> If you go to any other culture on the globe and talk about non-binary gender, you will either be met with confusion, or just straight up mockery.
India’s not an affluent country, and irrespective of their legal status (Google it, it may surprise you), nonbinary people have a distinctive identity and place in society.
This is not to say that how affluent western countries approach trans rights is better or worse, it just means trans people do have a place in other cultures I’m familiar with. Perhaps others can share examples from other cultures.
> Any instance in history where you can find a similar trend, it tends to be at the decline stage of civilizations / empires.
Elizabethan England wasn’t very affluent or educated compared to today, but even a cursory glance at their literature shows that authors and audiences understood what we’d call intersex or nonbinary identity today (I frequently mix up the terminology.) I don’t think their idea of rights was quite as legalistically driven as modern Western society, but I don’t think being nonbinary was a death sentence either.
> It’s a real shame that people get so bent out of shape about trans people.
Well, there’s now a conflict of rights between sex-based and gender-based identities.
When you say “It’s truly amazing and wonderful that we can do this,” you’re expressing a kind of euphoria [1] over becoming more feminine, but to many female people being feminine isn’t particularly what they want to be or to them what makes someone a woman - a woman is just an individual who happens to be female.
[1] “the experience of pleasure or excitement and intense feelings of well-being and happiness”.
I’ve no problem with people who wish to live in what’s called ‘a gender non-conforming way’ but I do have issue with the view that (for example) “To be identified as woman one must conform to one of a subset of appropriate genders”.
Here’s a thought experiment - if typical female people started behaving more like your father, brother, uncle etc now act - if as a social change the ‘gender’ associated with females became masculine - would you still identify as a woman?
> You don't need scientific studies to prove that male and female are different
You do if you're a scientist and you're appealing to scientific authority.
You'd need to address why there have been cultures across time and geography that don't have these binary norms, and you'd need to take into account British colonialism that stamped out anything that didn't fit their binary norms.
> the world isn't full of people of ambiguous gender
This is one of the most serious problems with the gender critical crowd: They assume that the truth is so obvious all they need to do is to state it and then insult anyone who disagrees with them. Their arguments collapse as soon as you look at the real world.
>> Throughout ages, across continents and cultures, gender fluidity and the concept of a third gender consistently reappears: the hijras in India; the Meti in Nepal; the Fa’afafine in Samoa; the ‘two-spirit’ people in North America. They are not the exception, we are.
Really? This is four cultures. Are there not many, many more where gender is generally seen as fixed and binary?
> Majority of people have opted from traditional gender roles. Marriage is at all time low.
Machismo and sexism still play a significant role, especially in some cultures. But still you can't of course compare the discrimination/harassment received by trans people to those of unmarried, straight cis people.
> All trans are expected to overcompensate; wear similar makeup
This makes me wonder about the actual number of trans people you know IRL
> gender-fluid women (hairy feminist)
Straw man?
> Feminist interests are not always aligned with trans-gender interests (military service, prison rape..)
Are you talking about gender equality (eg. military service for all or none, feminism) vs gender-segregated rules/facilities (eg. no mandatory military service for trans, in addition to cis, women)?
The fact that prisons are divided by gender is because it's unfortunately well known that there exists a group of people that is statistically more prone to violence and harassment towards the other half of the population (I'm talking about men and women). Trans women are statistically much closer to this latter population, so it definitely makes sense not to include them with the first group.
> On a related point, what I’m uncertain about are the reasons for the increase in transgender kids in the west.
Broad acknowledgement (though there remains some sharp and often violent denial, so while better than the best the current situation isn’t at the limit of this) that gender identity can differ from socially ascribed gender and that such a difference is cause for realigning socially ascribed gender to gender identity means that people whose gender identity differs from their socially ascribed gender both are likely to have:
(1) a framework for understanding the source of their discomfort that would not exist absent the degree of acceptance, and
(2) a license to identify their understanding of the source of their discomfort to others that woud not exist without the degree of acceptance, and
(3) a hope of relief that would not exist without the social norm of realigning ascribed gender to match gender identity.
