If gender is socially determined then why the need for transgender, why not just being who you are without labels.
No, chromosomes do not determine your sex.
In a lab, depending on the species involved reproductive cells might exchange information and cells with certain chromosomes might be compatible such as ZW and ZZ chromosomes or XY and XX chromosomes. There’s also gamete size and a whole host of complex interactions.
Then there is issue of whether an organism actively produces or contains these reproductive cells at a particular time. Some species, such as frogs, are capable of producing different types of reproductive cells depending on environmental conditions.
If you base your sex categorization based solely in terms of reproductive functionality then there is a significant portion of the human population which cannot be said to have any sex, as they do not contain any reproductive cells nor are they capable of producing them. Additionally, we would not know the sex of most of the population since over 99% of humans have not had their chromosomes checked.
You’re trying to apply a standard definition of sex which is not compatible with how society functions. If I accept that chromosomes determine sex and you arbitrarily define the word “male” to mean something with ZZ chromosomes then it has no real use case outside of a laboratory. How would I know whether Donald Trump is male or not?
Your definition of sex is untenable. Try again.
So you’re saying that we don’t know if the majority of humans are xx or xy, that this distinction is based on a small subsection and not actually representative of humans? Frogs are not relevant here and i am aware of the ability of other spscies to change sex. I do not consider the ability to reproduce relevent to human sex classification. If sex is made up and gender is made up then my question still stands? Why the distinction? Why male and female?
I think you’re close to grasping my point. We, as people, determine whether someone is male or female based off of things other than chromosomes.
We, as average people conducting our daily lives, do not observe chromosomes.
The word “sex” is made up just as much as the word “ten” is made up; it describes a concept. In this way, the meanings of both words are socially constructed even if they describe something in reality.
Because you, as an average person, do not observe chromosomes then you, as an average person, do not use the words male and female to describe chromosomes. You are describing something else. People have used the word “sex” to refer to a concept which has existed long before chromosomes were discovered.
So please engage with some introspection and tell me what YOU mean when you say sex. I am not defining the word, and I’m not asking you to accept anyone’s definition but your own. What concept are you ACTUALLY describing when you say you’re female? Have you gotten your genome sequenced?
Transmales are men in exactly the same way that this is a square:
Only kindergartners and similarly clueless people are overly concerned about the “triangle-ness” of the device. Everyone who interacts with the device knows it to be a square.
You make no sense
Topologically, a triangle has three sides, three angles. Topologically, a “square” has four equal sides, four equal angles. This is clearly a triangle.
And yet, it is undeniably a square: nobody who interacts with the device is concerned with the topological definition. The only relevant definition is the functional one. This device performs the functions of a square.
Pointing out that an individual possesses male biological/topological characteristics is irrelevant. The functionality is the relevant part.
sex is below-the-belt, gender is above-the-neck.
Notice that women’s smut is verbal, whereas us guys do not like words wrecking ours.
Notice, however, that sissies want/need words/captions in their smut:
Their brains are partly-female & partly-male.
Their gender is more-female than that of dykes or men.
I’ve read the words of dykes/butches who’re as mindblind to being-flirted-with by women as we male-sex-and-male-brain people are, so that specific kind of mindblindness is something that all guys, no matter what genitals we were born with, have.
The book “Billion Wicked Thoughts” mentioned the thing about sissies, in a single line, near the end of it, too.
_ /\ _
So you’re saying lesbians are male women? Methinks the ladies might protest lol
Because you can’t escape labels. Even if you don’t depend on them (you very likely do) other people do. In reality you are perfectly right - which bits you have and whether you feel manly, womanly, both or neither, consistently or varyingly should not matter. But apparently they do.
Since the labels are going to be there, they might as well be applied in a way that doesn’t hurt people.
Sex is not as binary as highschool level education makes you believe. Combine that with social expectations and the need to communicate with potential partners and you need new ways to talk about sex and gender.
The temptation to consider that society’s failures and the need to compensate for them don’t exist is strong. It’s one of scientism’s best tropes. Yet here we are. If one asks your question truthfully (and not rethoricaly) and gives themselves the means to answer it rigorously, they’re woke.
