But again, sex =/= gender and medically speaking sex is what matters. There are three sexes: male, female, and intersex.
I mean, I don't think people really disagree there. Most of the people behind this, including myself, really only believe there are 3 genders, male, female, and non-binary.
Well so it has nothing to do with sex for me. I k ow that gender is socially constructed, etc, I just dont personally believe that there are more than two genders
People have a right to disagree with transgenderism. I don't agree with them, but I truly believe in free speech and the freedom to discuss taboo ideas. That doesn't mean I agree with hate speech, because let's face it - a lot of transphobic people harbor hatred towards trans/non-binary people and will gladly discriminate against them if given the chance.
People are bothered because those with legitimate criticism or concern over some social justice movements will be placed into the category of "promoting hate speech" against protected groups such as trans/non-binary people. This is a completely backwards approach towards finding a solution to a growing problem. In terms of the law, critics argue that a lot of laws are being made on unfounded science, and that this could have future consequences. You shouldn't be massacred by the public and labelled as being discriminatory/part of a hate group for saying "Maybe we're moving too fast with these laws". Hell, social stigma against these people has already silenced those with controversial opinions in Canada. It's wrong.
You're showing ignorance of human biology to simplify the matter so greatly. What gender, of the two you believe exist, is an intersex person?
Both, I guess? Or whichever they identify as. It doesn't really matter what I think about it, really they can say that they're on a 10th dimension of gender for all I care and I'm not gonna call them their birth name or anything but I just think it's all a bit heap of nothing
I always figured that non-binary (which is what I'm thinking the grey is supposed to represent) was supposed to be the greyscale between male and female, but I guess this works, too.
Regarding your first point- this is circular logic. You're essentially saying that existing gender roles are validated by their own historic prevalence. I'm not trying to vilify you, but I want you to consider how similar your complacent way of thinking can appear to other (former) institutions. In the past, people accepted slavery as a permanent fixture of society because they, too, saw the millennia-long, Biblical history of the practice and accepted it as an aspect of human nature- to be conquerors, or to be conquered. They pointed toward Africa's long history of struggles in comparison to Europe as "proof" that some races are inherently predisposed to being conquered. It took a massive, global shift in thinking to recognize that no human has the right to own another human, and it happened relatively recently in global history.
Even more recently, it was accepted throughout most of the world that homosexuality was a choice and an abomination. They pointed toward a history filled with violence, ignorance, and injustice dating back to Leviticus, saying that homosexuality was an aspect of the pagan past and that the civilized world had moved beyond it. Again, it is taking a worldwide shift in perspective to recognize that other sexual orientations are equally valid. Someday, we'll likely step back and see that the apparently insurmountable differences between boys and girls and the much-reviled other are really just socially invented and don't have the inherent value we once placed on them.
On top of that, by saying that gender roles are "predefined," you're seriously downplaying the effect of social conformity. Gender roles aren't just socially invented, they're socially enforced. I teach sixth grade, and I had to take a moment to address a comment I heard in class today. I said that, when writing from a personal perspective about an event in your life, it's important to for the writer to include vivid emotional details so that the reader can feel what they felt. And a boy interrupted and said "I don't have feelings... feelings are for girls."
I told him that being uncomfortable with sharing your feelings doesn't make you stronger or more of a man, it shows that you're insecure. A brave person should be able to talk about their feelings, and a brave audience should be able to listen without judging. And another boy started to encourage the first kid not to bottle things up, when this girl chimed in, "oh my god, it's so funny when boys cry," and both of the boys at the other table looked so embarrassed. Over time, experiences like these get baked into our sub-conscience, to where even though we might recognize that it's wrong to obey some of the dumber rules, we do it anyway out of that fear of being mocked.
