If anything can be masculine, then what does it mean to be masculine? I’m all for call yourself whatever you want, be how you want to be; but a certain logical consistency would be nice. If there are no differences between genders, that’s great, but then what’s the meaning of being trans or not?
Fun fact social genderism is a construct. So the only thing that defines what is masculine is what the avg person does.
It’s not different then slang.
At one point people called losers squares. That changed and fell out of fashion.
Masculinity is just the same. It’s slang, it changes by the decade and century. If enough men do something that’s masculine. If enough women do it then it’s feminine. If everyone does it then it’s nongendered.
Gendered terminology is deeply rooted to language and class. So just do what you want, get your friends and community to do it. Start a movement or don’t.
End of the day, it doesn’t really matter. Its going to change no matter what anyone wants. Humanity is after all a social animal, and what the tribe does at large decides our language and views.
So do your part and be true to yourself. Your influence may be small but together we are strong.
You have hit the point exactly. As a trans person, I’m not fighting for the right to obey a different set of social norms than the ones I was assigned at birth.
I’m fighting for the right to not obey gender norms at all, and (relatedly but separately) the right to modify my body to my liking.
In an ideal world, I wouldn’t need to declare myself non religious - I could just not be religious and no one would care. Similarly, in my ideal world “transness” would cease to exist because there would be no expectation of conformity against which I currently stand out by my transgressing them.
Cool. But then isn’t the fight for trans rights sort of the wrong fight? Why not fight directly against all gender stereotypes and inequalities? Which as a progressive 80’s kid, was what I’ve fought for all my life. Dress and act how you like and it shouldn’t have anything to do with what’s between your legs at birth.
Because both matter. It’s a spectrum, and trans rights are just one part of that spectrum: people who feel/identify entirely as though they were born in the wrong body and want to fix that. That is as much their right as those of us who may want to dress and how we like. But there are small-minded people who see that as wrong.
People who have a problem with trans people, will eventually come for those of us who don’t dress or act to fit their stereotype of what our gender should be. They just think it’s easier to scare people about that kind of body modification when we all make choices about hair length, fingernails, piercings, tattoos, etc.
Trans rights are the same rights as my right to paint my fingernails and have long hair as a man. It’s all just bodily autonomy, and there are people like my mother who see both as bad/against God. Give a bigot an inch, and they’ll take a mile.
On top of the answers you got there is a problem of semantics. “Feminine” can mean very different things in different contexts once you step even slightly out of the cishet gender binary.
Standard English lacks a concise way to convey the idea of fashion choices reclaimed from “feminine” fashion as its own (usually but not necessarily) male gay thing. We call that “femme” or “effeminate”, but the difference between a cross-dresser and a hairy gay man wearing a crop top and booty shorts is obvious. We call that “femme clothing” because we lack a better word for it, but that archetypal gay man isn’t any less masc for it and probably isn’t any closer to attracting archetypal lesbians or straight men.
Another way semantics betray us is when we call emotionally available/sensitive men “effeminate”. Usually in a misogynistic way, but regardless men who are emotionally sensitive aren’t “feminine”.
At the end of the day “being a man” is a vibe, the sum of countless things that aren’t offset simply because a small part of your gender presentation is borrowed from traditionally female things. And vice-versa, neo-nazis on their gym grind aren’t better men because they put on 100 kg of useless muscle and refuse to shake a woman’s hand.
Right. And I’ve always viewed the notion of trans as weirdly social conservatism - because it seems to buy into sexism. I would think a fight against gender stereotypes would be better than a fight to be able to use flexible labels to fit in gender stereotypes. But I guess it amounts to the same thing.
Being trans isn’t about gender stereotypes. There are plenty of GNC trans people.
Gender is a social construct and it doesn’t have to be sexist when consented to. No woman owes feminism to shave their head and wear cargo shorts. If gender truly is a choice then how could it be sexist?
Some people feel strongly man or woman, some feel strongly neither or both, some don’t feel strongly any way. That’s just a fact of life and no amount of social theorizing will invalidate those people’s feelings.
To play devils advocate: Do you think we should invalidate people’s feelings of hate toward trans folk?
Regardless, your first two points seems to conflict. The social construct of gender is based on stereotypes. How can there be any notion of a particular gender unless there are characteristics attributed to it? And any generalization based on such assumptions is sexist by definition.
I agree that some people just feel they are what they are and that’s totally cool. Power to ya! But it is interesting to see the echos of conservatism hiding in these ‘progressive’ ideals, whether people want to admit it or not.
