Southern Sendergex

The terms “gender” and “sex” became the topic de jour a few weeks ago at a Board meeting, terms that are often used interchangeably and incorrectly. So we decided that with our expert opinions of all things Southern, we could at least put our spin on the subject and engaged in a lively banter of the status quo of our times with transgender bathrooms, transvestites, and transmuting with or without the benefit of surgery. In other words, are we either guys or gals? We digressed into a discussion about not being able to sleep at night, one reason being because men seem to have a bathroom problem. One board member noted that he woke up at 3:00 am, could not go back to sleep and bought a rifle on line. And I’m thinking, what, had all the internet sites – worldwide – that sell shoes crashed and failed in the wee hours of the morning — pun intended. Guys and Gals are just different, not ‘trans,’ they don’t float back and forth like an ocean liner.

I discovered later that gender is defined as social roles, those behaviors that society consider appropriate, or simply masculine and feminine. Sex refers to the biological characteristics that define men and women, or simply male and female. In essence, our gender roles vary in our society, but sex is determined by our anatomy. The question we are faced with currently is can our feelings of gender characteristics dictate our sex. Medical theories, psychology, politics and civil rights are exploding with the controversy in order to resolve the ethical issues of developing a one size fits all society; the theory being, we are what we think we are. It touches the South but not our Southern minds.

Southern guys are raised to fix things, hunt, and slug down cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer. They even write stories about fixing slugging guns. Guys need these things around them in order to be manly in the South; that is after all, what they do. They have the ability to kill bugs, reroute pipes and ducts, mud drywall and cook on a grill. Calling a plumber is the last resort and causes trauma when it becomes necessary. If a conversation turns to Remington or Winchester, the excitement grows to a fevered pitch and each gun is taken apart, cleaned, realigned and armed with a caliber that is intelligible to only a few. Ethical issues revolve around whether killing a deer by running over it with a jeep is a “kill” so that you can mount the head on the den wall. The same can be said with talk about distributor caps, power tools, sizes of sockets, nuts and bolts and trapping raccoons. These are just guy things in our small world but Southern guys excel in talking, chewing, scratching and spitting simultaneously while enjoying various guy toys. Their ‘trans-characteristics’ are they also possess a sense of protectiveness of their families, they care for friends and neighbors as their duty, they are occasionally useful, and they like babies.

Southern gals are different and have learned the valuable lesson of slowing down and enjoying being Southern. They go barefoot, host bridal teas, and politely sip beer out of stemmed glasses while “crockpotting” supper. They wear lipstick and paint their fingernails and toe nails the same color, and if the color is the same as the lips, then the world is a better place. They appreciate the value in knowing that their underwear matches and that you only wear the good perfume to church on Sundays. There is no such thing as too much food in the South and gals know which fork to eat it with properly, consuming large quantities of biscuits in a single sitting. The use of plastic forks and Styrofoam are social blunders and homemade is better that anything bought at Sam’s. But they can also work as hard as any man and take care others with their own type of toolbox, which may or may not have a hammer in it. Southern gals have guns – loaded and packed – and know how to use them, but they will defend themselves with the hammer if need be. When provoked, they can be transfigured into a wicked witch dropping houses on you or hit you with a tranquil smile and a stare that is more dangerous than an army of flying monkeys.

Following my brief dictionary search of the meanings of gender and sex, and with a little Southern flare, I summarize that gender refers to shooting guns or wearing pearls; sex, aside from being a weekly activity, refers to those private parts that are not displayed in polite society. We were raised by loving, God-fearing people; nurtured to value our differences, embrace our similarities, and to respect that which others earn through hard work. Our differences are trivial when we realize that we are all created equal and we share a variety of Southern customs that make us whole beings.

If sex somehow determines gender but gender cannot determine sex, we could refer to it with a word that expresses our social sense of the South, a term that works with our condition of being profoundly Southern – “sendergex.” The sendergextic person will be content with transitory feelings of masculinity or femininity as well as the transformation of aging body parts, male and female, realizing that they have no lasting effect on our self worth. We know our true selves because we know in which bathroom we belong and we know whether to stand or sit, even in the wee hours of the morning.