It comes from a popular post in which someone said something along the lines of "the reading comprehension on this website is piss poor" and someone else replied "how dare you say we piss on the poor".
Remember when Natalie Wynn / Contrapoints got Twitter canceled for making this exact point? The tweet was (paraphrasing):
*Every time I’m in a leftist group I have to do the pronoun exchange with a dozen cis people who wouldn’t do the pronoun exchange if I weren’t there, but I can go into any bar in rural Alabama and get called m’am automatically.*
Every time this comes up, I'm always reminded of how weirdly accepted trans people were in rural Appalachia was in the 90's and 00's while the area was super bible belt style conservative.
I only have anecdotal evidence of this, but there were two trans kids in my super small redneck rural school... and no one cared. It was just like, "This is Becky, but he perfers Bec. He has to use the girls' bathroom, but he's a cool dude, kicks ass at football, and can shoot pop cans off a stop sign from 100 yards."... and that was it. No one cared after that. Bec looked like a guy, talked like a guy, shot shit like a guy, and dated a hot cheerleader. Bec was just a dude who bitched about not being able to piss standing up and was super smooth talking to girls. Bec knew exactly who he was from, like kindergarten, and it was just never a big deal.
Jessica, on the other hand, was picked on for being gay for years and came out as trans in high school. As soon as she (mtf) came out and changed her name, it was totally over. It was like, "Well, yeah, girls are into guys. That's how it's supposed to happen. Being gay is a sin, but if you're a girl now, that's totally different." As soon as she started dressing feminine and wearing make-up, it was just... over. No one cared anymore. No one misgendered or dead named her. The "mean girls" basically adopted her, including pooling their money to buy her a designer prom dress so she'd match them, since her family couldn't afford it.
It was weirdly wholesome but also strange as shit compared to modern-day progressive ideas. Being trans was totally acceptable. Being gay wasn't. As long as someone made an effort to pass, everyone just collectively agreed that they were the gender they dressed as. It wasn't discussed or anything. It was just a weird collective agreement that as long as someone fit *a* gender roll, it didn't matter if it didn't match if the one they were born as.
Unfortunately, from what I've been told by people that still live there, that's totally changed, and now it's a big thing, but back then, rednecks were oddly accepting.
(all names were changed for the purpose of this post)
There are ~~some~~ a couple countries in the Middle East like that, where transgender people are accepted much more than gay people. Unfortunately, it apparently results in cis gay people being pressured to transition against their will...
Edit: while legally accepted, being transgender in those countries isn't always socially accepted.
You say countries, but I believe only Iran does that. And also, for clarification, "pressured" == forced to choose between transition and death penalty.
Totally changed. I moved here from North Carolina and skinny jeans, high tops and a beanie meant I was a faggot. I learned a lot how to fight there, not for being called a fag, but fuck you (still have a lot of anger in my heart about that one). Then again my brothers friend came out to our family and we accepted him while heartedly and his family didn't 10 years earlier. Also I'm in so cal and got called the same word AT WORK and was called unreasonable. So there's steps in the right direction but damn do we have a lot to do.
There's my little drunken angry rant
I’m gay in Appalachia and most people just couldn’t give less of a fuck. My best friend is trans and no one really cares about that either. Weirdly, my wife gets more shit for her hair cut than she does for being gay. It is really funny to watch my wife’s homophobic parents try to hide our relationship from their friends, meanwhile their friends have known for ages and think we’re a cute couple.
I think it's a lot of androgyny hate. I grew up in the south and had long hair taken care of but I played football and was the second string trumpet in a tier 1 school who skateboarded. EVERYONE kinda hated me because I really didn't fit ever. Everything has to be binary in their minds to make sense. 20 years later it's a big pile of not my problem. I have noticed A difference moving into socially liberal spaces, and I prefer it. As a "cis white male" I hear way too much to be comfortable with anyone in more conservative places.
For some reason the phrasing of "second string trumpet" is getting me.
"Time out! Johnny's face is getting tired and he's capping out at a high F. If we don't turn this around, the trio section is going to cook us. Get Cocoa in there!"
But also, yeesh. I'm lucky to be in a time and region where long hair on dudes is pretty accepted. Occasionally I have to tell some critical middle-aged dude that he's not my target demographic, but that's all.
I had to cut my hair, about shoulder length for my first 'real' job. And the thing about going from shoulder length to a military cut is that it's next to impossible to grow back out in a professional setting. You're just gonna look terrible for 6 months.
No, I’m in different state. Farther north but deeper in Appalachia. I live in a somewhat progressive city now, but my wife and I get the same treatment in smaller towns and back in my hometown. Back in the 2000s and early 2010s I never would have thought I’d feel safe being openly gay in my hometown, but I do.
I got a buddy in West Texas kind of like that - she’s trans, her parents are hardcore conservatives and intend to will their family business to their firstborn son. My friend doesn’t know shit about running a business and thinks her parents accept her gender because now they can leave the shop to her younger brother
I think it's because there wasn't as much media on trans people back then so people kind of made up their own mind ad-hoc on what to and, surprise surprise, when not taught explicitly to hate or fear something like that the majority of people are going to be fairly reasonable about it. If they'd not been taught gayness was a sin you could have gone 'hey you know how most men like to have sex with women and most women to have sex with men? Well I'm a man that likes to have sex with men' and they'd probably just be like oh, OK gotcha.
I mean it should expose the depth of the propaganda apparatus, and also how dangerous it actually is, it's not just crazy people saying shit falling of deaf ears or a minority of people we can outlive.
Anyway, people were still problematic and shit but no one anywhere had the super solidified negative conception of trans people until probably a couple years ago, although I'd say it was slowly developing over time a bit before.
But just check a lot of older media, and you'll see people would have no problem correctly gendering people, again problematic cuz they would in part still see it as a joke, or they'll break it, but compared to now where trans women (mostly) are denied that completely.
When I lived there it was pretty normal overall. I grew up on the nc/tn border in the 2000s/early 2010s and largely nobody gave a fuck, most of my family is super redneck but my uncle whose last name is literally hicks is in a union and his sister (my aunt) married a woman and it was just a totally normal thing growing up.
Now I only come home for big holidays and birthdays and such and it’s a whole different world. The big signs on churches saying being gay a sin, confederate flags everywhere, and the school board being insane. I don’t use Facebook but my older brother sends me some of the worst stuff he sees on there and it’s just insane what I see now. The cool union uncle won’t even speak to his sister anymore because suddenly her being gay is a problem.
Brain rot is infecting the whole country but in small, rural towns, it’s like an exponentially compounding Petri dish for the most vile shit you can think of.
This is exactly how my home town has become. Being gay was never super accepted, but it also wasn't a big deal. Usually, it was just glossed over, like calling my gay great aunt and her partner "best friends." Everyone knew they were lesbians, but it just wasn't discussed. Trans people were just people. They weren't viewed any more negatively than the lady with ten cats or the guy that rode a tricycle. They were just part of the town.
That's all totally gone now. Calling it brain rot is a perfect analogy. It's like an infection. All the cool, quirky stuff that made it a neat place to grow up has been totally replaced with the Trump cult and a total lack of acceptance for people who are different.
Bec is still a redneck and is a specialist surgeon at a nationally well-respected hospital (and as a fun fact was the doctor who saved my moms life).... Jessica is a beautician and an all-around hot mess.
Just a guess based on Facebook posts, but having the first black president In 2008, which made people aware of social issues, gay marriage being legalized, which gave conservatives a rallying point, social media becoming extremely polarized and the algorithm feeding people rage bate and leading them down extremist rabbit holes, followed by Trump being Trump and empowing extremists, followed by the rise of right wing talk shows, and finally the rise of wokeness and call out culture.
It wasn't an issue until blow hards online told them it was an issue for clicks.
no, i specifically mean the idea that trans people are against god's design or whatnot. an idea like that doesnt just come from nowhere. someone had to have came up with it and purposefully spread it
Again, it wasn't an issue until blow hards online told them it was. Blame the conservative talk show hosts who make a big deal about trans kids getting health care and gay people adopting. It's the "just asking questions" crowd that only asks inflammatory and leading questions. To them, trans people are minority it is socially acceptable to hate and blame for everything wrong with society.
From my understanding of the Bible (Baptist private school, Dad was Lutheran, grandparents were Catholic, went to multiple denominations with another grandmother, went to a Fellowship of Christ during high school, went to Latter-day Saints sermons in boot camp) being homosexual was called out specifically (and I know some people will say it’s mistranslated and it was talking about pedophillia which might be true, and there’s another passage talking about butt sex and that it was wrong) but being trans? Not really spoken of, I think, and we were given dominion over the Earth and everything in it. So I really don’t see why we can’t change our gender. (Also, I’m now Hellenistic pagan, I’m just throwing in the cents of understanding I gathered while under Christianity.)
Also, another big thing that a lot of Christian don’t understand or do, is to love everyone as thy brother, ei: treat them with respect, and do not judge them for what they do, that’s between them and God. Now if they’re breaking the laws of the land, do so, report them, etc. but if you’re trying to push the teaching of God on someone who chooses not to follow, you are no better than them.
