Signed, Sealed, Gender-Assigned

I had my ultrasound today (see back later for a scanned picture). It was the world's longest ultrasound, and to be honest, I grew kind of bored after a while. I know I should have been in awe and had my eyes peeled to the monitor, but that is just not me, I don't get that emotional in front of other people (unless I'm really pissed - see below for example). Then someone else came into the room...it was another technician and she took over, zooming around, correcting some mistakes the first technician made. It was then that I realized the first one was in training and that's why it was taking so long.

Jacob and Zach were with me, of course, and Jacob was through the roof. He was much more excited than I thought he'd be, like I wasn't sure he'd get it but he did just fine. And he patiently sat for a whole hour, taking it all in and squealing with glee.

I told the technicians that we don't want to know the SEX (foreshadowing) but could they please write it on a piece of paper so that I may take it home should I change my mind. It turns out it was one of those ultrasounds where you can't tell for sure and the technician told me so but still wrote her guess on the piece of paper. She took it to another room to get an envelope and then came back and gave me the envelope containing the piece of paper. On the outside of the envelope she wrote: "Gender".

She wrote Gender.

95% of you will not understand what I am saying. One person who reads my blog will hopefully commiserate with me, and anyone else who gets it only will because you know me in person and know what a hot button this is for me.

Let me explain. A description of sex is as follows: XY or XX. Gender is "a socially constructed notion of what is feminine and what is masculine." (taken from the Indiana University website) Gender is not sex. Yes, the two tend to go hand in hand, but not without exception.

This wasn't bothering me as much this afternoon, but I am particularly worked up about it right now because I just got done writing a big long 'academic' blurb about it for my class. Last night I had to read an essay by Paul Theroux, On Being a Man and write a response to it. Tonight my professor responded to it, bringing up all sorts of sex vs gender questions and got me all fired up. So I just had to respond back and I think I'm about to tear my hair out.

Let me explain about my class for a minute: I am the only student in the class. I didn't get around to mentioning that before because it didn't matter. Apparently there are normally 10-15 students in this class, allowing for the back-and-forth discourse on the forums. This time it's just me. I didn't find that out until Day 2 of the class (and by then I was so freaked out about the class that I thought I might be able to use that as leverage to get out of the class and get my money back...but I am sticking it out). Anyway, I actually think it's working to my benefit in that I get to have one-on-one 'computer conversations' with the professor everyday.

So back to pulling my hair out - my professor brought up a few things for discussion, for instance blue vs pink and the genders they are assigned to, boys being given trucks and girls being given dolls, boys being criticized for showing affection. I think she may have broken into my brain. Either that, or it is incredibly ironic that someone I don't even know would bring up three things in the same sentence that could immediately send my blood pressure to an unnatural high.

And so now I am back to the place I was at early last year where I blogged about Jacob getting the Big Bird stamp at gymnastics (this is just one of the many examples). It's still happening and it pisses me off more and more every time. Incase you don't remember, they make a big freaking deal about putting away the princess stamp before giving the boys their stamps. Jacob always walks out of there with a 'boyish' stamp, and the worst part is he has gotten used to it. He no longer wants the princess stamp. Even though I have done my damnedest to make ours a gender-neutral home, the world at-large has gotten to him. And I am deeply saddened.

But let me just say for the record, because I couldn't say it in my 'academic' writing, that when Jacob and his friend *Nick* were parting ways today they (both boys) gave each other a kiss to say goodbye and my heart almost exploded.