Today is the last day of the three-day conference of the European Professional Association for Transgender Health (EPATH). There are many professionals involved in transgender care in this organization. The conference will take place physically in Gothenburg, Sweden, but can also be followed online. And although I would very much like to be in Gothenburg, I am attending the convention at home.
The congress means three days full of a lot of scientific research about everything that affects transgender people. I will write more about this in the near future, but I would like to start with a presentation by the Norwegian professor Esben Esther Benestad.
The presentation was about the one-dimensional, and very binary, way we often look at gender. A horizontal line with an M on the far left and a F on the far right. Professor Benestad introduced a two-dimensional way of looking at gender. It makes so much sense when you see it, but I had never looked at it that way until this presentation.
The model looks like this:
You see the line of masculinity on the left axis and the line of femininity on the upper axis. At the top left is zero percent and at both ends it is 100%. I think the great thing is that this provides much more visual insight into how differently we can identify ourselves. Instead of left or right on a line, a space is now created in which you can more freely notice where you place yourself. And when I look at myself, I notice that much more clearly that the outcome can differ per day. Try it yourself! Where do you place yourself?