Nygel Gian Santillan

EEE1

Insight Paper

I personally think that body image is a key factor in one’s self-development. How a person sees
his or her body can relate to many psychological aspects of the self such as self-esteem or self-worth. I
can attest to this notion. I am not someone who is built like a strongman so to say. I am scrawny, not that
tall, and just look like someone who is rather weak or geeky. Some people may say what’s wrong with
that and frankly who cares what people think when they see you, what matters is inside. While very much
something that should be followed, I don’t think that way unfortunately. When I look in the mirror, I see
how scrawny I am and think of how uninspiring and weak I am. Every summer, I try and exercise as
much as possible. I work out in the morning and play basketball in the afternoon. I remember one summer
where I actually started to see results and I felt great about myself. I was happy that I was improving my
physical stature and my body image improved. Unfortunately, when school started I did not have time to
exercise and all the progress I had made was gone. I felt horrible about it and I started to wonder why I
even bothered.

My body image has also affected my social life. In my old school, basketball was a very large
social aspect. All the popular people played basketball in “interclass” competitions. Near the end of my
tenure there, I really wanted to join the competition. I had regained my interest in basketball after a period
where I did not play it for a while. I had been playing at home for the past year and was improving quite a
lot. A friend of mine on the basketball varsity team encouraged me to join before because I had played
him 1 on 1. He would come to my house and we would play basketball. I beat him once before which was
rather surprising because I was much smaller than he was. I told him though that I was not ready to play
because I did not have experience playing organized basketball and that I needed to hone my skills more
before I could even come near the court. That was not the real reason why I didn’t want to play though. It
was because I still had body image problems. I thought to myself, I’m too scrawny and short to play
against those guys. My self-efficacy is directly connected to my body image. I was also scared of what the
other players would think. They had never seen me play let alone know I played basketball in the first
place. In my senior year, I seriously considered joining the competition. Another friend encouraged me to
join and we even played together during a retreat for our batch. I enjoyed it but I quickly realized that I
could not join. I was still too unathletic and scrawny in my eyes and the opinions of others weighed
heavily on me. Not joining is one of my biggest regrets in life. I feel like I deprived myself of a learning
experience by not joining. In many ways then, my body image has affected my life in a rather negative
way because of it being poor.

I think the line between sex and gender is quite defined. Sex generally is what you are born as,
male or female. Gender is more on what you identify as and has certain sociological influences in my
opinion. Your sex cannot be changed as it is automatically assigned to you at birth. Even if you identify
as a transgender, your sex will remain the same as what it was before you transitioned. Only gender can
be changed. There are a whole host of different genders that I can’t even wrap my head around.
Transgender, gender-fluid, agender the list goes on. I respect what people identify as regardless of my
own uncertainties and lack of knowledge in this area because in my opinion, everyone deserves to be
treated with equally with respect.

The debate between whether our environment or biology that affects our gender has raged on for
years. In many ways both sides have points. Men are naturally more in tune with things such as
engineering while women are more on the compassionate side. Men are also stronger than women
biologically speaking. Biology distinctly classifies the differences between a man and a woman. People
who argue that the environment is what ultimately defines the gender of a person claim that pressure is
put on both male and females to act according to their sex. As a result, both tend to act in masculine and
feminine manners respectively. With this in mind, gender becomes a social construct if we were indeed to
base it on the notion that gender is formed as a result of environment.

This is a rather hard subject to discuss. I know for a fact how sensitive people are about this topic.
If you so much stray slightly off line and something remotely offensive, you are persecuted by a group of
people hell-bent on destroying anyone who opposes them. Personally, I think gender is influenced by both
environment and biology. It’s never just one side with gender if you think about it. Biologically speaking,
most people’s gender will most likely lean to their gender at birth. Even if you are transgender, you will
still have part of you that is not the gender you identify as now. Look at it this way, say you’re a man who
has transitioned to a woman, and you enter a weightlifting contest. You are a man by nature but now
identify as a woman so you are allowed to enter the competition for women. You have a biological
advantage because you were born a man. You have more muscle mass, tougher bones, better endurance,
and etcetera. It does not matter how much hormone replacements or surgical procedures you have had to
make yourself more of a woman because at your core, you are a man with a significant biological
advantage against these women. I remember watching a video about transgender female runners
dominating college competition. The other female runners felt wronged because they knew that they were
essentially racing against men. I felt so bad for some of them because they genuinely felt that they were
robbed out of victories and other incentives. I’d just like to clarify that I have absolutely nothing against
the transgender community. I do have something against these sports organizers for allowing this to
happen. They know that transgender athletes, especially transgender female athletes, have an advantage
against women, yet they continue to let this happen. I understand that you want to show that you accept
people of all genders. Good on you for that, but aren’t you forgetting about the other women who are also
competing. You are robbing them of achievements by allowing this to happen. What if it’s a contact sport?
You are putting the female athlete in great danger because you are essentially pitting her against a man.
The notion that men are stronger than women is a biological fact. It is by no means sexist or gender
biased. It is a simple fact. Unfortunately, if I voice my concerns as I have done here to the rest of the
world, I will be persecuted and called a narcissist. I will be labeled as someone who hates women and is
also transphobic. These people will then have the unmitigated gall to call for my head or the typical “go
kill yourself” message so often found on the internet. Well, I’m sorry this hurts your feelings but I’m just
stating a fact. I am fighting for the rights of these women yet you call me a sexist. I only state factual
things about the biology of transgender people yet I am transphobic even though I have made sure to not
say something offensive. The world is so full of mind numbingly idiotic hypocrisy that it genuinely
makes me believe that we were placed in this world only to suffer.

I am a firm believer of the sociological self. It refers to how one’s self can be defined by the
influence of people around you. I do think that gender is at least in some way influenced by people that
surround you. What we see online, how people around us treat us, what they say can all have an effect on
our gender. I realize that what I stated is rather vague so let me give an example. Say you’re a woman
who initially does in fact identify as a woman. Imagine people around her say “You act and talk like a
guy” or “You know you remind me of some of my guy friends.” Imagine her male co-workers inviting
her for a guys’ night out. Imagine her seeing more and more people coming out and identifying as the
opposite gender online. All are perfectly harmless situations and instances. Ultimately however, this may
cause a revelation and lead to her identifying as a man instead because society has portrayed her as such.
Unlikely, sure, but impossible I don’t think so. We live in a society today that pushes us to be ourselves or
discover ourselves but at the same time, we can’t really discover our true selves because we are constantly
influenced by others. I’m not saying this is bad, I’m just saying that in a world driven by social constructs,
cultural norms, and opinions, it becomes increasingly difficult to find the true self. Instead, we have this
false self that is constructed out of what society expects us or molds us to be.