Poll: Gender recognition offence

[Something Amyss]

Ugh...I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about...gender identity isn't directly linked to their biology, that's what I'm trying to say (Correct me if I'm wrong, I feel like a massive idiot right now). They undergo the body modification to make their biology line up with the way that they feel, because who you are in regards to gender doesn't relate to your biology. That's something that doesn't happen with age or ethnicity.

Look, please tell me if I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about, I feel so stupid right now.

But it's not social, then? Like, I'm seriously not trying to bust your balls here, I'm just trying to figure out where you were going with this. That's the part that really pricked up my ears.

 

[Erttheking]

Ugh...I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about...gender identity isn't directly linked to their biology, that's what I'm trying to say (Correct me if I'm wrong, I feel like a massive idiot right now). They undergo the body modification to make their biology line up with the way that they feel, because who you are in regards to gender doesn't relate to your biology. That's something that doesn't happen with age or ethnicity.

Look, please tell me if I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about, I feel so stupid right now.

But it's not social, then? Like, I'm seriously not trying to bust your balls here, I'm just trying to figure out where you were going with this. That's the part that really pricked up my ears.

Well...in a way it's social. Gender roles are constructed, what it means to be a man or a woman is constructed, even CIS-gendered people view being a man or a woman as more than just having the matching genitals. I don't think it's too much of a stretch that people, even people who think things like toxic masculinity are bullshit, are influenced by society into identifying as the gender they identify as, whether that gender matches with their sex or not.

Biological or social. It's like the whole "Nurture or Nature" debate, both elements play a factor.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

Gender is not some kind of social construct.

The field of social sciences has been recognizing the difference between sex and gender for nearly forty-five years. If you know better than common, peer-reviewed consensus among a specific scientific discipline, then I invite you to tell us your credentials and show us your data.

By this Tumblr-BS, you should all acknowledge me as a lizard. What? I feel like one.

Sure, I'll call you a lizard if you want me to call you a lizard. Doesn't cost me anything to do; why wouldn't I? How's it hanging, my lizard? Are you a specific lizard, or just generically four-legged and reptilian?

Oh come on, the lizard part is so obvious to prove false.

That's why people ridicule otherkin above else.

you think you're a fairy? sure, any time pre 1990 they would have put you in an asylum but in the 90's to 00's we called it a workable disorder and now in the 10's it has turned into some sort of pedestal...

honestly gender yourself to space but when people start about being angelkin,lizardfolk or boomkin for that matter they better fork over some proof and unless it is a WoW subscription we can suspect their insanity.


Edit:

Unless you can show me some magic, I'm onboard if you have proof.

The entire otherkin comparison is used to invalidate the identities of trans folk, it's pretty typical trans erasure.

Anyways calling someone "insane" for wanting to identify as some kind of otherkin, it's not really even a mental disorder, at worst it's an over investment in personal fantasy. But I've never met these mythical otherkin who demand you call them a dragon, lizard, angel, fairy, and etc... Not in person, and not online. It comes off as a strawman, because the only contexts I see otherkin being in their personas is in art, fiction, and role play, I've never run into anyone who was belligerently attached to an otherkin persona in daily life. What's worse in this case is the armchair psychology applied to the otherkin community that's aimed at the strawman depiction, which is then used to shit on trans folk.

 

[I can't enter my old name]

Ugh...I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about...gender identity isn't directly linked to their biology, that's what I'm trying to say (Correct me if I'm wrong, I feel like a massive idiot right now). They undergo the body modification to make their biology line up with the way that they feel, because who you are in regards to gender doesn't relate to your biology. That's something that doesn't happen with age or ethnicity.

Look, please tell me if I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about, I feel so stupid right now.

But it's not social, then? Like, I'm seriously not trying to bust your balls here, I'm just trying to figure out where you were going with this. That's the part that really pricked up my ears.

Well...in a way it's social. Gender roles are constructed, what it means to be a man or a woman is constructed, even CIS-gendered people view being a man or a woman as more than just having the matching genitals. I don't think it's too much of a stretch that people, even people who think things like toxic masculinity are bullshit, are influenced by society into identifying as the gender they identify as, whether that gender matches with their sex or not.

Biological or social. It's like the whole "Nurture or Nature" debate, both elements play a factor.

