6 upvotes, 4 direct replies (showing 4)
View submission: Do non-binary identities reenforce gender stereotypes?
You're not understanding at all. Think of it like "choosing" to be gay. Could you suddenly choose to be a lesbian - or if you are one, choose to be straight? In the same way, a non-binary or trans person is not choosing this identity, it's simply who they are. If someone asks people to use the pronouns they are more comfortable with, that's not choosing to be trans or non-binary, that's simply letting people know their preference.
Are you serious? Is this how they teach gender these days? I have my criticism of Butler, but she is generally the one who people refer to on this and she clearly states that gender is constructed[1]. Constructions require you to actively participate, which is an act of choice.
1: https://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/english/theory/genderandsex/modules/butlergendersex.html
But forget Butler. In general, your gender expression is tied to questions of identity. Identity is self-conceptualization and thus by definition a result of your internal psychological state and your experiences. Unless you have absolutely zero free will, you must acknowledge identity as something you choose.
I didn't even know the word gender, much less have any ideology, when I first came to terms, as best I could, with my identity.
Also, how could this not have ideology behind it? Gender didn't even exist 50 years ago. How it's explained now is not how it will be conceptualized in 50 years. The way we think about all this is based upon the concepts of individuals who brought these ideas into existence. It's like... the most clear-cut case of ideology I can think of. The same way any human-made explanation of human behavior is by definition based on ideology, since it uses a person or group of people's perspective of why we believe something is or isn't!
Comment by snatch_tovarish at 12/01/2025 at 16:44 UTC*
6 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Hi there! I'm a trans woman who actually disagrees pretty strongly with Butler, especially her idea that to deconstruct gender, we need to splinter gender into 1000 subgenders. We definitely agree about that.
But I have a few differences as well.
Despite gender being constructed and performative, that doesn't mean that participating in it is a choice. Gender is a social phenomenon. This means that regardless of what we do, we will activately be participating, whether we're thinking about it or not.
Likewise, the "labelling frenzy" exists for the same reason we have a name for every hue of color. Like they say, a rose is a rose by any other name -- as long as there have been the contemporary gender roles, there have been infinite reactions between the individual and those social roles. Likewise, there are pretty much infinite ways to express gender. Going back to the color analogy, there have been studies that show that the better your color vocabulary is, the better you are at identifying different cues -- meaning your mind can more accurately differentiate the signals being sent by the eyes. Likewise, all of the labels can help those who are interested in better understanding their internal world and its relationship to the constructed social world around us.
So for a non-binary person, they more or less can't find any traditional gender role that suits their internal world well, stuck in negative internal reactions. If they don't behave in a way that's socially deemed "rebellion," they end up feeling like they're betraying themselves (which can actually be frustrating -- most people don't wanna be 'rebels,' they just want to live right with themselves.) so in some ways, sure it's a choice -- live in a way that internal friction, or live in a way that creates social friction. You're right that most people prefer to not think about it, but that's not a luxury that everybody gets
Quick E: you're also right that the current categories we have definitely shape the particular way that people express their gender and conceptualize themselves. Unfortunately, the only way to escape that is to not live in a society with shared meanings and concepts
Comment by Kailynna at 12/01/2025 at 13:09 UTC
8 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I first came to terms with knowing I did not belong to either gender 66 years ago.
I really don't care who pontificates on what, because it was never a choice any more than my sexuality was.
Comment by Rombom at 12/01/2025 at 16:04 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Unless you have absolutely zero free will, you must acknowledge identity as something you choose.
There is no such thing as free will. We all act in accordance to our past experiences, as you said. There is some flexibility for "choice" within that, but it is largely an illusion. What really happens is we are driven to act subconsciously and later cognitively rationalize decisions we had no control of as "choices".
Comment by UNisopod at 12/01/2025 at 16:10 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Identity is something we *partially* choose, but is also something which is *partially* thrust upon us. I would place my bets on the latter taking up a *far* bigger portion than the former for the vast majority of people, if only because people don't really choose their defining experiences before adulthood and that the underlying patterns of understanding are taught to us by others.
A great many concepts hadn't been put into concrete terms while still existing beforehand. If your complaint is that what we have now is not completely accurate and is framed by certain modern societal aspects, then sure, but like you say that's the same for literally everything and so isn't a particularly useful distinction. Neither a lack of perfect accuracy nor a lack of prior explanation are meaningful marks against a concept.