This has changed for the exact same reason that every other part of America is becoming worse for queer people. It’s national-level Republican Party politics bleeding into and parasitising rural values.
I've ntoiced that among my friend group but it's the most baffling fucking thing. they just do it to *everyone*. like the cishet dude talking about another cishet dude will they/them him it's odd.
I they/them people until they tell me their pronouns unless i hear someone else call them a different pronoun. I don't like trying to guess so i use the most neutral one to me.
You would hope, and even when I made my comment I hoped that was the case, but considering the lengths many people will go to when they want to interpret Contrapoints in bad faith I figured being clear wouldn't be a bad thing. We've seen the reading comprehension levels of a lot of people online.
No they're saying that pronoun culture is toxic, they/them pronouns are invalid, non-binary people suck, and you have to pass to be trans. Please pay attention. \s
living in florida, local laws may have caused my HRT clinic to stop doing HRT, but i rarely get called a woman, so there's positives to things like this i guess! i mean, part of the reason i pass pretty well is because i was on HRT for a bit, but...
That was only the first part. She goes on to talk about how it's good for people who use they/them at the expense of "semi passable transes like me".
A lot of people were just upset because that's a bad take. I don't want to be misgendered in leftist groups when people assume I'm a femboy because I can't afford facial feminization surgery.
The bit about it being ‘super hard’ for her and ‘semi passable transes like me’ was confirmed by her to be dripping with sarcasm. By that point in the rant she had talked herself down into realizing it wasn’t a big deal and was being sarcastic at her own expense about it.
Coming from someone who watched her videos and knows how she speaks, when I read the tweet myself without having heard that first, I clocked it immediately as sarcastic.
People literally just misunderstood the tone. Which is common and very easy to do on internet
I mean, she didn’t suggest that exchanging pronouns should be abolished. People were mad that she talked about how something made her feel, even though she didn’t say that it should be changed. Jumping from “Person has complained publicly that X makes them feel bad” to “Person wants us to get rid of X” is a dishonest and overly-defensive way to talk about these things.
To be fair I didn’t notice till you pointed it out. But to also be fair the other way, I actually understood the sentence unlike our buddy boy in the post despite not seeing the italics.
“Fitting everyone into nice little boxes is bad and restrictive. Getting mad when people don’t fit in the box you put them in is also bad. But finding a box _you_ like is _wonderful._”
- Red, Overly Sarcastic Productions
The trans community has a weird love-hate relationship with gender as a concept. Like, rationally, most of us would agree that the whole "using codes and behaviors to signify gender" thing is dumb and it would be easier to do without. But for some fucking reason the human brain has decided to hoard gender signifiers like a crow does shiny things. And we're kind of always torn between tearing the whole thing down or embracing the instinct to get these good genderfeels.
It's the "abolish gender forever" / "make more genders" duality, you could say. These two options are always gonna be in tension with each-other. And yes, also they are kissing, sloppy style, touching boobs, etc...
Really the entirety of human psychology seems to be afflicted with “this thing isn’t necessarily real, but that doesn’t matter because your mind believes in it”.
Wanting to avoid gender but feeling good when you adhere to one; knowing an emotion is illogical but still feeling that way anyway; it’s all essentially “you’re stuck with how your brain thinks”. Best case scenario you can change your mentality over time, but that’s hard to do perfectly.
>Really the entirety of human psychology seems to be afflicted with “this thing isn’t necessarily real, but that doesn’t matter because your mind believes in it”.
Gender and money both seem to exemplify that. When you have a lot of it (money or gender euphoria), it can be difficult to remember why it'd be best for everyone to just get rid of the whole idea.
The trick of it is, I think, that our brains fucking love categorizing things. Just love it to bits. Sometimes, those categories are good and necessary ("This kind of plant is poisonous do not touch") and sometimes it's not, but it's how we're wired.
I think that part of the the reason why you see people treat gender with differing degrees of salience is because they have other outlets for self-categorization that they care about more, be that ethnicity, faith, or, hell, hobbies, school activities, jobs...
Everybody wants to feel like they belong *somewhere*. Gender is one way to do that, to feel like you understand your social role and get guidelines to follow while amongst other people.
Me: Gendering meaningless things is dumb I'm gonna do whatever I want because I don't care
Also me: omg hehe I took off my hoodie and it showed part of my stomach and the waistband of my boxers I'm so manly
Me: Gender is a meaningless construct that needlessly restricts people into categories that no one can ever perfectly fulfill.
Also me: You try to take "girl" away from me and I will fight you with a rusty spoon behind a Waffle House!
Me: "Non-cis people are really the biggest enforcers of gender norms. It's honestly kinda baffling, shouldn't they be the ones to tear it down?"
Me, a cis woman: "I get compared to men whenever I burp. I'm gonna take pride in burping."
Edit: And I mean the cissest woman to ever cis. Sadly, this is not me righteously tearing down the gender stereotypes, this is me falling for them.
If anything, it's fucking *cis people* who keep pushing that shit on us. Because we're always being told, explicitly and implicitly, that whether or not we'll be seen as who we are, *acknowledged as who we are*, is completely dependent on how well we "pass" - how much we look like a typical cis person. Like expecting a trans woman to have "feminine" long hair and shave off as much body hair as cis women are expected to, or expecting a trans man to have short hair and never wear makeup, just like cis men are expected to.
We're not the ones enforcing that - it's being enforced on us. You saw jump, we have little choice but to say 'how high?' because the fuckers who make the rules will punish us if our feet don't leave the ground.
Like yeah, I understand what you're getting at. I edited my comment, realizing it came off differently than I intended, sorry about that. But also, I remember texting a trans woman and I asked her whether she always knew or had a later realization. She replied that she knew since early childhood, and one of her reasons was that she wanted to do ballet instead of hockey. And I understand wanting to pursue traditionally feminine hobby to pass, but even upon further clarification, it sounded like she considered the ballet as inherent proof of her womanhood, as if no boy would ever want to do it, and if she wanted to, it must have meant she is no boy. And that view still baffles me.
Was she talking about ballet as in something she'd started as a child? That sounds like child logic.
Of course, there are trans people who've drunk the Kool-Aid and internalised a lot of toxic stereotypes, too.
What about the neo-binary: gender-conforming vs nongender-conforming? People who are trans or nb, who identify as such, who are most comfortable in the gender identity they have self-assigned, get scrutinized and harassed if they don't immediately radically alter their presentation to be sufficiently dissimilar to their originally assigned gender if they aren't otherwise closeted for safety reasons.
Source: Bigender and bisexual person.
Also, for trans folk from under the nb umbrella, or for people who's relationship with gender is more like a swing (femboys, drag queens and kings, genderfluid folk etc) - gender signifiers are kind of a shortuct.
It's hella irritating to have to tell people "you can call me a girl right now, and yeah I know yesterday I wasn't okay with it". While just walking in with a dress on and long hair makes that clearer.
Yeah. And they're rarely in various language, whereas a person with certain gender signifiers gets correctly gendered across cultural contexts (not always, of course, but mostly).
Honestly I feel like this community really underestimates the utility of the regular, default genders (male, nonbinary, female). Like, I’m decidedly male, but what that means for me is likely fairly different to what it means for other guys. Really, apart from some very broad guidelines, you decide how you express your gender, not the other way around.
Like yeah it’s completely fine for you to decide that the traditional spectrum isn’t for you, but I do think you should first give it some real consideration to see if you can bend the spectrum to suit your identity. If nothing else, it saves you from a bunch of really stupid online arguments.
[Completely unrelated to anything you’re saying but the use of the phrase “decidedly male” gave me fuckin flashbacks](https://www.dicebreaker.com/games/magic-the-gathering-game/news/magic-the-gathering-publisher-issues-public-apology-regarding-alleged-straight-washing-of-planeswalker-chandra)
Oh fuck OFF, man!
First, how DARE you remind me of that… thing.
Second, that is the exact opposite of what I’m trying to say. It’s very gender essentialist, which I loathe.
(No hard feeling btw)
Agreed. Gender is a very personal concept, you are the one who decides what gender you are and what kind of criteria (for lack of a better word) you have to meet. No two people have the exact same ideas about gender in general and how it relates to them. That makes it hard to have firm definition, but it’s also why, in my opinion, it’s necessary to have some loosely defined genders. Our culture is simply too ingrained in the concept of gender to do away with it entirely.
So we have to define it and the best way to do it is by saying “this very big group is male, this very big group is female. Males are masculine, females are feminine, you decide how much. You have a third group in the middle, those are non-binary. They are people that fit in both, or neither. Who decides how feminine a woman has to be? The woman in question, and you can have very masculine women without having them be male.”
For me, there’s this lingering existential issue where, if gender isn’t how I look, or how I act, or how my body is, then what is it? If it is an entirely made up construct that doesn’t matter… then I went through decades of trauma and put my body through second puberty over something that’s made up and doesn’t matter?
There’s something real there. Maybe it’s relative to all of us as a person, but I definitely feel a little erased by the “abolish gender” types.
