In my post of June 9 2021, Masquerade: Identities of Sex and Gender as Culture, Ethnicity, and Performance, I posed a question of how we discover who we want to become. As a joke I imagined a field guide and called it Queer Tribes, and How to Find Yours.
In clarification, truth telling, writing as a sacred calling in pursuit of truth, and the openness of my soul and witness of history, I am not a member of the constellation of identities which may be referred to as queer, and I cannot speak as their voice or from within the lived experience of their truths.
As a metaphor of otherness, the idea of queerness remains a powerful means of leveraging change through solidarity of action versus authorized identities and systems of oppression, and this is why I use it here. Those truths immanent in nature and written in our flesh possess vast autonomizing forces and numinous potentia for the envisionment, reimagination, and transformation of ourselves, humankind, and how we choose to be human together.
As Mary Oliver framed the question; “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
In the following paragraph I speculated about what such a work might involve; If I were designing an instrument for this purpose in terms of sexual orientation and identities of sex and gender, I would base the process not on any precut selection of labels or prescriptive authorization of identities like the Sorting Hat in Harry Potter, which involves both submission to authority and overdetermination as a limiting factor, but on descriptive taxonomy and a tool with which I am very familiar, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which could easily be modified for the discovery of identities of sex and gender.
How does that work? With nothing more than a change of emphasis in terms, though I’m sure diagnostic questions specific to sexual orientation and desire can be written for the purposes of finding oneself, viable partners, and communities where one belongs.
We must first define what we mean when we speak of identities of sex and gender. By gender I mean who you are; as identity a confluence of holistic and interdependent and evolving relations between all four categories of being, which include nature, thinking, feeling, and nurture, and as expression, social, cultural, and historical constructions of values and ideals of masculine and feminine beauty and gender roles as performances. By sex I mean biology and the morphology of our form including evolutionary influences, genetics, and hormones, and by sexual orientation I mean whom and what one desires, which can be influenced by both sex and gender but is determined by neither. Such identities are complex, layered, nuanced, and ambiguous, shifting and protean, as our identities of sex and gender shape each other as adaptive processes of change.
As I’ve often said, this is a primary ground of struggle, of life, growth, adaptation, and individuation, and the creation of ourselves as autonomous beings in revolution against authority and the tyranny of other people’s ideas of virtue and beauty, and idealizations of masculinity and femininity.
That the interplay of masculine and feminine signs of identity and modes of being is descriptively useful need not be determinative, but a space of free creative play.
Always there remains the struggle between the masks that others make for us and those we make for ourselves. This is the first revolution in which we all must fight; the seizure of power over the ownership of ourselves.
Let us answer the question of who we are with grandeur and the frightening of the horses; let us claim, I am a Bringer of Chaos and Transformation, I am a Fulcrum of Change, I am the Revolution. And with Loki the Trickster let us say; “I am burdened with a glorious purpose”, that of self discovery and self creation.
If we are to map the topologies of identities of sex and gender as possibilities of human being, meaning, and value, we must consider as distinct classes the social and interpersonal sphere of action and relations or gender expression and in a limited sense sexual behavior, what one does, as opposed to sexual orientation, what one wants, which include as motivating, informing, and shaping forces authorized gender identities and role models offered us by history, society, and culture, which are arbitrary and ephemeral, and those of the intrapersonal, what one is, our processes of thinking and feeling, which arise from within us rather than being imposed from without, but which are then shaped and conditioned by role modeling and how we are treated, especially by our parents.
I say again, gender identity is an artifact of being, which is influenced by all four levels of self.
These dyadic forces of sex and gender function interdependently to create and shape the highly relational and context-determined thing we call our selves; a dance of potentialities as feminine anima and masculine animus, and our persona or the masks we wear.
For such a mapping system and wayfinding compass, I turn first to Jung’s magisterial work Psychological Types, and to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator which was developed from it. It is a precision tool, which allows us to locate ourselves and others through our constellations of traits along the infinite Moebius Loop of human possibilities of sex and gender with predictive and explanatory power in terms of our relationships in romance, friendships, and work.
By direct word substitution of descriptors in the Jungian personality quadrants, we find a useful general theory of sexual and gender identity as a function of the interfaces between the bounded realms of biological determinants including genetics, neurotransmitters, and epigenetic or multigenerational historic legacies, and historical, cultural, and sociopolitical contexts which balances nature and nurture.
We begin at birth with sexual identity, which stands outside the system of personality but influences it, primarily through relative prenatal exposure to testosterone and estrogen in the intrapersonal sphere, which we can broadly think of as gender identity with awareness that identity is complex and nondeterminative, and dopamine and serotonin in the interpersonal sphere of gender performance. Everyone has degrees of both masculinity and femininity, just as a whole person possesses both a conscious self and an unconscious self which is of the opposite gender, our animus and anima. These anima-animus relations and processes are found at all four levels of being, of which we may or may not be aware and so have limited volitional control of or personal responsibility for, meaning that we cannot simply choose to be other than we are.
