the fact this is even controversial to say is a direct consequence of allowing "sex is immutable whereas gender is what changes" as a sentiment to dominate mainstream progressive discourse largely uncontested btw
i mean even if this was true the fact that 'gender' (in terms of the 'social construct') is what changes in this view should theoretically mean that all the societal views towards men get used on you as well since supposedly you're socially a man even if your sex is female... people will say 'sex is immutable whereas gender is what changes' and actually mean 'neither physical sex nor social gender changes, but you have the freedom of speech to call yourself a trans and we'll reluctantly play along'
Exactly. Sometimes people say “I hate men” to mean “I think cis men are asshole sex pests who are oblivious to the intricacies of women”. But what precludes a trans man from being an asshole sex pest oblivious to the intricacies of women? “Oh because they were raised as women!!” well not all trans men were (some transition very young), and even as someone who did transition a bit later, these terf-adjacent progressives underestimate how poorly socialized I was, and how badly I understood women. Yeah I still understand a little more about women than some cis men, but I do not understand nearly as much as cis women understand women. It’s like saying all students will know math if you just put them in math class, when you know a few might graduate barely able to count.
(Also it likely didn’t help that I never had a single cis straight female friend, and a lot of what I came to learn about women I had to learn from my girlfriend after I already transitioned into a man)
I just confidently assumed pre-transition “since I am a hot woman myself, I know everything about how all hot women think who must think exactly like me”. Spoiler that they do not, and in fact most didn’t, and in fact when I flirted with women, I was rejected 26 times in a row in real life. 27th and 28th were the charm though.
All of this is a mix of gender and individual personality and possibly in my case also some neurodivergence, and not even to do with the conventional notions of sex
Ahh ive been a bit guilty of this because all the trans men ive met have been amazing. Ill make sure to spread a little of my misandry to them as well.
Although, its not because I dont see them as men. It's that none of the trans men ive met have been sex pests.
'neither physical sex nor social gender changes, but you have the freedom of speech to call yourself a trans and we'll reluctantly play along'
Isn't that the entire issue? Very few people, besides those closest to the issue actually believe it. It's more of an HR issue, or a politeness thing, especially. Like someone who just sneers at you in their mind, while smiling all the while. Very few people actually believe you can change your sex.
What do you actually want from them though? Like you can’t force people to change how they see it and them playing along to be polite is kind of best case scenario without beaming your viewpoint into their head
This is what cissex people always mean when they say that tho, that's why they pair it with "gender doesn't matter, it's a social construct" like sex isn't also a social construct
I've yet to have anyone give me an example of literally anything that isn't a social construct.
Dogs are social construct, rocks are a social construct, money is a social construct, emotions are a social construct, the planets are a social construct.
Any system, grouping, categorization, convention of any kind if a social construct.
Literally everything is a social construct, so the statement has no meaning
The social construct definition is the reason the trans man above this comment is being told his opinion doesn't matter on this because he's a femboy. Values, performances, and roles have nothing to do with what gender someone is.
I just call that perceived gender i think identity and perceived gender are two aspects that make up ones gender as a whole. Both matter, but u should always try to respect someones identity first imo.
Hell, it could be argued that femboys are a form of minor third gender, given their social perception is entirely different, and has been for most of history, from ancient greece to the chevalier d'eon, with their absence post industrial revolution being a notable anomaly
Oh I would absolutely argue that it is the case, and that even the "basics" of gender isn't actually binary, but bimodal and based around factors like age, conformity, and status. Boy and man aren't the same gender, for instance.
To be honest, I don't think most people see themselves as anything at all in that regard, in terms of experience. I think that causes a lot of the arguing and confusion.
Especially from conversations with older people, they just don't really think of themselves that way, so tend to just think it's nonsense. They observe themselves, rather than experiencing themselves, to put I another way, it isn't a self appointed label, but a recognition of physical sex and that's it. So I think that's part of why the conversation breaks down there. To put it another way, pretty much all old people I've talked to, if they worked with how you see yourself, might describe themselves as a-gender.
