5.2 Teachers understanding of sex, gender, and transgender identities
5.2.2 Transgender identities
5.2.3 Reasons that individuals identify as transgender
5.4.1 Teachers’ perceptions on heterosexual learners’ interactions with gender diverse learners
Figure 7: Summary of major themes and sub-themes of the study.
5.2 Teachers Understanding of Sex, Gender, and Transgender Identities 5.2.1 Sex and gender
According to Lips (2020, p. 7), sex and gender are not interchange concepts but rather sex is used to “to refer to a person’s biological maleness or femaleness (sex organs, i.e., penis or vagina) and gender to non-physiological aspects of being male or female-the cultural expectations and roles for femininity and masculinity.” This definite distinction between these terms is central as it justifies the theory that differences in behavior, experiences, and expectations between the gender binary of male-female, it not inevitably and naturally as a result of biology (Paechter et al., 2021). Rather, these ideas are powered from our cultural and social beliefs and practices and thus our identifications of biological sex variations are apt to be molded by our culture’s notions of gender (Butler, 1993). Fundamentally, an individual’s
gender identity can be different to his or her biological sex assigned at birth (Fisher et al., 2016). Additionally, Fisher et al. (2016, p. 2) “Gender identity refers to a fundamental sense of belonging and self-identification to one gender and to the extent to which a person experiences being like others of one’s gender: male, female, or an alternative gender.” This theory of gender as fluid and diverse from biological sex principally conflicted with most of the participants’
understandings of the two terms. When asked what they understood about the terms sex and gender, here were some responses:
Stephanie [26 yr. old Indian female, grade 4 teacher]: I think it's like more or less the same.
Promise [25 yr. old African female, FP teacher]: For me, I feel like gender. OK, well, generally you would say gender means a person with a vagina and a person with the penis. That's how we classify genders. You're female because you have a vagina, you’re male because you have a penis.
Duncan [32yr. old White male, grade R-7 teacher]: Umm whether you’re male or female. Your sexuality. Yeah.
Mr P [33 yr. old Coloured male, grade 7 teacher]: Gender means whatever body part you have or parts you have that determines whether you male or female and with that you get something called gender roles and according to your gender your roles are determined by that as well so.
Vee [36 yr. old Coloured female, SP teacher]: Exactly the same. Sex and gender to me is the same thing.
These examples of responses reinforce the overlapping understandings and interchangeability of sex and gender meaning the same that society seems to hold at large (Lips, 2020). Sex and gender are seen as one and the same, and thus must be attributed to male-female differences, which perpetuates the outdated theory of essentialism and naturalism (Greene, 2020). The notion that males and females are different due to biology and must have “feminine” and
“masculine” roles, are reinforced by Mr. P.s responses. This traditional belief is embedded in the binary of male and female only, thus excluding any individual that does not identify with either category (Mangin, 2018). This is reinforced by the majority of teachers’ comments when asked if they believe that there are any other sexes besides male and female:
Researcher: Do you think there are any other genders except male and female?
Miss Bee [42yr. old African female, grade 2 teacher]: No. Either you have that, you’ve got a vagina or penis.
Doctor X [32 yr. old Indian male, grade 6 teacher]: No there's only, you have to be either or you can't be in between.
Tiffany [25 yr. old Coloured female, grade 1 teacher]: No. Because for me it's just male female there's no other-
The above excerpts do not give recognition to any other genders outside the heteronormative sphere, reinforcing the gender binary and negating gender diversity, upholding sex, and gender to an essentialist view. Butler (1990) argues against this view, stating that gender is not natural, but rather is performed repetitively and constructively, by our socialization and cultural practices. Skewes et al. (2018, p. 18) further lend credence to this theory by stating “Moreover, theorists and researchers have proposed that essentialist thinking in general serves to justify existing social inequalities, rather than merely describing it neutrally. Contrary to the goals of gender equality advocates who put forward gender essentialist arguments, existing research provides reasons to anticipate that gender essentialist characterizations of the sexes will be associated with weaker endorsement of the desirability and feasibility of achieving greater gender equality in traditionally feminine and masculine roles.”
In contrast to the above responses, some participants viewed gender as the following:
Phoebe [46 yr. old Indian female, grade 5 teacher]: Okay so you’re supposed to act in a specific way, that’s your…gender….
