Ma Vie en Rose demonstrated the divide between gender roles. Ludovic was forced into playing soccer, kissing a girl, and cutting his hair off as if that would prove a male identity. It was interesting to see that Ludovic was attracted to boys but Ludovic was only taught that only boys and girls could marry. Therefore, Ludovic was convinced that God had given him the wrong sex from birth. “Bent” was a curse word to describe homosexuality and hidden from Ludovic. Society was constructed so that homosexuality was an impossibility for Ludovic. I found it interesting that the family told the psychologist that they were happy with whatever child they received from God whether girl or boy. The parents didn’t recognize their own hypocrisy until the end. I think this scene speaks more about the transgender narrative. Gender role preferences sometime mean that sex and gender don’t match.

Ma Vie en Rose pointed out the danger of prescribing gender roles to others. However, I think one’s gender role preferences doesn’t have a bearing on one’s sex. Gender involves identity whereas sex involves chromosomes. Gender is not equivalent to sex as Lorber points out. However, gender does have roots in sexual differences. Ben pointed out in class that it’s easy for people to form judgments around the population mean and gender roles have developed from them. For example, liking sports are associated with males more so than females. Lorber argues that gender inequality is the result of social construction and not “sex… genetic predispositions,” but I do think sexual differences ultimately paved way for the social construction of gender inequality. Childbirth for example, traditionally is a biological hindrance for women—raising a baby takes a lot of female resources. The physical strength predisposition of males thus facilitated the social construction that man are the caretakers and breadwinners for women across a majority of patriarchal cultures. As a result, I think gender inequality does have some basis on sexual differences. However, I do believe that just like how gender inequality is socially constructed, it can be equally deconstructed as Lorber writes.

In Gendernauts, I found it interesting that gender is a spectrum. Gender is customizable in a way and constitutes societal expectations, sex characteristics, and more. I liked the quote, “I think we all do things in our life to change our appearance or change the person we are…Some people get piercing and some people take testosterone… Gender confusion is a small price to pay for social progress.” However, this opens up the idea of sexuality as well. I have heard the term pansexual used as well since the non-binary definition of gender includes a spectrum of identities.