Uh, is there some new literature on transgender? I don't feel like reading 9 pages, but evidence that I'm aware of seems to lean on gender identity being neurological. Having a certain sexually dimorphic structure in the brain is correlated with gender identity. Transgender also seems to be heritable.

On the nurture side, I know of a study where males who were raised to be females due to complications at birth still felt like they were male during childhood and most went back to being male after childhood, even though they were castrated at infancy. All this suggests the possibility that transgender is genetic or comes from prenatal factors.

Now gender roles of course can be biological and social, but identity seems to be biological.

 

[Something Amyss]

Well...in a way it's social. Gender roles are constructed, what it means to be a man or a woman is constructed, even CIS-gendered people view being a man or a woman as more than just having the matching genitals. I don't think it's too much of a stretch that people, even people who think things like toxic masculinity are bullshit, are influenced by society into identifying as the gender they identify as, whether that gender matches with their sex or not.

Biological or social. It's like the whole "Nurture or Nature" debate, both elements play a factor.

Okay, now we're getting to it. This is why I was trying to figure out where you were coming from, because without it I don't know how to really address it.

"Gender" has multiple meanings. There is gender as it relates to sexual characteristics, gender as in gender roles or expectations, and gender in terms of gender identity. Hell, even my pants have a gender.

So when we talk about transgender individuals, we're talking about gender identity. Gender identity is something that may or may not mesh with gender roles and societal expectations of gender (which is the perceived divide between male and female or male and female traits). The "may not" part is important here, because our gender identity appears to form irrespective of such social norms.

I made a post [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.885658-Poll-Gender-recognition-offence?page=7#22571893] yesterday at about this same time that sort of covers it, but it's long and rambly and 3 AM-y. The example I was trying to give, namely of myself, tends to fit a lot of masculine/male stereotypes and interests and whatnot. This may be a social element, subject to the conditioning I received growing up, but either way, it doesn't really match my gender identity or I wouldn't be trans. I am apparently just feminine enough for people to assume I'm gay and try and kill me over it, but not so feminine that I can't shock a friend of 20 years by revealing I'm not a "typical guy."

Contrast with my brother who, as far as I know, is straight and cis. He liked waaaaaaay more "girly" stuff than I did growing up. That doesn't make him a woman or womanly or anything like that. Why? Well, because these ideas don't seem to interact with gender identity. At least not in any sort of direct, causal effect. They might impact how one chooses to present oneself. But it wouldn't be a direct causal relation of social conditioning leading to gender identity.

I mean, I use myself as an example primarily because I'm the only person I feel I have the right to be specific about. There are a couple transwomen on this board who swing more "masculine" than me, and a ton who run more "feminine." Social pressure might actually skew that. But we honestly do run a spectrum, like everyone else, in a way that seems to further bolster the idea that the roles we perform and the gender identities we have are not necessarily related. I don't think there's a nurture element to not identifying as your birth sex. I think there are nurture elements to other things that might be in play, but not the identity itself.

I keep seeing people in these threads insist that trans individuals reinforce gender roles and stereotypes, but hell, I'm considered "gender nonconforming" whether I'm viewed as male or female. And you know what? I'm actually cool with that. I--for the most part, anyway--like who I am.

...take that as you will.

 

[JimB]

Gender identity isn't directly linked to their biology, that's what.

Yeah, after all, no such thing as hormones or chromosomes exist, and they totally don't play a role in our gender.

The stance you are mocking is not one erttheking has proposed. The word "directly" means something, so I will thank you to please stop strawmanning people for holding positions you dislike.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

Uh, is there some new literature on transgender? I don't feel like reading 9 pages, but evidence that I'm aware of seems to lean on gender identity being neurological. Having a certain sexually dimorphic structure in the brain is correlated with gender identity. Transgender also seems to be heritable.

On the nurture side, I know of a study where males who were raised to be females due to complications at birth still felt like they were male during childhood and most went back to being male after childhood, even though they were castrated at infancy. All this suggests the possibility that transgender is genetic or comes from prenatal factors.

Now gender roles of course can be biological and social, but identity seems to be biological.