What is scientism and why are you downvoted?
From Merriam-Webster: 1. : methods and attitudes typical of or attributed to the natural scientist. 2. : an exaggerated trust in the efficacy of the methods of natural science applied to all areas of investigation. I was refering to the second meaning.
Why downvoted?! We are in jnpopular opinion, arent’t we? :)
I completely and thoroughly get your point. I personally have never understood this either. So people notice that they don’t fit into arbitrary and frankly bullshit boxes, so they counter that not by working towards getting rid of the boxes alltogether, but by inventing even more arbitrarily defined boxes.
This difference in approaches to the same problem (“getting rid of the boxes because they are of no use” versus “define more boxes so everyone has one they can fit into”) is something that leads to sooo much misunderstandings and contempt on all sides I think. Someone saying “Sex is just a purely anatomical thing and everything else is made-up BS that’s to be gotten rid of” isn’t neccessarily really anti-trans, but will feel anti-trans to a trans-person. They can still be pro you being however you want to be, they could just not understand the additional segmentation the trans-community pushes forward.
I for example reject gender-roles and attributes assigned to genders and all that BS completely. You can be however the fuck you want to be in my book, “gender” just is not a concept that has any meaning to me whatsoever. I legitimately do not understand debates about which bathroom to use or something like that. All people are equals and equally entitled to the same exact treatment. That means that I do not understand anyone who is against the Trans-Community because… wtf? Let people be as they want to be, what’s it to you for fuck’s sake? I do not give a flying toss if I conform to what whoever might think my gender (male) should be like because I think that’s antiquated as fuck. I don’t want my wife to be “womanlike” either. I want her to be herself, that’s it.
Yet, this stance has had me on the receiving end of weird transphobe-accusations at times because I oppose the “box-building” with even more segmentations and rules, and flags and even more divisions and so on and so forth as well. Just do away with the fucking boxes. I imagine the identity of us humans like one of that play-slime-things we had as kids. Put it in a box and it will sort-of conform to that box, even better if that box fits it’s size. But wouldn’t it be way nicer if we all could just blop around boxless and flow wherever we want to flow?
saying people shouldn’t be put into boxes is one thing
saying people shouldn’t put themselves into boxes is another
like it or not, the gender boxes are going to keep existing for our lifetimes, and railing against them isn’t a task to be undertaken lightly given how thoroughly delighted terfs are to weaponise any such instance against the trans community
if you take comfort in boxing themselves up, you do you
I suspect that many people, perhaps including yourself and the OP, misapprehend the categories/segments/whatever “pushed” by trans people as prescriptive rather than descriptive. The vast majority of trans people I have met, including myself, just want to live as they feel, which I think you get based on your comment… The boxes and other slicing and dicing of people, from a trans perspective, makes it easier to find community with other people who have shared experiences and struggles.
The intent is not (again, in my experience which is I will admit not universal!) to divide people further, it’s in fact in general a way to bring together people who have already been divided. I understand that sometimes people outside of the community are this as exclusion, like seeing the use of “cis” as a slur… But the truth is that we are already excluded in so many ways, and language that helps us to find people who understand that isn’t meant to divide anyone further.
Its also worth pointing out that although gender is a social construct, and it certainly shouldn’t bother anyone how anyone else chooses to express their gender or whatever… That doesn’t mean it isn’t real. Statements like “men like beer” and “women like makeup” are obviously antiquated, but there remains some truth to them, in the way many people love their lives. We can simultaneously erode those divisions between genders - especially those constructed by corporations to sell us shit, looking at you cosmetics - while also acknowledging that they are there and that is part of the reason that trans people exist.
Perhaps one day there will be a genderless society where all are truly equal and there are no differences beyond the biological between men and women… But we don’t live in that world.
This is so beautifully put.
I’ve had to forge a path for my gender expression from the beginning, and I was lucky because I was born a girl. If I’d been born a boy interested in forging my own gender path, I’d have been super ridiculed and bullied instead of just slightly.
A world where people can just be is ideal, but until it is real, I support people being given the freedom to figure themselves out. Whether or not I agree with the methods is irrelevant.