Naturally, this means that more people aren’t just going to keep quiet and attempt to fit into the box society has assigned them at whatever pain it takes, as would previously have been the case because there was no visible alternative.
> but it was also a time when society encouraged the view of everyone being unique and mysterious and don't put labels on things.
I'm glad, for your sake, that you felt like this about society, but I can assure you that at no time that any living person grew up was it the case; and, particularly, the labels put on those who failed to outwardly conform to gender norms tended to be quite harsh.
> I appreciate it’s a bit of a stretch but in some ways it does feel now in society there is a growing pressure to box people’s identities in more.
> But I do wonder why Western (progressive / left / whatever) views are insistent on additional genders being hierarchically related to traditional genders (like transwomen being a subset of women)
Er, they aren’t.
First of all, “transwoman” (or, as many will inform you is correct “trans woman”) isn’t an additional gender. The gender is “woman”. “trans” is not a gender identity, it is a statement about the relation of the gender identity to the socially ascribed gender (often called “sex”) assigned at birth.
Second of all, the actual “additional” genders, i.e., those outside of the binary, are, well, outside of the binary, not “heirarchically related” or even mapped to that binary.
(It's not just Iran; a number of countries, often extremely conservative countries, have _some_ form of cultural recognition of non-gender-normative people. Hijira in India would be a more complex example.)
> Hmm, I haven't really seen gendered dress codes aside from schools (which could/should be rewritten to be gender neutral) or the "entertainment" industry (which is likely to descriminate regardless of dress code).
> Being intersex is very rare and unfortunate, and I am sympathetic to those with such birth defects.
Agnes Torres was not intersex, she was merely classed as such which allowed her to live a normal life. Funny enough, your comment itself shows why this was successful. You see intersex as more legitimate and because of that you "give it a pass."
Agnes Torres was transgender, but was treated as legitimate back in the 1950's. Being treated like a normal human being allowed her to live a good life back then, free from hate.
It goes to show, if people would just allow trans people to live their lives, they could blend in with society. The thing holding them back is just... prejudice. How sad.
> The issue which people react so allergic to is the complete lack of tolerance by the transgender community.
I doubt that is the main reason. Society has been pretty clear for a long time that certain people found trans people too strange to accept them. Gay people have been treated the same way. I think most people that don’t like trans people are probably also uncomfortable with gay people even if they are more likely to say it’s okay to be gay.
> If someone points out that a man who really wants to be a women is in principle still a man then they get instantly labelled a bigot.
You can avoid being called a bigot by understanding the following basic concepts.
Sex and gender are two distinct ideas. Gender as described by Judith Butler is a kind of performance that you do. It starts in childhood where we give boys the color blue and toy trucks and we give girls the color pink and dolls. Men wear pants and never wear dresses and women wear dresses and skits and use a purse. A man never wears a purse and if he has anything close it’s called a bag, definitely not a purse.
The above are made up concepts. Clothes and bags and pink and blue are not biological reality, they’re just made up by society. They’re part of a performance of gender. You can change your gender just by changing your performance.
Sex is a biological concept that relates to what secondary sex characteristics your body presents. Hormone levels, genitals, etc. this is still don’t a binary concept as intersex people exist and are something like 1% of the population. It’s also unclear if someone completely changes their hormones and has surgery to change their genitals, what is the point of saying “you’re still a man”? Such a statement is likely to bring up feelings of pain and misery the person has had from people who have been intolerant towards them. It also is unclear if you’re referring to biological sex or gender, and trans people are often terrified that they’re not performing their gender properly.
It’s like going up to a fat person and saying “wow you’re fat” and then walking around saying “fat people are intolerant because they get upset when I call them fat”. Maybe on some level you’re right, but you’re being an asshole if you insist on saying that. And again, if a trans person has severely changed their sex hormones, the concept of “sex never changes” is shaky anyway.
So stop trying to tell trans women they’re really men. Such a statement completely misses all the subtle realities of such a statement, serves no productive purpose, and is rude as hell.