The nature versus nurture argument always strikes me as a very limited, because humans are very complicated creatures. It's very attractive to look for one answer and one answer only, because limiting things to one cause is very simple, but that leads to inaccuracy and conformation biases. For instance I've known several people who would set off anyone's "gaydar", down to them having typical mannerisms, speech, and lisps as gays and lesbians are known to, yet they're straight. I'm not even talking in the closet pretending to be straight, I mean straight as it gets. What I'm getting at here is that when it comes to sexuality and gender identity, it's probably a combination of nature and nurture. Our brains develop for two decades of our lives, that development can be very influenced by the environment and people around us, while at the same time I know of people who show the traits from as soon as they can show traits, and they turn out LGBTQ.

I have a hard time believing that transgenderism is a hereditary condition, because I know of many who transitioned after having kids, their kids aren't trans. Same goes for gay and lesbian couples who have biological children. Some I'm sure do have kids that are trans, lesbian, and gay. But the reports I've read on genetic links aren't guaranteed to produce children who are LGBTQ, because while there are factors, they just increase the possibility, not enforce it. Again it's a complex thing.

Now the "study" I know of where they force transitioned a boy and raised the kid as a girl... It really wasn't a study, or even a scientific experiment, it had massively flawed methodology and premise, it was botched and the only subject I'm aware of eventually committed suicide. The case of David Reimer [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer] is usually cited here, but it was rather bad practice done by Dr John Money, who has done a lot for the understanding of transgenderism, but most of his overall theories are highly questioned.

So it's more likely that it's a series of complicated factors that lead to transgender folk and similar.

 

[happyninja42]

I have a hard time believing that transgenderism is a hereditary condition, because I know of many who transitioned after having kids, their kids aren't trans. Same goes for gay and lesbian couples who have biological children. Some I'm sure do have kids that are trans, lesbian, and gay. But the reports I've read on genetic links aren't guaranteed to produce children who are LGBTQ, because while there are factors, they just increase the possibility, not enforce it. Again it's a complex thing.

The fact that you know many who transitioned and have kids who aren't trans doesn't mean it's not hereditary. I mean if we are saying it's a biological issue, having at least partly to do with our genetic makeup, and other biological factors, then it's perfectly plausible to consider that someone could have a predisposition for being trans, based on genetics. It doesn't mean it's going to actually be expressed though. My family has a hereditary predisposition for heart problems, but that doesn't mean everyone in the family manifests heart problems. And yet, the hereditary predisposition is there. Nothing with genetics is "guaranteed" as you mentioned. But that doesn't mean there isn't an increase possibility of it based on said genetics.

 

[1981]

When vocal individuals like Caitlyn Jenner tell the world that they feel like they can finally 'wear nail' polish now that they've transitioned, they send out the message that as a man they couldn't. They tell men everywhere who might quite like to wear nail polish that actually, they're not men, they were born 'in the wrong body.'

I haven't seen the interview you're referring to, so all I can say is, if this is literally what she said with nothing else attached, then you need to work on your comprehension, celeritas. "I feel I can" does not mean "You must not."

Then why did Jenner feel she couldn't wear nail polish in public before? [footnote]http://www.newsweek.com/coming-out-trans-29-best-quotes-bruce-jenners-diane-sawyer-interview-325300[/footnote] If I understood you correctly, you're saying it couldn't have been because of how people would've reacted.

[People] see me as a macho male, but my heart and my soul and everything that I do in life ? it is part of me, that female side is part of me, that's who I am. I was genetically born that way.[footnote]https://www.yahoo.com/celebrity/blogs/celeb-news/13-things-we-learned-from-bruce-jenner-s-diane-sawyer-interview--plus-one-thing-we-already-kinda-knew-040914672.html[/footnote]

I see. A male who isn't macho is a female.

She doesn't consider herself gay because she's "never been with a guy". She's attracted to women. That makes her either a straight man or a gay woman.

No one in their right mind would think that Jenner or anyone else could represent all trans people, but when you keep hearing things like that it gets confusing.

 

[happyninja42]

Contrast with my brother who, as far as I know, is straight and cis. He liked waaaaaaay more "girly" stuff than I did growing up. That doesn't make him a woman or womanly or anything like that. Why? Well, because these ideas don't seem to interact with gender identity. At least not in any sort of direct, causal effect. They might impact how one chooses to present oneself. But it wouldn't be a direct causal relation of social conditioning leading to gender identity.