Casanova [35 yr. old African male, grade 5 teacher]: Umm, well I’d say it’s what we are born with. So basically, we get it at birth. Umm, and then it later translates to what society teaches us to be. Like the role that if you’re born as a boy, what you would follow into. So, the roles are determined by the society at large. Yes ma’am, and then we all fall into that tract.
Debbie [52 yr. old White female, grade 1 teacher]: I think it's quite fluid… But I also think that it's not even about a sex thing, it's more like we really are told to believe that we are a certain person and we must do a certain thing.
Siya [27yr. old African male, grade R-7 teacher]: So, I’d say gender means, gender is actually a label to tell the truth. It’s actually like because to say that you are a male, you can dress like a male full on, cut your hair, do everything, people will say that you are a male.
The above participants understanding of sex and gender lends credence to Butler’s (1990) theory of performativity. These participants viewed sex and gender as two separate entities, further identifying that gender is a learned and social construct that is not determined by the biological sex we are assigned to at birth. Rather, the participants have a tentative understanding that gender is performed as people fall into assigned roles that is dictated by society at large and is considered social norms (Greene, 2020).
5.2.2 Transgender identities
Transgender can be understood as a shared category of individuality that involves a remarkably varied range of male and female bodied gender variant people and sexualities (Lemma, 2018).
Transgender is thus an umbrella term that designates individuals whose gender identity or expression does not align the gender they were born with. Simply put, Lemma (2018, p. 1092) likens the term to a “sense of a movement across a socially imposed boundary from a “given”
starting place to a place that is felt to be of one’s choosing”. When conducting the few initial interviews, some teachers were not familiar with the term or had some confusion regarding the term transgender. After showing them pictures of well-known transgender individuals (such as Wandile from the local programme Generations and Bruce Jenner from Keeping up with the Kardashians - Appendix F), they then could make a connection. A few of the participants concurred somewhat with Lemma’s definition as can be seen in the following extracts:
Researcher: What does the term transgender mean to you?
Debbie [52 yr. old White female, grade 1 teacher]: okay I would what I understand if you came to me and said “I’m a transgender woman” I would think that you had been born with boy parts with a penis but the whole time when you had the penis you were feeling more like you identified with females…I'm not 100 percent sure that it's got only to do with sex. I think it's got to do with a whole lot more. Like what you identify with in the world.
Grace [44 yr. old White female, grade 5 teacher]: Because they are born a certain way, but they want to be a different way and they’re wanting to be in a different way is like I always think about heart and mind. Some people are hearts, and some people are minds. It’s tough if all of you inside want to be something different and you have to be something else.
Interestingly, in comparison to Lemma’s (2018) definition on the term transgender, majority of participants described their understandings of transgender in a considerably basic gender dichotomy, i.e., going from male to female or vice-versa. This type of perception is exclusionary, in that they side-line a significant number of individuals within the transgender community that prefer to exist in between, or outside the binary altogether (Lemma, 2018).
Further, this way of understanding transgender identities reduces the complex “intersection of socio-cultural processes and individual psychodynamics” (Lemma, 2018, p. 1092). The following responses indicate this simplification:
Chloe [37yr. old White female, grade 2 teacher]: For me it's like someone who can change their body a lot if you want with my own 2 changes from now if you are a female the change to male- but the changing, some transition of some sort…
Ally [41 yr. old White female, grade 6 teacher]: I must say I find it sometimes difficult myself to fully understand that I’m very not clued up about it all I know it’s going from one boy to a girl or a girl to a boy male to female or female to male.
Stephanie [26yr. old Indian female, grade 4 teacher]: You saying that you were born a specific gender, but you changed yourself, like had a sex change?
Miss Bee [42 yr. old African female, grade 2 teacher]: Transgender, isn’t it changing from one sex to another? If you a man, you changed to be a female, if you a female you changed to be a male.
The above understandings of transgender identities align with the predominant belief that many primary school teachers see it as simply transitioning from one gender to another, perpetuating the gender binary. Primary school teachers see girls and boys as perfect “opposites” to one another, thus having a considerably basic perception of what it means to be a transgender individual (Smith & Payne, 2016).