> The problem of transsexualism would best be served by morally mandating it out of existence.
> All transsexuals rape women's bodies by reducing the real female form to an artifact, appropriating this body for themselves.
You mean that book by Janice Raymond?
> So, what I think is very fascinating is that there's a connection between the very jolly Blair government and their Gender Recognition Act and Iran. They love transgenderism because it does help to get rid of this serious problem of homosexuality and it enforces gender. Right? So we do need to be fighting, I think, transgenderism as a state 'project' in terms of gender.
That's uh, Sheila Jeffreys being delusional about how supportive the UK government is towards trans people because Iran's very exceptional asymmetry in how accepting they are of trans people and not gay people.
> None of this trivializes trans people, rather it is your argument that trivializes the experience of women who were born and raised female and the distinct experiences and perspectives stemming from that.
I have thought about this, and as a cis male, do I have the right to deny any other human their experience of being male ?
If someone lost their male reproductive organs in an accident, from disease or at birth - should I single them out and police their gender ID ?
Is someone more male than me ?
Am I more male than someone else ?
After this mental exercise I realized I can’t gatekeep another person’s experience. Everyone alive has paid the price of admission to exist as best they can with whatever they have.
> our world is definitely still deeply GENDERED. There are people who believe it shouldn't be, and are working to buck those trends (and those people, generally, receive equally as much backlash as those transgender).
Some things are pointlessly gendered, like pink/blue, or puffy sleeves, but others absolutely have a purpose, like single-sex spaces.
> Transgender people - by and large - like most people - aren't looking to tear down the binary gender norms in our society - they're just seeking to exist in society as the other gender.
The problem is that trying to tear down GENDER norms by living as the other SEX. You're interfering with other people's spaces to culture-jam the patriarchy and they need those spaces for safety, but you're also conflating the stereotypes of a sex with the sex itself.
> we have people who are suffering today, and who we have statistical evidence that there is a solution for what ails them.
Most or all of that evidence is as flawed as the detransitioners study. Everyone is afraid to do any actual research in this area. That said there's ample evidence in every other area of mental health that says you should not affirm falsehood.
> Why deny them this?
They're denied nothing up until their gender presentation interferes with someone else's sex-based rights. Dress how you will, live how you will.
> The fact that society has a much more negative view of transwomen confounds the entire thing.
I think a lot of this is simply a combination of of not crediting gender identity (such that transmen are viewed as women, and transwomen as men) and viewing both as gender non-conforming and presumptively homosexual, combined with asymmetric views on homosexuality and gender non-conformity between men and women (which embed misogyny, since men are the superior gender, it is less acceptable for them to fall to conform, while women who are non-conforming are, while violating a norm, adopting features of the superior gender, which is less contemptible.)
>and the example I posted shows that what this “global civilization” has decided and coerced others into treating as the natural way of things just flat out isn’t.
There are all kinds of outliers for anything, from child killing to incest, even consumption of shit as part of some rituals. But just because there are outliers doesn't mean that the ways that the huge majority over time and space followed are not natural way of things.
The way of life of this people or that tribe, doesn't nullify the ways of billions upon billions for millenia. It just shows that it's not something like an invilatable physical law - but nobody thought it as such.
Same ways that societies that parents casually would kill their children (like e.g. happens with unwanted daughrers in India) doesn't mean there's not a natural and societal imperative to care for them. Just that social custom, special interests, etc, can go beyond that.
And it's not like they were "coerced" - civilizations and peoples came to the same answers and culture types time and again independently, even to the point of not having geographical connectivity with one another.
>So to say something like that the gender binary is an oppressive and unjust norm in global society because trans, intersex, non-binary, gender-fluid, etc people exist does at least seem more justified when you find that it’s not the only naturally occurring way for humans to categorize themselves.
Well, bi, gay/lesbian, and trans people have existed since the dawn of time (and tons of historical figures have been). It's not like societies didn't know they exist (or had roles for them, as in ancient Greece and Rome).