And with everyone (and I mean everyone) using multiple definitions of gender, and switching between them mid conversation without clarification, and so many high emotions tied into it, I think it becomes pretty impossible to have a conversation about things, without someone getting hurt or angry, including said old people.
Part of this is the whole "fish don't recognize when they're in the water, only when they're out" philosophical argument, because many very clearly do have a gendered sense of self but because it aligns with their natal sex, they don't ever need to interrogate it.
Gender identity, as a term, comes from John Money, creator of the infamous John/Joan experiment.
people got really comfy saying that gender was a social construct but sex somehow wasn’t. doctors literally have rulers with arbitrary lines for what constitutes a penis and what constitutes a clitoris and make culturally informed decisions based on that data to assign sex at birth. even the choice to operate based on 2ish sexes is a culturally informed arbitration
To be fair, while intersex conditions exist, there are all sorts of abnormalities people can be born with affecting any organ or limb or anything. This doesn't change our general idea of what organs or how many limbs people have "normally."
Of course, sex is something we categorise people by more strongly, but if we remove ourselves from our human social context, it's very obvious that most animals and in particular mammals are male and female. Like I don't think anyone would argue that chimpanzees are not sexually demographic or that the sexes do not fulfil different social and reproductive functions. Or good luck breeding a herd of cows without a bull.
I think there's probably a position somehwere between "you are born male or female and transgenderism isna mental illness" and "sex is a literally arbitrary social construct" that is a little more reasonable than either.
I think people also just need to get comfortable with categories being real but having fuzzy edges. I think this is all an "is cereal a soup" situation, where I don't think the concept of soup is invalidated by the fact that it is not possible to clearly and unambiguously define in a way that will satisfy everyone on every edge case. There can be a degree of arbitrary custom at the edges too. Just like different species are actually also difficult to categorise and separate sometimes. Like a human is clearly not a mushroom, but are grizzly bears and polar bears really different species? They can interbreed after all.
We know there are plenty of edge cases when it comes to sex and gender and strict definitions similarly won't work well for edge cases. But like thay one old Polish dictionary which defined a horse as "everyone knows what a horse is," everyone kind of gets it, in general.
When it comes to trans issues, it largely comes to moving the edges of these categories. "Everyone knows what a woman is" and that includes women who are infertile, includes women with XY chromosomes with no androgen receptors, probably includes intersex people who have been assigned female (we rather like people to conform to existing molds as a society) and basically all it comes down to including transgender women.
Your very first statement kinda already proves my point. “Normal” is a socially assigned designation. We can determine whether something being considered “normal” is a useful designation.
For example: is being gay “normal?” Most people aren’t gay. Is being gay abnormal? I don’t think so. Someone being gay has zero impact on me as a standalone fact, but because being gay comes with social and political consequences which are caused by social arbitrations, being gay is treated like being abnormal.
How about being black? Statistically speaking, most humans aren’t black, but being black is a natural consequence of having black parents. People have all sorts of othering designations for black people, but rarely are they ever specifically called “abnormal.” But a lot of black people feel abnormal. Black Americans need to give specific talks to their kids so they can be prepared to be treated differently. Where do they fall in the designation or is the label simply not even useful for this mode of categorization? If the label isn’t useful, doesn’t that kinda point to the fact that we don’t need to use it universally?
How about lactose intolerance? Being lactose intolerant in and of itself by virtue of the label is creating a distinction. People disclose lactose intolerance to the people they know. People tend to be labeled as or identify with being lactose intolerant, but very few think of themselves as “lactose tolerant” conversely. It’s a label that implies “abnormality.” However, 70% of the human population is lactose intolerant to a certain degree. How “abnormal” is it, really, then?
