Prior attending my first class session for Philosophy, Gender and Culture, I thought I was going to regret it. Although the lectures were slow at first, I somewhat began to get into the discussion topics and find every topic very intriguing. If it wasn’t for this class, I would’ve never gotten the educational push towards these kind of issues that we were discussing in class. One issue that I found which was very interesting, because I had a personal experience with this issue, was about gender identities and who society labels a female and male.
The topic of females and males at first was boring to me because I myself thought that there is nothing else to talk about because I was pretty set on believing that if you were a male, you were a male, and if you were a female, you are a female. Nothing more. That quickly changed during the past lectures I have been through in class. I never really got the understanding of female’s being males, or males being females. When I mention ‘being’, I am referring to the act of impersonating one, or trying to be of the opposite sex both physically and mentally. But that mindset began to go away, and a new positive one came within me after living in Asia for two months.
I was living in Asia last year during the summer for about two months, and it broaden up my way of thinking. I was constantly transferring from luxury condos to the slums of each country I visited just so I can experience something different. What I had notice was the respect people had for homosexuals and transgender people from both the rich people of Asia, to the poor people of Asia. This is very new to me because I am always use to people making fun of homosexuals or transgenders in a nonchalant way in Los Angeles, but to see both heterosexuals and homosexuals hang out not caring about what differences they had, shed some light to me.
When I was living in Philippines and Thailand, those were the most heavily homosexual and transgender populated countries in Asia and the world. There were so many at one point of walking around Thailand, that there were more homosexuals and transgender people on a street than there were heterosexual people which were shocking to me. It was shocking that they were widely accepted in their society without hesitation. You would see transgender or homosexual cashiers at the markets, sales associates at every department store, and even at the hotel front desks.
Comparing the respect the homosexual and transgender community gets there in Asia, to the same community but in the states is sad. It is acceptable for people to be gay and like people of the same sex in the U.S, but I know people look down on it or would laugh and make jokes about them and their life decisions. I always wondered how life would be if everyone would just get along in the states, just like the straight and gay people do in Asia, from my experience.
In Judith Butler’s article Bodies that Matter she says, “ If gender is the social construction of sex, and if there is no access to this “sex” except by means of its construction, then it appears not only that sex is absorbed by gender, but that “sex” becomes something like a fiction, perhaps a fantasy, retroactively installed at a prelinguistic site to which there is no direct access.” (pg. 15) What I got for that statement is simply amazing. From my understanding is that she simply meant, what if “sex” was just a made up, fictional word? People wouldn’t be socially separated as they are now in the world just because of what society has planted in everyone’s minds for the years to come since many centuries back. I wish people would just accept people for who they are, and would respect their decisions on how they would want to live their own life. After all, it is their life.
