Hey all,
So I’m looking to take an active step here to understand better some things that my straight/white/cis/middle-aged male brain has had a tough time wrapping itself around, particularly in the gender identity front.
I’m working from the understanding of physical sex as the bio-bits and the expressed identity as being separate things, so that part is easy enough.
What’s confusing to me though is like this. If we take gender as being an expression of your persona, a set of traits that define one as male, female, or some combination of both then what function does a title/pronoun serve? To assume that some things are masculine or feminine traits seems to put unneeded rigidity to things.
We’ve had men or women who enjoy things traditionally associated with the other gender for as long as there have been people I expect. If that’s the case then what purpose does the need for a gender title serve?
I’ll admit personally questioning some things like fairness in cis/trans integrated sports, but that’s outside what I’m asking here. Some things like bathroom laws are just society needing to get over itself in thinking our personal parts are all that special.
Certainly not trying to stir up any fights, just trying to get some input from people that have a different life experience than myself. Is it really as simple as a preferred title?
Edit: Just wanted to take a second to thank all the people here who took the time to write some truly extensive thoughts and explanations, even getting into some full on citation-laden studies into neurology that’ll give me plenty to digest. You all have shown a great deal of patience with me updating some thinking from the bio/social teachings of 20+ years back. 🙂
That dysphoria is the part I really hope to understand I guess. It seems to me that would be a lot of social pressure to conform to an expectation, but to my cis-brain it would seem easier to just say who cares what the ‘norms’ are and just do what you like.
The best analogy that I can imagine is this: Imagine that you went to go get fitted for a suit. You go to a seamster, get fitted, and they make you a suit. You put the suit on and it doesn’t feel right. You tell the seamster and they insist that the suit was made to your measurements and that it is correct (they even have patterns and measurements to prove it.) You shrug, pay the fee, and leave with your new suit. Wearing it out, you confide in your friends that the suit doesn’t fit, but they all tell you that you look great. Despite your insistence that the seams on your shoulders don’t line up and that the waistline is far too off-center, your friends insist that your suit is well-fitted and you look great-- that you should be happy and grateful to have such a fine suit. Meanwhile you feel awful; dreadful. You just know that somebody is going to notice and call you out on your bad suit. You’re trying your best to accept and maybe even show off your expensive, non-refundable, sold as-is attire, but the weight of it and off-balance feeling it provides is a latent part of every move you make and every word out of your mouth. Furthermore, present circumstances have made it impossible for you to have another suit made. Even if you did, they’d just use the same measurements, come up with the same patterns, and make the same mistakes-- No, you’re the one that has to wear the suit; they don’t. You have to feel the fabric against your skin. You have to feel its seams snaking over your body. After wearing it all night, you know what’s wrong with it (or at least what will make it feel right.) Your only recourse is to find a tailor willing to help you alter it to your specifications or to alter it yourself. Let the opinions of everyone else be damned. After all, they’re happy in their suits.
Probably about as close to a direct understanding as I might get. Kind of puts me to a philosophical thought, if society didn’t have any kind of gender norms somehow, would that disquiet still exist?
So, I’m a trans woman.
Lets say I was raised on an island of men. I had no idea of the concept of women, and all of the people I’d ever seen were male.
In this world, clearly, my self perception would be different. I wouldn’t have a crystalised identity, I wouldn’t be able to tell you my gender. What I would have, is a life long discomfort that I could never identity or address. My body would have been wrong, but I couldn’t have told you why. I’d have been different to the men all around me, but I couldn’t have told you how.
It’s similar to how I processed my trans identity before I had exposure to trans people or and understanding that transition was a thing.
For some of us yes, and for others no.
It’s difficult for me to even imagine the complexities of such a world that lacks gender norms. Would there be fewer trans people? Possibly. But in such a world, there would still be trans people like me that feel a strong need for surgery.
Edit: Forgot to mention HRT, which many of us would still need.
That makes me wonder what personal expression would look like. Clothing might have been developed completely differently if certain garments were made to fit more body types.
You kind of described how I’ve been feeling about having a flesh body, instead of a robot one… I don’t even care about its gender, all of it feels “wrong”. sigh
My body is a machine that coverts nutritional input into society challenging thought patterns, and sometimes small bits of energy I guess…
I hate the experience of not being able to turn off and on again; of not keeping a backup; of not being able to upgrade pieces, or even to replace the broken ones; of not being able to quickly download or upload, both data and software; of not being able to migrate my processes to other bodies, or to create multiple copies to process stuff in parallel.
I’ve always felt trapped, and it’s getting much worse with age.
Interesting! I guess this is only a possibility because of how we designed computers and machines to work? Like I often feel frustrated that I cannot pause or rewind someone who is speaking to me. Or digitally search for where my stuff IRL is. We really are all cyborgs and part of our brains is already fused with computers.