#''masc/fem energy isnt related to gender so its trans friendly <33'' then why is it gendered!!!!

[genderkoolaid]

everyone spiritual person who says smth like "masculine and feminine energy doesnt ACTUALLY correspond to gender, it's just the names!!" owes me five hundred dollars.

why are those the names, huh? why do you call these things by gendered terms?

because "feminine" energy tends to be described as nurturing, soft, caring, vulnerable, fluid, dynamic, emotional, empathetic, compassionate, sensual, etc.

and "masculine" energy tends to be described as focused, stable, protective, logical, clear, strong, independent, energetic, determined, firm, reasonable,

and oh, would you look! at! that! they just so happen to fit EXACTLY!! into gender roles!!! would you fucking look at that!! wonder why THAT is!!!!!!

the thing is, a LOT of common parts of this sort of generic spirituality comes from stuff from like, the 50s-90s, mostly made by white cis men and women. And a lot of it gets repeated uncritically by those same people as some sort of ~sacred truth we shan't dare question~ instead of something humans developed. Which doesn't make it less legitimate! But you can't just recycle some 1950s gender essentialism and insist it actually IS friendly to nonbinary people because you've decided that gender essentialism isn't gender essentialism if you say it isn't. Calling being soft, nurturing, caring, artistic, etc. "feminine" is gender essentialism. Calling being hard, decisive, materialistic, etc. "masculine" is gender essentialism. There's no reason they need gendered names!

A man who is soft and nurturing and emotional and mystical isn't necessarily feminine. You can be all those things and be a very masculine person, and saying that that man has "strong feminine energy" is just so fucking weird? Those aren't feminine traits, those are human traits. And a woman who has a clear focus, who knows what she wants and is logical and determined doesn't inherently have "masculine energy" for being a normal human being with some specific traits.

If these words describe spiritual energies present in everything that are meant to have 0 connection with gender, and everyone regardless of gender has them... then why do we need to assign them gendered names? Why not just call them anything else and stop making everything spiritual so intensely gendered? You could call them solar and lunar energy, or material and spiritual energy, or fluid and solid energy, or literally anything!! else!!