The following is a transcript of a video published on 12 Oct 2012 in which Hank takes on a topic he's been afraid to cover for a while now. How should we talk about sexuality, what is the difference between sex and Gender...and between Sexual orientation and sexual behavior.
It's very interesting...and I think understanding it is a key to decreasing the amount of hate and self-hate out there.
So together, let us understand.
We are going to start simple. Let’s go down here, in between your legs. That is your sex. Your Biological sex. This decides whether you are male, female or intersex.
Now we move on up to the top, to the brain, which decides which gender you identify with (Gender Identity) whether you are Feminine or masculine, or neither (agender) or both(binary). Because the fascinating thing is that as much as we try to label things, there is no way to label everything on an infinite continuum. And that’s what we are dealing with here.
So, to actually visualize how this works, we have created a graph for you:
We have to redesign the graph here and reposition the plots as per the script and dialogue delivery.
On the X-axis, we have sex, man to woman. And on the Y-axis we have the intensity of the identification with that sex.
I would be about here because I identify with as a man though I recognize that there are some feminine qualities in me. But let’s also put a hypothetical Biological Female on this side of the graph that identifies very strongly as a man. Now that could be really uncomfortable, especially when there is a bunch of people in the world who insist on calling him a woman just because of the body that he happens to be very uncomfortable with. Which is why sex does not determine the pronoun you should use. Gender does.
Now, moving on to your heart. This is who you are attracted to: men, women, all genders. Again, it’s a Spectrum and that spectrum includes intensity because there are people who don’t feel strong sexual attraction at all. That’s why asexual is a sexual orientation.
Another idea is that of romantic orientation. These are people who you want to have strong intimate relationships with, separating out the idea that sex has to be the endpoint goal.
Now that we have looked about how we feel, let’s see what happens when other people get involved.
That is sexual behavior, which is actually very different from sexual orientation. And that might seem a little bit strange at first but it’s not. Consider for example, a heterosexual priest. That priest’s orientation is heterosexual, but because of his religion, his behavior is celibate. Here we are not talking about the preference, we are talking about the behavior.
Now, built up of all of this, are Gender Roles. Which are built by society, not individuals.
The obvious ones are masculine gender roles, and Feminine Gender roles. But as all dichotomies are false dichotomies, this one is a spectrum too.
Now that we have sort of gone over all this, it is important to note that every single one of these categories is independent from each other.
So, a biological female can be a man, who only has sex with women, despite the fact that he is attracted to both men and women and feels more comfortable in feminine gender roles.
That may not be the most common combination of these factors, but it is certainly is not weird.
And another important point, people move across these spectrum, sometimes from year to year, sometimes hour to hour. But what is really important is that we trust ourselves and we understand ourselves. And we love and respect ourselves and we grant that same understanding and respect to the people to the people around us.
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