This means that any relationship is quadratic and includes our own relationship with our unconscious which is of the opposite gender from our conscious selves, our partner’s internal relations, our conscious relationship with our partner’s waking self, and our submerged unconscious relations of which we are not aware but which shape our conscious ones. Simple, no?
And we wonder why relationships can be laden with issues, when the answer is simple; relationships are complex because we are.
Jung’s primary layer of personality, mind, maps directly onto this dyadic anima-animus relation, and is a measure of masculinity or independent self construal, as Extroversion which includes dominance and assertiveness, and femininity or interdependent self construal, as Introversion or nurturance.
Masculine traits of Extroversion include Initiating, Active, Expressive, Gregarious, and Enthusiastic; the first two related to dominance and assertiveness, and the last three components of sociability.
Feminine traits of Introversion include Receiving, Contained, Intimate, Reflective, and Quiet.
This fundamental dichotomy is inborn and manifests in infants as preferences for attention, interests, and play; in boys for things and how they work as objects and motion, and in girls for human facial expressions and imaginative doll play.
Jung’s second layer of personality and the next to develop as a childhood stage of growth, energy, describes how we conceptualize the world and process information, a balance of feminine Intuitive and masculine Observant traits.
Feminine Intuition involves holistic thinking, qualitative analytics, questions, wonder, and imagination; linguistic-emotional-interpersonal cognition.
Masculine Observation involves part to whole reasoning, quantitative analysis, and how things work; logical-mathematical-mechanical cognition.
Jung’s third layer of personality, nature, describes how we make decisions and process emotions; here we have traits shaped most directly by hormonal factors, though hormones influence all three of our first layers of personality as developmental stages. Otherwise gender identity would be a function of this third layer, when it is a coevolutionary product of all four successive layers of personality. This area measures our Thinking, influenced by testosterone or masculinity, and our Feeling, influenced by estrogen or femininity.
Masculine Thinking traits influenced by testosterone include: decisive, focused, direct, logical-analytical, strategic thinkers, bold, competitive, excel at rule bound systems such as machines, math, and music.
Feminine Feeling traits influenced by estrogen include: holistic and contextual thinking, imaginative, superior at verbal skills and executive social skills like reading expressions, posture, gestures, and tone of voice; also nurturing, sympathetic, intuitive, and emotionally expressive.
In the fourth layer of personality, that of gender performance and expression or one’s strategic and tactical approach to life, relationships, and work; here we have traits shaped by acculturation and historical factors. This area measures our balance of structure versus spontaneity; our Perceiving, influenced by dopamine and corresponding to masculinity, and our Judging, influenced by serotonin and corresponding to femininity.
Masculine Perceiving or Prospecting traits influenced by dopamine include: seeking novelty, risk taking, spontaneity, curiosity, creativity, mental flexibility, optimism.
Feminine Judging traits influenced by serotonin include: calm, social, cautious, persistent, loyal, orderly, fond of rules and facts.
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test gives us four categories of personality types, of four types each.
The Analyst Group contains the Architect (INTJ), Logician (INTP), Commander (ENTJ), and Debater (ENTP) types.
The Diplomat Group contains the Advocate (INFJ), Mediator (INFP), Protagonist (ENFJ), and Campaigner (ENFP) types.
The Sentinel Group contains the Logistician (ISTJ), Defender (ISFJ), Executive (ESTJ), and Consul (ESFJ) types.
The Explorer Group contains the Virtuoso (ISTP), Adventurer (ISFP), Entrepreneur (ESTP), and Entertainer (ESFP) types.
What does this look like in the context of real people? Here I will use myself as an example and case, for as written by Virginia Woolf; “If you cannot tell the truth about yourself, you cannot tell it about other people.”
I test as an ENFP or Campaigner; in my most primal layer of personality I am 65% Extrovert over 35% Introvert. This manifests in me as a love of risk and adventure, and a natural leadership and people-centeredness which has been useful in my professional career as a teacher and counselor. I instinctively and reflexively seek to dominate and seize power in any situation, even when consciously trying to keep myself in check as Extroversion favors competition over cooperation though my ideology construes this as a negative. My Extroversion also influences my idea of life as a game of transgression and chaos, to be played with creative freedom, improvisation, fearlessness, and a gourmet aesthetics which valorizes both the monstrous and the beautiful; you can count on me to ignore authority, change the rules of any game, delight in the violation of norms, and to play our games of human being, meaning, and value without any boundaries whatever.
