No Room at the Inn

So it's that time of year again. Filling out the census, affirming our place in the British society as a tea drinking patriot. Flicking through the census with a cup of coffee I leisurely tick the 'female' gender box *breasts, vagina, female, eggs, ability to have babas all that shabang* 'yes that's right' I muse to myself. It's quite easy for me to identify my gender, i've never had a problem with it, i've always identified as a woman, im sure erm Bob Smith could easily tick the 'male' box while scratching his bits.

Binary boxes, sitting their like filing cabinets, ready to categorise everyone into a neat little blue/pink gender packet. We do it with newborns why not do it with everyone? Great system but it doesn't really work does it? Where's the inter-sex, the pangender, the androgynous boxes, I know i'm listing nearly all of them here, but excuse me for asking 'why don't the trans-community' get a mention in our NATIONAL census!

(taken from the brilliant resource 'understanding gender')

1) Gender Identity

One's innermost concept of self as male or female or both or neither—how individuals perceive themselves and what they call themselves. One’s gender identity can be the same or different than the sex assigned at birth. Individuals are conscious of this between the ages 18 months and 3 years. Most people develop a gender identity that matches their biological sex. For some, however, their gender identity is different from their biological or assigned sex. Some of these individuals choose to socially, hormonally and/or surgically change their sex to more fully match their gender identity.


2) Gender Expression

Refers to the ways in which people externally communicate their gender identity to others through behavior, clothing, haircut, voice, and other forms of presentation. Gender expression also works the other way as people assign gender to others based on their appearance, mannerisms, and other gendered characteristics. Sometimes, transgender people seek to match their physical expression with their gender identity, rather than their birth-assigned sex. Gender expression should not be viewed as an indication of sexual orientation.

3)Gender Fluid

Gender fluidity conveys a wider, more flexible range of gender expression, with interests and behaviors that may even change from day to day. Gender fluid children do not feel confined by restrictive boundaries of stereotypical expectations of girls or boys. In other words, a child may feel they are a girl some days and a boy on others, or possibly feel that neither term describes them accurately.


So there's a man, who likes to dress as a woman, but still identifies as a man

And there's a person who doesn't want to catergorise themselves in the pink and blue city's, and hell why should they? Everyone else will so why should they have to?

And this person has two types of sex organs, or mixed sex organs, and they like to live as a woman, so what to they put?

Methinks we should start using this gender spectrum for our census, no one knows about it AND THEY SHOULD! It's like the Kinsey scale, people need to know the methods to understand eachother better, maybe the trans community would be alot more accepted if society understood their logic!

So I propose

Gender

Gender Expression  Male   Female   Other?

Gender Identity       Male Female Other

Sex  Male Female Male/Female Other

Ok..so that is a bit patchy, and its a pie in the sky method, it'll never happen but i'm sure if it did our country census reserachers would get a little shock about their population

So let's at least have a transgender option on next years census?

Drew a wee cartoon to make this issue less annoying, Rainbow Androgynyne Yay (I know I spelt it wrong)

 The star person's saying "what about me i'm the adrogynyne!"...although it does look very male, its hard to draw something with neutral gender attributes..hmmm

Just my 2 cen - sus mahaha..sigh xx