A conversation

 I had an interesting discussion the other day with someone in transition, which led me to question the very term “transition”. The term implies that there are broadly two states, male and female, and although some people choose to move part of the way along the line joining the two - non binary people - it nevertheless implies that the gender state is a one dimensional space. But is that correct?

Much of what delineates gender as opposed to sex, is a social construct. Men wear trousers because that’s what men do, not because they are genetically programmed to do so. Some gender markers are physical, some are tied to the psyche (for want of a better word). 

I remember reading an account of an interview with Jan Morris, an early transitioner, who said that she (her choice of pronoun) didn’t really feel as if she was a woman in the full sense of the word, but that she was closer to that state than the she had been before the transition. Jan Morris was just Jan Morris, not male, not female - just - Jan Morris. 

Alas Morris died not long after the interview. It would have been interesting if the interviewer had explored this aspect of Morris’s life more fully. 

I now think of gender as an “n” dimensional space (sorry to use such geeky language but I can’t think of another way of putting it). I’m sure there’s more to it than that. But after a lifetime of not thinking beyond “he” and “she”  I think it’s a good step towards really understanding what it means to be non standard in gender terms. 

And just maybe many of us aren’t quite as “gender standard” as we think? People talk about some men being “in touch with their feminine side”. Does that mean they’ve taken a few steps into that n dimensional space called gender? 

Think about it.