I mean, I use myself as an example primarily because I'm the only person I feel I have the right to be specific about. There are a couple transwomen on this board who swing more "masculine" than me, and a ton who run more "feminine." Social pressure might actually skew that. But we honestly do run a spectrum, like everyone else, in a way that seems to further bolster the idea that the roles we perform and the gender identities we have are not necessarily related. I don't think there's a nurture element to not identifying as your birth sex. I think there are nurture elements to other things that might be in play, but not the identity itself.

That would make sense, considering how what is considered "masculine" and "feminine" gender roles/traits in society can vary drastically from culture to culture. Not counting anyone's orientation or whatnot, just simply "The behavior that is accepted and seen to be associated with masculine/feminine" is very different all over the place. So really, in some ways, the comments about "reinforcing gender roles" is really more saying "reinforcing the gender roles as they are presented in my culture".

I liked fairly "girly" things when I was younger. Well, more accurately to say that I could be interested in things that women found interesting, which opened up more opportunities to converse with them. I'm sure there are some "girly" things that I was interested in when I was younger, but I'll be damned if I can think of any of them. But it never really made me feel "girly". It was just something I liked. I still felt perfectly "manly" in every way, and perfectly "straight" too. The fact that I could find some "girly" thing interesting, or enjoyable, didn't detract from my love and attraction for the female body, nor did it suddenly make me think "Hmm, I really like *insert girly thing*, I wonder if I could possibly be a girl." I was just Straight Guy + This Other Thing I Happen To Like. Which always puzzled me when other guys in my school would mock me for liking some thing they thought wasn't manly, implying all kinds of things about it. It was amazing the amount of causation they would try and attribute to those things.

Slightly off topic, but possibly not but, I always found it funny when people would freak out if a young boy bought/wanted a girl doll. The fear being that it will "make them gay" or whatever. Given my personal experience with this, it was SOOOO the opposite. xD I knew from a VERY young age that I liked women in a sexual way. There wasn't any "ooh, girls are gross" phase for me. I liked women, and wanted to know more about them physically. So I always got several female dolls when I was younger, as part of various toy lines. He-Man, GI JOE, etc, all had some very...endowed ladies as part of their roster. And I always made a point to get those. Because then I had a chance to inspect women more closely, and play out little sex escapades with my figures. It in fact, reinforced my heterosexuality. So when I see "giving your boy that doll will make him a pansy/sissy/fag/etc" I roll my eyes and think otherwise. xD

 

[JimB]

Then why did Jenner feel she couldn't wear nail polish in public before?

I don't know. I still haven't seen whatever interview celeritas was talking about, and I have no interest in trying to guess the private thoughts of someone I've neither met nor ever been interested in.

If I understood you correctly, you're saying it couldn't have been because of how people would've reacted.

No. Ms. Jenner's reaction could have been for any number of reasons, and I don't know or care what her reasons were. What I am saying is that Caitlyn Jenner is only Caitlyn Jenner; she is not the emperor of trans women or of biological men, so her choice not to wear nail polish is only that: her choice. Anyone who feels their own manicuring options restricted by the knowledge of what Ms. Jenner does to her fingernails is making their own choice as well.

I see. A male who isn't macho is a female.

Not what that quote says. The quote describes the difference between the way others perceive her and the way she perceives herself. "Not macho = woman" is not even implied by the text you provided, unless there's more to it in the link I'm not going to bother checking out of basic disinterest in Caitlyn Jenner.

She doesn't consider herself gay because she's "never been with a guy." She's attracted to women. That makes her either a straight man or a gay woman.

Neither sexuality nor gender are binary choices. They exist on scales. You are excluding options, like "bisexual with a female preference;" "physically attracted to men but emotionally open to women," and a bunch of other possibilities I don't care enough to list (sorry I'm going on and on about my indifference, but lunch is kicking in and making me lazy and indolent). And honestly, what is it with this need to define Caitlyn Jenner's sexual orientation anyway?

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

Uh, is there some new literature on transgender? I don't feel like reading 9 pages, but evidence that I'm aware of seems to lean on gender identity being neurological. Having a certain sexually dimorphic structure in the brain is correlated with gender identity. Transgender also seems to be heritable.

