Biological Differences in Gender

Serano's Whipping Girl was a very interesting read for me because she is able to describe and contrast her experiences from before she was a female to now when she is a trans female. She argues that "there is no 'real' gender because there is only the gender we experience ourselves as and the gender we perceive others to be. " We make assumptions about other people's gender without knowing anything about their legal sex, genitals, reproductive system, etc. This makes a lot of sense to me because I believe that gender is  a socially constructed topic and classification system; therefore, gender isn't "real" and is perception of how we view ourselves and others. 

Serano then goes on to discuss oppositional sexism vs. traditional sexism. Oppositional sexism is the belief that female and male are mutually exclusive categories, each possessing a unique and non overlapping set of attributes, abilities and desires. It attempts to punish or dismiss those who fall outside of the gender norms because women and men are viewed as complete opposites in this sexism. Traditional sexism is "the belief that maleness and masculinity are superior to femaleness and femininity." Traditional sexism and oppositional sexism work hand in hand to enforce a male-centered hierarchy, and ensures that only those who are born male will be seen as authentically masculine. Therefore, Serano argues that "trans people on the female-to-male spectrum face discrimination for breaking gender norms, but their expressions of maleness or masculinity themselves are not targeted for ridicule- to do so would require one to question masculinity." Basically,  she is saying that although trans men are discriminated against for being transgender, they now possess maleness and masculinity, which are not attributes of trans men that are discriminated. Their attribute of masculinity is "untouched" because sexist people would then be questioning masculinity. This is a very interesting topic because I never really thought about how trans men could be discriminated, yet partially accepted due to their maleness. 

I think the most interesting topic discussed in this book was Serano's experience of her change in hormone, emotions, and sex drive when starting the process of changing from male to female. She discusses these topics, in order to argue how our biology doesn't make our feel of sex drive or emotions one way or the other. Women are known to be more emotional and have a lower sex drive then men. According to Serano, to say that hormones cause women to be "more emotional" is an oversimplification because her actual emotions did not change, just the intensity has changed. She claims that she feels her emotions more and are present in the foreground rather than the background. Based on her biology knowledge, " hormones require different steroid receptors to function, are metabolized by numerous enzymes that can shift the balance by converting one hormone to another, and function by regulating the levels of scores of 'downstream genes', which are responsible for producing specific hormonal effects. Therefore, the way people experience and process specific hormones are different form one another. 

It is important to note that the way people experience and process hormones are different from one another because this leads into how "essential" gender differences or stereotypical gender differences are incorrect.  There are some men who cry more than some women, and some women have higher sex drives then men. I agree that these stereotypes are produced in society. Serano argues that socialization doesn't necessarily produce differences; it exaggerates the differences. I think this is an interesting view because I think earlier in the reading she discuss how gender isn't "real", which to me means that it is socially created to categorize people. I believe that there shouldn't be just two categories or we just shouldn't categorize people. Based on biology, there ar definitely gender differences, but because our hormonal experiences are individual experiences gender isn't base on solely biology or solely society. She continues on to say that the primary role of socialization is to create the illusion that female and male are mutually exclusive opposites. Although I never really thought about this, I would have to agree to it because there are clearly differences through biology and society tends to take those differences and exaggerate them to create stereotypes. Overall, I found this reading very interesting because I never really thought to think of gender differences as biological and just socially exaggerated, and I also found it interesting to hear about this topic from someone who has experienced both male and female hormonal differences.