I'm transgender, and although I've accepted that I'm not the man I was raised to be, I still find it difficult to allow myself to cry while watching a movie. I lack the language to describe my feelings when I break down, because I never had the chance to express them growing up. I'm terrified of asking for help because men are always in control, and always have a plan. These constraints damaged me in ways I can't even quantify. If the differences between boys and girls were as "predefined" as you seem to think, then assuming a feminine identity should have come naturally to me. Instead, I'm left with a built-in aversion and insecurity to both genders' roles, my psychology telling me what I'm not, at the same time my socialization is telling me what I ought to be ashamed of.
Humanity will eventually do better than this.
"There are only two genders" / "it's the chromosomes" is like the newtonian physics of biology, it works fine for most use cases but the exceptions mean that yeah, you can't use them seriously anymore.
Gender roles were born out of biological necessity back when we lived in caves and are present in quite a lot of other animals, either in a similar fashion or with the roles inverted due to their sexual dimorphism. I'd say that their existence is pretty well validated, but I'd argue that what they mean has been changed throughout human history, especially once survival became something we take more or less for granted. Things change, and can become masculine or feminine as time passes, high heels started off as a masculine item, before becoming unisex and then feminine. I honestly believe that the most negative aspects of gender are born from this, historical mutations of previous ideals.
Example: Strength is seen as a masculine ideal because of how prevalent and necessary hunting and war have been throughout history, and strength is one of the factors that makes a better hunter/warrior (Although I'd argue that wit, cunning and technological innovation are equally important yet not valued). "Strength as a masculine ideal" mutates into the idea that men can't show weakness, or that women can't be strong. Of course, it could become something completely different, in ancient Sparta their society came to the conclusion that women had to be strong too to be able to give birth to and raise strong male warrior offspring.
"Men can't cry" is an honestly retarded belief, that is basically taking the idea that men should be strong, and that sometimes it's necessary to grit and bear it, taken to the illogical extreme, and as someone who was way too sensitive as a kid, did not help me at all. I learned to be ashamed of crying at all, when what I should've been taught is that it's okay to cry if I'm lonely, hurt, depressed or bullied, but not when I lost at monopoly. I'd use toxic/fragile masculinity to describe this and other similar examples but I can't stand the term after seeing too many feminist circles use it as a term to attack the people who are actually affected by this and not at the enforcement of them, which is done by both sexes. Having a partner is also seen as an ideal, but when an exaggerated idea of what a man is and what women want is drilled into your mind while you A) Don't meet that idea and B) Lack social skills, you end up with stuff like incels. When an exaggerated idea of what a woman's body should be like and what men want is drilled into your mind while you don't meet that idea, you end up with an anorexia epidemic.
I don't think gender roles will ever disappear, they will forever be a part of our history, and as a sexually dimorphic species, certain traits will always correlate to a degree with either sex. What I do hope is that they become default suggestions instead of enforced norms and expectations, and to truly encapsulate positive traits, and not damaging stereotypes that do nothing but hurt ourselves and others.
As much as I disagree with your conclusion, it's nice to read something that comes from the heart. Have a friendly.
So which one is it gonna be? There's so many to choose from. Is third gender basically "miscellaneous"?
In thailand they're called ladyboys
Not all the time
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathoey
The third option (read: option) is everything else, because they know law isn't fast enough to keep up with social changes, this ensures that regardless of how society evolves that the options are always covered.
Weren't you the guy who got banned for a month over freaking the fuck out about people disagreeing on XXXtenacion?
I missed when being an ignorant prick was a bannable offenses.
I think the issue mainly lies in the choice of word to describe gender itself, 'gender'.
Most people's first exposure to the word 'gender' is usually on forms or sheets where there's usually a space to fill out their sex and in those cases, gender and sex are used interchangeably so that contributes to the belief that gender=sex.
Im probably extrapolating out of my ass here but it's possible that this already begins as a child since any forms the children would have to fill out would have the sex space be 'gender' instead due to the other meaning of sex and whoever made the forms doesn't want to deal with potential backlash.
This is late, but medically speaking intersex is a condition, not a third sex. It literally stands for 'between'.
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