I Am More Than My Gender

I have an important and politically incorrect question to pose.

If we as a society were more accepting of the fact that not all girls like "girly" things, and not all boys like "manly" things, would we have fewer transgender people?

To explain my point, let me tell you about two different little girls.

The first little girl hated the pageants her mother put her in. She did ballet and clogging, but she didn't enjoy it. All she wanted to do was ride motocross with her dad. She loved doing adventurous things outdoors, like rock climbing and racing.

The second little girl never understood the point of dolls or Barbie dream houses. She would much rather play with her brother's toy helicopter or with a science kit. She loved climbing trees and biking through the woods, and she knew for a fact that she wanted to be a marine biologist when she grew up, because animals were so cool.

The difference between these two little girls is that the first one chose to get surgery to turn herself into a man, and the second one is me. And I am still very much a woman.

When I hear stories about those who got gender reassignment surgery, there always seems to be some indication that the person didn't fit into traditional gender stereotypes from a young age. The girls who become boys preferred playing with Hot Wheels to playing house, and the boys who became girls wanted dolls instead of dirt bikes.

My question is, what kind of freakish society do we live in that tells children that if they don't like gender-appropriate activities, they need to get an expensive and invasive surgery to completely change who they are? How is an estrogen injection the answer to "I like pink more than blue"?

If our society were a sci-fi book, this would be a sure sign of a dystopian society. It's time to stop putting ourselves in boxes and recognize that our gender doesn't actually determine who we're going to be.

Traditionalists

I watched a commercial last week that, surprisingly, really resonated with me. It's from Verizon, and it shows a little girl growing up:

I was that little girl who wanted to wade in a river and collect specimens to examine. I loved going out exploring in the woods with my dad and my brother. And yes, I never understood why it was more appropriate for boys to do those things than girls. I was smart, I was curious, and I was adventurous. Why shouldn't I be allowed to run around and get dirty? It was fun!

I don't want to say that the adult authority figures in my life stamped out my curiosity, because they didn't. I still love learning and I recognize the value of a good education. I want to do something important that will make the world a better place. However, I've noticed that I've gotten older that there are people who think my life should take a certain path.

Someone, an older gentleman, once asked me about my plans for the future. I mentioned my educational goals, and some possibilities for what I wanted to do after college. His response was, "When are you getting married? Are you dating anyone?" I said no. I said, "My main goal right now is getting an education. That's why I'm here at college." He replied, "Oh no you're here to find a man who can take care of you!"

I'm not even joking. I hope that he was, but he probably wasn't. I recognize that he came from a different era when women didn't have very many opportunities, but it hurt that someone would reduce me to my gender in such a way. I was a woman, and so I should be devoting my energy to catching myself a husband. I really didn't have any other responsibilities. 

Well I'm sorry, but I'm really smart and I'm good at things and I believe that I can help people. I am also a fan of marriage and motherhood. I do believe that being a mom, and being a good mom, is one of the most important things a woman can do. I do want to get married someday, but I'm not going to sit around waiting for my prince to come, spending all my time learning how to sew skirts and cook for a family of eight. I'm going to make something of my life! I'm going to do things that make me happy! I'm not naturally a domestic goddess, but I'm confident that if I need those skills, I can develop them. 

Feminists

On the other side of the coin, we have a different group of people who are trying to force me to be a man. That's an oversimplification, but it's essentially true. If I'm not a high-powered executive, I'm failing myself and my gender. I need to "lean in" and be more ambitious. Every action I take reflects on the whole of my gender. I am a representative of The Supreme Woman whether I want to be or not. 

This group, which is the loudest, angriest voice in the country, hates gender roles. It looks down on women who choose to be mothers. It examines everything in the entire world through a feminist lens. It boils every issue down into man-vs-woman. Frankly, it's exhausting. 

There's this device that is used to analyze movies called the Bechdel test. A movie only passes the Bechdel test if it contains two women characters who at some point have more than one line of dialogue about something other than men. It could be about shoes, or lipstick, or purses—the content doesn't matter, as long as it's not about men. 

You wanna know how many movies pass that test? Barely any. 

The creators even said themselves that the test shouldn't be used to determine a movie's value; they just hope it will spark discussion about the role of women in movies. 

I think it's a load of crap and wish I'd never heard of it. 

I don't understand the need to make everything about the struggle between men and women. I don't understand why we're constantly trying to pit the genders against each other. The test itself is a shallow and meaningless standard. 

It pisses me off that we look at entertainment this way. Or anything, really. I don't see why a victory over evil is more valuable if a woman was the hero, rather than a man. Isn't the point of life that it doesn't matter who you are, it matters what you make of yourself? 

I recognize that women get paid less than men and that many cultures treat women like slaves. I get that. I personally think rape is the worst crime a person can commit, because it's all about power and ruining another person's life just for their own sick pleasure. I'm sad that there are people who think that women are lesser than men, because those people are wrong. 

Men and women aren't really men and women. They are PEOPLE. We are all PEOPLE. We are all human beings, an intelligent and productive species that is capable of great good and great evil. We all have the same inalienable rights, and the same capacity for success and failure. I feel like the extremist feminist movement (as opposed to the regular feminist movement, which just wants women to be recognized as people—a worthy goal) has gone too far in its attempt to heighten the social status of women. Instead of pointing out the inherent worth of every human being, they attempt to lift women up by pushing man down. 

Take, for instance, #NotAllMen and #YesAllWomen, social media hashtags designed to make men the enemy. Guess what? Nobody is perfect. Women are capable of terrible things as well, and it's time to stop blaming men for all the problems in the world. 