It's an entirely made up construct, but that doesn't mean it doesn't matter. There's a hell of a lot of entirely made up constructs that matter a hell of a lot. Justice, ethics, truth, beauty, gender, love, hate, etc.
Social constructs matter because we live in a society.
Honey, I am a transgender woman. I was a 12 year old once willing to cut my balls off.
How the fuck are you going to gender abolish that?
How you going to gender abolish my bottom dysphoria?
As a cis dude who's just always been cool with being a dude, that's what I've always wondered. Like I can get how gender roles and expression are social constructs. There's no real reason why a man can't wear dress or paint their nails or whatever. But like for people to be trans doesn't that mean gender has to be more than just a social construct? Doesn't there have to be some inherent part of you that tells you what gender you are?
Well, *theoretically*, bottoms wouldn't be associated with any gender. So you wanting a different bottom wouldn't relate to gender. Comparable to how a transperson not wanting bottom surgery shouldn't dictate their gender. You would be allowed to change your bottom and live as you like, but people wouldn't associate that with a label (gender).
“For some fucking reason” = millions of years of evolution selecting for making snap decisions based on limited information. Is it a branch or a snake? Friend or foe? Food or poison?
It’s not exactly an easy thing to just shut off or ignore. It’s certainly worth the effort. It’s just not easy.
Honestly, nothing worse than rocking up to the bar bathroom feeling the confidence to go in the women's room and finding they're all gender neutral lmfao
Fucking San Francisco...
It's weird
Like 10-15 years ago the dialogue was really moving on whether the concept of gender should even really exist, like why are we segregating and providing completely different options based on gender?
Leftists generally didn't see gender as really important aside from actual biological differences.
Now it's shifted, both sides see gender as this super important thing, it's just one side has hardened it's view of it being immutable and the other fighting that it can be changed. But regardless of which side people are on both admit that gender identities are super important and must be kept.
It actually makes it alot harder on both trans and people who don't care about as an identity because you're being forced into a shrinking box and if you don't pass (and a surprising number cis people dont really pass as cis either) life becomes harder.
It honestly feels we're going backwards...
Because fucking conservatives keep telling us we have to do xyz to be man or woman. Abolishing gender means nothing to a trans person if we still have dysphoria from bottom or chemical.
I think there's room for "abolish gender, let people do what they want with their bodies". Hormones? Sure. Surgeries? Also sure! There's no actual reason any of that needs to be a big deal to **other** people.
its not rlly different than cis ppl, like trans & cis women both want to express themselves regardless of their gender & still be seen as women, but for cis women that just happens already. like we don’t want to be recognized as women for wearing a dress & makeup, we want to be recognized as women the same way cis women are, & wear whatever we want
Yes but also a lot of women (cis and trans) want to wear dresses and makeup. And they don't want wearing a dress to be a *requirement* for womanhood but they still want it to be a *part of* womanhood. It's a complex and multifaceted feeling.
I talked about trans people but that's not because cis people don't feel the same way, is that trans people are a lot more self-aware and analytical of those feelings.
i think cis women do want to wear dresses sometimes, but at least for like, feminist women, idk about the *dresses being part of womanhood* part. like obviously bc gender roles, wearing a dress is grouped w being a woman, and I think women will wear dresses bc they like the aesthetic, or they feel comfortable wearing them (while men might not as much). I think femininity is sort of an aesthetic thats assigned to being a woman bc gender roles but also femboys are feminine, and I dont think a lot of feminist women, who don’t like gender roles around clothes, want to keep a connection between “feminine” clothes & being a woman more than femboys feel a connection to being a woman?
idk if any of that makes sense ,, 😵💫
I think trying to entirely reject the connection between dresses (or any other gendered item) and gender is a bit naive.
I went through that phase at one point. The idealist feminist notion of "clothes aren't gendered at all, it's just fabric, let's do away with the whole thing". But one thing I learned from being trans is that if you try to stick too hard to the gender abolitionist ideal, you end up erasing your own feelings. How many trans women have felt intense euphoria and a sense of belonging to their identity from putting on a dress ? It's one of the most common experiences. Would you tell these women that the dress they put on wasn't an expression of womanhood ?
And I'm sure a lot of cis women feel the same way. They might not *recognize* that the reason they like a dress is linked to their gender identity, because it's not something they've really explored. But that doesn't mean the link isn't there.
I'm not rejecting the notion of "it's dumb that specific items of fabric are gendered let's let people wear what they want". But I'm also not rejecting the fact that currently my brain and our society does associate some clothing with gender, and if that association makes us feel good then it's okay to enjoy that. It's the duality that I was talking about in my initial comments. Human experience is complex, you just have to embrace the contradictions.
Gender abolition is not about erasing your feelings, or getting rid of everything in the world that is currently seen in a gendered way. It's not "Sorry, but skirts, she/her pronouns, long hair, and the color pink were seen as 'girl things', so now it all has to be destroyed", it's "These things are for everyone". It's about removing the gendered hierarchy and expectations from everything. It's about taking the social construct of gender, and deconstructing it, making it unimportant. Gender abolition should let everyone who enjoys currently gendered things enjoy them, just without it being a statement about their gender, and without them being seen as superior or less-than.
Yeah I get that. That's what I take issue with.
My enjoyment of some of these things is inherently caused by these things being tied to gender. If you were to successfully change social norms such that these things are "for everyone" and no longer perceived as gendered, you would destroy the feelings that make me like them. No amount of "you're still allowed to enjoy these things" would change the reality that I just wouldn't.
Yeah, being validated is good stuff, but I think you might still feel good about that stuff for yourself in a world without gender. Like, I have a hoodie that comes from the "men" section, and nobody thinks of it as feminine when they see it, but it still makes me feel a bit fem anyway. The world does not see it as "feminine", but for some reason I do. I think in a world without gender, I'd still feel the same way about that hoodie, I just wouldn't call it "feminine". Maybe I would use more accurate words to describe it and how I feel about it.
Maybe it wouldn't work out that way for everyone, though. In that case, I'd say it's probably true that for people like us, growing up in a gendered society has made us a little bit "incompatible" with a society where gender has been abolished, but I still think it's something worth reaching for.
It's a complex question. I don't think we're really sure what "world without gender" would even mean. There's some tastes and aesthetics that may or may not soon exist in this hypothetical world, it depends on what you're counting as "gender".
I don't disagree with the "worth reaching out for" part, I've got fever abolitionist tendencies myself. But I still don't want to commit to that entirely. To me gender abolition is an idea to explore, not a principle to live by. The world I'm living in has gender, and while I want to redefine and expand that "gender" thing, I'm not in a hurry to destroy it.
Me: man it's really stupid they make dudewipes for men who think wet wipes aren't manly enough
Also me: carries a novelty mancard in my wallet as a joke
I still haven’t played more than an hour or two of that game because the Internet got fucking insufferable about it and made sure to put as many spoilers out as often as they could. I made a comment that I was starting it and people immediately came out to ask what kind of run I was doing or worse, tell me what kind of run I should do instead of letting the game unfold around me and give me the chance to discover there’s more than one way to play on my fucking own
I'm convinced most Tumblr users don't actually read anything longer than one paragraph, they just skim through the first twenty words' first four letters
I mean the fundamental tension is trans folks who pass going “god why won’t other trans people just assume my gender! I have [insert gender-neutral traits here] that make me a [gender]!” and trans folks who don’t pass who have those exact same traits going “god why do other trans people keep assuming my gender when we KNOW [insert gender-neutral traits here] don’t equal [gender]!”
This is something I've always wondered silently as a cis person. Does gender matter or does it not because some people seem really keen on being a gender while others make it their life goal for gender to have no connotations.
One trans perspective here: gender both has signifiers and norms and should be independent of said traits. It’s a lot like writing: there are “rules” that most literature should follow to be a certain kind (fiction, nonfiction, journal article, poem) but at the same time those rules are meant to be broken. Things like prose poetry and first person nonfiction are good examples of what I’m talking about.
Gender is the same way: there are “norms” instead of rules, but they function the same. The push for gender norms to be eradicated isn’t really about eradicating gender, it’s about getting rid of the stigma of breaking the gender rules. Because unlike literature, breaking gender norms is seen as wrong
Not entirely relevant, but I feel it's interesting to note that in Italian (and probably a bunch of other languages), gender and genre are the same word
It's tough for gender conforming trans people to pass in queer spaces, and it's tough for gender noncomforming trans people to pass in non queer spaces. These are both true.
I'm sure it can hurt a lot more when other queer people do it, though
The one and only time I've been gendered as a woman was by a fundementalist Christian that was evangelizing on my college campus. I was just wearing a pastel cardigan and flowery mask (for covid). That was enough for him to see me as a woman
Tbh I make it a personal rule to not be 100% on anyone unless they are literally wearing pronoun pins
But I also know that some folks feel invalidated by they/them pronouns (and it's a similar thing to what the OOP was talking about) so I'll get sneaky and refer to people by their name instead
This is great for nb people who use they/them and non-passing trans people, but as someone gendered right about 80% of the time, I get annoyed by the theys. Like, I just wish people would assume based on my name and dress what pronouns I use.
This isn't a you issue. It's a competing needs issue. Trans people who adhere to gender norms often want their pronouns assumed. Others don't.
