/disˈfôrēə/
noun. a state of unease or generalized dissatisfaction with life.
As a biologist, I believe in the material world. As a scientist, I believe in building specific knowledge by conducting experiences. But as a feminist Witness and in recent years as a historian, I also believe that what we call "facts" about the living world are not universal truths. (Fausto-Sterling 7)This is a statement I inherently agree with: no one truth is universal, nor is one truth of more validity than any other. In another course I am currently taking - a Junior Seminar in Creative Nonfiction Writing centered around the shaping of identity - our discussion was mainly centered around the many, contradicting identities a singular individual may possess. In particular, we focused one class entirely on one excerpt from Patricia Hampl's I Could Tell You Stories, a memoir. In this section, entitled "What She Couldn't Tell", Hampl describes an elderly woman she used to assist. Far into the section we learn that this sweet woman who is hardly capable of even functioning on her own anymore was a Nazi Collaborator in World War II. With this knowledge then, we - the readers - along with Hampl herself, are torn between which truth is more valid: the sweetness of the woman, or the darkness of her history?
In looking at how this compares to Fausto-Sterling's discussion on the socially-constructed binary - the construct that separates sex, gender, and sexuality into black and white; man or woman; male or female; straight or gay - I think the woman in Hampl's memoir is a good example of the fact that two contradicting identities can be present and valid within an individual. This woman - both a sweet elderly lady and a Nazi collaborator - posses two strong, contradicting, perhaps even seemingly-hypocritical identities - how can a Nazi collaborator be sweet; how can a sweet old woman have once been a Nazi collaborator? How can these truths coexist? And how did she transition from one to the other? These aren't questions we'd typically ask about this woman. Quite frankly, although we know and acknowledge the bizarre combination of these two truths, we don't actually question the possibility of this being able to happen. We understand that personality traits and beliefs can shift over time; although this woman may have once been a Nazi collaborator, we understand that she could have gone through an experience that shifted her entire essence - from one extreme to the other. So, if we believe in the fluidity of personality and if we believe in a constant changing or growing of the personal, emotional, mental, and social capacities, why are there things that we strictly believe cannot be fluid or contradictory?
Sex, gender, and sexuality are apart of a binary that our society refuses to abolish. As stated above, we - as a society - accept the fact that this woman can at one time have identified as a Nazi collaborator and now, presently, identify as a strong opposite, a sweet, caring, elderly woman. However, we do not accept the fact that a woman can at one time have identified as a man and now, presently identify as a woman. We - as a society - might even accept the fact that this elderly woman can be both a Nazi collaborator and a sweet, caring individual all at once. However, we cannot accept the fact that there might be an individual who can be man and woman all at once.
For whatever reason, we live in a society where we recognize that not all truths are universal truths and where we accept contradicting truths within individuals, but we pick and choose these truths which we are willing to accept. We allow contradiction to exist within personal characteristics and traits, but we do not allow it within personal expression and identity. We are stuck on this binary that divides sex, gender, and sexuality into two simplistic categories, where we refuse to accept anything contradictory or outlying.
This is where dysphoria comes into play. Dysphoria: a state of unease or dissatisfaction with life. Having this binary creates dysphoria for those who contradict or those who do not fit. However, the very thought of dismantling the binary, while liberating the oppressed from dysphoria, creates a fit of dysphoria in our society due to the fact that it has become so very dependent on the binary it has socially constructed.
The fortunate aspect here is that one of these states of dysphoria can be remedied: the dysphoria of society that results from the challenging of the sex/gender/sexuality binary can be relieved through the continuation of education and awareness. As Fausto-Sterling writes on page 21, "Sexuality is a somatic fact created by a cultural effect", meaning the fact of sexuality has become a fact because of the culture we have created. Thus, the reformation of this culture - the abolishment of the binary - allows for the reformation of sexuality. And until then, we'll not only be a culture of binary oppression, but of continuous, perpetual, and two-sided dysphoria.
Your analysis about how we as humans choose what aspects of our lives are fluid and which aren't is very interesting, especially when we're all aware of the many different cultural norms that exist outside of our individual domains. For some reason, we are egotistical and stigmatize certain differences, while accepting others, depending on how similar they are to our own values. It seems to me the reason why its so much easier for us to accept that people have different personality traits but not that people could have multiple genders is due to the public vs. private dichotomy that we discussed before. Sex is something that needs to be secret, you do it in the dark under the covers and speak about it in hushed tones. Whereas, personality traits come out of us in the form of natural expression everywhere and anywhere. Hetero sex is already portrayed as raunchy and dirty and impure, so it's not that surprising that any other kind of sex would be thought of as worse.
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