4 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: Do non-binary identities reenforce gender stereotypes?
"Feel like a man/woman" is different from "act like a man/woman" and "like to do things that men/women do" are very, very different concepts.
If you turned my mom into a robot, she would still be a woman. If my mom had explained that to me before I realized I was nonbinary, I would have been baffled. Because I wouldn't have still been a girl if you made me a robot, something that I very much wanted to be. But of course I wouldn't have been able to understand. Whatever makes my mom a woman, I don't have that any more than my brother does. And whatever makes my brother a man, well, I don't have that either. So if removing me from my body leaves me as neither a man nor a woman, but removing a woman from her body leaves her as a woman and removing a man from his body leaves him a man, then the obvious conclusion is that I must not be a man or a woman to begin with.
What you say "I feel like I could like all things nom-stereotypical for women and still be one", and you're absolutely correct! My mother is stereotypically quite masculine. She likes some feminine things, but you're not going to see her wearing a skirt or a dress, and you WILL see her in sports gear. (The kind for people who watch sports and the kind for people who play them.) None of that makes her any less of a woman. Likewise, my love of plushies, dress-up games, etc., doesn't make me a woman.
Someone getting a hysterectomy doesn't change their gender. My testosterone-dominant endocrine system doesn't make me a man, nor was I a woman before when it was estrogen-dominant. Neither our bodies nor our behaviors determine our genders. Gender is an internal experience.
Whatever makes my mom, the trans lady I work with, and all of the rest of the women of the world women is something I lack. The only bit of womanhood I've ever experienced is the anger borne of being on the receiving end of misogyny. And, let's face it, that happens to anyone who is mistaken for a woman, regardless of context.
P.S.: The whole thing about how my mom would still be a woman if she were no longer in a woman's body is taken directly from a conversation she and I had.
Comment by Costiony at 14/01/2025 at 19:10 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
How old were you when you had this conversation with your mother?
P.S: this is the closest I feel like I have ever been to understanding any of this, so thank you. I'm like 2% more sure what people mean now, which is a lot.