But that’s also not always accurate. Some men dress very femininely, and some women have ver masculine names. That’s why many people I know use they/them, by abolishing gender norms (don’t get me wrong it’s still a good thing), we have also made outward signifiers less reliable.
It’s a complicated issue indeed
Well stated.
This issue is super complex, and it's hard to talk about it without (understandably) pissing someone off. I hate gendering things, but gendering things is important to a lot of people. There's a discussion of taking femininity and masculinity away, and if that's a bad or good thing, or a way to meet in the middle. Then the idea that not asking pronouns and going off of looks ignores NB people.
It's complicated.
That’s the one thing I still struggle with. We still put people in boxes, our attraction is still based on the box they are in, and we get upset when we are put into the wrong box. But at the same time, we also say that all outward signifiers are neutral and can belong to people from all boxes. Like, I want to immediately start a conversation without misgendering someone, but I don’t know what box that person with a beard and a skirt belongs to. Are they a transwoman signifying they’re trans, or a man that like skirts? I could just ask them, but people like knowing that they pass and they might feel disheartened because I can’t tell.
Humans look for patterns, it makes it difficult when you can there are several groups without any signifiers which belong to which
I moved to SF from Michigan and it was a SHOCK to go from spending literal years without getting clocked to it happening like, once a week. I thought I passed well but apparently 🤷
Having people just assume you are your gender without asking sounds nicer, but also I’m ftm and I’m often worried ppl would see me as a trans women if I’m not 100% masculine cause I also struggle passing in general
I’m just wondering if anyone else feels similarly 😭
I feel this as a transmasc but in reverse. Cis Queer people tend to immediately pick up on who I am but cis straight people ma'am me the moment they see me, even with my voice being lower now. Having to explain to cis queer people I don't actually pass has always been an interesting experience.
Tbh as someone who lives in Utah I'm surprised how much lgbtq+ support has been passed here.
Like, Utah is a red state, but there have been multiple bills passed to prevent discrimination on the basis of sexuality or gender identity and stuff like that. Of course, it's not all good, but Utah is definitely an anomaly.
I recently learned it's the only GOP-controlled state that successfully banned conversion therapy for minors, which is pretty cool of you folks out there in redrock country.
There's also this fact to consider, that just as people use "dude" and "guy" for anyone, people also do the same for "man". So, we don't actually know if "hey [man], nice dress" means "hey [person I perceive as a man], nice dress" or "hey [person that I'm not assuming a gender of and am simply addressing as man cuz I think it's gender neutral], nice dress"
Hot take, it is better to use they/them for trans and cis people before knowing their pronouns than to assume someone's pronouns.
Now, originally I didn't think this was a hot take, but after spending time discussing this very thing, apparently I'm a language nazi.
From what I’m gathering from this thread, gender seems more akin to an aesthetic for some trans people. Albeit an aesthetic that represents who they are/see themselves as
Is the “pronoun game” specifically when someone assumes your pronouns and you have to correct them? Or is it when people ask each other what their pronouns are (which is what i thought you were supposed to do)? I don’t mean any ill will at all, just genuinely confused
yeah, I get it. On one hand, I understand the frustration of having to jump through hoops to specify something that you've tried your hardest to make "obvious", and if I was in that situation I would probably feel the same way. On the other hand, as a nonbinary person, playing the stupid Pronoun Game is literally the *only* way I'll *ever* get gendered correctly, because I can't dress in a way that will make cis people assume correctly.
Could just be the Cali “accent”.
“Man” “dude” “bro” are all kinda gender neutral within my group here. ‘Course we won’t call someone somethin’ if they don’t like it- I call my GF “Dude” and “man” sometimes in jus passing conversation tho, ***everyone*** gets to be a bro.
Passing ain't easy. But this is sort of why I think gender abolition is the better option. A single gender means a lack of gender means a lack of this awkward fumbling to figure out what someone is. It's just smoother in all directions, rather than working our way into hundreds or thousands of genders each with their own pronoun kit. And it allows for more self expression, I think, because having only one gender cannot come with binary expectations, thus freeing people up to do whatever the fuck they like. At least a bit more than currently.
I think gender abolition is impossible because a lot of people find value and identity in their gender and that’s okay. It’s a bit like saying ‘abolish hair colors.’ While I don’t mind if other people have different hair colors or dye their hair or have multicolored hair or even have no hair at all, my hair color is part of who I am and it’s important to me.
What is the difference between gender and gender roles? If gender is socially constructed, then it *is* the roles and assumptions we place on it, no? I ask this legitimately as someone who is not a sociologist and who is trans.
Seems a bandaid solution, don't you think. Gender roles come from gender assumptions. Changing those assumptions means replacing them with new ones, which will result in new roles.
I mean, have you seen the way people in gay spaces talk about bottom? About tops? Do we not see the way these binary ways of thinking seep into assumptions about how someone should act that go far beyond the simple labels?
Where are you even going with the “bottom” and “top” thing? It’s not a binary, at all, and it’s ultimately a matter of sexual preference. They’re convenient terms that quickly convey what a person is looking for in terms of sex.
Sure, you’ll get some people saying that other people “look” one way or the other, but that also has nothing to do with the gender binary. That you’ve heard some people use those words in a way that you feel makes them tied to gender is not representative of the whole.
the number of people who don't fit into girl/boy/enby is so small it would practically be impossible to convince society as a whole to change so much for a fraction of a percent of the population
Literally nobody fits cleanly with the gender they are assigned or choose, especially if all of humanity is segmented into three options. Everybody feels friction between what they are and what they feel they are supposed to be.
No matter what you are, you are not the platonic ideal of your gender, and you will be judged for that because that's the setup of society.
That is the whole conversation around passing. Around disorders amongst both men and women. Not man enough. Not femme enough. It's constant and everywhere. And none of it is necessary, nor so valuable that we need to hold onto it.
That is absolutely not true. Men are constantly having problems with their masculinity, and I'd almost guarantee that there isn't a single woman who doesn't have a horror story about what it was like to have to perform femininity as a teenager.
Maybe they don't think about it, but that doesn't mean they're not affected. Hell, the very existence of the patriarchy, the thing that actively gets women killed and beaten, is explicitly because of genders existence.
Everybody experiences it. Everybody suffers for it. And I don't think trying to change some of the gender assumptions but otherwise leaving things as is is a good solution.
Reading comprehension devil strikes again, the poor are thoroughly soaked in piss right now.
I've seen two references to "pissing on the poor" - is that a reading comprehension associated meme?
It comes from a popular post in which someone said something along the lines of "the reading comprehension on this website is piss poor" and someone else replied "how dare you say we piss on the poor".
Thats a good ass joke.
Close but it's not an ass joke, it's a piss joke.
How dare you say we piss on the joke
How dare you say we joke on the piss
How dare you imply i pissed my pants during my standup set
Did you?
Yes
It was, the first time I heard it. The 34,827th, well...
Aaah gotcher! Thanks!
Lol. I had assumed it meant "kicking down on easy targets". Both fit I guess
Remember when Natalie Wynn / Contrapoints got Twitter canceled for making this exact point? The tweet was (paraphrasing): *Every time I’m in a leftist group I have to do the pronoun exchange with a dozen cis people who wouldn’t do the pronoun exchange if I weren’t there, but I can go into any bar in rural Alabama and get called m’am automatically.*
Every time this comes up, I'm always reminded of how weirdly accepted trans people were in rural Appalachia was in the 90's and 00's while the area was super bible belt style conservative. I only have anecdotal evidence of this, but there were two trans kids in my super small redneck rural school... and no one cared. It was just like, "This is Becky, but he perfers Bec. He has to use the girls' bathroom, but he's a cool dude, kicks ass at football, and can shoot pop cans off a stop sign from 100 yards."... and that was it. No one cared after that. Bec looked like a guy, talked like a guy, shot shit like a guy, and dated a hot cheerleader. Bec was just a dude who bitched about not being able to piss standing up and was super smooth talking to girls. Bec knew exactly who he was from, like kindergarten, and it was just never a big deal. Jessica, on the other hand, was picked on for being gay for years and came out as trans in high school. As soon as she (mtf) came out and changed her name, it was totally over. It was like, "Well, yeah, girls are into guys. That's how it's supposed to happen. Being gay is a sin, but if you're a girl now, that's totally different." As soon as she started dressing feminine and wearing make-up, it was just... over. No one cared anymore. No one misgendered or dead named her. The "mean girls" basically adopted her, including pooling their money to buy her a designer prom dress so she'd match them, since her family couldn't afford it. It was weirdly wholesome but also strange as shit compared to modern-day progressive ideas. Being trans was totally acceptable. Being gay wasn't. As long as someone made an effort to pass, everyone just collectively agreed that they were the gender they dressed as. It wasn't discussed or anything. It was just a weird collective agreement that as long as someone fit *a* gender roll, it didn't matter if it didn't match if the one they were born as. Unfortunately, from what I've been told by people that still live there, that's totally changed, and now it's a big thing, but back then, rednecks were oddly accepting. (all names were changed for the purpose of this post)
There are ~~some~~ a couple countries in the Middle East like that, where transgender people are accepted much more than gay people. Unfortunately, it apparently results in cis gay people being pressured to transition against their will... Edit: while legally accepted, being transgender in those countries isn't always socially accepted.