In the last season of British drama Downton Abbey, one of the characters, a recent widower, sleeps with a servant woman who had been coming on to him for months. She pretends to be pregnant and uses that to blackmail him, until the head housekeeper hears about what's going on. She confronts the servant woman, who says, "He seduced me!" The housekeeper replies, "You got a man drunk and crawled into his bed! That doesn't excuse him, but you can hardly say he took advantage of you!" That settled the matter. 

It's time to stop acting like men and women are two separate species. We have our differences, which run deeper than the hormone balance in our body and shouldn't be ignored or belittled, but I don't want to be judged on the basis of my gender. I don't want anyone to say, "You did really well for a girl!" or "You are a great example of your gender." I want them to recognize ME for what I did, not because I am a woman, but because I am a human being, a child of God. 

I love being a woman, even though I don't fit into many of the specific gender roles laid out for me. I don't see that as a failing of myself, I see that as a failing of a society that tries to limit people and prevent them from living up to their potential. 

My heart goes out to all the children who grew up believing something was wrong with them. Nothing is wrong with them at all. They are the person who God intended them to be, and it is society who tells them that they are broken. 

Please, everyone, please stop obsessing over gender. Stop thinking that a girl who likes sports must really be a boy, or a boy who likes fashion must really be a girl. With female executives, we also get male nurses, and that's great. Stop limiting someone's future on the basis of what you think is right for them based on what body parts they have. 

I'd like to leave you with this quote from the seventh Harry Potter book. Voldemort has taken over the wizarding world, and those who oppose him must hide and try to stay alive. Kingsley Shacklebolt, an opposition later, urges his fellow wizards to not only protect themselves, but to protect their non-magic neighbors who have no idea their lives are at risk. When asked to respond to those who said that they should worry about the safety of wizards first, he said:

"I’d say that it’s one short step from ‘wizards first’ to ‘pure-bloods first’, and then to ‘Death Eaters'. We’re all human, aren’t we? Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving."

We are all worth saving. I am a daughter, a friend, a student, an employee, a nerd, and a beloved child of my Heavenly Father. 

Yes, I am a woman, but when it comes to what I want out of life and, more importantly, what I am capable of, I am more than my gender. 

Entitlement

Nobody owes you anything.

Not a very revolutionary concept, am I right? And yet there seems to be this idea in our society that we as a species are entitled to...something. A date with an attractive individual? A high-paying job in the field you love? Happily ever after?

Let's be clear: We have a right to pursue happiness. We have the right to choose our own path. However, we do NOT have the right to expect everyone else to cater to our desires, nor do we have the right to expect that happiness and great opportunities are supposed to fall into our laps. 

I bring this up because of the Elliot Rodgers thing, mainly, and because of some things I've heard recently from people in my own life and some things I've been feeling recently. Rodgers was a mentally disturbed young man who shot up the apartment complex where he lived in California because he was so mad at the world because he couldn't get a girlfriend. 

Rodgers, in his twisted mind, truly believed that he deserved to have a girlfriend, and part of it was the way he was raised. He was a very spoiled child who received everything he ever wanted. He never had to work a day in his life, for anything. He simply had to ask and it was handed to him on a silver platter. Unfortunately, relationships don't work like that. 

You have to put yourself out there. You can't say, "Oh, I like this person," then do nothing about it, then get mad when things don't work out the way you want. It's immature, it's rude, and it devalues the agency of others. 

I repeat, no one owes you anything. Just as you have the right to pursue happiness, so does everyone else. And sometimes their happiness encroaches on your own. And we have to deal with it, because if we're not willing to make the effort, we don't deserve the reward. 

Everything else in life is the same. If you don't put forth the effort to find professional success, you're not going to find it. So you have a college degree. So does everyone. We aren't special because you graduated from college. Congratulations: we did the bare minimum of what society and the economy demanded. We don't get to sit back and say, "Okay world, I did my part, now reward me." And it's really hard, I know! I'm not even 21 yet, and I'm completely burned out. I wake up every single morning and I don't know how I'm going to make it through the day. I hate it sometimes, and I always want to quit. I don't understand why what I've done so far isn't good enough. But I know that I need to keep going. I know that if I work really hard now, it will pay off in the end. I have my personal goals, and the only way I can achieve them is to make myself worth something. 

Because hard work does pay off. It's the only thing that does, really. You don't get a free pass because you jumped through the hoops. You don't get a fairy tale romance because you're cute. 

As a Latter-day Saint, I (and we as a church) believe that every single person has individual worth. We are all children of God. But the entire point of this life is progression. It's working hard and improving yourself. Nobody is born perfect, and nobody dies perfect, but if in the end you can die knowing that you tried your best to be the person you have the potential to be, then you've lived a successful life. 

You don't get anything just for being alive. You can't find true happiness without taking risks and putting yourself out there. You know what, just pick your own metaphor. A shrub getting pruned? A clay pot going through a kiln? Lightning striking sand? The purpose of life is refinement, sometimes painful, scary, devastating, difficult refinement. 

So we need to stop whining about how life isn't fair, how other people don't care about us (this includes me, I'm not just being patronizing.) Because you don't get to sit on your butt and expect everything to magically fall into place. Don't be like Elliot Rodgers. Don't assume that everyone else exists to serve you. 

I therefore challenge us all to stop complaining about how society sucks and complaining how everyone else acts, and instead make it our goal to go out there and take what you want. Prove that you're worthy of the promotion or the trophy or the relationship. It's the only way you will ever deserve them. 

Because nobody, nobody, owes you anything.