A Look into Gender

Prior to this lesson I had a very limited understanding of gender. I was aware that it was understood within a spectrum, but I didn’t quite grasp how it played out. I found The Advocate’s video “What is Gender Expression?” extremely informational in that sense. I understood that gender unfolds through several lenses, most notably, sex, gender identity, and gender expression; with each of these aspects having their own separate spectrums. Via these spectrums we are able to better understand gender, and acknowledge that ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ are not exclusionary terms. Like discussed in “What is Gender?” from Philosophy Tube, in the end “gender is not an expression of anything in yourself, it is yourself,” so there’s no way of doing it wrong; and, without being cringy, I thought that was a very powerful way of explaining gender. Another piece of information that I found intellectually moving was RadioLab’s discussion about gender and genetics. I found the discovery of the DMRT-1 gene mindblowing. One, out of the hundreds of genes present in our bodies, has the power to change sexes, which signifies a pool of unpresedented potential for the transgender community; regardless of whether it is considered ethical at the moment or not. And, while I feel like I understood most of the main points of this lesson, I did have a to take a second look at Nye’s chapter on Gender, and Lacan’s evaluation of the ‘symbolic’, as well as Irigaray’s idea of the ‘divine’, and I still feel muddy about exactly what each figure was trying to explain and how it pertained to religion.