I want to understand tho. Like, yeah I don’t need to, to not be an asshole; but I still want to understand everything I don’t. I’m curious like that.
Also, because gender is a social construct, it requires that enough people understand it to a sufficient degree.
Gender’s an overloaded term. Are you talking about the internal feeling, the way someone’s treated by others, the shared sense of a variable that differentiates people, social institutions, ideas, or something else?
Those of course are all related very strongly, but they’re not the same thing. Different models of gender will define of differently, but that’s usually just to best fit the area they’re applicable to. If a philosopher tells you gender is a social construct, that’s because they’re analyzing things through the lens of social construction. Very useful, but merely one perspective.
I mean, I guess there’s a point to that, but isn’t there inevitably a social aspect to it? Especially in this post, where the person is saying others don’t have to understand it, meaning it’s clearly outwardly visible and part of who they are.
I’m not saying you should seek approval from anyone (for your gender nor anything else), because that’ll never happen. But denying the importance of some social acceptance for things in the social sphere is kind of weird, and feels like a “haha, unless…?” thing; you want others to understand and accept it, but the moment you don’t their acceptance becomes irrelevant and you never sought any acceptance at all. It feels like an unhealthy way to cope with rejection.
You don’t have to understand it, but you do have to accept it. That’s not “haha, unless”.
As opposed to French, which famously exists as a natural truth of the universe. Even if we had never discovered French it would still be there… waiting.
I think the language analogy is actually very apt, because not every has to understand it, but the people you want to speak French with necessarily have to know it. Otherwise it just doesn’t fulfil any purpose.
This is a good place for that reminder that the big lexicon of sexualities, romantic orientations and gender identities are something to help you figure out what your business is. Other people will sometimes have identities that do not appear to match their behavior, and that is fine.
This was the whole point of Russell T. Davies television series Bob & Rose (Bob is gay man who falls in love with Rose, a straight woman, and everybody freaks the fuck out. )
Or to put it another way, if a friend of yours is a lesbian but sometimes likes the d, or has a d or is enby, id est, not a woman, they are still a lesbian.
Most of the lesbian community is down with this, in my experience, but the lesbian community – and the LGBT+ community in general – has a long history of gatekeeping, especially of shutting out bi folk and trans folk. And we need peers, friends and allies on the same page. So here we are with the bus driver tapping the sign.
If a straight man sometimes like the d, are they still a straight? Obligatory Asking for a friend.
Regardless of the answer, I’m not going to police someone on their identity.
If a guy likes the d but identifies as straight, then yes, he’s straight.
If a guy likes the d (and less so the v) but also musicals and brunching and still identifies as straight, then he’s straight.
At very least, the closet continues to be a necessity for some folk in intolerant circumstances.
Identity is something one works out for themselves. Heck the Kinsey scale implies almost everyone should be bi, (even if not very bi) and yet our booleanist society seems to want to categorize only Kinsey-0 as straight (with everyone else as Oh-So-Gay).
France isn’t real!
And in French everything has a gender: a table? Definitely a she. A coat hanger? Looks like a he to me. A car? Look at those curves, she it is. That truck though, totally masculine. But the trailer behind it, still a she.
The funny thing with gendered languages is that synonyms can have different genders. So “el pollo” and “la gallina” both mean “chicken”, but their grammatical gender differs.
And in Germany, a girl is genderless until she grows up 😄
la polla :3
yeah really interesting in this case both come from Latin, and both made their way in the modern languages, one in its masculine form the other in its feminine form.
- Pullus (adj.) very small (animal), a young rooster, “pulla” for the female chicken. French : la poule
- Gallus (name) rooster, “gallina” for the female chicken. French : le gallinacé (a chicken specimen, member of the species Gallus domestica)
Said it before and will say it again. Be whatever the hell you want, but I don’t have to recognize it in any way.
By not recognize, do you mean ignore and say nothing, or refuse to respect the wishes of others regarding how they want to be treated?
For the 1000th time, I treat everyone equally. Which means if you appear to be a man, and are in fact, born male, then I will address you as such. Anything else is ignoring the binary of human biology and is simply incorrect. But alphabet wackos like to call it “misgendering”, again…incorrect.
if you appear to be a man, and are in fact, born male, then I will address you as such.
does this mean you acknowledge the existence of transgender women but not transgender men?
I treat everyone equally.
Anything else is ignoring the binary of human biology and is simply incorrect. But alphabet wackos like to call it “misgendering”, again…incorrect.
Pick a lane fuckwit.
Somebody has a gender you don’t understand. Tough
Also
Somebody doesn’t understand your gender. Tough.
Nothing a discussion can’t clarify.
While I agree with your sentiment, there is a difference between not understanding and actively disparaging. The former is fine - there’s plenty of stuff I don’t understand, and I just don’t comment on it because I have no business doing so. Where I take objection is when the lack of understanding transforms into bigotry and disparaging remarks.
By all means be ignorant (and I don’t mean that in a derogatory manner - we are all ignorant about various things), but don’t let your ignorance manifest into negativity.
Agreed.
Don’t understand. Fine.
Assumptions, deliberate misunderstandings and misrepresentations. Not fine.
France is a lie schemed up by the British monarchy in the 1400s to reinforce traditional power structures via a common enemy.
my take is just that we should stop caring so much about the precise details of people’s identity and treat it like food preferences: if it becomes relevant we try to explain it in as much detail as is needed, and people we interact with a lot will probably have a good understanding of it.
The comparison to language is actually quite apt since language has the same problem of people insisting it be grouped into neat boxes, when in reality every person basically speaks a unique language that may well vary from time to time.
I’m with you on the first half of this; the second half isn’t bad - just never thought of it like that
Anyway, yes, your sexuality and gender ID in my eyes is similar to a food preference/allergy. If I need to know, please tell me! I might have some questions about it so I can adequately manage our interactions without feeding you peanuts, but other than that, you do you. Similarly, I very much hope you have a bit of patience; I don’t often deal with people that have allergies, so while I’m trying to be sensitive to them, I might fuck up.
My gender is so difficult to comprehend for cis people that I just call myself a women so I dont confuse them
Cis people are missing out!! The more complicated the gender the more awesome you are!!
Im a demigirl, the other part fluxuates between agender/pangender while simultaneously is genderfluid (transfem + demigirl + genderfluid + genderflux) :3
After some googling two things happened:
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I kind of understand your gender(s)? Maybe?
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I learned some concepts about gender that I was very unaware of.
A great way to understand it is im part girl part everything else
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I’m just mystified how you know yourself that well, sitting here in my puddle of self doubt
Trust me, as much as I know theres a lot I still dont. I have no idea why the other half fluxuates and I cant explain or comprehend what it fluxuates between. Sometimes its standard masculine and feminine but sometimes I just want to not have a physical form and just be a concept.
This seems to be a rather weak argument for a strong position. Languages as well as nationalities share with gender that their meaning is at least partially (maybe fully?) derived from shared understanding of the thing itself. The structure of this argument here would only extend to genders already understood by the recipient - often progress already, as accepting binary trans people already is something many people fail, but if this was supposed to be a wider argument… eh.
Okay but you don’t get to tell others what they need to think and feel about your experience.
Nah, forget about trying to reason with them. They’ll just respond with “I honestly don’t care, I just don’t like it being shoved down my throat all the time!”, even though it isn’t actually being ‘shoved down their throat’, but you can’t reason them out of a subjective delusion like that.
Respecte mon genre !
Thanks I am going to harass French people now
It’s hard they don’t care what you or anyone else thinks
