Recently on NPR they had a fascinating report about dealing with non-standard gender preferences in two young boys from two different families.
Two Families Grapple with Sons’ Gender Preferences
In response to that article this essay attempts to show the value of replacing the term ‘gender preference’ with the term gender capacity. The term ‘gender preference’ lacks accuracy and carries troublesome connotations. Using the term ‘capacity’ brings us several important advantages. The concept of gender capacity allows us to consider gender primarily as something that we do and secondarily as involved with our sense of identity. Gender as a capacity often goes unnoticed in the same way that many of our capacities go unnoticed. The deliberate use of our capacities offer us all crucial benefits.
The term ‘gender preference’ is both inaccurate and incomplete as a description for the lives of these children. I want to offer a new description to better understand this experience. I ask that we first consider this as a difference in their capacity rather than merely a difference in their preference. I believe that an intrinsic capacity to enact a gender stands as the most important element in this situation. If we describe this difference as a difference in preference only then that description would fail to indicate the comprehensive nature of this difference.
Let us consider the terms ‘preference’ and ‘capacity’. When we think about ‘preference’ the idea of arbitrary change will effortlessly spring to mind. Our continually fluctuating moods can easily influence our preferences. In contrast, we usually think about capacities as having much more stability. We rarely think of capacities as changing unexpectedly. It requires our deliberate and sustained effort to bring about a change in our capacities. Beyond that, we even have some capacities that almost never change.
The term ‘capacity’ can cover a wide range of territory. In one area we have the most complex type of capacity that we can call innate capacity. This kind of capacity appears early in the lifecycle. In another area we have the least complex and profound capacities which we can call skills. Skills come primarily from socialization and training. Almost anyone can gain a degree of skill from correct training. Innate capacity cannot be learned.
Returning to the kids in the original report, they do not merely prefer to enact the female gender; rather they actually cannot enact the male gender. Regardless of the shape of their bodies they lack the innate capacity to enact the collection of behaviors, attitudes and interests that we call masculinity. On the other hand they do possess the innate capacity to enact femininity. (In our normal vocabulary we rarely talk about enacting a gender. We most often talk about being a gender. This essay will now follow that norm and explore the impact of that idea later.)
A human being demonstrates being male or being female in part through body shape and in part through masculine or feminine behaviors, attitudes and interests. A boy typically has boyish interests and attitudes while he engages in boyish behavior. He acts this way because he has an innate capacity to enact the male gender. This capacity goes unrecognized in most cases. It goes unrecognized because we usually take it as a given that a boy will act like a boy.
In practice we all take a great deal of our capacities for granted. Unless we find that our abilities are exceptional, such as athletic prowess, then we often feel that, “Since I can do this, then anyone could do this.” We can feel baffled when someone we consider an equal cannot do something that seems ordinary to us. Sometimes encountering someone with different abilities will help us to notice the existence of our previously unrecognized abilities.
Now let us take a moment and reflect upon the language here and expand about this subject of ‘being male’ or ‘being female’. Most of us rarely consider that we enact a group of gender typical behaviors, attitudes and interests every single day of our lives. We may only notice this when our behaviors, attitude or interest go beyond what we, or other people take as proper for our gender. Our gender capacity becomes most noteworthy only at the boundary. When we stay within our own gender territory, we rarely notice out gender. We do not talk about enacting a gender; we will talk being male or being female. We say this because that enactment feels so familiar, correct and intimate that we can do little other than embrace it as our identity. In the case where our gender capacity matches our body type we also get countless subtle and overt approvals from others for our gender enactment.
Temporarily, many of us could play the role of the opposite gender without too much difficulty. Yet pause a moment and consider how might you feel if that went on for a prolonged period of time. Imagine further that rather than doing this for our own amusement or exploration, someone forced that pretense upon you. How would you feel if legitimate authority figures in your life consistently demanded that you to play a role that you could not understand? Your feelings could easily start with discomfort and confusion then they could eventually develop into pure agony.
Where does this capacity originate? I would agree with research that shows that gender preference, or gender capacity, has a biological basis. Children do not learn these behaviors, attitudes and interests. This ability does not originate from any kind of socialization. In the case of these particular kids I would predict that they each have a non-masculinized brain. During gestation their brains did not respond to the masculinizing hormones while their bodies did. They have an otherwise male body with a vastly female brain.
They will always have a greater talent for being female. While they can learn to play the male role to some degree, just as any female could learn to play the male role, this will be skill only. They will never master being male as well as they could master being female. They have no talent at maleness.
Every human being has an innate gender capacity and thus will always do better at enacting that gender. Doing well leads to success and success leads to positive feelings. Any individual will always do better and thus feel better using their innate gender capacity.
The individual must not live under the tyranny of social expectations that accompany their shape. Despite what we may predict gender capacity does not come primarily from the body. That is a secondary layer. The body serves as a vehicle of gender and does not originate it.
