I’d like to warn you in advance; this article may shock you and it could offend you. If it does offend you, I’m sorry. This article is not meant to offend or discriminate, but to only give insight based upon my own understandings, as well as cultural understandings. The subject matter is gender. Please note, I won’t be talking about transgender, transsexual, or any sexuality. At least, I won’t be defining it.

As someone who is extensively studying English and how to teach it, I’ve noticed how important word usage is and how the slightest mishap in our language can instigate a major conflict. I want to attempt to diffuse the conflict by redefining what you have come to know as gender and what you have come to know as sex. Your sex is strictly based upon your genitalia. If you have a penis, you are a man and if you have a vagina, you are a woman, simple. Gender, however, is not male or female. This is where word usage has taken the gender issue to a misunderstanding. Gender is masculine and feminine. You can be a feminine man and you can be a more masculine woman. Gender is not sex and therefore is not based upon being a “man” or a “woman”. When people say gender is a social construct, this means that what we define as masculine and feminine are strictly based upon our culture and have no real meaning.

For example, pink used to be associated with baby boys. That’s hard for us to imagine because we see pink as a feminine gender, but pink used to be associated with a more masculine gender. Let’s use one that has been a cause of bullying for quite some years: a boy being interested in the arts, being more cultured, or being interested in things such as film or fashion is seen as being a woman. It should also be pointed out that the negative connotation of being a woman is entirely sexist, because if we are going to be real here, some of the most successful people in history were women (both Queen Elizabeth I and II). Again, I’m not going into the matter of trans anything because I don’t know the community well enough to speak for them and I don’t fully understand it.

A man is only seen as being a woman in this context because we’ve associated these things as feminine. We bully people over this because we believe that male must be masculine and female must be feminine. The truth is feminine is defined by us as well as masculine. Second, we’ve also decided that men must be masculine so anything less than what we define as masculine is unsuitable. I’m sure by now I’ve offended someone deeply rooted in their faith, just as I am and, I assure you, that’s not my intention. You see, I don’t think God would have any problem with a man who likes art and fashion. I think the problem is we’ve attached things to negative connotations, but there lies my point. WE HAVE ATTACHED THINGS! These things were never attached to man or woman and they never should have been. A man who expresses his feelings is no less of a man that won’t show a lick of emotion. A woman who is ambitious is not a bitch. If a man can be ambitious and be praised, a woman deserves that right. You see, we’ve chosen to associate man and woman to masculine and feminine and further more, we’ve defined what constitutes as masculine and feminine.

Scottish men wear skirts when they play the bagpipe. You can call them kilts to make you feel better about yourself all you want, but that’s a skirt. The other problem we have with gender is that we’ve decided that your gender will ultimately determine your sexuality. If a man is in touch with his “feminine side” then we’ve determined he must be gay. That’s not the case folks. The same goes for a woman. If she is in touch with her “masculine side”, she doesn’t have to be lesbian. We’ve chosen to ignore getting to know someone and, instead, we judge them for being different. Sex is not a social construct, a penis means man and a vagina means woman, but gender is defined by us and not only gender, but the connotations we hold with it.

I don’t know anything about the transgender community and this article isn’t about them, or transsexuals, or anyone in any community. This is about the fact that we are not able to express ourselves freely because we’ve decided that some things are only for girls and other things are only for boys. Girls can’t play football with the boys and boys can’t be in theater club with mostly girls without getting teased about it. I’m tired of it.

So, to anyone who has an interest in something that “isn’t meant for them”, please do yourself a favor and stop listening to those people. Go and invest yourself into your interests and hobbies. It is not a sin for a man to enjoy designing clothing and it is not a sin for a girl to enjoy being a leader. You have been given a talent and if you don’t use it because it isn’t what society has defined as the gender that has wrongfully been attached to your sex, you have missed out on something amazing.

If you are offended today, that was never my intention. If you think I’m telling people to just drop their morals, you’re wrong. I just wanted to inform you that being a feminine man or a masculine woman does not make people any less than they are. If you have a problem with that, well your problem is just a … “social construct”.