On the nurture side, I know of a study where males who were raised to be females due to complications at birth still felt like they were male during childhood and most went back to being male after childhood, even though they were castrated at infancy. All this suggests the possibility that transgender is genetic or comes from prenatal factors.

Now gender roles of course can be biological and social, but identity seems to be biological.

The nature versus nurture argument always strikes me as a very limited, because humans are very complicated creatures.

This is true of nearly all traits expressed by life in general. I have a pretty strong understanding of inheritance (I completed a bachelors degree in biology with a focus on genetics and expression of traits) and the way we limit things to nature vs nurture is incredibly simplistic. Almost all traits are expressed based off of an extremely complex interaction of genetics and environmental influences.

A common case is that genetics influence the environment the individual develops in, causing a trait to express. For example, physically male vs physically female is NOT directly determined by genetics. It is complicated process and outside my area of expertise, but by and large what happens is the genetics of the developing fetus cause an environmental change at a key point in development that causes the fetus to develop in a certain way, which is why it is possible to get people who are "genetically" one sex while being "physically" a different sex. Basically, the normal mechanism didn't work right or was overridden by other environmental factors.

So the birth sex of an individual is actually determined by genetic inheritance, environmental inheritance, and not inherited environmental influences. The strongest of these is technically environmental, it would not be hard at all to force a fetus to grow toward one sex or the other if that was desired. But we tend to think about birth sex as purely "nature" or "biological" because that is our cultural bias, but it could just as easily be "nurture" or "social".

So yeah, you are thinking about it correctly.

I have a hard time believing that transgenderism is a hereditary condition, because I know of many who transitioned after having kids, their kids aren't trans.

It is probably somewhat hereditary, almost all things are, especially if you take into account environmental inheritance. Like if a trans person were to have a child then there is likely going to be a higher chance that child is trans than in the general population.

So it's more likely that it's a series of complicated factors that lead to transgender folk and similar.

Yes.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

It is probably somewhat hereditary, almost all things are, especially if you take into account environmental inheritance. Like if a trans person were to have a child then there is likely going to be a higher chance that child is trans than in the general population.

Yes.

I'd kind of question that. Correlation doesn't imply causation. Plenty of reasons why the child of a trans person is trans. For starters, I would imagine it would be a much safer environment to come out. The monozygotic twins testing on where there is one twin that is transgender found what was a 33% correlation that both twins would be trans, but that still lead in 2 out of 3 cases where one was not trans despite the exact same genes, exact same womb conditions.

Now naturally they might feel threatened coming out having experienced some form of trauma, and so they didn't. But it would be an assumption. Not only that, given that twins are rarely raised apart, we could infer fairly similar early childhood exposure (food and similar exposure to horizontal gene transfer through illness). So we still kind of don't know, and it could be like anything else in life ... an infinitely complex mishmash of stimuli, within and without.

Most of the really powerful core ideals that we have about self tend to come from immersion and self-construction of experience. It's tempting to point at any one single thing to explain everything, but that's not apparent here.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

When vocal individuals like Caitlyn Jenner tell the world that they feel like they can finally 'wear nail' polish now that they've transitioned, they send out the message that as a man they couldn't. They tell men everywhere who might quite like to wear nail polish that actually, they're not men, they were born 'in the wrong body.'

I haven't seen the interview you're referring to, so all I can say is, if this is literally what she said with nothing else attached, then you need to work on your comprehension, celeritas. "I feel I can" does not mean "You must not."

Then why did Jenner feel she couldn't wear nail polish in public before? [footnote]http://www.newsweek.com/coming-out-trans-29-best-quotes-bruce-jenners-diane-sawyer-interview-325300[/footnote] If I understood you correctly, you're saying it couldn't have been because of how people would've reacted.

[People] see me as a macho male, but my heart and my soul and everything that I do in life ? it is part of me, that female side is part of me, that's who I am. I was genetically born that way.[footnote]https://www.yahoo.com/celebrity/blogs/celeb-news/13-things-we-learned-from-bruce-jenner-s-diane-sawyer-interview--plus-one-thing-we-already-kinda-knew-040914672.html[/footnote]

I see. A male who isn't macho is a female.

She doesn't consider herself gay because she's "never been with a guy". She's attracted to women. That makes her either a straight man or a gay woman.

