Personality and Gender Struggles

I'm a middle aged woman now.

There's something very freeing about middle age. You know who you are and you no longer care if other people like, get, or appreciate what you bring to the table.

That freedom, or maybe it's just the age, allows for some more meaningful reflection.

When I was a teenager, growing up in the early 90s, I aggressively explored my sexuality and I had a brief crisis of gender. The crisis was brief, but the struggle, the question about whether or not I should have been a boy, was with me until I became a Christian when I was 20 years old.

I'm not like other women. I wasn't like the girls in my class. I liked societally constructed "girly" things, but personality wise, I was bold and dominant, passionate and fiery in my own responses, but not very empathetic toward other people's emotions. I liked girly things, but I wasn't typically girly - and I wondered if, maybe, I'd been born in the wrong body.

But it was still just the 90s. Embracing an exploration of my sexual impulses was rebellion enough - I bleached and butched my hair, pierced my nose, and chased tail before it was cool. Embracing an exploration of my gender outside the confines of my mind and my mirror was a bridge too far ... and, today, I'm thankful for the lack of acceptance of it in society at that time.

Yesterday, was our homeschool group day. Our group gets together just for social engagement. The moms hang out around my dining room table and chat about life while our multi-aged children spend time together. 

Somehow we got on this subject yesterday. I'd already taken the 16 Personalities Quiz. The other two moms took it yesterday afternoon.

When researching to find the source of a claim I made in a podcast, I stumbled on this information, which became pertinent to the discussion we had on gender identity: People have compiled the data from the 16 personality quiz and determined what percentage of the population has each personality type.

Of the three of us moms, one had the most frequently observed personality type and the other had the least frequently observed. I have one which is the second least frequently observed - in the general population. Between us: ISFJs makes up 13.8% of the population, ENTJ (mine) 1.8% of the population, and INFJ 1.5% of the population.

However, when you break down those numbers by gender, the other two moms fell into a personality which, regardless of it's frequency in the general population, was dominated by women. My personality type is dominated by men. When breaking those numbers done by gender. ENTJ, and one other, tie at .9% - the lowest occurrence of personality among women. 

E stands for Extroverted as opposed to I for Introversion, N stands for iNtuitive as opposed to S for Sensing , T stands for Thinking as opposed to F for Feeling , and J stands for Judging as opposed to P for Perceiving. My personality is designated as the "Commander". My extroversion and intuition is my emotional side, but my high value for thinking and judging makes me not care so much about your emotions, which makes me not a typical woman. 

There's a reason I struggled with gender as a teen, and I'm convinced - for several reasons - that it had nothing to do with being born into "the wrong body". I have a personality which is not common for many people to have, and it's especially uncommon among women. 

I have written on personality here before. I think it has a lot to do with who we are and how we find our place in the world. My husband is a gentle soul. He's my opposite, and while he didn't struggle through gender identity or non hetero sexualities as a teen, his mother was once cautioned by a councilor that my husband was the type to be targeted by the gay community (back when councilors were allowed to observe inconvenient, "problematic" truths). 

My husband isn't what we think of when we think "manly" man - personality wise, I wear the pants. But, he's a very good man, and because of our faith, I view him as the head of the home, the leader of our family, and treat him as such. He is my perfect match. He handles me like no one else can. We don't have a lot of conflict, despite my personality, which almost generates conflict by nature. His personality is the reason we're at peace. I don't know what I'd do without him, and I hope I don't ever have to find out.

I think personality (nature) is complex and, add to that, life experience (nurture), and I think we're doing our children an enormous disservice by encouraging them to embrace and explore everything they question about themselves when they aren't old enough to even understand all that makes them who they are.

If I were a teen today, I shutter to think at the road I'd be encouraged to travel. It's enough to look back and see how much of my sexuality exploration was more harmful than helpful to my current place in this world. It has only been helpful in creating in me, from my experience, a solidness on the truth I found in my 20s, creating an understanding which reconciles that, over which, our culture is warring.

There are a couple of verses from the Bible, which I know intimately, experientially:

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." ~Romans 12: 1 & 2

When I came to faith after living the way the world told me was good and acceptable, I submitted my mind and body to that which, I read, was the will of God and, as I did, my mind renewed in it's thought process. I was transformed from the inside out. Long before I took any personality tests, I accepted that I was a woman and sought out God's purpose for making me a different kind of woman from those around me.

This is why there is a progressive war on Christianity in this country, or as Kooky Alex Jones has rightly branded, there is an actual war for our minds. When I came to Christ, my mind was transformed and my thoughts were ordered correctly and, consequently, I'm in a healthy relationship and I'm an internally healthy person, able to raise internally healthy children.

Now, politically, I believe in as much individual freedom as possible, including, or maybe most importantly, freedom of the mind. I have ZERO desire to use the force of government to push what I see as healthy thinking on you. But, I'm going to use that other freedom - freedom of speech - to speak out against what I see as unhealthy, even harmful, and to resist the swelling tide of desire to see that which is unhealthy become a thing which can not be argued because, my faith doesn't argue it, my experience does. 

My mom and her roommate are progressives. The roommate's preteen granddaughter is currently exploring her gender identity. My mother and her roommate are psychotically proud to be supportive of her exploration. I think it's a disservice, but that little girl is not mine. That little girl is theirs to guide for now. As long as freedom is protected in this society, I'm not worried about the girl. As long as freedom reigns, she will grow up into a world which will provide answers for a healthier mind should she seek them. Until then, I silently pray for her.

However, my concern is over losing the freedom to say to my son, "No, sweetheart, you aren't a princess." When my middle child was 3, he was determined that he was a princess as he tramped around the house in his sister's girly dress-up clothes.

I've been there, remember? I've walked through the paces of having my mind transformed. I know how the feelings can be so strong, so convincing, but the reality is so much more freeing and healthy, and I want a healthy son.

7 years have passed, and I have heard multiple times from my son how glad he is that he's a boy. His mind has been ordered correctly. I've helped in that, my husband too, but it has largely been his own internal process as he moves through the many influences in his life. He is now free to go discover why God made him the type of boy he is. 

Be legally free to explore who you are the way you want. Be legally free to raise your children the way you see fit, but you are working for evil in the lives of some by pushing for the legal binding of one way of thinking on everyone. My life would have been hell had I not had a transformation of mind. That process of change was instrumental in setting my son on a more successful, healthier path. 

Maybe it's the wisdom which comes with my age and experience, but life holds simple truths that are sometimes hard to find and follow. We do harm not when we think we've found those simple truths, but when we seek to make the whole world around us abide by them, as if the whole world isn't full of individuals. Individuals whose personality and life experiences aren't just like mine, or yours. It's far past time we recognize that the current day, ever expanding definition of inarguable, "Scientific fact" has been turned into a religion seeking to standardize the human experience, and as any good liberty loving personal will tell you:

The collectively forced standardization of the human experience is antithetical to liberty. It doesn't matter if the source of the standardization is a 2000 year old holy text or "Scientific Fact", if it's forced on everyone, it is the enemy of individual freedom, and our individuality will always be there to challenge the collective standard of thought.