1 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: Do non-binary identities reenforce gender stereotypes?
So, I'm a nonbinary person who uses this framing of gender as a social construct to derive the opposite conclusion. I'm more of a gender binary skeptic.
Gender means "genre" or "type". It tends to refer, in the West, to which "type" you fall under in the historical cast system we call patriarchy. This caste system has existed for long enough that huge cultural expectations are associated with your assigned type, which have historically been enforced much more firmly (though they have also been fluid, e.g. flamboyance in men in the 18th vs the 20th centuries).
Saying Gender is socially constructed though doesn't mean that it's completely without merit: genre and classification systems are effective tools for communication and self-understanding. Part of the way we engage in communicating who we are or fathom ourselves internally is based on the social constructs of gender as we've inherited them.
Thus there may be no true meaning of being a woman that exists outside of human terms, but the passive experience of self understanding and public perception of womanhood is a real thing that people do or do not experience. A trans femme butch dyke might love to get greasy working on cars with a short hair cut and no make up. A trans masc twink might wear slutty little clothes, even a dress or skirt. But they do so engaged in the same social consciousness that accounts for cis butches and cis twinks. When a cis twink wears a dress to the gay bar to meet another gay man on a date, he does not think that makes him a straight woman.
In summary: social construction does not unmake the reality of something, it just means that its definitions are constructed socially. As we become more free and variable in our ability to express ourselves and communicate that expression, so too will the umbrella of gender grow. Using the framework that gender is socially constructed to undermine the validity of trans people is really an excuse to cut us off from the social conversation of humanity in which we are all naturally engaged by simply being here.
Comment by Trashtag420 at 13/01/2025 at 05:58 UTC
7 upvotes, 2 direct replies
part of the way we engage in communicating who we are and fathom ourselves internally is based on the social constructs of gender as we've inherited them
But this causes a lot of problems, right? People get killed because of disagreements on these social constructs.
I'm not trying to undermine anyone's identity, just pointing out that the safer option, the one that actually leaves more room for individual identity as opposed to group conformity, is to distance oneself from these constructs, not *make more of them.*
A trans femme butch dyke might love to get greasy working on cars with a short hair cut and no make up. A trans masc twink might wear slutty little clothes, even a dress or skirt. But they do so engaged in the same social consciousness that accounts for cis butches and cis twinks.
These are all a bunch of extra categories you put people in so casually, little demographics of queer people all in their neat little boxes with assigned behaviors and appearance.
These are the same sort of prescribed identities as *man* and *woman* that have created so much friction over the past... always.
I just wish we'd let people be people. So this trans woman likes to work on cars and wear flannel. Now she's gotta be "butch dyke"? Now she feels uncomfortable engaging in her ballet hobby because you've put her in a box that doesn't have room for that. The "social consciousness" you talk about isn't one that benefits people of diverse identities, it only herds them into different pens.
I'm not trying to undermine anyone's identity--I truly want people to engage in *their own identity,* which is distinct from all the labels and categories and genres of box we keep putting them in. People aren't as simple as their sexuality and manner of dress; as far as a fully fledged identity goes, the type of person you have sex with and your preferred gender presentation are some of the least relevant stuff about you to the people you aren't having sex with.
And to be clear, I don't oppose anyone of these kinds of identities, I just don't care to clump them all up, either. Cis women aren't all alike--neither are trans masc twinks that dress slutty. Making generalizations about either party isn't helpful to anyone's growth in their personal identity.