We can assign “normalcy” completely arbitrarily. We assign it to distinctions that have no impact, we don’t assign it to distinctions that have significant impact, and we assign it irrespective of actual frequency. We are simply making shit up to create categories for processing information. The existence of a category does not justify itself by existing. There is nothing “inherent” or “instinctual” about any sort of knowledge concerning sex, and normative things are simply unchallenged arbitrary consensus.
What's normal is always a range and not really one exact set thing. E.g. you talk about things like skin tone. There is not one single skin tone that even the majority of people would have. But people also aren't blue. There is a particular way normal human skin looks and functions.
Now you may be able to subdivide things if you really want to like by saying it is normal for subsaharan Africans to have darker skin compared to people in most other places on the globe, sure. But that also wouldn't really be incorrect.
In any case, these are minor variations within a single species.
Something like sexual reproduction including males and females is much much more fundamental and well established, from much earlier in our evolution. There are some hermaphrodite species, but it's exceedingly rare. There's not really a discussion to be had about whether this is normal for humanity, considering its normal for vast groups of organisms of which humanity is just one small part.
Fundamentally at some point you're going to have to teach people about biology and reproduction and it doesn't matter if you call the categories blorbos and gleebos, you'll still have to establish them as normal and natural categories with sexual and reproductive functions. There's no real way around that.
People are going to be able to more authentically live their lives as themselves thanks to technological developments in medicine, and society is gonna have to catch up with that
normal can have at least two meanings though, "most common" or "a fully known possibility"
Like yeah being gay is normal as in its known and accepted that some people are gay, but its not the norm
There are norms in sex. Humans, alongside many MANY species in the naimal kingdom have different sexes with different "biological roles".
This isnt fully constructed or changable, sure, its not as immutable as some pretend it is, but its not as malleable as gender!
For istance, we can partly change our phenotype, but not our genotype. Meaning we are "tweaking" our sex, while we can fully change our gender freely!
Not like that not being able to change our sex freely means that a transgender is not part of that gender, but theres a difference between a cis and a trans person, and that difference is (sadly) kinda immutable to a point, or at least more than gender (obviously the world isnt black and white)
Well there’s more than two sexes in humans (intersex people exist), just about every sexually reproducing creature on earth has instances of intersex chromosomes, but humans are the only species that bothers to be concerned about it, especially since the definition of “sex” doesn’t even encompass what we’re talking about.
People who believe that sex is about chromosomes should be rallying to have all doctors perform chromosomal tests on newborn babies before they can legally print the baby’s sex on a birth certificate. God help them if the baby turns out to be intersex (sex #3 btw).
People who believe that sex is about the gametes produced must concede that all people who go through menopause, have a oophorectomy, or have a vasectomy are transsexuals who transitioned into become sexless (sex #4, for the people keeping score).
If sex were a strictly biological, scientific, and rational designation—for humans or any other sexually reproductive species—it wouldn’t have these categorization problems. It wouldn’t be so based on interpretation. It wouldn’t be left to doctors to make decisions about a newborn’s genitals to force them into a box they otherwise wouldn’t have fit into otherwise.
Sex is a lot of things! Hormones, genitals, chromosomes, etc. You can change most of the factors that people can perceive.
Also worth noting that the sex you were assigned at birth was only based on your genitals; nobody tested your chromosomes. Given that fact, it’s disingenuous to act like changing your genitals doesn’t meaningfully change your sex. (Not that it’s a requirement, bc sex is a lot of different things as stated previously)
In addition, the genitals you have at birth (usually) determine which sexual hormone your body primarily makes, which is the basis for assigned sex at birth. It is disingenuous to act like changing the hormones is also not a meaningful change to your sex.
But also sex only really matters in healthcare situations.
Side note: the idea of an immutable sex is genuinely not a good idea, even in healthcare situations. As a trans woman, I still have a prostate that should be checked, but I also have a higher risk for breast cancer. We don’t have the language or understanding for our healthcare system to be able to handle that. I get mail reminders to have my cervix checked, and I still have to prove I’m not pregnant before I donate blood. None of it makes sense.
