "gender". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 151.201.14.27 (talk • contribs) 02:53, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

As a transgendered person, I am disappointed to see such an outdated view espoused as if it is current thinking.

Yes, both passing and gender are social constructs (as are social class and ethnicicty and arguably race and disability). Yes, this is an article on a sociological activity related to those constructs. It is also now generally accepted that to change one's "sex" would require X/Y chromosomal changes and the regression of the development of primary and secondary sexual development of the birth sex and subsequent development of the new sex. Such a process is not currently feasible and unlikely to ever be allowed to be researched for ethical reasons.

The distinction between sex and gender pre-dates the adoption of the term "transgender". Much of the related terminology has changed where appropriate to match the current distinction. For example, what was once referred to as "Sex Reassignment Surgery" (SRS) has been referred to as "Gender Reassignment Surgery" (GRS) for many years now. This article, as it exists, is correctly named based upon current usage and contains reference to "sex" rather than gender where relevant.

Oh, and please remember to sign your posts on talk pages. --AliceJMarkham 21:50, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

wow, you're not even transgendered, you're a cross-dress, quite a huge difference. unless you simply don't understand the terms, then who knows. it's people like you that perpetuate the misuse of gender instead of sex. gender cannot be changed but by culture: a skirt in scotland is masculine, a skirt in the us is feminine. these are genders, not sexes, it doesn't matter who is wearing them. a single person cannot change this, but they can pass for another sex than the one they were born as.

ummmmmmmm. this sentence is traumatising to me: "gender is a social construct, it's chosen by society, you can't do a bloody thing about it." there are absolutely many things one can do about the way their body is interpellated. the fact that gender is a social construct makes it necessarily malleable... not fixed. sex is biological and that cannot be changed except with surgery and even then one's chromosomes won't change. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.21.60.242 (talk • contribs) 02:41, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

you've essentially got a strawman argument here. gender is a social construct that a single person cannot change. if one changes their body in a temporary way in order to pass as the opposite sex, they are not changing the social construct and are actually buying into the social order of things. a social construct is chosen by society, not the individual. you don't have to be male to be masculine, nor female to be feminine. as such, a masculine male acting feminine does not indicate anything about him passing, he could simply be knitting. and if a masculine female wears a dress? it says nothing of passing, she may be an obvious female no matter how well she binds.

A lot of stuff that you'll see written in wiki talk pages can be insulting and/or traumatising. That's reality.

The concept of gender is much a social construct as clothing. Some of us are lucky enough to be able to wear gender like clothing and change at will. :)

Sex is biological and unchanging. What was once commonly referred to as a sex change has been more commonly referred to as gender reassignment for some time. Surgery will not change sex as the surgeon cannot cut and splice the Y chromosomes to be X or vise versa.

Oh, and please remember to sign your posts on talk pages. --AliceJMarkham 21:52, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] That woman in the army

How could anyone not notice the breasts, complete with nipples, protuding out of her unifrom? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.109.185.159 (talk) 21:56, 8 April 2007 (UTC).