My oldest kid shifted their identity weekly, if not daily for a bit, and while it drove me nuts, I told them my crazy level shouldn’t change them doing what they need to do, so long as it isn’t permanent until they settle down for awhile. Cutting hair, non- extreme binding, crazy makeup, or wearing fake nails doesn’t hurt anyone so knock themselves out in a non-literal way.
Statements like “men like beer” and “women like makeup” are obviously antiquated, but there remains some truth to them,
And here i am getting shat on, the woman who does not wear make up and does drink beer. Figures.
I’m also a woman who doesn’t like makeup and drinks beer! Or, well, I would if it didn’t give me such terrible hangovers haha! Who’s shitting on you for that?
Thank you, we are all just individuals anyway and fuck the damn boxes.
Whatever = gender. Like, what else would it be? You are born with a sex - typically male or female - and then society in general decides what that means for you, girls wear dresses and boys don’t, for example. That is essentially gender, the roles we play given the sex we have, but roles aren’t ingrained - a girl isn’t biologically predisposed to wear a dress, she may be biologically predisposed in general to lean towards a female gender identity that includes dresses, and she also might not, and then might also not be predisposed to lean towards that female gender identity at all and instead be transgender.
A quick and dirty tl;dr would be that sex is between your legs and gender is between your ears.
(Disclaimer: I am also a dumbass who isn’t great at putting words down, doesn’t know as much as they think they do, and also hasn’t entirely woken up yet, somebody much more capable in one or more of these areas will likely explain it much better)
Female gender identity that includes dresses, and she also might not, and then might also not be predisposed to lean towards that female gender identity at all and instead be transgender
You assume thst dresses are female and call others transgender. I wear pants and work in a ‘male role’, there is nothing male or trans about me. This is my problem, i am not male, nothing i ever do could ever be male. Trans people are not like me in any way.
Not really? That depends on the culture one is growing up in. There’s nothing inherently male or female about any clothes, they are defined as male or female based on the society and its gender ideals. At no point did I define things as strictly male or female, and happily enough the lines on what are considered gendered are blurring, the point remains that gender is socially constructed whereas sex isn’t. You aren’t male because you don’t identify as male, someone who was assigned female at birth however could decide that they want to live their lives as a male and identify that way
But what does being male mean? It’s not social, it’s not defined at birth, it’s not your genitals, so get rid of the whole damn thing.
Do people you don’t know call you “she” or “her” the first time they meet you?
Is assumed gender meaningful?
Whether it is or isn’t is not the point of my question. You’re implying that gender isn’t socially constructed. The whole premise of your question is negated by the fact that people assume gender regularly. I imagine that you feel similarly to trans people - people make assumptions about who you are and how you should present based on something completely outside your control. Why is that the fault of trans people?
Trans people are explicitly stating that gender isnt socially constructed. That it is inherent and immutable, not even genes matter.
ideally no, in practice yes
if assumed gender isn’t meaningful, why are you a self-described feminist? if there’s already no meaningful difference between genders, surely your work is done and you can go home?
Because the meaningful difference is socially created. Do trans people who perpetuate social stereotypes perpetuate those gender roles. Serious question. If female is a genuine gender role that i do not relate to then what am i?
But it is in a sense all of those things - you are born with a set of genitals that define your sex, as a result your gender identity is also defined at birth based on the social roles that the society you exist in prescribes. There’s arguably a conversation to be had about the entire concept of gender abolition but that’s a hypothetical that we aren’t anywhere near, for the here and now we have genders and people define what that means for themselves
A quick and dirty tl;dr would be that sex is between your legs and gender is between your ears.
That seems to be the important part, yeah.
I typed most of it up and then thought “I should’ve just gone with the tl;dr” but decided I was already committed 😅
why not just being who you are without labels
Because transgender people have legitimate symptoms/problems due to their dysphoria. These symptoms improve when transitioning. That’s what doctors have figured out.
So it makes some people feel better. That’s really the only reason I guess but I’m not an expert. If you can just be who you are without labels, you probably don’t have dysphoria and thus don’t have need for being transgender. But some people do.
Are you saying you think their dysphoria stems from how they are treated, not the disconnect between their body and identity?