I remain the boy who upon hearing the term Original Sin for the first time from a friend, said; “I’ll think of some new ones we can play, games of our very own.”
In the layer of Energy, how we direct our thoughts and passions, I am 83% Intuitive over 17% Observant, a balance enormously toward femininity. This means that I reason holistically and infer hidden relationships and patterns as a strength, that interpretation and qualitative analysis comes more easily than quantitative or mechanical tasks, and that I think outside the box and draw outside the lines, which makes me good at solving unknowns. On a team I’m the one you want as the fire brigade handling unforeseen issues, so long as I have a good forensic investigator for failure reconstruction and analysis at my right and a staff officer to handle logistics and planning at my left. I’m a natural at intelligence, strategy, and policy functions, investigations and putting puzzles together to make guesses about what the picture they make could mean and how to use it to achieve goals. This has been my role in my primary career of the last forty years as a revolutionary and hunter of fascists.
In the third layer of Nature, how we make decisions and process emotions, I am 92% Feeling and only 8% Thinking. This is an extreme score, statistically anomalous and my strongest personality trait; a preference for empathy and ungoverned passion. As an influence in relationships it makes me the caretaker of partnerships, and professionally I’m a natural at quickly reading people and profiling motives and intentions, sifting for truth, and assessing character. Combined as a multiplier with my No Boundaries preference and identity as a bringer of Chaos, it also makes me unpredictable, which has been very useful in games of revolutionary struggle and seizures of power.
In the fourth layer of personality, that of Tactics or one’s approach to life and work, I am 57% Prospecting and 43% Judging. This means my masculine/feminine balance in terms of gender performance and roles, the most outwardly visible part of oneself and the layer of being others interact with most often, is toward masculinity, and informs how I read to others as a system of signs.
To restate how I interpret my personality profile; both my intrapersonal gender identity and interpersonal gender performance as an observable external cueing system, the mask I wear in the social performance of myself, in my case controlled by my Extroversion and Prospecting traits in the first and fourth layers of personality, is masculine or animus, which makes my unconscious self, always a mirror image, feminine or anima, and comprised of the layers of personality which are internal and hidden, as reflected in my Intuitive and Feeling traits. I regard this as an achievement of integration and the work of finding balance and wholeness.
These two pairs of traits face Janus like as sides of a whole person in dynamic balance, and together form a quadratic personality type which can take 16 forms, which reflect and organize relative masculinity and femininity as adaptive processes.
As to type compatibility and the use of the MBTI system in sifting for partners, in general opposites attract in the first and fourth layers of personality, Introverts with Extroverts and Prospectors with Judges, dyadic masculine-feminine pairs and aspects of personality revealed in gender performance, and like aligns with or has no influence in the second and third layers, which are mainly concealed from public view and correspond to the unconscious.
The surfaces of ourselves and the masks we wear in our dances with others are but images and reflections moving atop a vast and bottomless sea, within whose chasms of darkness we are all interconnected.
And none of this tells you anything about the interdependent realm of love and desire as informing, motivating, and shaping sources which both act on us as their subject and through us as their figures and agents, though it tells us everything we need to know about what we would be like as a romantic partner, friend, colleague at work or comrade in action. A human being is a work of art shaped by such forces of our nature as well as history, like stone sculpted by the action of wind and water.
Insightful work in the influence of neurotransmitters on personality has been pioneered by Dr. Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist who built chemistry.com’s matching systems from her studies. Her schema, which modernizes and maps directly onto the Jungian theory of personality as I have described, dispenses with Jung’s first two categories, the Introvert/Extrovert primary layer and the Intuitive/Observant secondary layer, and yields a simple dominant and recessive binary personality type rather than the 16 types in the Myers-Briggs scale. This is why I am inclined to incorporate Fisher’s studies of hormone and neurotransmitter biochemistry into the Jungian model of personality and use her test as a quick reference tool in addition to the MBTI rather than a replacement; the Fisher model lacks predictive power because it is flawed. Personality is a developmental process which unfolds in stages as a child becomes a person, and if you ignore this and the first two stages of growth the results become unreliable. The Fisher model can be a useful tool for matching with partners using the test and essay together, if you don’t take it too seriously, but for a tool of self discovery I turn to the Myers-Briggs test.
Her Word Type study asked people to describe themselves in an essay for Chemistry.com and found the ten most common words each type used.
Explorers, Jung’s masculine Perceivers, used adventure most often, with the other ten in descending order being; venture, spontaneous, energy, new, fun, traveling, outgoing, passion, and active.
Builders, Jung’s feminine Judges, used family most often, then honesty, caring, moral, respect, loyal, trust, values, loving, and trustworthy.
Negotiators, Jung’s feminine Feelers, used passion most often, then real, heart, kind, sensitive, reader, sweet, learn, random, and empathetic.
