Orientation – just when you thought it made sense.

When most people think of orientation they think of sexual orientation but the reality is that it is more complicated than that. Who people are attracted to sexually is only one aspect of orientation there is also who people are attracted to romantically as well as what other people attribute your orientations to be. These different aspects line up in most people, though the attribution can be different for some who aren't heterosexual or obviously homosexual but for those who aren't of a 'mainstream' orientation or whose sexual and romantic orientation this aspect of who they are can be rendered invisible.

Sexual orientation can be divided into a number of categories, not all of which many people have heard of. The categories are hetero, homo, bi, pan, omni, a, demi, and sapio. Heterosexual people are those who are sexually attracted to people of the opposite sex (whatever that means, usually this is used for people in a binary-identification of sex or gender). This is also called androphilia when people don't want to attach a gender to the people involved. Homosexual people are those who are attracted to people of the same sex, this has the same binary implications as heterosexuality does. This is also called gynephilia for similar reasons to androphilia. Bisexuality is the last binary identification and is sexual attraction to 'both' genders.

Pansexual and omnisexual are sexual attraction to all genders and attraction that isn't based off gender respectively. These two orientations are often put together into the same category. Asexual people aren't sexually attracted to other people and demisexual people require a relationship before sexual attraction occurs. Sapiosexual people are attracted to intelligence without regards for gender or sex. Romantic attraction has the same categories as sexual attraction but deals with who a person is attracted to have a romantic relationship with.

Orientation attribution is what other people assume your sexual and romantic attribution. Usually people assume that these two attributes match but that isn't always the case. Unless yours happen to not match however there is a distinct possibility that you have never realized that they are two different orientations. People who are assumed to be heterosexual/romantic are given cis privilege even if they aren't hetero, even the assumption of homosexuality and bisexuality give a person cis privilege that the other orientations don't get. Far too often a person who is of a non-binary orientation is rendered invisible, even in human sexuality classes where the professor should know better.

One thing that happens far too often, especially in homosexual communities is the assumption that orientation must be stable. A person changing their orientation is seen as a traitor to the community and even if that doesn't occur in many cases they aren't welcomed back into the community to the extent that they were previously. The reality however is that all orientations have some degree of fluidity. While many people have relatively stable orientations, like with gender, orientation can have a small, moderate or high level of fluidity. These fluctuations may just be for one person, or just every so often but in others there is a significantly greater level of fluctuation. Maybe the person identifies as homoflexible – a designation that says that the person is mainly homosexual but isn't entirely objecting to the possibility of an attraction to a person of another gender.

There is a lot of research into sexual orientation already, though most of it is on hetero, homo, and bi sexual people. Research is minimal on asexuals, and nearly non-existent for the other orientations. I think the best way to do this research would be to do a survey of people to find their sexual and romantic orientations both via self report and adaptations of scales previously used to detect sexual orientation. A lot of these scales can easily be adapted for use on looking at romantic orientation as well.

Looking into orientation attribution would be done in the same way as the other attributions; asking a group of people to identify peoples orientation based off of a profile of the person. In this case a written case report of various people from a variety of sexual and romantic orientations and having the people involved write down what they think the case studies orientations are. Another way to do this would be to have a staged video of a dance or party then have the participants watch and determine what the people at the event have for orientation.

As with the other categories that deal with fluidity sexual and romantic orientation fluidity can be measured retrospectively via a survey asking people how their orientations have changed over time. This can then branch out into a more in-depth set of research where people journal their orientation perhaps on a monthly basis over the course of time to see if it changes. The longitudinal study would have to take place over a number of years so that there would be a complete picture of peoples fluidity. This would be the most difficult to develop a measure to test because orientation fluidity isn't socially acceptable in may areas and many people have a goal of finding one person to settle down with and thus don't do a lot of changing of orientation after that.

As for practical uses of this I think that the best place this information can be used would be in couples therapy to establish a background on the clients. I am not sure that this orientation information alone would have much practical use beyond that but used in suite with the other areas of sexuality and gender this can give a clinician working with a person a lot of information to go on when they are assessing someone for gender or sexuality related problems. Establishing a clear baseline that doesn't deny the person's identity is vital so that a good therapeutic outcome can be reached.

The Maze of Gender

Gender is confusing. When I first started questioning my gender this is something that I said regularly and frankly, that hasn't changed much in the last year or so. Growing up it's always boy or girl, no in between, this idea is reinforced in school until as adults we are so used to a binary that is difficult for most people to change. Unless you are one of those kids who never really felt like they sat right in their gender. That little kid who did all of the 'boy things' and who didn't like the 'girl stuff' and didn't get why other kids wanted to do silly things rather than run around outside and climb trees. Thankfully University came along and I got one more opportunity to question again. Now here I am supposedly an adult and I get to do all of the gender exploration that I never got to do as a child.