No one in their right mind would think that Jenner or anyone else could represent all trans people, but when you keep hearing things like that it gets confusing.

Caitlyn Jenner has been spreading lots of misinformation about trans folk, she's really not a good spokeswoman for the trans experience. Most of the trans community is really not going to back up her experiences, for starters she grew up in a far different environment than most trans folk born mid-late 1980's onwards transition much differently than Caitlyn did. You've got to undrestand she's in her sixties, growing up for her showing any signs of being gay, or trans, would get one sent to correctional therapy and such. Also her comments on not being gay? Well a trans woman whose attracted to women is often considered a lesbian. Views vary on this subject, but it does kinda say about her that sexually she identifies as a man still. Again Caitlyn isn't exactly a good source for trans experience, she's transitioning late in life and many in the trans community see her as screwing the rest of us over with what she says.

 

[1981]

Not what that quote says. The quote describes the difference between the way others perceive her and the way she perceives herself.

People probably saw her as a macho man because she acted like one. Yet she seems to think that changing her name and appearance will make everyone see her for who she is. In other words, as long as she's perceived as a man she couldn't be anything but macho.

Neither sexuality nor gender are binary choices. They exist on scales. You are excluding options, like "bisexual with a female preference;" "physically attracted to men but emotionally open to women," and a bunch of other possibilities I don't care enough to list (sorry I'm going on and on about my indifference, but lunch is kicking in and making me lazy and indolent). And honestly, what is it with this need to define Caitlyn Jenner's sexual orientation anyway?

She didn't say she was non-binary or bisexual. She said she's attracted to women and identifies as a woman. That makes her gay by definition. Which she denies. I brought it up because someone else mentioned her and because she's a public figure.

Many studies[footnote]JFGI. They were pretty hard to find, so here you go: http://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/jscp.1997.16.4.405[/footnote][footnote]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15095115 (ruhsal hastalik means spiritual disorder, akil hastaligi means brain illness)[/footnote] have suggested that people are more negative towards the mentally ill if they believe that the illness is caused by bad wiring and not bad experiences. I'm not compairing transgenderism to mental illness, just saying that if there's anything we need it's more research on how not to use research.

 

[Lictor Face]

Isn't a biologically male person who identifies himself as a woman wrong? Or is he also correct because he defines who he is and not biological requisites?

Can you tell me what the biological requirements for manhood and womanhood are?

Is that a trick question. You are genuinely confusing me.

Isn't a biologically male person who identifies himself as a woman wrong?

Wrong by what standard? I personally define right and wrong, correct and incorrect, with a heavy component of how much harm is done by a conclusion. Whom is being hurt by this biological man identifying as a woman? What is the specific nature of the harm done? So far as I'm aware, the trans person is helped by that identification (it helps to resolve her gender dysphoria), and the only people who are hurt are people who get offended on pedantic or didactic levels, which I simply do not care about. So no, that hypothetical woman calling herself a woman is not, by any estimation I place value in, wrong.

I'd start with the majority then. The standard of the majority I suppose? Anyway, regarding the rest of your points, wouldn't this be the case of oversensitivity? I've known people who were often (wrongly) thought of as gay or lesbian due to their mannerisms and character, most of them either didn't care or took it into their stride. They're fun people to be around. As far as I can tell, a person who is deadset or insists on being referred to as a "he" or "she" (regardless of..... its superficial gender? Ugh) by her peers is probably not a very nice person at all. I know I wouldn't want to be around such a person, nevermind be friends or joke around with...it? (Look I can't even refer to this imaginary person in this post)

To put things in perspective, I'd preferred to be called by my first name, not my last, but it isn't that much of a deal if you call me by my last name either. If I instantly and immediately told off people that referred to me by my last name, whether intentional or not, I'd be losing a lot more (friends, social and public perception) than I gained (gratification? justification? who knows)

 

[Lictor Face]

Isn't a biologically male person who identifies himself as a woman wrong?

The experts in the field say no, she is not wrong. The problem here is you are conflating gender and sex, tying personal identity to rigid physical characteristics. Turns out these things, while highly correlated, are not the same.

Or is he also correct because he defines who he is and not biological requisites?