Hmm no. I don’t know where the dysphoria comes from, I have no experience with it. I’m just saying that they have these symptoms and transitioning seems to help.
The great thing is you don’t have to get it. It’s not about you, or your understanding. Butt out of other people’s lives. That’s all it takes.
I agree. I vote for and argue for trans rights whenever it comes up. The internet is a place for discussion however so here we are. IRL this is just a human rights question where i vote trans every time. Hate me and block me it’s all good. I get that human rights are more important than all of my questions and it all comes down to bodily autonomy anyway.
It looks like most of your issues here, and why you are getting dunked on, is the assumption that drag queens represent women.
They don’t. That’s all there is to it. Whoever informed you that drag queens are representing women lied to you.
Drag is a performance meant to call out things we used to associate as women only. It’s a critique/commentary on what one might associate as traditionally feminine.
It’s meant to make the person do a double take and get them thinking about stuff, and make them question if maybe women are more complex than just a bunch of roles and clothes and hair and makeup. Drag is sort of the other side if the feminism coin.
By a person with a dick putting on an extremely big display of traditional femininity, it basically forces people to go “wait but if that’s a person with a dick under all that, maybe my conception of what defines a woman is shallow and there’s more to it than this…”
It basically forces to viewer to acknowledge that women are complex… see how that’s a good thing for feminism?
I hope this has made you see drag on a different light, and how drag queens are a pretty huge ally to feminism and equality.
By a person with a dick putting on an extremely big display of traditional femininity, it basically forces people to go “wait but if that’s a person with a dick under all that, maybe my conception of what defines a woman is shallow and there’s more to it than this…
I honestly don’t see your logic there. I’m sure you believe what you’re saying, but i don’t agree that it makes any sense at all. All i see is something like blackface. And there are plenty of examples of conservative men dressing up as women to prove it is no compliment. I see people reinforcing the notion that women are shallow and bitchy, no feminism.
All i see is something like blackface.
Have you personally gone to any drag shows, or interacted with the community on a personal level?
One thing to consider as a sort of proof:
Transwoman have demonstrated infinite times over that a person with a penis can visually represent a look that most people can’t remotely identify as “not a woman”, it’s not too hard.
Yet drag queens definitely look extremely distinct and don’t look like a women you’d meet on the street at all. They are distinctly in drag, and many if these individuals could very well look like a “woman off the street” that you couldn’t tell them apart from any other women if you wanted to.
And yet, it’s exactly what they dont do.
So you have to acknowledge that drag isnt about looking “like a woman” at all, it’s something else entirely, right?
So then the next part is asking if it’s like blackface, where they are “making fun” of women. Well, if you’ve ever enjoyed such a performance, this too doesn’t fit. They clearly are addressing and critiquing something, but it isn’t women.
You are right in that it’s sort of like black face, in that in the sense that it is making light of a specific topic and calling it out through performance of it taken to an extreme… BUT
And this is a big BUT…
It’s not women
Drag is calling out and making fun of Traditional Gender Roles, it basically is mocking the concept of “Women must be this and men must be that”
It’s a critique of tradition, a mock of women and men being forced to be a certain way. It’s literally calling out at the viewers and going “You thought only women should do this? Guess again bucko”
It challenges norms and identity and association. It breaks down gender walls and forces people to question what makes a woman, a woman. It says “by acknowledging my (the drag queen) existence, you must admit that how a woman looks is not all that defines her or say I must be a woman, which is it?”
I hope that makes sense. Drag queens are huge feminism allies and typically only TERFs try to exclude them, and you really don’t wanna be friends with TERFs.
I would agree with all of that if they didn’t use female pronouns during their performance. If they were open about being male and their behaviour being male then i could agree with you that they are calling out gender roles but as long as they pretend to be female then i disagree with you. I see no challrnge to identity when they explicitly take on a female identity instead of openly being a man in a dress.
Because people still want to associate with social norms.
I wouldn’t have a problem if society collectively decided to ditch the concept, but until that day comes people are going to want to fit in with what they know.
deleting the concept of gender would be nice but isn’t practical as solution any time soon
Point of pedantry, your chromosomes don’t quite correlate to your outside body.