The norms for societies however were categorized by how the majority is (which is why they were called "norms"), and optimized for what helps reproduce societies and peoples.
Why would societies organize social life based on some minority concerns (as opposed to just respect and give rights to those minorities)?
> Any instance in history where you can find a similar trend, it tends to be at the decline stage of civilizations / empires.
You know what? I'm just not that worried that accepting humans are kind of messy and don't fit into boxes is going to lead to the decline of our civilization.
Most complex genetic traits are multimodal, gender is no exception.
> If you spend ten years trapped in your own body, only to be met with «aaccshtually there are only two genders» all around
I think your assumption that non-binary people are uniformly 'trapped in their own body' is quite mistaken. They simply inhabit an unexplored, mysterious, liminal space between the two majority genders. If anything, this would give them an elite, quasi-shamanic status according to traditional «binary» culture, not drive them towards social exclusion.
> The thing is, gender identity is very much affected by sex too.
Affected by? Yes.
The same thing? No.
> That's why I dislike that many attack gender roles and other social gender norms indiscriminately.
Huh. That sounds like something I'd expect to read about firsthand on Tumblr moreso than something that reasonable people would do.
> At the same time there shouldn't be any room for attacking those who don't follow the norms either. And of course some norms are just harmful. It's not so easy to just throw them all out.
I'm not the right person to ask about this, but there's a list on the Nonbinary wiki[0]. (Remember to check the Further reading and References sections; Nonbinary wiki articles can be a bit hit-or-miss.)
Some of them "don't count" from a "sexuality/gender distinction" perspective, but that philosophy isn't universal in cultural studies, and I think it's starting to become less universal in mainstream feminism.
> And so here my initial comment is flagged as well, apparently from the other side.
So was mine – and a really trollish one's been vouched for, too. *shrug* That's just how these things go.
> Is there really no more middle ground?
Sure there is.
• Be slightly kinder than you have to.
• Don't get famous, and especially don't get internet famous.
You're doing it right already. I like to think I'm doing it right (but I think I'm getting into too many internet arguments for that).
> This is my problem with this whole debate, it polarizes and increases the rifts in society.
The whole "debate" is recent, and artificial; I suspect it only exists to create justification for the claim that trans rights are "controversial" (despite widespread public support in places like the UK).
Don't let yourself get sucked in. So long as you're not insisting when people say they don't want to engage[1] (even when they're being rude and you're being polite – remember, you might be the fifth person this week, and the other four might've been trolling bigots), and so long as you're not playing Devil's Advocate[2] or poking holes / finding gotchas, it's fine to ask questions. (If you're seeing "gotchas", it usually means that there's a drastic difference between your understanding of the subject matter and the understanding of whoever you're listening to.)
Oh, and take things critically. Much feminist discourse online is very ill-informed, and I'm no exception. There are people who say Always Do X because ABC, or Never Do Y because DEF – but they're talking about their own experiences, and their reasoning might not apply universally. Don't mistake confidence for competence, and don't dismiss somebody just because they're not using the "right words" for things.
Question your confidence, but don't shy overmuch away from questioning other people's: here, asking for reasoning is a much better approach than telling people they're wrong. If it's necessary to do so, emphasise why you don't understand (e.g. "My native language barely has gendered adjective declension; could you give some more examples?"), rather than that you don't understand (e.g. "why does it matter? I still don't get it").
India’s not an affluent country, and irrespective of their legal status (Google it, it may surprise you), nonbinary people have a distinctive identity and place in society.
This is not to say that how affluent western countries approach trans rights is better or worse, it just means trans people do have a place in other cultures I’m familiar with. Perhaps others can share examples from other cultures.
> Any instance in history where you can find a similar trend, it tends to be at the decline stage of civilizations / empires.
Elizabethan England wasn’t very affluent or educated compared to today, but even a cursory glance at their literature shows that authors and audiences understood what we’d call intersex or nonbinary identity today (I frequently mix up the terminology.) I don’t think their idea of rights was quite as legalistically driven as modern Western society, but I don’t think being nonbinary was a death sentence either.
reply