5 upvotes, 2 direct replies (showing 2)
View submission: Do non-binary identities reenforce gender stereotypes?
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.
Comment by shivux at 13/01/2025 at 06:44 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Do all these different categories really *have* to be restrictive boxes though? Why can’t they just be terms people use to describe themselves and others, with the understanding that they’re imperfect generalizations, and without any expectation that people confirm perfectly to them in every aspect of their lives?
Comment by TheEgolessEgotist at 13/01/2025 at 06:44 UTC
-2 upvotes, 2 direct replies
You're confusing the labels we use for ourselves with labels we're prescribed by a coercive society. And you're right, when we let prescriptive societal labels exist as the be all end all of gender, people who deviate from that system, like me, are put in danger.
When I'm talking about a trans woman butch dyke, I'm talking about a woman who identifies herself that way, because the prescribed gender from our coercive system would call her a man.
We also don't have conversations around the intricacies of our gender with everyone. It is instead when people get in our business and ask "but you said your trans, where is your make up and dress?" that we are forced to remind them that butch women exist. Having a penis doesn't make a woman any less a woman.
By arguing against people's ability to use complex gendered language to describe themselves, we're left with only the gendered language of the dominant society, which again, is coercive to fit into patriarchal capitalism.
You can't argue for us to divest from a broader understanding of gender unless you actively dismantle gender in every other sense. That means no pronouns AT ALL. No gendered prisons. No gendered sports. No gendered bathrooms. Otherwise you're just siding with the oppressive coercive definition of gender in the historical caste system of patriarchy.
We're not just quirky versions of a sex based gender caste system, we are who and what we say we are. We know our gender better than you, living it every day. We won't silence ourselves because you tell us it's safer. It's safer for the patriarchy too if we stop fighting it - and it's already on the back foot.