My reading and researching has led me to divide gender into five categories; gender identity, gender expression, gender attribution, gender identity fluidity and gender expression fluidity. These five categories tell us what gender a person is, how often that changes as well as how that is presented to the world. As with Sex, these aren't necessarily stable quantities - a persons identity can change over time and their expression surely does. From what I have seen in my reading so far this is especially true for afab people because society is more accepting of their gender exploration than people who are amab. Now for a little more detail on each of the categories, what research needs to be done on the different hypothesis involved and then what can be done with the information.

Gender identity is one of the characteristics that people are likely most familiar with because this is where trans gender people become known. The category is a little more complicated that just cis vs trans though because we have two classifications to start with, binary and non-binary then we break those down even further. On the binary side we have cis male and cis female as well as trans male and trans female. On the non-binary side things are more complicated. We have neutrois, gender fluid, gender queer, gender neutral, agender, and I am sure there are more that I don't know of yet. Each of these non-binary classifications can have a trans history as well, though that is up to the person to identify.

Gender expression gets even more complicated with gender fucks and gender queers intentionally playing with peoples attributions. There are what are considered 'masculine' and 'feminine' expressions and dyke, boi, femme, androgynous, and all of the different combinations and classifications that can appear. For the sake of my brain I have just those I have listed here as well as an 'other' category but that may change as the research finds what people feel their expression best falls into.

Gender attribution is what other people think is your gender identity (and often your asab) just from your gender expression. This is most commonly male, female or trans but depending on the person doing the attribution the range of options can be just as broad as the range of potential identities. As with any attribution, those who are active in the gender world likely will ask a persons gender identity and their pronouns before this attribution is fully made.

Gender identity and expression fluidity can both very drastically for people, especially gender expression. The difference here though is if people attribute you to be a female then more fluidity in gender expression is accepted vs the tighter levels of acceptable gender expression exploration that society finds acceptable in males. The variation can be from essentially stable or small amounts of fluidity to semi-regular, or moderate fluidity and finally to high fluidity where your identity or expression changes quite a bit. These are two different categories but both have a big impact on a person both in how others perceive them to if they get cis privilege or not.

There have been a number of studies already into gender identity but, as is common in many programmes, non-binary identities have largely been ignored. I would like to try to replicate some of the research that has been done on gender identity while taking into account that there are non-binary people out there. I would also like to see about modifying some of the existing questionnaires to be more inclusive of non-binary people and to be able to accurately measure the gender identity of a person, rather than just leaving things in the binary.

For gender expression the best way to get this information would be a survey of people with a variety of different gender identities asking them what kinds of expression they do to show the world their gender. This can range from clothing and jewelry to body language and even methods of speaking. Clinical interviews would also be useful for this because then more information can be gathered on points that need clarification.

For gender attribution, the best way to do this would be to have a variety of people from a variety of backgrounds look at people of a variety of gender identities and expressions and have them label each with what they think the persons gender identity is. This would not only give the different kinds of labels people give but the frequency of the labels as per different identities and expressions.

Gender identity fluidity and gender expression fluidity can both be done in similar ways to the body map fluidity research I outlined last post. This would be a preliminary retrospective survey on the persons gender identity and expression and how the changes over time and a follow up longitudinal study having people journal their identity and expression over time. This combination would give both how people perceive themselves changing over time as well as the reality of what is occurring.

The practical aspect of this is that it can help a person who is struggling with their identity to clearly see what is going on, or for their therapist to get a better idea of what they are presenting. Especially if measures can be made or adapted to be used to determine this information. Examples of the use of this is to help people who are trans and want to either have surgery or go on hormones. A clinical interview to get the needed information on sex and gender in this system would tell someone that the person is trans and if they want to do hormones or surgery it can inform the process from there while validating the persons gender. The current system is invalidating for people with non-binary genders and even may binary trans people find the system to be deeply problematic. While this wouldn't entirely renovate the system a therapist using this base to evaluate the persons need for alignment processes while removing the invalidation of either the therapist denying your gender identity or having to lie about it, thus rendering your actual identity invisible. 

Let's talk about Sex

Don't get your hopes up, I am not meaning intercourse. Lets talk about bodies and what our brains tell us our bodies should be. The hypothesis I am working on when it comes to sex has it broken down into a couple of different areas as I outlined in my last post. These are (C)ASAB, Sex Identity, Sex Attribution and Body Map Fluidity. I am not entirely sure that this is what will end up as sticking in this category but it's a place to start. I'll go into more detail on each of the categories then go into ideas on how to do the research for this and potentially how it can be used.

(C)ASAB stands for (Coercively) assigned sex at birth. This can be assigned female at birth (AFAB), assigned male at birth (AMAB) or assigned intersex at birth which is then typically coercively assigned female or male following that designation. A lot of people in the non-binary and trans* communities are not only unhappy that they were assigned a gender at birth but that people seem to reduce us to our CASAB rather than listen to us when we give our gender. This is the only construct that is entirely stable for everyone, as each person has been assigned a sex at birth.

Sex Identity is if your internal body map matches your body, as well as if you plan on altering your body to better match your body map. This can be broken down into three categories. Cis sexual is where your body map and your body match. Trans sexual is where your body map and your body don't match and you have, or plan to have surgery or take hormones to align your body and map. Trans* sexual is where your body map and body don't match and you don't have plans to align your body either because you don't feel the need or can't do so. This body map and body match doesn't entirely have to do with sexual characteristics, it can also be other major aspects of your body. For example, a person who is a furry may have a body map that has a tail and since their body doesn't they may be considered trans* sexual.