If anything can be masculine, then what does it mean to be masculine? I’m all for call yourself whatever you want, be how you want to be; but a certain logical consistency would be nice. If there are no differences between genders, that’s great, but then what’s the meaning of being trans or not?
Fun fact social genderism is a construct. So the only thing that defines what is masculine is what the avg person does.
It’s not different then slang.
At one point people called losers squares. That changed and fell out of fashion.
Masculinity is just the same. It’s slang, it changes by the decade and century. If enough men do something that’s masculine. If enough women do it then it’s feminine. If everyone does it then it’s nongendered.
Gendered terminology is deeply rooted to language and class. So just do what you want, get your friends and community to do it. Start a movement or don’t.
End of the day, it doesn’t really matter. Its going to change no matter what anyone wants. Humanity is after all a social animal, and what the tribe does at large decides our language and views.
So do your part and be true to yourself. Your influence may be small but together we are strong.
You have hit the point exactly. As a trans person, I’m not fighting for the right to obey a different set of social norms than the ones I was assigned at birth.
I’m fighting for the right to not obey gender norms at all, and (relatedly but separately) the right to modify my body to my liking.
In an ideal world, I wouldn’t need to declare myself non religious - I could just not be religious and no one would care. Similarly, in my ideal world “transness” would cease to exist because there would be no expectation of conformity against which I currently stand out by my transgressing them.
Cool. But then isn’t the fight for trans rights sort of the wrong fight? Why not fight directly against all gender stereotypes and inequalities? Which as a progressive 80’s kid, was what I’ve fought for all my life. Dress and act how you like and it shouldn’t have anything to do with what’s between your legs at birth.
Because both matter. It’s a spectrum, and trans rights are just one part of that spectrum: people who feel/identify entirely as though they were born in the wrong body and want to fix that. That is as much their right as those of us who may want to dress and how we like. But there are small-minded people who see that as wrong.
People who have a problem with trans people, will eventually come for those of us who don’t dress or act to fit their stereotype of what our gender should be. They just think it’s easier to scare people about that kind of body modification when we all make choices about hair length, fingernails, piercings, tattoos, etc.
Trans rights are the same rights as my right to paint my fingernails and have long hair as a man. It’s all just bodily autonomy, and there are people like my mother who see both as bad/against God. Give a bigot an inch, and they’ll take a mile.
Far.
On top of the answers you got there is a problem of semantics. “Feminine” can mean very different things in different contexts once you step even slightly out of the cishet gender binary.
Standard English lacks a concise way to convey the idea of fashion choices reclaimed from “feminine” fashion as its own (usually but not necessarily) male gay thing. We call that “femme” or “effeminate”, but the difference between a cross-dresser and a hairy gay man wearing a crop top and booty shorts is obvious. We call that “femme clothing” because we lack a better word for it, but that archetypal gay man isn’t any less masc for it and probably isn’t any closer to attracting archetypal lesbians or straight men.
Another way semantics betray us is when we call emotionally available/sensitive men “effeminate”. Usually in a misogynistic way, but regardless men who are emotionally sensitive aren’t “feminine”.
At the end of the day “being a man” is a vibe, the sum of countless things that aren’t offset simply because a small part of your gender presentation is borrowed from traditionally female things. And vice-versa, neo-nazis on their gym grind aren’t better men because they put on 100 kg of useless muscle and refuse to shake a woman’s hand.
Right. And I’ve always viewed the notion of trans as weirdly social conservatism - because it seems to buy into sexism. I would think a fight against gender stereotypes would be better than a fight to be able to use flexible labels to fit in gender stereotypes. But I guess it amounts to the same thing.
To play devils advocate: Do you think we should invalidate people’s feelings of hate toward trans folk?
Regardless, your first two points seems to conflict. The social construct of gender is based on stereotypes. How can there be any notion of a particular gender unless there are characteristics attributed to it? And any generalization based on such assumptions is sexist by definition.
I agree that some people just feel they are what they are and that’s totally cool. Power to ya! But it is interesting to see the echos of conservatism hiding in these ‘progressive’ ideals, whether people want to admit it or not.
Gender is a social construct, so there is no baseline other than current sociatal norms which change all the time.
confidence in yourself
So women can’t be confident in themselves without being masculine?
if that’s what it means to you, sure
Well that’s completely wrong then. You are therefore wrong about masculinity meaning confidence . You agree?
nah it means i really don’t care too much about masculinity