Question

Chapter 10 -- Gender: Expectations and Roles and Behaviors

Prompt:

Now imagine that you are of the opposite sex, but your mind is still of the same gender that you are now.  If you're male, then you will continue to think as a male. Same if you're female. However, you just got up and realize that your body is very different. Males: you're got breasts, hips, and a distinctly female face. Females: you're growing hair on your face, your jaw is more square, you've put on muscles and lost all your curves. You step outside and people treat you based on what you look like. But you don't seem to be able to behave according to what you look like. You want to act according to what you feel like. You're confused. You don't feel like the opposite sex, but you look exactly like the opposite sex. You will spend the rest of your life like this.

Questions:

What do you do about it? What are your options? How do you reconcile the way you feel with the way you look? Are you mad? How do you visualize the rest of your life? Does this change in your sex mean that you are now homosexual? What is the difference between problems in gender identity and sexual orientation? Do homosexuals wish they could be the opposite sex, or do they feel at home just the way they are? So many questions, you say? I need full paragraphs here that contribute as much as you have learned about these topics. Be sensitive about these issues. Do not write whatever comes to mind. Be kind. Be informative. Be objective.

Answer 1

Being a woman and waking up like a man

For me, being a woman is a wonderful thing. Not because of the attention that one enjoys in being attractive, flaunting those curves and men giving the unwanted responses, but being a woman is a wonderful thing. The emotional strength that I have, matches none of what these physically strong men have. But today, I understand what looking like a man is.

Though the thoughts I had were that men appreciate women, but the fact is, men objectify women. The question if I’m mad or not, I’m definitely mad. I am trapped in this body which I don’t feel belonging to. I get up, get some new clothes and move on to my regular routine. People doubt my existence and most people do not want to believe that it’s me.

Though difficult, but somehow I’m able to manage to convince people by telling them their secrets, it’s surprising on the king of treatment that I get. I tried to reconcile the way in which I think and the way how I look, but it never was possible. Today, I realise how the transgenders would feel. Though, the amount of oppression faced by the transgenders us much greater, my physique has saved me that part. There is an identity crisis within me and this doesn’t seem to come to a halt.

Physically and on the basis of the society, I would be labelled as homose-xual. Homose-xuality is a label that the society adds to an individual. Since physically I’m a man and I would be want to get involved with a man, I would now be named homose-xual.