Sex Attribution is what other people attribute your sex identity (usually assumed to be your asab) to be. This varies depending on the social context, but the majority of people will assume someone to be their asab or what they think is your asab. In other social contexts this might not be as likely but most people don't know what a trans* background might entail.

Body Map Fluidity is the final category under sex and is the amount that a persons internal body map fluctuates over time. Some people will have very stable body maps, where their idea of what their body should look like doesn't change much over time. People whose body map changes every so often will have a small amount of body map fluidity, people whose body map changes a decent skamount, enough to be noticeable on a regular basis would have a moderate amount of body map fluidity. The final group that has a high body map fluidity would have their map change quite often and regularly feel that change.

There isn't a lot of research to be done into ASAB as it is an assignation rather than something which will change over time. My research into sex identity will need to be in the form of surveys and interviews where I ask people about their body map, their body, and what they identify with for their sex (cis, trans, trans* etc.). This would need to be done with a sample of people who are cis as well as people who aren't. Sex attribution would need for me to have a group of people determine what someone's sex identity is based off of sight. This would need to be done with a number of people from a variety of backgrounds who would be viewing people who have cis, trans and trans* backgrounds. Body map fluidity could go in a number of ways. This could be done retrospectively by asking people about how often their body map changes or by having people regularly journal on their body map and any changes in it over a long period of time. The second one may need to be done after a retrospective survey is done so that there is a better idea of how often peoples body maps change.

What can be done with this information? To be honest I am not sure, if this system is found to be true with research then measures may be able to be developed which can help a therapist get a better picture of what a client is going experiencing. This also helps legitimize a person's body dysphoria by acknowledging it and respecting its legitimacy. This information would likely be most useful as a part of a complete picture of a persons gender and sex rather then standing on its own. 

A Research Project in the Making

My current project involves an in depth look at gender, sex, sexuality, and orientation. I am working on a hypothesis of how these are actually divided up, what is fluid, how fluid the different aspects are and the potential rates for each different 'classification.' As many who look into gender in any depth know, it's complicated. So is a persons sex, sexuality and orientation. I am going to go through my current basic breakdowns in the hopes of getting some feedback on what others think of it. Parts of this will likely make up the subject matter for my masters thesis as well as my PhD dissertation.

So here are the basic breakdowns:

Sex – (C)ASAB, Sex Identity, Sex Attribution, Body Map Fluidity

Gender – Gender Identity, Gender Expression, Gender Attribution, Gender Identity Fluidity, Gender Expression Fluidity

Orientation – Sexual Orientation, Romantic Orientation, Orientation Attribution, Sexual Orientation Fluidity, Romantic Orientation Fluidity

Sexuality – Libido, Exploration, Expression, Identification, Identification Fluidity, Libido Fluidity

Each of the second categories have the various classifications; e.g. ASAB → AFAB/AMAB. The ones I still need to work on are in the Sexuality category as that is the area I have done the least formal thought on for this kind of project. I really feel that doing this kind of mapping can help someone realize that they are complicated, fluid and that it is okay. While most people seem to assume that their ASAB = Sex Identity = Gender Identity = Gender Expression and that Sexual and Romantic Orientations are the same. While part of the research I want to do on this includes asking people these kinds of questions to find out if my hypothesis (that people assume SO and RO are the same etc) is correct I also want to use the fleshed out (and fully researched) version of this as a potential prop for therapists working with gender or sexuality “atypical” people to really look into themselves and to be able to clearly share this kind of information with their family or friends who they are having difficulties discussing these topics with.

While therapy isn't my area of interest I want my research to have practical applications for people and I hope that this is the start of something that can really help people who are struggling with identity issues. It can also help people who just need to understand what someone is talking about. By putting together a clear reference point a person can say oh on this categorization scale my Sexual Orientation is Homo and my Romantic Orientation is Hetero, both however are highly fluid. This tells a clinician something specific and useful about doing relationship therapy with the person. E.g. that the person is homosexual and heteroromantic but that they aren't stable things and may change depending on the other people involved or even just randomly. However if the romantic orientation was stable then the clinician knows that the person may be having problems in their homoromantic relationship because the client isn't homoromantic and that isn't likely to change over time either.

This gives me the idea of working on developing a set of measures to help determine a persons categories. (I really need a better word for it but right now, that's all I have. Ideas would be useful.) For example doing a 'fill in the blank' where the person puts down what they think of themselves as for each scale then have a series of questions that can help determine the answers as well. A clinical interview would also be useful to help make sure that there is a complete picture of the client. This is straying out of my field of expertise though so I will end the pondering there.

Long story short; I am working on teasing out the complicated areas of sex and gender as well as how they interact with others. I will be going into more detail on each of the different categories over the next week or two and will continue to do updates on this as the idea and the research gets more fleshed out.