Sexuality Is A Broad Umbrella That Everyone Fits Under

Because my senses are clearly heightened by how I identify and the way I process sex and gender, it’s not hard to take notice of the everyday conversations where people regularly refer to sex and gender interchangeably, as if it were the same thing. I’m not sure if it’s always been that way. But clearly in the last decade there has been a movement to separate the two terms that have historically divided masculine and feminine.

Once in a while I daydream of being a Drill Sergeant in the process of revolutionizing our language regarding sex and gender. To some this text may seem obvious, maybe even remedial, while others may be left confused.

For me, sex and gender do not share the same definitions. Simply put, sex is a clinical, biological fact or a verb. Gender is something less tangible, that we individually create. It’s subjective and fluid. Biological sex defines facts about genitalia, while gender describes feelings about ones own masculinity or femininity.

Medical history forms, passport applications, and even MySpace accounts require you to select an option when completing the sex/gender portion of their forms. It’s always been frustrating to try answer these forms correctly and honestly. When a form requires that I answer what sex am I? I think ‘that’s easy, female, I have a female body’. But when it asks for gender, I think they should be giving me extra notebook paper and a stapler to attach my answer to the form with my array of well thought out responses. Even then I might need more notebook paper, because I’m bound to change my mind a little bit.

The way I see it, individuals are born biologically male, female, or intersex. I don’t know of any other terms used to define sex other than these three. However, gender is something each of us as individuals creates on our own continuum, and the terms that we all use to describe our gender are vast and still being developed.

I described my ideas on sexuality to a man named Tom in an interview recently. This is roughly what I said: I view sexuality as an umbrella. Under that umbrella we have biological sex, gender, and sexual orientation. And none of these three things have anything to do with each other, other than maybe they share the same umbrella. Biological sex is a scientific determination. Gender is something that we get to make up as we go along – it can change, morph, and slide on our continuum, depending on how we feel that particular day or moment. Sexual orientation is who we tend to be attracted to, which is also changing and fluid.

Because someone is biologically male does not determine their orientation to be toward females or women. To take it a step further, because someone is biologically female, and feels masculine in their gender, does not mean their orientation is or should be toward women either. I think all combinations are beautiful. When a female-bodied person, masculine in gender, finds the exact same thing attractive and partners with them, well, that’s just perfect. With everyone being so damn different, the combinations are near limitless.

Maybe this is me being ageist, but it seems a lot of young queer folks get uncomfortable with labels and want to avoid them entirely. I say, there aren’t enough labels. I say, lets never stop trying to find a language to describe ourselves to each other and let’s love all of those identities and descriptors.

Here are a few of the words I use to describe myself and some words that people use when talking to me or about me – that I’m okay with: Female or female-bodied, masculine, butch, man, trans, transgender, transman, guy, transguy, boi, daddy (on special ocassions), and queer.

I am often asked what pronoun I prefer. I tell my friends that I really like to hear them call me ‘he’. With others who don’t know me, I understand their concern and earnestness to get it right, so I am not a Drill Sergeant with people in that regard. I’m more militant about having a dialog. I am not offended when people call me she, who don’t know me or have never heard me describe how I identify. There is a learning curve for everyone and I always encourage a dialog before I begin taking offense. If someone asked me my preference, then intentionally kept referring to me as ‘she’ and ‘woman’, then I would be upset, but would still want a discussion around it.

For too long people have suffered at the hands of their own denial or lack of willingness to open up, discuss and decide for themselves who they are and how they identify. No one should ever simply assume that because they are male-bodied that they have to be masculine in their gender and be attracted to female-bodied, feminine gendered people. Likewise, no one should ever assume that they cannot be a man because they are female-bodied. Regardless of what your biological body might visually convey and whether or not you elect to take hormones and/or proceed with surgeries as part of a physical transformation, you are who you say you are. And I, am a man.

Most importantly, about all of this, is that we ALL should be thinking about our own sex, gender, and orientation. We need to explore this, not because we all need to announce it to the world, but so we can know ourselves through our own exploration – not through what we’ve been told by our parents, churches, communities, culture or medical forms and passport applications. Knowing yourself will bring you compassion and love for others. Not only do you get to determine all of these things for yourself, you get to change your mind, again and again.

LYMI, XO – Ian