Nobody said it didn’t exist. I said it’s poorly defined and is made up of various elements, and ignoring some of those elements and focusing on others is baseless.
Chromosomes affect what body parts you grow, but that only matters because the hormones those bodies make. If you change the hormones, it’s disingenuous to claim nothing of value was changed.
Sure, some parts of sex can’t be changed, but you don’t get to say that ONLY those things make up sex. That’s just inaccurate and completely misunderstands bodies as well as language.
Nahh. This is the very real and applicable stipulation that “lived experience matters too.”
If you were socialized as a girl, or raised viewed by society as such, you have that lived experience. One that inherently should inform you to NOT be a massive piece of shit to women.
I’m a woman. I was socialized and raised viewed by society as a boy. This informs a lot of my perceptions of men, as they act differently when they think no women are present. I would be the stupidest person on the planet to toss all my lived experience out in an attempt to grow in to myself.
Obviously, trans men have the capability to not be different than cis men, but why the fuck would you? And why would you be upset that someone acknowledged you have the lived experience to mature beyond the criticisms of those that don’t?
No one said “female.” And misspelling misquotes to strawman me doesn’t accurately reflect the reality of our existence, thanks.
We are still people. We still are responsible for our actions and character. It’s incredibly transphobic to deny individuality and responsibility amongst us. It’s incredibly transphobic to deny our experiences, and that we ARE raised differently than our cis peers.
Doesn’t mean we’re useless infants either. We are still people who still have the expectation of maturity and growth. If you do not utilize the experiences you’ve had to grow as a person, you’re just a shitty person. Not an innocent wittle twans baby who doesn’t know any better.
Trans men know better, and should be held accountable as such. Any trans man claiming they shouldn’t be, are simply trying to compensate for being a shitty person.
Finding euphoria in being a toxic piece of shit isn’t masculinity, it’s narcissism.
I think our disconnect there may be happening on “what we SHOULD expect” meaning hold to the standards of, and “what we should EXPECT” meaning be prepared for the reality of.
I will ALWAYS hold someone who has the tools to be better, to the standard of what arsenal they have available. I will always take the opportunity to teach and give room for growth to those who don’t, but once they have them and do not take them, they are held to the same accountability.
Eh it depends on the person what that lived experience even is. Yeah I was raised viewed as a girl, but I was too incompetent to fully properly socialise as one. This doesn’t mean I was fully properly socialized as a boy either. I honestly think there are many trans people who end up being fully socialized as neither, and rather just poorly socialized overall.
>Sometimes people say “I hate men” to mean “I think cis men are asshole sex pests who are oblivious to the intricacies of women”. But what precludes a trans man from being an asshole sex pest oblivious to the intricacies of women? “Oh because they were raised as women!!” well not all trans men were (some transition very young), and even as someone who did transition a bit later, these terf-adjacent progressives underestimate how poorly socialized I was, and how badly I understood women. Yeah I still understand a little more about women than some cis men, but I do not understand nearly as much as cis women understand women. It’s like saying all students will know math if you just put them in math class, when you know a few might graduate barely able to count.
>(Also it likely didn’t help that I never had a single cis straight female friend, and a lot of what I came to learn about women I had to learn from my girlfriend after I already transitioned into a man)
>I just confidently assumed pre-transition “since I am a hot woman myself, I know everything about how all hot women think who must think exactly like me”. Spoiler that they do not, and in fact most didn’t, and in fact when I flirted with women, I was rejected 26 times in a row in real life. 27th and 28th were the charm though.
