Gender, Sex, and Sexuality

You’re at a family dinner and a distant relative says, “It doesn’t matter what they think they feel like. If he has a penis, he is a man. That’s how it works in reality.” Assuming you put on your sociology hat, how do you explain to them the role of society in gender, sex, and sexuality construction?

In reality, gender, sex, and sexuality present themselves at once unified as well as inexorably at odds with their respective social constructions in a “distinctively sociological” (West and Zimmerman 1987) conversation. An effective approach to understanding these three components of identity is through an ethno-methodological lens in order to deconstruct this statement and highlight its heavy implications. This statement implies that gender isn’t something to be concerned about. It also denies the omnipresence of gender beyond the amalgamation of the biological and psychological. To avoid dogmatic thinking of such, the clarification of the ontology of sex, gender, and sexuality independent of each other is ensued in order to demonstrate how emphatically multifaceted gender truly is. Sex, according to West and Zimmerman, is recognized as an “ascribed status” (1987) by the biological construct of an individual.

“Sex is a determination made through the application of socially agreed upon biological criteria for classifying persons as females or males. These criteria can be 'genitalia at birth or chromosomal typing before birth'.” (West and Zimmerman 1987.)

The biological foundation of sex includes the “anatomical, physiological, and hormonal” (West and Zimmerman 1987) makeup of an individual. However, a sociological problem is fomented when only the binary sexes of female and male are socially normalized whereas in reality, “the medical community recognizes five distinct sexes” as stated by the professor of Sexual Violence, Sarah Boeshart at the University of Florida (Boeshart 2016). This occurs as a result of relying on the function of external genital organs, as “predictors of gendered behaviors and propensities” (West and Zimmerman 1987) when in reality, sometimes genitalia and chromosomal typing do not match. It is at this point where gender comes in, as it’s very construct exists because we have sex (lecture).

Gender, in juxtaposing sex, according to West and Zimmerman is an “achieved status” (1987) that is “literally earned” (Boeshart 2016). Different from sex, gender is an ever-present, routinely “active” (Boeshart 2016) manifestation and “presence an individual is never freed from” (Boeshart) making it a vital component of our authentic being of self. This presence in a social conversation is recognized by sex category — also known as gender presentation — exhibited through the “application of the aforementioned sex criteria” (West and Zimmerman 1987). Thus gender — applied by determining masculinity or femininity — can be understood as the “action of managing the situated nature of sex category” (Boeshart 2016) deducing that it is based off social interaction. Therefore, in a social conversation — which West and Zimmerman describes as, “conveyed fleetingly in a social situation yet strikes the most basic characterization of the individual” (1987) — the reading of sex category is the assumption of an individual’s “biological nature based off their social presence” (Boeshart 2016). This becomes widely problematic when the binary becomes the institutionalized design for the relationships between the sex, gender and sexuality of each and every individual. The implication of such, as Judith Lorber elucidates, is that all three presumably exist “congruent with each other” (Lorber 2007) across the board.

Society interacts with sex by making it the determining factor of gender. Consequently, society interacts with gender through the coding of sex category but also gender display, which underlines its interactional nature as an achieved product. These displays then frame a certain mold that is presumably “essential” in order to identify with a sex category, as gender is, “established and sustained through the required identifactory displays which proclaim an individual’s membership to one’s sex category" according to West and Zimmerman (1987). As a result, femininity and masculinity are the designated prototypes to be expressed. The issue with this mold is that it implies a correlation between sex and gender according to Goffman (1967) in terms of gender display, therefore conventionalizing the roles limited to the institution of heterosexuality and its normalized dominance in society.

Sex, gender, and sexuality thus all interact at both the institutional and interactional levels (West and Zimmerman 1987). This is demonstrated by the social reaction of “accountability” (Boeshart 2016) when sex category and gender do not match, therefore reinforcing heterosexuality on the individual level. The concept of gender display in itself is a way in which heterosexuality is underpinned in society, which calls for interaction and is reinforced on the institutional level. Role theory is another example of such. Roles are gendered in heterosexual relationships and congruent to the nature of a role as “situational and assumed in order to fit the demands in a given situation” (West and Zimmerman 1987). Sex category, however, is not a situational identity but rather a “master identity” (West and Zimmerman 1987) that cannot be modified in its manifestation in order to fit the demands of a given scenario. This further emphasizes the fact that an individual is never freed from their gender, as gender is an active job (Boeshart 2016). Gender, supported by the lecture, “Sociologically thinking about Sex and Gender” is the action of “doing difference and the different ways gender is reinforced” (Boeshart 2016).

If gender were viewed as an “ongoing activity,” then sociologically speaking, gender would not have the assumptions of roles, the unconscious compensation of display via physical, emotional and psychological expressions or the need to reinforce heterosexuality via accountability. A society free of all those qualifications attached to what gender is understood as in society, would strictly be seen as an interaction rather than a defining factor that leads to essentialism and binary thinking. On the institutional level this “fundamental division of society” (West and Zimmerman 1987) that is based off sex, gender and sexuality should be “deconstructed” as Judith Lorber reiterates.

The greater issue of taking gender for granted and failing to recognize its multifaceted nature is rendered from the very “institutional forces” (West and Zimmerman 1987) that define the categories of “women and men” (West and Zimmerman 1987). The by-product of the qualifications attached to certain expressions of gender is also part of the greater issue as their very requirement of manifestation “validates” (West and Zimmerman 1987) them as “natural” (1987) on the interactional level. Pursuing social change to understand the ontology of sex, gender, and sexuality independent of each other would lead to an authentic account of gender. Social change would also lead to the correction of political rhetoric when discussing gender as a complex multifaceted concept beyond the amalgamation of biological and psychological factors.