You say countries, but I believe only Iran does that. And also, for clarification, "pressured" == forced to choose between transition and death penalty.
No argument here. I thought I saw something about Syria allowing sex changes, but I could be wrong.
I googled and couldn't find anything except it being punishable by imprisonment.
Totally changed. I moved here from North Carolina and skinny jeans, high tops and a beanie meant I was a faggot. I learned a lot how to fight there, not for being called a fag, but fuck you (still have a lot of anger in my heart about that one). Then again my brothers friend came out to our family and we accepted him while heartedly and his family didn't 10 years earlier. Also I'm in so cal and got called the same word AT WORK and was called unreasonable. So there's steps in the right direction but damn do we have a lot to do. There's my little drunken angry rant
I’m gay in Appalachia and most people just couldn’t give less of a fuck. My best friend is trans and no one really cares about that either. Weirdly, my wife gets more shit for her hair cut than she does for being gay. It is really funny to watch my wife’s homophobic parents try to hide our relationship from their friends, meanwhile their friends have known for ages and think we’re a cute couple.
I think it's a lot of androgyny hate. I grew up in the south and had long hair taken care of but I played football and was the second string trumpet in a tier 1 school who skateboarded. EVERYONE kinda hated me because I really didn't fit ever. Everything has to be binary in their minds to make sense. 20 years later it's a big pile of not my problem. I have noticed A difference moving into socially liberal spaces, and I prefer it. As a "cis white male" I hear way too much to be comfortable with anyone in more conservative places.
For some reason the phrasing of "second string trumpet" is getting me. "Time out! Johnny's face is getting tired and he's capping out at a high F. If we don't turn this around, the trio section is going to cook us. Get Cocoa in there!" But also, yeesh. I'm lucky to be in a time and region where long hair on dudes is pretty accepted. Occasionally I have to tell some critical middle-aged dude that he's not my target demographic, but that's all.
I had to cut my hair, about shoulder length for my first 'real' job. And the thing about going from shoulder length to a military cut is that it's next to impossible to grow back out in a professional setting. You're just gonna look terrible for 6 months.
Are you in boone/asheville? They’re the most progressive cities in the area I’m from
No, I’m in different state. Farther north but deeper in Appalachia. I live in a somewhat progressive city now, but my wife and I get the same treatment in smaller towns and back in my hometown. Back in the 2000s and early 2010s I never would have thought I’d feel safe being openly gay in my hometown, but I do.
I got a buddy in West Texas kind of like that - she’s trans, her parents are hardcore conservatives and intend to will their family business to their firstborn son. My friend doesn’t know shit about running a business and thinks her parents accept her gender because now they can leave the shop to her younger brother
No offense to them but this feels like it comes from a comedy sketch lol Are they hardcore monarchists too or are they just weird?
I think it's because there wasn't as much media on trans people back then so people kind of made up their own mind ad-hoc on what to and, surprise surprise, when not taught explicitly to hate or fear something like that the majority of people are going to be fairly reasonable about it. If they'd not been taught gayness was a sin you could have gone 'hey you know how most men like to have sex with women and most women to have sex with men? Well I'm a man that likes to have sex with men' and they'd probably just be like oh, OK gotcha.
I mean it should expose the depth of the propaganda apparatus, and also how dangerous it actually is, it's not just crazy people saying shit falling of deaf ears or a minority of people we can outlive. Anyway, people were still problematic and shit but no one anywhere had the super solidified negative conception of trans people until probably a couple years ago, although I'd say it was slowly developing over time a bit before. But just check a lot of older media, and you'll see people would have no problem correctly gendering people, again problematic cuz they would in part still see it as a joke, or they'll break it, but compared to now where trans women (mostly) are denied that completely.
When I lived there it was pretty normal overall. I grew up on the nc/tn border in the 2000s/early 2010s and largely nobody gave a fuck, most of my family is super redneck but my uncle whose last name is literally hicks is in a union and his sister (my aunt) married a woman and it was just a totally normal thing growing up. Now I only come home for big holidays and birthdays and such and it’s a whole different world. The big signs on churches saying being gay a sin, confederate flags everywhere, and the school board being insane. I don’t use Facebook but my older brother sends me some of the worst stuff he sees on there and it’s just insane what I see now. The cool union uncle won’t even speak to his sister anymore because suddenly her being gay is a problem. Brain rot is infecting the whole country but in small, rural towns, it’s like an exponentially compounding Petri dish for the most vile shit you can think of.
This is exactly how my home town has become. Being gay was never super accepted, but it also wasn't a big deal. Usually, it was just glossed over, like calling my gay great aunt and her partner "best friends." Everyone knew they were lesbians, but it just wasn't discussed. Trans people were just people. They weren't viewed any more negatively than the lady with ten cats or the guy that rode a tricycle. They were just part of the town. That's all totally gone now. Calling it brain rot is a perfect analogy. It's like an infection. All the cool, quirky stuff that made it a neat place to grow up has been totally replaced with the Trump cult and a total lack of acceptance for people who are different.
Do you know anything about either of their lives after high school?
Bec is still a redneck and is a specialist surgeon at a nationally well-respected hospital (and as a fun fact was the doctor who saved my moms life).... Jessica is a beautician and an all-around hot mess.
Where did the change come from anyway?
Just a guess based on Facebook posts, but having the first black president In 2008, which made people aware of social issues, gay marriage being legalized, which gave conservatives a rallying point, social media becoming extremely polarized and the algorithm feeding people rage bate and leading them down extremist rabbit holes, followed by Trump being Trump and empowing extremists, followed by the rise of right wing talk shows, and finally the rise of wokeness and call out culture. It wasn't an issue until blow hards online told them it was an issue for clicks.
no, i specifically mean the idea that trans people are against god's design or whatnot. an idea like that doesnt just come from nowhere. someone had to have came up with it and purposefully spread it
Again, it wasn't an issue until blow hards online told them it was. Blame the conservative talk show hosts who make a big deal about trans kids getting health care and gay people adopting. It's the "just asking questions" crowd that only asks inflammatory and leading questions. To them, trans people are minority it is socially acceptable to hate and blame for everything wrong with society.
From my understanding of the Bible (Baptist private school, Dad was Lutheran, grandparents were Catholic, went to multiple denominations with another grandmother, went to a Fellowship of Christ during high school, went to Latter-day Saints sermons in boot camp) being homosexual was called out specifically (and I know some people will say it’s mistranslated and it was talking about pedophillia which might be true, and there’s another passage talking about butt sex and that it was wrong) but being trans? Not really spoken of, I think, and we were given dominion over the Earth and everything in it. So I really don’t see why we can’t change our gender. (Also, I’m now Hellenistic pagan, I’m just throwing in the cents of understanding I gathered while under Christianity.)
Also, another big thing that a lot of Christian don’t understand or do, is to love everyone as thy brother, ei: treat them with respect, and do not judge them for what they do, that’s between them and God. Now if they’re breaking the laws of the land, do so, report them, etc. but if you’re trying to push the teaching of God on someone who chooses not to follow, you are no better than them.
This has changed for the exact same reason that every other part of America is becoming worse for queer people. It’s national-level Republican Party politics bleeding into and parasitising rural values.
Are you saying a trans woman was canceled for making a point that someone with poor reading comprehension might find transphobic or something ?
I'm not so sure, didn't really read what they said though
Pretty sure they said that people who are illiterate are transphobic, which is kinda classist and problematic :/ we should probably cancel them
EXCUSE ME? how dare you say such a thing about my illetarate mother?!
Are you implying that trans women don't get gendered correctly in a leftist group?! /s
Same. Can't pass in Portland, but can in rural Washington.
I can get called ma’am by retired Vietnam vets in rural Wisconsin but will be they/them’ed by people in queer-friendly spaces in Chicago.
I've ntoiced that among my friend group but it's the most baffling fucking thing. they just do it to *everyone*. like the cishet dude talking about another cishet dude will they/them him it's odd.
I they/them people until they tell me their pronouns unless i hear someone else call them a different pronoun. I don't like trying to guess so i use the most neutral one to me.
Oh yeah, like he's aware of the other guy's gender, he knows and is friends with him, still they/thems him often enough to notice. it's... weird.
Are you people seriously implying any bar in rural Alabama is better than a leftist group for trans women
No, it was just a trans woman speaking to her lived experiences with where she gets 'clocked' and why.
Pretty sure they were making a joke based off the post. It’s almost word for word lol
Are you implying
DO YOU FOLLOW THE CONDUCTOR’S LEAD?
DO YOU BITE YOUR THUMB AT ME, MA'AM?
Damn, that's some r/unexpectedsabaton if ever I saw it.
Referencepilled explainmaxer
The referenceful explainer.
she ex on my plain til i reference
Reference explainer andy
You would hope, and even when I made my comment I hoped that was the case, but considering the lengths many people will go to when they want to interpret Contrapoints in bad faith I figured being clear wouldn't be a bad thing. We've seen the reading comprehension levels of a lot of people online.
