Sexuality as Williams Puts It, \"If Europeans

Sexuality

As Williams puts it, "If Europeans and their descendant nations of North America accept something as normal, then anything different is seen as abnormal. Such a view ignores the great diversity of human existence," (73). One of the fundamental aspects of human existence is gender; another is sexuality. These two primary issues color the way people see the world, create identity, and communicate with others. Gender impacts social status and access to power. Dichotomizing sexuality and gender is dangerous, mainly because dualism is artificial. Very few women fulfill the stereotypical Barbie-like female role identity; and very few men correspond to their G.I. Joe counterpart. Most people do occupy a comfortable spot on the gender continuum. Yet when questioned about gender and sexuality, most people are tagged as male or as female. The growing interest in transgender has raised important questions about the flexibility of gender. Transgender individuals have a hard time being accepted for who they are, because European and North American societies are uncomfortable with, do not recognize, and have only begun to have language for the phenomenon.

If everyone accepted that sexual variation is a continuum, the world would likely be a more tolerant place. Continuum thinking alone is more flexible than rigid dualistic thinking. Therefore, viewing individual gender and sexuality on a continuum is more conducive to flexible and open-minded thinking. Boys and girls in school would not be teased for their lack of conformity to the proscribed gender roles and norms drilled into their consciousness since early childhood. Girls who wear blue and boys who wear pink, for example, would not be considered strange and worthy of bullying.

Native American cultures tend to have flexible concepts of gender and sexuality, especially compared with European cultures. The berdache is a gender category that is as valid as male or female. A berdache does not need to defend behavior, or to squeeze artificially into dualistic categories. Instead, a berdache is just a berdache. If every society had a concept similar to berdache, then gender-bending would be normative. Society would be more tolerant of individuals who temporarily mix gender; as well as individuals who never quite fit into one or the other category. Berdache "combined certain roles assigned to both genders and thereby achieved a distinct gender status," ("The Berdache," ). Therefore, berdache is not about cross-dressing; in some cases, cross-dressing was actually forbidden by berdache ("The Berdache").

Biological sex is not gender. Gender is a social construction. When gender as a social construction is imposed on children, it becomes integral to identity formation and to social identity construction. For many children, gender identity is not problematic and evolves naturally. Many children easily fit into the pre-existing gender categories of male and female; and as they grow older never have a need to question the male/female binary. However, many children -- and adults -- do not fit easily into these rigid categories. It can take years to fit into the society as someone who is not highly gendered. For those individuals, little opportunity exists for natural self-expression. Results can be catastrophic: often including mental illness and social alienation.