#in fact i'm rather affirming the idea that your label is your choice and your personal decision rather than a set of standards or rules

[mister13eyond]

that gender post has me wanting to put Gender Shit into words and like man

from Outside i suppose I'd probably be labeled 'nonbinary' since i present in a way that doesn't adhere to gender norms for men and my presentation is androgynous at best

but imo my personal view is like. the gender binary is fake and made up, it's a set of social rules enforced by societal norms, and opting not to comply with it doesn't necessarily change my internal view of my own gender

i'm a guy, that feels easy and uncomplicated. i like he/him pronouns, my medical transition has focused on masculinizing my body via T and top, my everyday interactions with family, friends, partners and coworkers all place me squarely in the realm of 'guy', i don't necessarily think my relationship to my identity is at all complicated or outside the binary. i like being a dude!

it's just, like. why would i ever BOTHER adhering to the social standards or norms for what men are supposed to look or dress like? i'm never going to be a Masculine Ideal- no amount of medical transition can make me taller than 5'0" or make my generally soft features somehow more acceptably masculine. I also no longer give a shit about 'passing' as this is just... not something i care to do and would require caring more about Outside standards than my own perception and comfort

Once i got to a point where I was at ease and completely present in my own body because it met my mental ideal, I just stopped overcompensating with more masculine clothes/leaving my face scruffy/affecting masculine mannerisms, i just like. don't care. i hit 'right' and everything else is My City and I am simply not interested in the standards for what men are supposed to look like or dress like. if we say a cis man can be effeminate and gender non conforming while still id'ing as cis, why do i have to be classed any differently for opting not to bother with social norms?

tl;dr: it's not that i'm NOT nonbinary, it's just that I simply think gender is ALL made up so my dressing and behaving in a certain way doesn't mean I Have To be outside the binary; i feel like a guy, the rest is all just fun and games

[boreal-sea]

It's like... you're so close to getting it.

Yeah, I agree with a lot of what you say: gender is fake, and anyone is capable of exhibiting whatever traits they want. Guess what? Trans people think that too!! And we've been talking about it for decades in the modern era, and individuals recorded in history have been thinking about it for even longer. Other cultures have been thinking about it for a lot longer than you, or TERFs, or radfems, or "gender criticals" have been thinking about it.

Welcome to the god damned party, it's about time. Your thoughts aren't original though, so you have some catching up to do.

Like, firstly, we don't live in a society that thinks that way.

Even trans people. Even gender critical people. All of us. We live in a society that infuses us with gender the moment we're born - sometimes even before we're born. Not a single one of us can separate ourselves from this framework.

Why is it incomprehensible that people would use existing words to describe our experiences? You think trans people aren't trying to break the framework? We are. We're making up new words on a daily basis; we're thinking up new frameworks on a daily basis. They very idea that gender and sex are separate is trans.

You think we're not trying to break down the house? We are. But we're all inside the house, honey. Even you. None of us can get out of the house without "the master's tools" - because that's all we've got. So our choice is "do nothing" or "use their tools against them". It's a terrible metaphor.

Also, if you think trans people don't already talk about the fact that gender is fake, you're uninformed. We're having these discussions - we're just not being a hate group while doing it. There is a LOT of discussion about the fact that while gender roles and traits associated with certain genders can feel very affirming, those things don't inherently belong to any single gender, and they certainly don't correlate to someone's assigned sex.

We were doing this work before "gender criticals" decided to jump on board. A trans person saying "Hey wait, I know I was assigned female at birth, but I feel like I associate with all these traits commonly associated with men rather than the traits I'm 'supposed' to associate with because of the shape of my genitals" is far more boundary breaking than anything I've ever seen a TERF say.

We've been doing this work. Welcome to the fight for gender liberation.

And guess what? We're not trying to stop people from doing whatever they want with their bodies while we have these discussions. We're not saying an entire group of people are "p*dophiles and groomers" while exploring what it means to be human. We're not kicking people out of bathrooms, murdering them, or calling them r*pists.

Oh yeah and we're not replacing "gender" with "sex" and breaking down into bioessentialism and claiming, "female good, male bad". That's just misogyny, baby.

Look at what the goals are of radfems, terfs, "gender criticals", and other folks like that. If their argument boils down to "female good, male bad", fucking run very far and very fast, because they're just spouting misogyny with a different label.

I think "TRAs" are the better side to be on here. We actually want freedom.

Isn’t the idea of gender redundant?

Most progressive people can acknowledge that gender roles are not inherent to men and women but that they’re culturally and societally constructed. So if we realize that all humans, regardless of sex, have a full scope of behavior, likes and dislikes, and personalities, then what is left to be “gendered”? To say your gender identity is “x” is to say that you’re a male or female who tends to exhibit “x” gender roles, because the only function gender has ever served is to distinguish males and females on a social basis (ie instilling gender roles) to make the oppression of the latter easier.

It should be a given to assume men and women can think, act, and dress in whatever manner. You shouldn’t need to see a “they/them” in an Instagram bio to think “gee, this person might not follow conventional gender roles!” You should already be able to assume that a member of either sex can be a multifaceted individual with “masculine” and “feminine” qualities because, again, these are not respective to males and females.

To put it plainly, to say that you have a gender identity unaligned with your observed sex is literally just to say that you don’t fully align with the gender roles aligned with your sex. Which, ideally, is a given.

It is never liberating to lean into the oppressor class’s definitions of themselves and the class they are oppressing. So why are we doing it with women and gender?

The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.