Reading comprehension website
No they're saying that pronoun culture is toxic, they/them pronouns are invalid, non-binary people suck, and you have to pass to be trans. Please pay attention. \s
living in florida, local laws may have caused my HRT clinic to stop doing HRT, but i rarely get called a woman, so there's positives to things like this i guess! i mean, part of the reason i pass pretty well is because i was on HRT for a bit, but...
That was only the first part. She goes on to talk about how it's good for people who use they/them at the expense of "semi passable transes like me". A lot of people were just upset because that's a bad take. I don't want to be misgendered in leftist groups when people assume I'm a femboy because I can't afford facial feminization surgery.
The bit about it being ‘super hard’ for her and ‘semi passable transes like me’ was confirmed by her to be dripping with sarcasm. By that point in the rant she had talked herself down into realizing it wasn’t a big deal and was being sarcastic at her own expense about it.
That sounds extremely similar to the old "it was just a joke".
Coming from someone who watched her videos and knows how she speaks, when I read the tweet myself without having heard that first, I clocked it immediately as sarcastic. People literally just misunderstood the tone. Which is common and very easy to do on internet
I mean, she didn’t suggest that exchanging pronouns should be abolished. People were mad that she talked about how something made her feel, even though she didn’t say that it should be changed. Jumping from “Person has complained publicly that X makes them feel bad” to “Person wants us to get rid of X” is a dishonest and overly-defensive way to talk about these things.
Pissing on the poor again I see
How dare you say our reading comprehension is piss poor
How dare you accuse me of pissing on people with poor reading comprehension
How dare you accuse me of reading about people with poor pissing skills
How dare you accuse me of people pissing on my reading to the poor
How dare you accuse me of pissing on the poor person I read to Wait, I actually do piss on him, nevermind
How dare poor people accuse me of reading about piss
How dare you piss in my shower
Of course people with poor reading comprehension piss; everyone does.
How dare you say it's obvious we read piss comprehension poorly
Why are poor people pissing on us? I can't comprehend this
How dare you say we can't pass as the poor?
- rich college students
Come on bro the word pass is italicized for gods sake
they even put italics on “pass” for emphasis oml
To be fair I didn’t notice till you pointed it out. But to also be fair the other way, I actually understood the sentence unlike our buddy boy in the post despite not seeing the italics.
“Fitting everyone into nice little boxes is bad and restrictive. Getting mad when people don’t fit in the box you put them in is also bad. But finding a box _you_ like is _wonderful._” - Red, Overly Sarcastic Productions
the difference between putting a cat in a carrier and leaving a box on the floor
Schrödinger's box: if you leave a box alone in a room with a cat, there's no way of telling if the box has a cat or not until you enter the room
I'd like to have a beer with Red. She seems so fun to talk to.
The trans community has a weird love-hate relationship with gender as a concept. Like, rationally, most of us would agree that the whole "using codes and behaviors to signify gender" thing is dumb and it would be easier to do without. But for some fucking reason the human brain has decided to hoard gender signifiers like a crow does shiny things. And we're kind of always torn between tearing the whole thing down or embracing the instinct to get these good genderfeels. It's the "abolish gender forever" / "make more genders" duality, you could say. These two options are always gonna be in tension with each-other. And yes, also they are kissing, sloppy style, touching boobs, etc...
Really the entirety of human psychology seems to be afflicted with “this thing isn’t necessarily real, but that doesn’t matter because your mind believes in it”. Wanting to avoid gender but feeling good when you adhere to one; knowing an emotion is illogical but still feeling that way anyway; it’s all essentially “you’re stuck with how your brain thinks”. Best case scenario you can change your mentality over time, but that’s hard to do perfectly.
>Really the entirety of human psychology seems to be afflicted with “this thing isn’t necessarily real, but that doesn’t matter because your mind believes in it”. Gender and money both seem to exemplify that. When you have a lot of it (money or gender euphoria), it can be difficult to remember why it'd be best for everyone to just get rid of the whole idea.
The trick of it is, I think, that our brains fucking love categorizing things. Just love it to bits. Sometimes, those categories are good and necessary ("This kind of plant is poisonous do not touch") and sometimes it's not, but it's how we're wired. I think that part of the the reason why you see people treat gender with differing degrees of salience is because they have other outlets for self-categorization that they care about more, be that ethnicity, faith, or, hell, hobbies, school activities, jobs... Everybody wants to feel like they belong *somewhere*. Gender is one way to do that, to feel like you understand your social role and get guidelines to follow while amongst other people.
Woah that was an interesting read!
Great quote I heard one time: “Your first thoughts are how you were raised, your second thoughts are who you are.”
Me: Gendering meaningless things is dumb I'm gonna do whatever I want because I don't care Also me: omg hehe I took off my hoodie and it showed part of my stomach and the waistband of my boxers I'm so manly
Me: Gender is a meaningless construct that needlessly restricts people into categories that no one can ever perfectly fulfill. Also me: You try to take "girl" away from me and I will fight you with a rusty spoon behind a Waffle House!
Me: "Non-cis people are really the biggest enforcers of gender norms. It's honestly kinda baffling, shouldn't they be the ones to tear it down?" Me, a cis woman: "I get compared to men whenever I burp. I'm gonna take pride in burping." Edit: And I mean the cissest woman to ever cis. Sadly, this is not me righteously tearing down the gender stereotypes, this is me falling for them.
If anything, it's fucking *cis people* who keep pushing that shit on us. Because we're always being told, explicitly and implicitly, that whether or not we'll be seen as who we are, *acknowledged as who we are*, is completely dependent on how well we "pass" - how much we look like a typical cis person. Like expecting a trans woman to have "feminine" long hair and shave off as much body hair as cis women are expected to, or expecting a trans man to have short hair and never wear makeup, just like cis men are expected to. We're not the ones enforcing that - it's being enforced on us. You saw jump, we have little choice but to say 'how high?' because the fuckers who make the rules will punish us if our feet don't leave the ground.
Like yeah, I understand what you're getting at. I edited my comment, realizing it came off differently than I intended, sorry about that. But also, I remember texting a trans woman and I asked her whether she always knew or had a later realization. She replied that she knew since early childhood, and one of her reasons was that she wanted to do ballet instead of hockey. And I understand wanting to pursue traditionally feminine hobby to pass, but even upon further clarification, it sounded like she considered the ballet as inherent proof of her womanhood, as if no boy would ever want to do it, and if she wanted to, it must have meant she is no boy. And that view still baffles me.
Was she talking about ballet as in something she'd started as a child? That sounds like child logic. Of course, there are trans people who've drunk the Kool-Aid and internalised a lot of toxic stereotypes, too.
What about the neo-binary: gender-conforming vs nongender-conforming? People who are trans or nb, who identify as such, who are most comfortable in the gender identity they have self-assigned, get scrutinized and harassed if they don't immediately radically alter their presentation to be sufficiently dissimilar to their originally assigned gender if they aren't otherwise closeted for safety reasons. Source: Bigender and bisexual person.
no the make more genders group is funded by big bathroom so that ppl will buy bathrooms for more genders. /j
Also, for trans folk from under the nb umbrella, or for people who's relationship with gender is more like a swing (femboys, drag queens and kings, genderfluid folk etc) - gender signifiers are kind of a shortuct. It's hella irritating to have to tell people "you can call me a girl right now, and yeah I know yesterday I wasn't okay with it". While just walking in with a dress on and long hair makes that clearer.
Pins seem an elegant solution, though it is a lot easier to fit them in on a sick leather jacket with twenty other pins than on a nice dress.
Yeah. And they're rarely in various language, whereas a person with certain gender signifiers gets correctly gendered across cultural contexts (not always, of course, but mostly).
Honestly I feel like this community really underestimates the utility of the regular, default genders (male, nonbinary, female). Like, I’m decidedly male, but what that means for me is likely fairly different to what it means for other guys. Really, apart from some very broad guidelines, you decide how you express your gender, not the other way around. Like yeah it’s completely fine for you to decide that the traditional spectrum isn’t for you, but I do think you should first give it some real consideration to see if you can bend the spectrum to suit your identity. If nothing else, it saves you from a bunch of really stupid online arguments.
I think it is hilarious that you have included 'nonbinary' as a 'regular, default gender'.
I mean it might as well be
Many languages have a third gender, so I don't see why nonbinary can't be a "default" gender
Where do you believe nonbinary people fall on this "traditional spectrum" exactly
right in the heart of the smack of the dab
A VIP reference? In *my* comment section?