There’s plenty of XX people with penii, and XY people with mammaries, and that doesn’t even scratch the surface of all the other combinations our chromosomes can make.
So the “sex” part is already difficult to untangle.
If you then add, which many replies covered, that certain body presentations are pressured to certain social expressions (penis people don’t wear dresses, boob people do, penis + boob people break our categories), it gets even harder to keep everything in neat boxes.
Personally, I think we should stop being so set on categories, nothing in the universe fits neatly into such anyway (note the irony). It’s time to find a better way to relate to the lazy sorting our lazy brain does.
Ok but i see trans people as perpetuating and enforcing categories, especially gender categories. I am in the new category of cis female myself. and according to drag queen land i am not a woman at all since i dont wear makeup.
yikes
So you’re not a woman because drag queens wear make up?
Sounds like you’re a bit of a transphobe with your underhanded digs.Drag queens wear heavy makeup because they’re men, and it’s show business. It’s an exaggerated art form.
It’s not drag queens who propagate the women wear makeup stero type. It’s been a societal pressure for years now. Just like shaving legs, it’s about what society wants women to look like. Women were and still are in a lot of places, seen as objects who need to look pretty and keep quiet.
So don’t blame drag queens for an issue that has been pushed by society for a long ass time.If people want to identify as male or female, that’s their choice. And their choice doesn’t affect you. Just like a person you don’t know getting a tattoo doesn’t affect you. Their body. Their choice.
So, you’re saying that drag queens wear a lot of make up because society pressures women to waer makeup, and they shave their legs because society says women should shave their legs, because they’re representing female objects and i need to keep quiet. You and your ilk are affecting me and i will not keep quiet. I will call out drag queens for perpetuating bogus notions of femaleness that affect me. Like your bullshit.
You sound like a fucking asshole. Drag queens have nothing at all to do with the current discussions on gender identity. You just want to put a stick through your own spokes and play victim. Maybe instead of being a total boomer TERF you should look at who is actually oppressing you instead of trying to win the position of oppressor. Though from the shit you say you sound more like some dude trolling for whatever jollies it is trolls are after.
I do not like men playing at women by calling hair and makeup female when it has nothing at all to do with being female. They are men and they should own it. I don’t act like them so why do they claim to be like me?
“I don’t act like them.”
No, they are generally sweet and kind and treat people with respect.
1: Who gives a flying fuck what you like?
2: Who the fuck are you to say what men should or should not be and do?
3: Just because your personality is a total drag, doesn’t mean they are claiming to be like you. The word drag has multiple meanings.
No, she appears to be saying that you lack the knowledge mecessary to particpate in an adult conversation. I would tend to concur, given your comments and post history. Drag queens wear makeup for as many reasons as there are drag queens.
It is alarming that you grasp the most basic understanding of the fights feminism has fought for years. You think drag queens, of all people, are responsible for “bogus notions of femaleness?”
Look, bigot. Just say what you mean. “I hate drag queens and trans women.”
Drag queens are not responsible for bogus notions of femaleness but i do think they exaggerate and promote those notions.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_king
So. Is this also an issue for you? Or is it just cause you’re a woman and you don’t like men in dresses?
Do they call themselves women or men? I have a problem with people perpetuating gender roles that are crap.
Listen sweetheart. I’m saying drag queens wear make up as it’s an aggregated form of art for showbusiness. So take a seat at the back of the class and actually learn reading comprehension.
I said drag queens aren’t the ones saying women need to wear makeup. I’m saying society is. And drag queens wear makeup as a form of art. What’s so hard to understand about that.
Clearly you just hate drag queens. If your fragile female ego takes a beating cause a drag queen looks better than you. That’s a you problem.
As a woman who doesn’t wear makeup. I think drag queens are great. They’re funny. They’re amazing at their form of art. And they’re also in a group that gets hate from the world, as the majority are gay. So I’m all for them going out there and doing what to do despite the hate and shit they get from homophobic fuckwads.
Yeah i just dont see it as art, andcgiven that there’s no definition of art you can just cope.
Clearly you just hate drag queens. If your fragile female ego takes a beating cause a drag queen looks better than you. That’s a you problem.