Directors, Jung’s masculine Thinkers, used intelligent most often, then intellectual, debate, geek, nerd, ambition, driven, politics, challenging, and real.
Here you can take the Fisher Personality Type Test; read each statement and record the answer that best applies to you. Acronyms are Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Agree, Strongly Agree.
Scale 1
1. I find unpredictable situations exhilarating.
2. I do things on the spur of the moment.
3. I get bored when I have to do the same familiar things.
4. I have a very wide range of interests.
5. I am more optimistic than most people.
6.I am more creative than most people.
7. I am always looking for new experiences.
8.I am always doing new things.
9. I am more enthusiastic than most people.
10. I am willing to take risks to do what I want to do.
11. I get restless if I have to stay home for any length of time.
12.My friends would say I am very curious.
13. I have more energy than most people.
14. On my time off, I like to be free to do whatever looks fun.
Total
Scale 2
1.I think consistent routines keep life orderly and relaxing.
2. I consider and reconsider every option thoroughly before making a plan.
3. People should behave according to established standards of proper conduct.
4. I enjoy planning way ahead.
5. In general, I think it is important to follow rules.
6. Taking care of my possessions is a high priority for me.
7. My friends and family would say I have traditional values.
8. I tend to be meticulous in my duties.
9. I tend to be cautious, but not fearful.
10. People should behave in ways that are morally correct.
11. It is important to respect authority.
12. I would rather have loyal friends than interesting friends.
13. Long established customs need to be respected and preserved.
14. I like to work in a straightforward path toward completing the task.
Total
Scale 3
1. I understand complex machines easily.
2. I enjoy competitive conversations.
3. I am intrigued by rules and patterns that govern systems.
4. I am more analytical and logical than most people.
5. I pursue intellectual topics thoroughly and regularly.
6. I am able to solve problems without letting emotion get in the way.
7. I like to figure out how things work.
8. I am tough-minded.
9. Debating is a good way to match my wits with others.
10. I have no trouble making a choice, even when several alternatives seem equally good at first.
11. When I buy a new machine (like a camera, computer, or car) I want to know all of its technical features.
12. I like to avoid the nuances and say exactly what I mean.
13. I think it is important to be direct.
14. When making a decision, I like to stick to the facts rather than be swayed by people’s feelings.
Total
Scale 4
1. I like to get to know my friends deepest needs and feelings.
2. I highly value deep emotional intimacy in my relationships.
3. Regardless of what is logical, I generally listen to my heart when making important decisions.
4. I frequently catch myself daydreaming.
5. I can change my mind easily.
6. After watching an emotional film, I often still feel moved by it several hours later.
7. I vividly imagine both wonderful and horrible things happening to me.
8. I am very sensitive to people’s feelings and needs.
9. I often find myself getting lost in my thoughts during the day.
10.I feel emotions more deeply than most people.
11. I have a vivid imagination.
12. When I wake up from a vivid dream, it takes me a few seconds to return to reality.
13. When reading, I enjoy it when a writer takes a sidetrack to say something beautiful or meaningful.
14. I am very empathetic.
Scoring the test
0 for each SD, 1 for each D, 2 points for each A and three for SA. Add each section separately.
Scale 1 measures Masculinity as Dominance, the degree to which you are butch or an Explorer based on your Perceiving traits.
Scale 2 measures Femininity as Submissiveness, Judging traits or the degree to which you align with Fisher’s Builder personality type.
Scale 3 measures Masculinity as logical-mathematical-mechanical cognition, Thinking quadrant traits or what Fisher calls the Director personality type.
Scale 4 measures Femininity as linguistic-emotional-interpersonal cognition or Feeling traits on the Myers-Briggs scale which Fisher calls the Negotiator personality type.
The two top scores are your primary and secondary traits.
For further study of the idea of gender, I refer you to the works of Judith Butler; including Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Undoing Gender, and Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex, and to those of Anne Fausto-Sterling; Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality, and Myths Of Gender: Biological Theories About Women And Men.
The nature versus nurture debate can be explored in the oppositional works of Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference by Cordelia Fine, and Human Diversity: Gender, Race, Class, and Genes by Charles Murray.
In histories, Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century,
by Charles King.
In biography, Monsieur d’Eon Is a Woman: A Tale of Political Intrigue and Sexual Masquerade by Gary Kates.
In fiction, we have Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, Joseph Cassara’s House of the Impossible Beauties, Jordy Rosenberg’s Confession of the Fox, and Time Is the Thing a Body Moves Through, by T. Fleischmann.
The Sorting Hat, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test
https://personalityjunkie.com/01/masculine-feminine-myers-briggs-mbti-vs-big-five
Torch of Liberty 