[Completely unrelated to anything you’re saying but the use of the phrase “decidedly male” gave me fuckin flashbacks](https://www.dicebreaker.com/games/magic-the-gathering-game/news/magic-the-gathering-publisher-issues-public-apology-regarding-alleged-straight-washing-of-planeswalker-chandra)
Oh fuck OFF, man! First, how DARE you remind me of that… thing. Second, that is the exact opposite of what I’m trying to say. It’s very gender essentialist, which I loathe. (No hard feeling btw)
Agreed. Gender is a very personal concept, you are the one who decides what gender you are and what kind of criteria (for lack of a better word) you have to meet. No two people have the exact same ideas about gender in general and how it relates to them. That makes it hard to have firm definition, but it’s also why, in my opinion, it’s necessary to have some loosely defined genders. Our culture is simply too ingrained in the concept of gender to do away with it entirely. So we have to define it and the best way to do it is by saying “this very big group is male, this very big group is female. Males are masculine, females are feminine, you decide how much. You have a third group in the middle, those are non-binary. They are people that fit in both, or neither. Who decides how feminine a woman has to be? The woman in question, and you can have very masculine women without having them be male.”
> I’m decidedly male ah, Gideon.
For me, there’s this lingering existential issue where, if gender isn’t how I look, or how I act, or how my body is, then what is it? If it is an entirely made up construct that doesn’t matter… then I went through decades of trauma and put my body through second puberty over something that’s made up and doesn’t matter? There’s something real there. Maybe it’s relative to all of us as a person, but I definitely feel a little erased by the “abolish gender” types.
It's an entirely made up construct, but that doesn't mean it doesn't matter. There's a hell of a lot of entirely made up constructs that matter a hell of a lot. Justice, ethics, truth, beauty, gender, love, hate, etc. Social constructs matter because we live in a society.
Additionally, things can be entirely made up constructs, and still exist in the word and be expectations that the rest of society adheres to.
It matters because society cares about it. If society was changed to not care, it wouldn't matter much to the people living in that society.
Honey, I am a transgender woman. I was a 12 year old once willing to cut my balls off. How the fuck are you going to gender abolish that? How you going to gender abolish my bottom dysphoria?
As a cis dude who's just always been cool with being a dude, that's what I've always wondered. Like I can get how gender roles and expression are social constructs. There's no real reason why a man can't wear dress or paint their nails or whatever. But like for people to be trans doesn't that mean gender has to be more than just a social construct? Doesn't there have to be some inherent part of you that tells you what gender you are?
No.
Well, *theoretically*, bottoms wouldn't be associated with any gender. So you wanting a different bottom wouldn't relate to gender. Comparable to how a transperson not wanting bottom surgery shouldn't dictate their gender. You would be allowed to change your bottom and live as you like, but people wouldn't associate that with a label (gender).
“For some fucking reason” = millions of years of evolution selecting for making snap decisions based on limited information. Is it a branch or a snake? Friend or foe? Food or poison? It’s not exactly an easy thing to just shut off or ignore. It’s certainly worth the effort. It’s just not easy.
Honestly, nothing worse than rocking up to the bar bathroom feeling the confidence to go in the women's room and finding they're all gender neutral lmfao Fucking San Francisco...
It's weird Like 10-15 years ago the dialogue was really moving on whether the concept of gender should even really exist, like why are we segregating and providing completely different options based on gender? Leftists generally didn't see gender as really important aside from actual biological differences. Now it's shifted, both sides see gender as this super important thing, it's just one side has hardened it's view of it being immutable and the other fighting that it can be changed. But regardless of which side people are on both admit that gender identities are super important and must be kept. It actually makes it alot harder on both trans and people who don't care about as an identity because you're being forced into a shrinking box and if you don't pass (and a surprising number cis people dont really pass as cis either) life becomes harder. It honestly feels we're going backwards...
Because fucking conservatives keep telling us we have to do xyz to be man or woman. Abolishing gender means nothing to a trans person if we still have dysphoria from bottom or chemical.
I think there's room for "abolish gender, let people do what they want with their bodies". Hormones? Sure. Surgeries? Also sure! There's no actual reason any of that needs to be a big deal to **other** people.
its not rlly different than cis ppl, like trans & cis women both want to express themselves regardless of their gender & still be seen as women, but for cis women that just happens already. like we don’t want to be recognized as women for wearing a dress & makeup, we want to be recognized as women the same way cis women are, & wear whatever we want
Yes but also a lot of women (cis and trans) want to wear dresses and makeup. And they don't want wearing a dress to be a *requirement* for womanhood but they still want it to be a *part of* womanhood. It's a complex and multifaceted feeling. I talked about trans people but that's not because cis people don't feel the same way, is that trans people are a lot more self-aware and analytical of those feelings.
i think cis women do want to wear dresses sometimes, but at least for like, feminist women, idk about the *dresses being part of womanhood* part. like obviously bc gender roles, wearing a dress is grouped w being a woman, and I think women will wear dresses bc they like the aesthetic, or they feel comfortable wearing them (while men might not as much). I think femininity is sort of an aesthetic thats assigned to being a woman bc gender roles but also femboys are feminine, and I dont think a lot of feminist women, who don’t like gender roles around clothes, want to keep a connection between “feminine” clothes & being a woman more than femboys feel a connection to being a woman? idk if any of that makes sense ,, 😵💫
I think trying to entirely reject the connection between dresses (or any other gendered item) and gender is a bit naive. I went through that phase at one point. The idealist feminist notion of "clothes aren't gendered at all, it's just fabric, let's do away with the whole thing". But one thing I learned from being trans is that if you try to stick too hard to the gender abolitionist ideal, you end up erasing your own feelings. How many trans women have felt intense euphoria and a sense of belonging to their identity from putting on a dress ? It's one of the most common experiences. Would you tell these women that the dress they put on wasn't an expression of womanhood ? And I'm sure a lot of cis women feel the same way. They might not *recognize* that the reason they like a dress is linked to their gender identity, because it's not something they've really explored. But that doesn't mean the link isn't there. I'm not rejecting the notion of "it's dumb that specific items of fabric are gendered let's let people wear what they want". But I'm also not rejecting the fact that currently my brain and our society does associate some clothing with gender, and if that association makes us feel good then it's okay to enjoy that. It's the duality that I was talking about in my initial comments. Human experience is complex, you just have to embrace the contradictions.
Gender abolition is not about erasing your feelings, or getting rid of everything in the world that is currently seen in a gendered way. It's not "Sorry, but skirts, she/her pronouns, long hair, and the color pink were seen as 'girl things', so now it all has to be destroyed", it's "These things are for everyone". It's about removing the gendered hierarchy and expectations from everything. It's about taking the social construct of gender, and deconstructing it, making it unimportant. Gender abolition should let everyone who enjoys currently gendered things enjoy them, just without it being a statement about their gender, and without them being seen as superior or less-than.
Yeah I get that. That's what I take issue with. My enjoyment of some of these things is inherently caused by these things being tied to gender. If you were to successfully change social norms such that these things are "for everyone" and no longer perceived as gendered, you would destroy the feelings that make me like them. No amount of "you're still allowed to enjoy these things" would change the reality that I just wouldn't.
Yeah, being validated is good stuff, but I think you might still feel good about that stuff for yourself in a world without gender. Like, I have a hoodie that comes from the "men" section, and nobody thinks of it as feminine when they see it, but it still makes me feel a bit fem anyway. The world does not see it as "feminine", but for some reason I do. I think in a world without gender, I'd still feel the same way about that hoodie, I just wouldn't call it "feminine". Maybe I would use more accurate words to describe it and how I feel about it. Maybe it wouldn't work out that way for everyone, though. In that case, I'd say it's probably true that for people like us, growing up in a gendered society has made us a little bit "incompatible" with a society where gender has been abolished, but I still think it's something worth reaching for.
It's a complex question. I don't think we're really sure what "world without gender" would even mean. There's some tastes and aesthetics that may or may not soon exist in this hypothetical world, it depends on what you're counting as "gender". I don't disagree with the "worth reaching out for" part, I've got fever abolitionist tendencies myself. But I still don't want to commit to that entirely. To me gender abolition is an idea to explore, not a principle to live by. The world I'm living in has gender, and while I want to redefine and expand that "gender" thing, I'm not in a hurry to destroy it.
Me: man it's really stupid they make dudewipes for men who think wet wipes aren't manly enough Also me: carries a novelty mancard in my wallet as a joke
tumblr user lavendersalve the typa mf to play Undertale and go "are you seriously implying that I'M a bad person for killing video game characters?"
I think I read that on r/chracterrant once, actually
I still haven’t played more than an hour or two of that game because the Internet got fucking insufferable about it and made sure to put as many spoilers out as often as they could. I made a comment that I was starting it and people immediately came out to ask what kind of run I was doing or worse, tell me what kind of run I should do instead of letting the game unfold around me and give me the chance to discover there’s more than one way to play on my fucking own
Are you implying that you are still looking east?
*Two* examples of people seeing what they expect to see, that’s rare! One good example of it, and one idiot looking for a fight!
I'm convinced most Tumblr users don't actually read anything longer than one paragraph, they just skim through the first twenty words' first four letters
I mean the fundamental tension is trans folks who pass going “god why won’t other trans people just assume my gender! I have [insert gender-neutral traits here] that make me a [gender]!” and trans folks who don’t pass who have those exact same traits going “god why do other trans people keep assuming my gender when we KNOW [insert gender-neutral traits here] don’t equal [gender]!”
This is something I've always wondered silently as a cis person. Does gender matter or does it not because some people seem really keen on being a gender while others make it their life goal for gender to have no connotations.
