Comments on: Gender and Mental Differences http://www.popbioethics.com/2009/11/gender-and-mental/ Fri, 22 Apr 2011 11:17:55 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Unidentified http://www.popbioethics.com/2009/11/gender-and-mental/comment-page-1/#comment-268 Unidentified Thu, 26 Nov 2009 05:55:57 +0000 http://www.poptranshumanism.com/?p=959#comment-268 When it comes to gender identity, I'm heavily biased towards "both" - it's difficult (or even erroneous) to attempt to completely separate biology from environment, it's clear there is "back and forth" there. But I'd like to point out that it's easy to underestimate biological influence from an unchallenged perspective (i.e., cis). It's more difficult to ignore biological influence in terms of people who were socialized according to standards of one sex for their entire lives and still reject their socialization in favor of another sex - thinking here of not just trans people, but intersex (which provides less "controversial" examples). But if the answers on the formation of identity are ambiguous, pinning down a clear causative force behind of gender performance is practically impossible, IMO. There's no clear metric, aspects of gender performance vary widely from person to person. I would posit that cultural, generalized notions of gender performance are based heavily on socialization, much more than genetics. But on an individual basis, one has to address personality itself and the extent to which it is affected by socialization vs. genetics, which is a whole 'nother quagmire by itself. When it comes to gender identity, I’m heavily biased towards “both” – it’s difficult (or even erroneous) to attempt to completely separate biology from environment, it’s clear there is “back and forth” there. But I’d like to point out that it’s easy to underestimate biological influence from an unchallenged perspective (i.e., cis). It’s more difficult to ignore biological influence in terms of people who were socialized according to standards of one sex for their entire lives and still reject their socialization in favor of another sex – thinking here of not just trans people, but intersex (which provides less “controversial” examples).

But if the answers on the formation of identity are ambiguous, pinning down a clear causative force behind of gender performance is practically impossible, IMO. There’s no clear metric, aspects of gender performance vary widely from person to person. I would posit that cultural, generalized notions of gender performance are based heavily on socialization, much more than genetics. But on an individual basis, one has to address personality itself and the extent to which it is affected by socialization vs. genetics, which is a whole ‘nother quagmire by itself.

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