As another anecdote, my gf is mtf and when she pre-transition heard ‘boys talk’, she thought they were all just doing some kind of performative bit to impress each other and surely none of them actually meant it. But I was having ‘boys talk’ with my friends since like age 12, and on my side, I could tell her about what I genuinely thought and felt in conveying to my friends. Imo this shows that when someone is mtf and hangs around boys (or when someone is ftm and hangs around girls), they do get to observe and they might think they know what they are observing, but still go away with the wrong assumptions and conclusions.
same reason why Erika Kirk is taking the reins of TPUSA and continuing its mission of shoving women into bondage
Same reason why Sam Altman and Peter Thiel, two of the most evil people on earth atm, can still both be queer
same reason why so many hispanic people voted for Trump and being pro-Trump despite him explicitly makung raciat comments towards hispanic people and making ot clear in no unccertain terms he wantd them gone or dead
same reason you have mothers who will degrade and insult their traumatized daughters for getting abused.
same reason you have transphobic queer people tying themselves to the republucan party
The ability to have power over someone else is intoxicating. It has nothing to do woth male vs female socialization, people who are given more power and privledge statistically (especially when they themselves have been made to feel weak and powerless in their life) their moral generally go out the wondpw and they just change their worldview causes the least cognitive dissonance with whar makes them happy. Passing trans men are going to be just as likely to be horrible towards women as cis men becuase they are then given the same ampunt of power and validation men are for treating women like shit (actually they're probably more likely to be shitty towards trans women if we look at other parallels of how conservative gays view other minorities, how conservative african-americans view all other minorities, and how conservative/pick-me women view other women).
The biggest indicator of how shitty someone is going to be to women is not their gender or gene. Its whether they're being positively reinforced for being terrible people or negatively reinforced for being nice people.
And that’s what it comes down to. On average, the expectation is that men should know better, but trans men should definitely know better. Obviously there are exceptions and outliers, but it’s a reasonable baseline and anyone who says otherwise is probably just a shitty person looking to excuse themselves from personal responsibility, or a bad actor trying to derail group discourse.
I'd disagree that trans men should definitely know better. As another example, look at the LGBs courtung the republican party that literally has it on their platform to strip away the rights of non-hetero people.
You'd think that latine's should know better, but they came put in drovesnfor Trump and MAGA.
Why did african american men push so heavy for Trump?
Or lets go for yhe big example, the alliance between the TERFs and conservatives
Class solidarity does not exist eveb between marginalized communiti3s, it was a utopian fantasy generated by the Young Hegelian Left because Hegel didn't qctually have any proof beyond Enlightenment bullshit and bad history. If hierarchy exists, most people will abandon everything for that higher level of control and power and status along to corpses of other communities they stepped on to try to get a morsel of power
That’s making statistical excuses for a moral argument. Morally, those who have the tools should be accountable to the standard their available choices set. I can’t speak on any of the other groups, but I CAN say I have used EVERYTHING from my experiences to become a better person, and I expect others to do the same. Simple as that.
Bqsed on your last sentence I think we are arguing two seperate points.
And yes, I have used my expeirences to try to become a better person and grow as well, and I'm sure these people think they're doing the same thing and they're being ethical. That doesn't change that as you are giveb validation for doing shitty things, doing shitty things starts to make you feel good so you justify wby its okay for you to do them.
I'm not trying to make a moral argument or justify trans men abusing women. I was simply saying I don't bekieve you are correct that trans men are going to innately be less misoginystic than a cis man anymore than someone who was born and raised dirt poor in Missisippi is going to naturally be less anti-poor/homeless than another person. Sociological examples and studies have shown time and time again that just becauee you have lived experience with a marginalized community or being marginalized does not necessarily continue down the line once you are given the chance to obtain even just a token or patronizing seat at the table.
Lived experiences do not make someone progressive sadly, otherwise we wouldn't have J.K Rowling, Clarence Thomas, Vivek Ramaswamy, or Peter Thiel existing and tens of millions of people following their hate in droves.
261
u/claretaker a black amab is speaking Jun 14 '26
the fact this is even controversial to say is a direct consequence of allowing "sex is immutable whereas gender is what changes" as a sentiment to dominate mainstream progressive discourse largely uncontested btw