Someones not like other girls.
Oh great, Reddit is leaking again.
Downvoted for uselessness
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/art
No definition of art huh. Okay then. Somebody doesn’t know what a dictionary is.
Oh bless you, you’re the one taking issue at the fact drag queens even exist. Nobody is like other girls, idiot. Every woman is different. So no, I’m not like other women, I’m like myself. Just like you are, just like my sister, mother, best friend is too.
I suggest you chill out though, you’re gonna cut yourself on all that edge.
I know a few women that are trans rights activists. Some of them have confided to me that drag queens make them feel ‘icky’. You know because it’s a caricature of women.
I’m just following up because I feel like you’ve been unfairly dog piled on because you also find drag ‘icky’.
I think it’s a little unfair, and we have a society that’s not even close to a conversation about why that borders inappropriate.
I didn’t see anything you said that was really unreasonable.As far as the trans conversation goes, I think we’re in the same boat as well. I don’t get it, but they deserve my respect, so I take what they say at face value, and until some kind of evidence comes by that refutes their experience, I’ll continue to lend support where I can.
Thank you. I’m not trying to outlaw drag queens, i’m just not going to personally support them. I think that should be allowed.
That’s just not correct at all. That’s a strawman argument.
You know, you can make up all of the utter bullshit you like, but that still doesn’t make it true. So let’s translate:
“I see trans people as perpetuating and enforcing categories” - This is you being transphobic. Gender has always been categorical; your problem is not with categorization but with non-CIS genders specifically.
“I am in this new category of female myself.” - This is you not even really grasping the concepts on which you’re attempting to build an argument. “Female” is not a gender.
“New category” - Tell me you hate trans women without telling me.
“According to drag queen land” - So you don’t even grasp the difference between a drag queen and a trans woman? Again, go back and cure your ignorance before opening your trap.
“I don’t wear makeup” - Good for you? Drag queens aren;t the ones gatekeeping femininity, you bigot.
My problem is with categorization and that includes cis
I don’t understand why we have a difference between sex and gender, gender is bollocks
Trans women can do whatever they want
Drag queens are men who present female stereotypes for fun, i dont like this
Drag queens are men who present female stereotypes for fun, i dont like this
And there it is. This is all just so you can shit on drag queens. Trolls are gonna troll…
Not trolling, i think excessive hair and makeup being presented as representative of me, as a woman is insulting.
Literally nobody thinks drag queens are representative of women. It’s a bombastic caricature of feminine things as an art style.
Next say “birthing person” offends you.
All birthing people are people. Drag queens pretend to be women and i do not like the caricature they present. Deal with it.
You’ve already stated that you don’t wear makeup. Already they aren’t representing you. They are representing themselves.
Don’t be jealous just because they can pull off looking more woman than you can.
If they are representing themselves then why are they using fake names and the opposite gender? Seriously?
There’s no such thing as looking more woman than whatever. There’s no such look as woman, only people. You’re a misogynist who judges women by their appearance and your opinions are useless.
“I don’t understand”
Clearly.
So go educate yourself and come back when you DO understand. Or you know, don’t.
Or you know, don’t.
This part, preferably.
Sex is what’s in your crotch, gender is what’s in your brain. For some people, these two align. For others, they do not.
That’s it. That’s the explanation.
So my ability to tell the time is gender? My abiliry to read? All of my thoughts are gender? I disagree.
Your disagreement is entirely in bad faith. You know damn well they meant as it relates to one’s identity.
No, i genuinely do not understand what you are saying. Seriously. Are you saying that ones identity is entirely their sex/gender? That everythibg that happens in your brain is sex/gender? Your whole identity is determined by your sex/gender?
My abiliry to read?
women are socialised to read more, so unironically yes
it’s kind of telling that in the two examples you gave one of them actually was gender-linked
the concept of gender is very interwoven in society. changing it is not easy.
Telling that it was 50/50 gendered according to you. Really?
TERFs trying to understand anything challenge: impossible
Your malicious and ignorant comment is actually hitting on the correct idea. All the things you mention: the ability to tell time, read ,and think with words, are ALL socially aquired. You weren’t born with any of them, just like your gender.
