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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • She’s in her 50’s. In my mom’s case, I think its mostly just lived experience. If she was trans, she’d be less gay. She dresses in clothes from the men’s section exclusively (including to her weddings), has shortish hair, is regularly mistaken as a guy (both in person and over the phone and I’ve never seen her correct anyone and she seems to be pretty happen about guy men thinking she’s cute), is the only woman in her position at her jobs, is often treated more like a guy by friends and family while her fairly tomboyish wife is still treated as a woman, etc.

    Her experiences of being a woman has basically just which sports teams she’s allowed to play on because of the genitals she happened to have.

    Granted, I have no clue what her opinion of her own body is. Personally, I always kept things like jealousy of girls or wishish I could just wake up in a different body to myself (until I started to seriously question my gender at 28yo). Mostly because I tried to avoid thinking about that kind of thing and pretend it didn’t exist. Maybe she would still just consider herself a butch woman even if she had grown up in a different environment that was more accepting of trans people and had more understanding of non-binary/agender identities.

    There are certainly some though that use it maliciously, the ‘you will never be a woman’ crowd.

    My mom is a bit transphobic like that, but I think that belief came first and the transphobia came later partly as a result of that belief (and then she’s adopted stupid talking points to further justify the transphobia). She only said that when asked about her own gender though: I’ve never seen her use it against trans people. Honestly, I haven’t tried talking about gender with my mom (the closest thing I can think of is when she was complaining about singular they/them in bad faith, but I approached that as a discussion about the history of language, not gender… although my stepmom asked if I was in a woman in the middle of that conversation).


  • I don’t think my mom is acting with bad intentions when she says things like “gender is the parts you’re born with, nothing more.” Its just what she happens to believe. I suspect its an important belief for her because that’s her only connection to being a woman. Without that, she’d probably have more self-reflection to do. OTOH, I don’t think she’s arguing in good faith when she complains about things like singular they when she wRiteS lIKE THis. I try not to assume people are just acting with bad intentions.


  • Yet you use the singular you? Singular they has been a normal part of English longer than singular you, which is why you used “are” with you even when it is used as a singular and “are” is plural. Edit: noticed later that their want you to use their/their/their, not they/them/their. Edited some of it of the comment.

    “Do you and Their want to go out later?”

    Interesting. Weird using possesive form for everything. Still hardly seems like something to get upset about.

    I’m the asshole if

    you intentionally refer to people with names they don’t want. Its not like they asked you to call them something like “cunt” or something and you have some moral opposition to ever saying that word. Showing clear disrespect for no reason is kinda asshole behavior. Especially if they’re the spouse of someone you claim to be your friend.


  • The psychological is rooted in the neurobiological. Psychological can rarely be cleanly separated from the physical. For example, autopsies show some parts of the brain that were thought of as reliable predictors of sex actually correlate much better with gender. And its not just a matter of hormones changing it: trans people who never medically transition are the same as cis people of their gender. Likewise, trans people sometimes experience phantom limb syndrome for parts they’ve never had. And trans women who have bottom surgery basically never had phantom limb syndrome, despite cis men who lose their member often do. Medical transitioning is largely about changing one’s sex to match one’s gender. Additionally, physical markers are part of how people initially gender people. You don’t need to medical transition to be trans, or even want to transition medically, but its an extremely common desire.

    I think you also are misreading some peoples comments For example: https://lemmy.socdojo.com/comment/1596353 What you replied to was focused on the social construct that is sex, yet you bring up gender in ways that seem unrelated to the comment you replied to and seem to be conflating the two constructs more than anyone else I’ve seen in the thread.

    Also, a lot of mainstream discussion does a bad job at representing a lot of trans people. For example, a lot of trans people don’t want you to ask their pronouns: they want to be at the point where people instinctually gender them correctly. And some closeted trans people don’t want to be asked their pronouns because it either forced them to misgender themselves or come out of the eggshell when they may not be ready for it. Yet the mainstream discussion by allies often misses such nuances. Another example is the “trans people know they’re a [boy/girl] since they were a toddler and fit childhood gender expectations” narrative, which is quite harmful to a lot of eggs who assume they’re not trans just because they didn’t fit that narrative and also leads to people being confused about trans women who are tomboys, trans men who are femboys, and/or why tomboys and femboys aren’t all just trans. But it helps sell a narrative emotionally, so that’s what a lot of people repeat.

    I’m a hyper-logical type

    IMO, that’s part of the problem. I’m generally the same way, which is why I often get annoyed at myself for being happy about things that make no rational sense. Gender isn’t something that can be understood logically yet in my limited experience.


  • I would say that’s the case. As Emma pointed out, trans is an umbrella term. It includes everything from binary trans men to binary trans women to agender to multigender and gender fluid and more. If for any reason your gender doesn’t match the one assigned by society, you can consider yourself trans.

    And I don’t mean that to imply some people are only “technically” trans but not really trans, but rather there are also people who don’t consider themselves cis or trans. Seems pretty common among some people in the agender (which is also a bit of an umbrella term with lots of diversity within it) communities. Granted, some of that seems to be internalize transphobia or a fear of being seen as trying to take attention away from “real” (their words, not mine) trans people. But another reason is the trans label comes with some expectations that many agender people want to avoid. Either way, I think its good to recognize people’s self-determination of whether they are trans or not. A lot of agender people express confusion at gender and lots wish to be freed of gender in society. Of course there are binary trans people who are also gender abolitionists, but the sentiment seems to be expressed with less frequency. Even without gender, many trans people would still need services currently labeled “gender-affirming care”.


  • I personally don’t think it makes sense. That’s not to say it isn’t real (its just as real as sex is). But it would be good to at least know that gender isn’t generally about following social expectations. OTOH, conforming to social expectations can be a way to signal one’s gender if its not as clear, so some overemphasize those traits for that reason. And others have felt the need to suppress their own self-expression when they were eggs and have lost time to make up for. For some, the social aspect of gender is very important and for others, its not. For others, its much more focused about making their body match their brain’s expectations.