Sex, Gender and Sexuality – It’s not black and white anymore

 

Recently, Dutee Chand, an extraordinary sprinter from India, was returned her right to participate in national and international sprint competitions under the female category. Dutee Chand, who identifies herself with the female gender since birth has a condition called hyperandrogenism. This produces high amount of testosterone in her body and led to her ban on participating under the female category by IAAF in 2014. Jazz Jennings of “I am Jazz” fame from USA is a transgender individual. Jazz was born a male and she identifies her gender as female. A condition called gender identity disorder. TIME magazine awarded her as one of the top 25 most influential teens of 2014. Gazal Dhaliwal from India is a transgender- male to female person who fought for her identity and won.

Neither am I a champion of this concept nor a preacher. But these life stories inspired and intrigued me. I decided to delve a little more into the complex topic of sex, gender, and sexuality.

For a long time, gender for our society as a whole was widely recognised in just black and white. Male and female embodied the gist of it. Nevertheless, even then there were people who belonged to the rainbow in between. From what I read and saw, I realised sex, gender and sexuality are not the same as commonly believed.

Sex is the biological aspect of a person defined by the reproductive system, hormones, and chromosomes (XX, XY). Gender is the psychological aspect of a person as to what role (masculine or feminine) in society the person associates from within irrespective of the sex at birth. Sexuality is the erotic and/or romantic feelings of attraction towards another person. Therefore, to associate these concepts broadly with our body, it would be like; sex is associated with the reproductive system and hormones, gender is associated with the brain and its chemicals while sexuality is associated with feelings. Nevertheless, you know the human body is not that simple.

MYTHOLOGY AND HISTORY
It is believed; in ancient India’s Vedic society the term used for those who did not identify themselves as absolute male or female, was “Tritiya Prakriti.” As per the Vedic puranas, Lord Vishnu manifested himself in incarnations of pums-prakriti (male) as Sri Krishna, striya-prakriti(female) as Mohini and tritiya-prakriti(third gender) as Vallabha-Vardhana. However, not much is known about this tritiya-prakriti incarnation of Lord Vishnu. The popular character, Sikhandi, from the Hindu epic, Mahabharata by rishi Vyasa, represents the tritiya-prakriti. There exist references to the third gender in several other cultures across the world as well, like two-spirit/ berdache in the Native American culture or sworn virgins in the Balkan (Southeast Europe) culture.

ASSOCIATED TERMINOLOGIES
Arguably, there are more gender and sexuality categories than just being a male or female. I understand tagging to a category should identify no person. However, for the sake of acknowledging the variance to gender and sexuality, I am writing few terminologies from the many that exist.

Male – Born with well-defined male reproductive organ and anatomy, having XY as the 23rd chromosome pair.

Female – Born with well-defined female reproductive organ and anatomy, having XX as the 23rd chromosome pair.

Intersex – Born with reproductive system, sex chromosome, or hormones that do not fit the defined male or female category. There could be either ambiguity with the outer genitalia or gonads (testicles or ovaries) or reproductive hormones (testosterone or oestrogen) or sex chromosomes (X and Y). In intersex individuals where the proper outer genitalia defines the sex at birth but there is ambiguity in other reproductive anatomy or hormones, the gender identity of the person is mostly aligned with the sex assigned. However, there can be variation to that as well. Some intersex persons after surgical modification to their ambiguous genitalia are brought up with a certain gender identity because it is easily acceptable by their parents. However, they could defy that identity at a later stage in life.
Eg- An individual born with proper female genitalia but has testicles generating testosterone. Such individual can identify their gender as feminine even though they are devoid of uterus and ovaries.
A person is identified as intersex under several complex situations and not just one.

Cisgender People – People who identify their gender with the respective sex assigned at birth.
Eg- A person born male identifies with his gender role of masculinity.

Transgender People– People who cannot identify their gender in alignment with the sex assigned at birth.
Eg – An individual born female identifies with the gender role of masculinity.

Agender/Null-Gender People – People who cannot associate themselves with any existing gender identity in particular.

Homosexuality – Erotic/Sexual and/or romantic attraction towards individuals of same sex or gender.
Eg- A male attracted towards another male (Gay). / A female attracted towards another female (Lesbian).

Heterosexuality – Erotic/Sexual and/or romantic attraction towards individuals of opposite sex or gender.
Eg – A male attracted towards a female.

Asexuality – No erotic/sexual attraction towards opposite/same sex or gender. But there can be romantic attraction. An asexual person may have feelings of love for the partner but there is no sexual drive. Their relationships are purely platonic. Asexual people can identify themselves as homoromantic or heteroromantic.

Pansexuality – Erotic/Sexual and romantic attraction towards individual of all sex, gender, and sexuality.

Demi-sexuality – Lack of erotic/sexual attraction towards any individual unless there is a deep emotional or romantic connection with a person.

So, an individual born as a male (Sex – Male) psychologically identifying with the feminine gender (Gender – Transgender person: male to female) could be attracted to another female romantically and not sexually (Sexuality – Asexual/Homoromantic).

We all know that in any era, anything out of the accepted norm becomes difficult for the society to embrace upfront. For years, this contemptuous social mentality failed to understand the quandary of the people in the rainbow region. Their plight went unheard and their rights denied. To express in the mannerism of a gender one identifies with or not at all, is a fundamental right. One can only imagine the distress of a person who is deprived of hirs (gender-neutral pronoun synonymous with “his” or “her”) identity.

Nevertheless, there were some brave souls who broke these fetters and shared their story of being different and creating a difference. With all the shared and untold stories coming to limelight, many myths were shattered. Over the last two decades the acceptance of the third gender encompassing several variance, has been increasing. The conventional binary society has gradually metamorphosed. Countries have begun to give the Third Gender a separate legal identity.

CHANGE IN GOVERNMENT LAWS AND SOCIETY
Nepal is believed to be the first country that included third gender legally on its census form in 2007. The other countries who followed suit are India (Other category in voter card), Pakistan (Third Gender in national identity cards), Bangladesh (Third Gender in all national documents and passport), Germany (Third Gender as X on birth certificates), New Zealand (Third Gender as X on passport), and Australia (Third Gender as X on passport). In 2014, Facebook introduced 56 categories to identify oneself rather than the binary set of male and female. In a historic ruling on June 2015, the Supreme Court of USA favoured same-sex wedding across all the states.

 

However, there are still huge modifications that are expected to government laws and socio-cultural norms worldwide to reach a state of equality. It could be something as basic as introduction of gender-neutral public restroom/toilets or scraping up certain laws. For example, in India there still exists the Section 377 of IPC (rough gist - considers homosexual sex against order of nature and hence a criminal offence) introduced by the British Rule in 1860. This is a blatant dichotomy to the fundamental right of a citizen given by the Indian Constitution.

CONCLUSIVE THOUGHT
We need to understand that the truth of Third Gender is not a modern world concept. Neither it is unnatural nor a disease, like some people perceive. Mythology and history together corroborate existence of more than just two genders since time immemorial. Due to the preposterous belief of our society, we were living in absolute denial. However, cogent intentions of a handful brought the change in our society that we experience today. Sex, gender, and sexuality in itself are nebulous concepts in all its complexities and challenges. So, can we renounce our rigid societal protocols and behave more flexible in a way that gives each individual their basic right to self-identity?

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References - Wikipedia, Google articles, Youtube videos
Image Credits - Google Images
Article © Copyright Salvwi Prasad