Wrong Race/Culture?
- Thread starter Orleander
- Start date
how can you be born the wrong sex? i understand you can be born with both male and female attributes and body parts. but how can you be born the wrong sex?
i identify on a very deep level with chinese culture. but that doesent mean i was supposed to be born chinese. im still mixed southern european and russian.
peace.
i identify on a very deep level with chinese culture. but that doesent mean i was supposed to be born chinese. im still mixed southern european and russian.
peace.
Because physical attributes (gender) do not define your orientation (sexuality).
http://www.google.co.uk/search?clie...=en&q=born+wrong+sex&meta=&btnG=Google+Search
Pandaemoni
Valued Senior Member
As I understand it much of our sexual identity (our personal perception of our own gender) is determined in the brain and develops as a result of chemical factors that occur during gestation. There are physical characteristics that are more typical of a female brain, or of a male brain. In certain cases, you can find anatomically-determined-males who have typically female brain characteristics and who tend to self-identify more often as female than as male. Likewise you can have anatomical-females who seem to have typically male brains and who disproportionately tend to self-identify themselves as male.
As I understand it, that's different than sexual orientation. You could, I suppose, have a man trapped in a woman's body who is sexually attracted to women. In other words, a lesbian trapped in a man's body.
As for race, for cultural reasons I'm sure you could identify with a race other than your own (I know many westerners who identify deeply with Asian, especially Japanese culture). My understanding is that trans-gender situations are more likely to have chemical (and possibly genetic) riot causes, and not simply cultural ones. I'd be very surprised "trans-cultural" or "trans-race" issues have anything but a cultural basis.
yeah so how does it mean your born the wrong sex? you cant have the complete brain of a woman with 100% male physical attributes. i understand you can have some female brain functions though. but why would that indicate you are the "wrong sex"
your either completely one sex or part one sex part other. if you are mixed then its not the wrong sex its part of both, and if you fully one sex or the other how is that wrong?
i connect with chinese culture more than western, surely its not because i have chinese roots somewhere along the line?. is there any data to indicate towards this type of thing? i have never read anything about this,
peace.
No it doesn't.
http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/online_artcls/intersex/sex_gender.html
http://www.med.monash.edu.au/gendermed/sexandgender.html
Oops, I got them the wrong way round in my previous post - that's what the gap between uni and now does for you.
No it doesn't.
http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/online_artcls/intersex/sex_gender.html
http://www.med.monash.edu.au/gendermed/sexandgender.html
Oops, I got them the wrong way round in my previous post - that's what the gap between uni and now does for you.
sex (sĕks)
n.
1.The property or quality by which organisms are classified as female or male on the basis of their reproductive organs and functions.
2.Either of the two divisions, designated female and male, of this classification.
3.Females or males considered as a group.
4.The condition or character of being female or male; the physiological, functional, and psychological differences that distinguish the female and the
male.
5.The sexual urge or instinct as it manifests itself in behavior.
peace.
Depends where you got that from - there is a distinct division between the two when talking sociologically as opposed to generally.
That's why there are entire courses on it...
Pandaemoni
Valued Senior Member
Apparently, if the wiring in the brain turns out a certain way, a "male" will more closely identify himself as being female, notwithstanding his sex organs. Similarly some women will, due to the oddities of their brain chemistry, think of themselves as male.
I do not imagine such "crossed" wiring is as common for race (and certainly not for culture), since all embryos are biologically female for a time, and them make the transition (or not 0 to male as a result of hormone cascades. No embryo starts off as one race and then "transitions" to another, as far as I know (and in fact I do not know that brains are similarly hardwired to consider themselves a particular race...though who knows).
That said, it is definitely the case that people of one race can come to wish they were anopther, but it seems to arise from interaction with one's peer group (if one's peers are of that other race) and a general desire amongst people to conform to the standards set by their peers. For example, I know a black child who (for the moment) really really wants to be white because all of his friends are.
It is essentially a semantic question whether or not to say that such a culturally pressured desire to be of another race (or culture) is tantamount to being the "wrong race" (or "wrong culture"). It certainly (to me) seems to have a less substantial a basis than the gender identification issues facing transgendered people and so I tend to think of it as different, but even the notion that hormonally induced hardwiring in the brain is "more substantive" than cultural influences is a subjective valuation on my part.
If that black child I know were to tell me that he was the "wrong race," I'd disagree with him, but in a certain sense it doesn't matter how one labels it. There is a slight distinction between being a black child who self-identifies himself as black but wishes he were white and a man who actually identifies himself as woman but who has male genitalia...but its a close enough distinction that I think one can get away with describing both situations under a broad blanket term like "wrong race" and "wrong sex."
I do not imagine such "crossed" wiring is as common for race (and certainly not for culture), since all embryos are biologically female for a time, and them make the transition (or not 0 to male as a result of hormone cascades. No embryo starts off as one race and then "transitions" to another, as far as I know (and in fact I do not know that brains are similarly hardwired to consider themselves a particular race...though who knows).
That said, it is definitely the case that people of one race can come to wish they were anopther, but it seems to arise from interaction with one's peer group (if one's peers are of that other race) and a general desire amongst people to conform to the standards set by their peers. For example, I know a black child who (for the moment) really really wants to be white because all of his friends are.
It is essentially a semantic question whether or not to say that such a culturally pressured desire to be of another race (or culture) is tantamount to being the "wrong race" (or "wrong culture"). It certainly (to me) seems to have a less substantial a basis than the gender identification issues facing transgendered people and so I tend to think of it as different, but even the notion that hormonally induced hardwiring in the brain is "more substantive" than cultural influences is a subjective valuation on my part.
If that black child I know were to tell me that he was the "wrong race," I'd disagree with him, but in a certain sense it doesn't matter how one labels it. There is a slight distinction between being a black child who self-identifies himself as black but wishes he were white and a man who actually identifies himself as woman but who has male genitalia...but its a close enough distinction that I think one can get away with describing both situations under a broad blanket term like "wrong race" and "wrong sex."
i think the OPer is asking if we think we were born into the wrong culture. like i was born and raised in a western culture.