I think an important point to note here is that trans people do not define who they are in the sense that they don't choose. We never got to choose. Many of us fight against being trans for years and years. For whatever reason we are the way we are and we have to figure it out.

Trans or not, I believe that getting uppity over a small thing like a pronoun is not the sign of a nice or even tolerant person. I presume that you are a trans person as well, do you tell your associates off repeatedly for using the wrong terms of address? Does this also refer to your close friends and acquaintances?

 

[1981]

Isn't a biologically male person who identifies himself as a woman wrong? Or is he also correct because he defines who he is and not biological requisites?

Can you tell me what the biological requirements for manhood and womanhood are?

Is that a trick question. You are genuinely confusing me.

You're confusing sex (male/female) with gender (man/woman).

Do you determine a person's sex by the shape of their genitals? What happens when there's ambiguity? Do you ask for a DNA test? Where do you place people like Stanislawa Walasiewicz [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82awa_Walasiewicz]? Despite extensive medical examinations it's unclear whether they were male or female.

Snippety

Thanks for proactively clearing a few things up. These forums really need a notification on new posts. I got sidetracked googling stuff. Thirty minutes?! Yikes!

 

[Something Amyss]

Is that a trick question. You are genuinely confusing me.

What's confusing? Can you give me a concise definition that encompasses all the people who are generally considered women?

That would make sense, considering how what is considered "masculine" and "feminine" gender roles/traits in society can vary drastically from culture to culture. Not counting anyone's orientation or whatnot, just simply "The behavior that is accepted and seen to be associated with masculine/feminine" is very different all over the place. So really, in some ways, the comments about "reinforcing gender roles" is really more saying "reinforcing the gender roles as they are presented in my culture".

And only if you actually live up to those. That's where I get confused. Well, one of the places I get confused. I'm still not sure what conventions I'm reinforcing, but according to a good chunk of people, I am.

Anyway, what is "mascluine" or "feminine" also can vary in terms of time period.A couple of decades can make a lot of difference in terms of what's "masculine" or "feminine" or "gay" or "straight." I mean, this still can influence you in terms of trying to fit in and whatnot.

I liked fairly "girly" things when I was younger. Well, more accurately to say that I could be interested in things that women found interesting, which opened up more opportunities to converse with them. I'm sure there are some "girly" things that I was interested in when I was younger, but I'll be damned if I can think of any of them. But it never really made me feel "girly". It was just something I liked. I still felt perfectly "manly" in every way, and perfectly "straight" too. The fact that I could find some "girly" thing interesting, or enjoyable, didn't detract from my love and attraction for the female body, nor did it suddenly make me think "Hmm, I really like *insert girly thing*, I wonder if I could possibly be a girl." I was just Straight Guy + This Other Thing I Happen To Like. Which always puzzled me when other guys in my school would mock me for liking some thing they thought wasn't manly, implying all kinds of things about it. It was amazing the amount of causation they would try and attribute to those things.

It'd be better if people could like what they like without having to run it past committee. But yeah, that's actually kind of cool that you were unbothered by it. I was always rather acutely aware of what to avoid, because doing feminine things tended to get the shit kicked out of me. But more to the other point....

Slightly off topic, but possibly not but, I always found it funny when people would freak out if a young boy bought/wanted a girl doll. The fear being that it will "make them gay" or whatever. Given my personal experience with this, it was SOOOO the opposite. xD I knew from a VERY young age that I liked women in a sexual way. There wasn't any "ooh, girls are gross" phase for me. I liked women, and wanted to know more about them physically. So I always got several female dolls when I was younger, as part of various toy lines. He-Man, GI JOE, etc, all had some very...endowed ladies as part of their roster. And I always made a point to get those. Because then I had a chance to inspect women more closely, and play out little sex escapades with my figures. It in fact, reinforced my heterosexuality. So when I see "giving your boy that doll will make him a pansy/sissy/fag/etc" I roll my eyes and think otherwise. xD

It's actually amazing how little thought people seem to put into why they're reacting as they do. Like the natural order has been upset by a little boy not knowing his place in the world. Thank god all those good people are around to clutch at pearls and steer the child to what boys actually want. Crisis averted. I mean, this is more or less related to gender norms/gender roles, etc.

Your particular take is an interesting one, though. XD Never got the "girls/boys are icky" thing, either.