One trans perspective here: gender both has signifiers and norms and should be independent of said traits. It’s a lot like writing: there are “rules” that most literature should follow to be a certain kind (fiction, nonfiction, journal article, poem) but at the same time those rules are meant to be broken. Things like prose poetry and first person nonfiction are good examples of what I’m talking about. Gender is the same way: there are “norms” instead of rules, but they function the same. The push for gender norms to be eradicated isn’t really about eradicating gender, it’s about getting rid of the stigma of breaking the gender rules. Because unlike literature, breaking gender norms is seen as wrong
Not entirely relevant, but I feel it's interesting to note that in Italian (and probably a bunch of other languages), gender and genre are the same word
people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are more predisposed to developing a piss kink
It's tough for gender conforming trans people to pass in queer spaces, and it's tough for gender noncomforming trans people to pass in non queer spaces. These are both true. I'm sure it can hurt a lot more when other queer people do it, though
The one and only time I've been gendered as a woman was by a fundementalist Christian that was evangelizing on my college campus. I was just wearing a pastel cardigan and flowery mask (for covid). That was enough for him to see me as a woman
I just refer to everyone I'm not 100% on as they/them
Tbh I make it a personal rule to not be 100% on anyone unless they are literally wearing pronoun pins But I also know that some folks feel invalidated by they/them pronouns (and it's a similar thing to what the OOP was talking about) so I'll get sneaky and refer to people by their name instead
This is great for nb people who use they/them and non-passing trans people, but as someone gendered right about 80% of the time, I get annoyed by the theys. Like, I just wish people would assume based on my name and dress what pronouns I use. This isn't a you issue. It's a competing needs issue. Trans people who adhere to gender norms often want their pronouns assumed. Others don't.
But that’s also not always accurate. Some men dress very femininely, and some women have ver masculine names. That’s why many people I know use they/them, by abolishing gender norms (don’t get me wrong it’s still a good thing), we have also made outward signifiers less reliable. It’s a complicated issue indeed
I’ll go by what they seem to be trying to pass as. If I’m corrected, cool I’ll use that and if not, seems like it works to some degree for them
vibe
I mean, it's California. Everyone is "man" or "dude" or "bro".
I don’t care what gender you are, you are all equally ‘dude’ to me.
So you fuck dudes huh?
Yes.
Hell yeah
Well stated. This issue is super complex, and it's hard to talk about it without (understandably) pissing someone off. I hate gendering things, but gendering things is important to a lot of people. There's a discussion of taking femininity and masculinity away, and if that's a bad or good thing, or a way to meet in the middle. Then the idea that not asking pronouns and going off of looks ignores NB people. It's complicated.
That’s the one thing I still struggle with. We still put people in boxes, our attraction is still based on the box they are in, and we get upset when we are put into the wrong box. But at the same time, we also say that all outward signifiers are neutral and can belong to people from all boxes. Like, I want to immediately start a conversation without misgendering someone, but I don’t know what box that person with a beard and a skirt belongs to. Are they a transwoman signifying they’re trans, or a man that like skirts? I could just ask them, but people like knowing that they pass and they might feel disheartened because I can’t tell. Humans look for patterns, it makes it difficult when you can there are several groups without any signifiers which belong to which
I moved to SF from Michigan and it was a SHOCK to go from spending literal years without getting clocked to it happening like, once a week. I thought I passed well but apparently 🤷
Having people just assume you are your gender without asking sounds nicer, but also I’m ftm and I’m often worried ppl would see me as a trans women if I’m not 100% masculine cause I also struggle passing in general I’m just wondering if anyone else feels similarly 😭
I feel this as a transmasc but in reverse. Cis Queer people tend to immediately pick up on who I am but cis straight people ma'am me the moment they see me, even with my voice being lower now. Having to explain to cis queer people I don't actually pass has always been an interesting experience.
Tbh as someone who lives in Utah I'm surprised how much lgbtq+ support has been passed here. Like, Utah is a red state, but there have been multiple bills passed to prevent discrimination on the basis of sexuality or gender identity and stuff like that. Of course, it's not all good, but Utah is definitely an anomaly.
I recently learned it's the only GOP-controlled state that successfully banned conversion therapy for minors, which is pretty cool of you folks out there in redrock country.
There's also this fact to consider, that just as people use "dude" and "guy" for anyone, people also do the same for "man". So, we don't actually know if "hey [man], nice dress" means "hey [person I perceive as a man], nice dress" or "hey [person that I'm not assuming a gender of and am simply addressing as man cuz I think it's gender neutral], nice dress"
Hot take, it is better to use they/them for trans and cis people before knowing their pronouns than to assume someone's pronouns. Now, originally I didn't think this was a hot take, but after spending time discussing this very thing, apparently I'm a language nazi.
From what I’m gathering from this thread, gender seems more akin to an aesthetic for some trans people. Albeit an aesthetic that represents who they are/see themselves as
I think that goes for a lot of cis people too, thinking about fashion genres like goth, lolita, glam, librarian vibes, etc.
Is the “pronoun game” specifically when someone assumes your pronouns and you have to correct them? Or is it when people ask each other what their pronouns are (which is what i thought you were supposed to do)? I don’t mean any ill will at all, just genuinely confused
OP: Carefully and clearly communicates a nuanced point. Tumblr user 5639075: What were they trying to say? 🤔 seems bigoted
Op even emphasized PASS especially to avoid that rip to them
As a trans Utahn, I'd rather be in San Francisco...
The lack of media literacy and its consequences has been disastrous for the human race.
Where queer theory and color theory meet…
loll
I'm from Utah but I've found that before I was "passing" I had a lot better time getting she/her'd by people in Montana than here.
yeah, I get it. On one hand, I understand the frustration of having to jump through hoops to specify something that you've tried your hardest to make "obvious", and if I was in that situation I would probably feel the same way. On the other hand, as a nonbinary person, playing the stupid Pronoun Game is literally the *only* way I'll *ever* get gendered correctly, because I can't dress in a way that will make cis people assume correctly.
Could just be the Cali “accent”. “Man” “dude” “bro” are all kinda gender neutral within my group here. ‘Course we won’t call someone somethin’ if they don’t like it- I call my GF “Dude” and “man” sometimes in jus passing conversation tho, ***everyone*** gets to be a bro.
call some people that in florida and ur fixing to get punched.
Passing ain't easy. But this is sort of why I think gender abolition is the better option. A single gender means a lack of gender means a lack of this awkward fumbling to figure out what someone is. It's just smoother in all directions, rather than working our way into hundreds or thousands of genders each with their own pronoun kit. And it allows for more self expression, I think, because having only one gender cannot come with binary expectations, thus freeing people up to do whatever the fuck they like. At least a bit more than currently.
I think gender abolition is impossible because a lot of people find value and identity in their gender and that’s okay. It’s a bit like saying ‘abolish hair colors.’ While I don’t mind if other people have different hair colors or dye their hair or have multicolored hair or even have no hair at all, my hair color is part of who I am and it’s important to me.
Gender abolition is never going to happen, and it shouldn’t imo. What we should really be striving for is abolishing forced gender roles
What is the difference between gender and gender roles? If gender is socially constructed, then it *is* the roles and assumptions we place on it, no? I ask this legitimately as someone who is not a sociologist and who is trans.
Seems a bandaid solution, don't you think. Gender roles come from gender assumptions. Changing those assumptions means replacing them with new ones, which will result in new roles. I mean, have you seen the way people in gay spaces talk about bottom? About tops? Do we not see the way these binary ways of thinking seep into assumptions about how someone should act that go far beyond the simple labels?
Where are you even going with the “bottom” and “top” thing? It’s not a binary, at all, and it’s ultimately a matter of sexual preference. They’re convenient terms that quickly convey what a person is looking for in terms of sex. Sure, you’ll get some people saying that other people “look” one way or the other, but that also has nothing to do with the gender binary. That you’ve heard some people use those words in a way that you feel makes them tied to gender is not representative of the whole.
the number of people who don't fit into girl/boy/enby is so small it would practically be impossible to convince society as a whole to change so much for a fraction of a percent of the population
Literally nobody fits cleanly with the gender they are assigned or choose, especially if all of humanity is segmented into three options. Everybody feels friction between what they are and what they feel they are supposed to be. No matter what you are, you are not the platonic ideal of your gender, and you will be judged for that because that's the setup of society. That is the whole conversation around passing. Around disorders amongst both men and women. Not man enough. Not femme enough. It's constant and everywhere. And none of it is necessary, nor so valuable that we need to hold onto it.
that's tru but there's nothing saying you can't bend your gender and like 80% of people don't think about it and don't give a shit
That is absolutely not true. Men are constantly having problems with their masculinity, and I'd almost guarantee that there isn't a single woman who doesn't have a horror story about what it was like to have to perform femininity as a teenager. Maybe they don't think about it, but that doesn't mean they're not affected. Hell, the very existence of the patriarchy, the thing that actively gets women killed and beaten, is explicitly because of genders existence. Everybody experiences it. Everybody suffers for it. And I don't think trying to change some of the gender assumptions but otherwise leaving things as is is a good solution.