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Being mtf or ftm trans is conforming to gender stereotypes with extra steps. Abolishing gender stereotypes and letting everyone express themselves however they want would be far better for society overall.
I don't mean that in a negative way and fully support respecting self identification because that has the best outcomes in the real world.
I'm trans. I'm a woman. I don't have my ears pierced, I rarely wear makeup, I don't do my nails, I haven't shaved my legs in coming up on 2 years. I don't understand femininity, and I perform it to the bare minimum standard, because if I don't, I face extra exclusion, hostility and questioning.
What I'm trying to get at, is that I don't really care about "expressing myself". Abolishing gender stereotypes would absolutely make my life easier, and I guarantee I'm doing more to undo the power they hold over people than you ever will, whilst you sit there and judge trans people for upholding the system that punishes them far more than it will ever punish you.
So the exact thing I said, which was observational and not judgemental.
It was absolutely a judgement, because it's an opinion you shared in a "what's your controversial opinion" thread. if you didn't carry judgement within your opinion, you wouldn't be sharing it here.
I will also highlight that you ignored pretty much the bulk of my post, where I expressly highlight my rejection of stereotypes, and my lack of understanding them, and their implicit lack of relationship with my identity, to focus on a single sentence that provided literally no detail to exclaim the veracity of your claim.
You came in with an opinion that puts the onus for fixing the harm caused by gender stereotypes on trans people, despite trans people being less in a position to challenge that system than you are, whilst being more aggressively punished for challenging it than you are. You ignored the voices of trans people telling you about their experience and relationship, whilst never owning your own responsibility and involvement in the system.
So no, you were not "observing". You were judging and holding trans people to a higher standard than you hold yourself.
Dude literally is saying that you, as a woman, shouldn't have to conform to feminine stereotypes that you don't intrinsically want to conform to.
No, what he's saying that being trans is "conforming to gender stereotypes" and that if we got rid of stereotypes, trans people would be able to express themselves how they want, without having to be trans.
Which is to say, he's suggesting that trans women are all trying to be feminine, and if there was a way for men to be feminine without societal push back, trans women wouldn't need to exist. He doesn't explicitly state the last bit, but that's what he really means, and it's why he considers his position controversial
When I made a post going in to detail about the lack of relevance feminine gender stereotypes have to my day to day life, despite the fact that I'm transgender, he largely ignored it, despite that being the basis of his "opinion"
Sounds like you care more about having the trans label than people actually being free to express themselves.
What I care about is people who aren't trans, trying to erase trans people, by blaming them for the system that oppresses them, whilst letting themselves off the hook for propping up the same system.
Totally understandable that you as a trans woman would need to be vigilant for transphobia. But you find what you look for and right now your transphobia alarm is giving you a false positive here.
Cuz that is not what buddy said, at all.
Go and re-read the post of the guy you're defending.
His opening sentence was literally "Being mtf or ftm trans is conforming to gender stereotypes with extra steps"
He is quite openly saying that without gender stereotypes, trans people wouldn't exist, and that trans people are really just folk who are too caught up in gender stereotypes. He continues to express that opinion even after trans people directly and openly talk about their identity and how it is distinct from stereotypes.
I've been having these discussions for a decade or more now. I know red flags, I know dog whistles, and I know why those things are problematic. And to be frank, you don't.
Oh I can tell you've been looking for transphobia anywhere you can find it for a decade. It's obvious.
You just keep confirming that you care more about having a label than about people being able to express their gender identity freely.
Believe it or not, you don't speak for everyone who isn't cis.
The only person in this conversation trying to speak for all trans people is the person you're defending
It's telling that the only fault you see is in the voice of a trans person defending themselves, and not in the voice of the person saying that trans people don't actually exist, they're just people confused about stereotypes
Oh, I see. You think that because I wrote two related sentences and put them next to each other that the only possible reading was that the subject of the first must be the only group that needs to abolish conforming to gender stereotypes.
I meant what I said, they should be abolished and that would require everyone. I'm sure you won't reconsider your first reading though, since you have clearly dug in your heels on replies to the other poster.
