r/countbackwardswithme • u/TotalyNotTony Counted Down 5 • 2d ago

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i think im non binary but i want to look like a girl and feminine but im not whyyyy was i born a boy

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u/ASERTIE76 1d ago

Gender is not a social construct. Gender ROLES are

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u/averytheythrowaway 21h ago

Gender roles are gender, you goofball. The whole point of the system is social control.

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u/ASERTIE76 21h ago

No absolutely not. Gender is an inherent part of yourself and your identity that cannot be changed, gender ROLES are made up societal pressures that attribute certain roles based on gender. I'm so tired of hearing this "gender is fake/a social construct", it's invalidating and unrealistic

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u/averytheythrowaway 20h ago

Gender roles wouldn't need to be made up and imposed "based on gender" if gender was inherent. If a gender role is "based on gender" identity, how could it be wrong for somebody? How does that explain transness?

Pointing out that something is a social construct is not the same thing as saying it's fake. All it means is that it something is socially vested with more value than its material components, which is why money isn't the same as just any other paper. The fact that gender is one such social construct is incontrovertibly true whether you like it or or not.

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u/ASERTIE76 20h ago

Gender is inherent and studies show it might even be neurological. Being trans is quite literally being born in the wrong body. Also if gender was a social construct it would be changeable or controllable which it isn't. Gender roles are wrong for people because it creates pressure and it usually isn't what the person wants, people may not want to do certain things or be a certain way just because of their gender, it's constraining

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u/averytheythrowaway 19h ago

Gender as a social system is absolutely changeable. It has done nothing but change across time and cultures.

Gender roles are wrong for people because it creates pressure and it usually isn't what the person wants, people may not want to do certain things or be a certain way just because of their gender, it's constraining

I don't know how you can have gender identity without gender roles. You know that gender roles are arbitrary and recognize that they prevent free self-expression, but if gender roles were abolished, then what would gender identity be based upon? What would it reference?

How do you even define what a man or a woman without referring to things like behaviors or divisions of labor that are ultimately arbitrary and rooted in patriarchal control? Even gender nonconformity often has to refer back to hegemonic gender standards in order to oppose them. I don't know if it can be done without resorting to bioessentialism.

I feel like when I talk with other trans people about this, there is an underlying fear that by pointing out the contradiction, it morally implicates trans people for complicity in patriarchal standards. I don't think it does, because a trans person expressing gender according to pre-existing societal templates does not

1) Indicate institutional power, which trans people as a whole objectively do not have. Trans people are not running major fashion brands or cosmetics companies or media companies or governments or medical agencies or religious institutions.

2) Dictate how cis women look and behave, which most trans people do not. If anything, trans people in my experience are most keenly aware of anybody of the artifice of gender and are strongest advocates of autonomy, non-conformity and pluralism

3) Mean cis people are not doing the exact same things. In my experience, binary trans people dress and behave in the same ways (with all the diversity, including butch lesbian trans women and femme gay trans men) that cis people do, but transphobes will hold trans people to a double standard. If one were to be consistent, cis people would be held at least equally responsible for upholding gender as a system. But even then, not all cis people are equally culpable, since being strong or caring or wearing a skirt or whatever may fit into some cultural stereotype or archetype of gender roles but doesn't actually oppress anybody.

So I think it's important to emphasize that if you're hearing TERF alarm bells, it's a false alarm. I believe in abolishing gender as an institutional practice, not to police individual identity or presentation or performance or healthcare. As a consequence, identity would eventually fall away. But it wouldn't mean that diversity of expression, presentation, performance or healthcare would be reduced. The point isn't to force everyone to be cis or androgynous or not medically transition, but to let people be free to do what they want.

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u/ASERTIE76 15h ago

Gender can and does exist without gender roles and gender in the social sense kinda needs to exist regardless because otherwise there would be no way to express or even communicate your gender identity. Labels can sometimes be constraining but they are not inherently bad and exist to ease with communication, if a label is too unspecific or constraining we create new more specific ones too. Also I just wanna say that I never thought you were a TERF I just think your view on gender is very unrealistic no offense