I've also thought about that a bit. The way I see it, transgender people definitely are following local cultural terms. Not the ones that they are expected to follow, but still.
What's considered masculine or feminine isn't standard across different cultural contexts either. For example, wearing skirts or pink aren't exclusively feminine. In a western context they currently are, so that's why western MTFs are currently inclined to wear those.
However, that wasn't always the case. If the same person had been born a few centuries ago, pink would not have meant the same thing, and they they would have probably felt differently about that color. Also, what westerners would consider a skirt these days, can be a masculine or gender neutral piece of clothing in other cultures. Even today, there are place where mean wear something that westerners would call a skirt.
Not all mtfs wear skirts or conform to gender stereotypes. In my case it's more about feeling dysphoria with my body/hormones and wanting to change that (and then presenting in a way that looks normal for my gender in the society I happen to be in), but I'm also nonbinary, so there's that.
Yeah, I just brought up the skirts because they sit in a particularly strange cultural niche. Nail polish, specific hairstyles, and high heels are currently considered feminine, but I couldn't think of how to use any of them in an interesting example.
Just as you said, people usually want to look normal. In order to do that that, they'll gravitate towards whatever cultural gender norm they consider most fitting for them. Obviously, there's variety in this matter, just like there is in everything else. There are always exceptions to whatever generalizations I make.
Non-binary people are an interesting group though. Don't know any IRL, but I've been watching a few YT videos made by them. In this biased sample, they don't seem to even want to fit any box. Some wear neutral clothes, some prefer bright colors. Seems like a diverse group to me. How about you then?
I fall under the nonbinary umbrella as I used to be genderfluid - my gender would change over time between feminine, agender, and masculine, and now it's just genderflux as I oscillate between agender (no gender identity) and varying levels of femininity. (I plot it on a scale where G1=fully masculine, G5=agender, and G10=fully feminine. I used to go between G4 and G10 (mostly around G5-7), but recently it's been more between G5 to G10 (with most of the time between G6-8) - so I've gotten more feminine over time.) And this is to do with my internal identity, mostly defined by levels of dysphoria/euphoria and how I feel about my body, not how I present.
I present mostly fairly unambiguously feminine though, maybe slightly tomboyish/gender neutral as I generally wear T shirts and jeans and stuff as opposed to say dresses. I do paint my nails, style my hair, wear makeup
In spite of feeling somewhat masculine to a varying degree, you still present feminine. I guess that's not how you would prefer to present, now is it? If the people around you had no issues with it, would you go with a more agender or masculine style?
No, I present how I prefer to present. I don't really know what an agender style would be, and I don't like wearing masculine styles - since my gender doesn't really go to that part of the spectrum anymore
Oh, sorry. I got the numbers wrong. You clearly said G6-8, but I just didn’t have my brain switched on. 😃
I don't fully understand. Can you give a concrete example? Like you meet someone who seems like a woman to you, they say they're a man, and you're like, "no, no, you're a woman, I reject your self identification of being a man"?
I don't see you as less of a person, I don't see you as a bother, I don't see you as challenging to my views or, a shock at all, really.
I guess the cold hard truth is that I just don't care.
If you wear your gender as your first, most outstanding personality trait, it doesn't speak much for the rest of you.
Do I care if you keep it up, don't stop and tell everyone you know? Have at it.
It's just not my business. It's not important in the grand scheme of whether or not you're an asshole. Your shoe size is more indicative of who you are, to me, anyway.
This sounds similar to the "I just don't see race" perspective.
Do you also just not see race?
If they're different, what differentiates these topics in your thinking?
I recognize the concepts of feminine and masculine and the blends of both, but I suppose that just doesn't tell me a lot about who you are, how you are, what your interests are or your life.
I could ponder stereotypes, get an idea for who you are based on telling me you're trans, but listen to how that sounds.
Would you want me to have an idea about you from one word, without even knowing you?
Thank you for your reply.
I appreciate that you recognize that masculinity and femininity are concepts, and that these can co-exist and blend within many people's experiences.
Unfortunately, the "I don't care" position that you've described does still sound to me like the practice of "colorblindess." For instance, it sounds like you are describing a similar false dichotomy; where you are saying, broadly, that either you "just don't care" about a person's experience of their identity features; or that, if you do care about a person's experience of their identity features, then you would be forced to use that information to "ponder stereotypes."
What about a third option? Could you see people as individuals rather than stereotypes; while also acknowledging that our experiences are affected by the contexts of our lives; including multiple layers of relationships with ourselves, each other, and broader societal forces?
There might be this third path, like you are saying, but some people still might not care even about that. Like, what if someone just genuinely does not care at all about any of this stuff? Is that wrong? Are we obligated to care?
Huh. I was going to write my own reply but I will defer to your argument, it perfectly encapsulates how I see it too, no notes.
Do you just never use gendered language in real life?
I don't think about it. I don't understand the question, honestly. I see people as men or women, short or tall, blue eyed or brown eyed, they come they go. It's not important to me how they see themselves, it doesn't interfere with my daily business or interactions with people, I try my best to treat everybody with respect and mind my own business. They can think they're the Queen of England for all I care.
That's a fair perspective.
I appreciate your acknowledgement that all people have the right to their own self-determination; and I appreciate your affirmation that all people deserve to be treated with kindness and respect.
I would also ask, though, when you assert your right to your own evaluation of another person, do you also practice awareness that it is fundamentally your interpretation, and that your interpretation may be factually inaccurate?
Do you say, "My experience is that I think that person is a man," or do you say, "I declare based on my observations that I know that that person is a man" ?
Most of the time, we have no way of knowing what sex organs someone has, regardless of the expression of their outward appearance. It's true that we may often recognize certain characteristics that lead to familiar assumptions, but in almost all scenarios we are still either making our own guesses about someone else, or we are choosing to believe that they are whoever they say they are.
Also, when considering intersex people and other variations in sexual development, even if we guess correctly about the sex organs or characteristics that someone may have been born with, we may still be wrong about the person's underlying genetic make up or hormone balances.
I guess I wonder, when you hold your right to determine your own evaluation of another person, is your thinking flexible enough that you can hold your own assumptions lightly?
Sure, but if you're gonna claim that trans people having either binary gender identity is necessarily conformity to gender stereotypes, then you need to accept that a cis person being either a man or a woman is even more so.
So the thing is, deviating from the norm is always going to be a bigger thing that just going with the flow.
There are masculine women, feminine men, and a wide spectrum in between. Many drag queens are playing the role of exaggerated gender stereotypes without identifying as a woman outside their act. A woman wearing pants was a huge thing in the US in the last century and that was just about not needing to follow gender norms separate from self identification. Cis doesn't mean actively choosing to conform to gender stereotypes, it just means accepting the label society slapped on the person.
Yeah, and? All that is true of trans people, too.
You don't actually know that. You can identify as male, female, nonbinary, agender, genderfluid etc. all while conforming or not conforming to male or female gender stereotypes. One is intrinsic, the other extrinsic.
But what does it mean to be male if you reject all social definitions of maleness?
That's a good question to which no clear general answer can be given. What's considered male is a huge spectrum of things, both material and immaterial, varying across generations and cultures.
But most importantly, what it means to be male is very different from what it means to be seen as male.
The fact that you have to define yourself as conforming or non-conforming is what's being griped here.
No you don't. It's extrinsic, I literally just said that.
Oh damn, you just reminded me of something way more controversial I forgot about.
I remember when I was younger, maybe about 20 or so, and I was still questioning whether or not I was trans. I was living with an armchair-anarchist at the time, and he frequently lended me controversial leftist literature to "broaden my horizons" and whatever lol
Well, there was one book that stuck with me more than anything else, simply called "Work!" and was all about dismantling the inherent perceptions of capitalist bias in labor. It had a chapter on nearly every aspect of society, and touched on how these things were impacted and molded by the systems around it.
And then I hit the chapter Gender. And I'll never forgot this passage.
Do they decry other cosmetic surgery as well? I'd argue breast implants are way more harmful to society than sex change operations.
Tell me you never interact with trans people without telling me you never interact with trans people