manic_depressive13 said:
I didn't claim you were, though?
I don't identify with the gender that was assigned to me, and I have been attempting to reject the constraints of gender my whole life. I don't believe it does or ought to be a meaningful part of my identity. You are forcing it back on me, calling me cis, when I've never seen myself as a woman. That's my whole point.
Well, except I didn't do any of that.
First off, I didn't call you cis. Context is very important, and a big chunk of that came down to the argument from the other poster that "cis people feel that way." Second, you have yourself called yourself a woman before. I don't know how you see yourself, but this is specifically how you've presented on here. You know, the only way I have ever interacted with you. I mean, hell, I'll go on a tangent here, but I used to have a male username on here FFS. Despite identifying myself as a transwoman on this site for nearly a decade, I absolutely get why people think of me in male terms--even now, honestly. You've called yourself a woman and it's literally my only point of reference. If you're upset because I took you at face value, you probably shouldn't be.
But, and I repeat, I did not call you cis. I addressed an argument that said "cis people feel that way" or something to that effect that was in agreement with yours.
Third, I'm seriously curious as to what you mean by "constraints of gender." Nothing I've said correlates with anything along the lines of gender roles, or determines anything about a person specifically. The notion of brains with marked differences depending on gender doesn't therefore mean there's a portion of the brain obssessed with makeup and pink. Or home ec or whatever. Hell, if those things are at all relevant, then my brother's the girl and I'm a dude.
Except it doesn't work that way, and nothing about the notion of a gendered brain would change that. Even if it wasn't a relative abstraction in itself.
And fourth, being treated "like a woman" doesn't entail any of that, either. It simply means acknowledging someone's gender identity. You don't identify as a woman, so presumably you don't want to be called one and therefore you don't want to be treated as such.
I, on the other hand, was quite heartened to find people I chat with frequently altered their diction without fuss or fanfare. Or actually, even being asked. Because I'm grossly uncomfortable with that. But that's another issue. But, you see, that was the extent of it. Being treated "like a girl" changed nothing else. And other people in this thread addressed that as well, before your initial post.
You keep conflating these things with something that as far as I can tell are gender roles. You have used people saying something completely different as "proof."
Also, apparently rejecting the notion of strict genetic predeterminism undermines transgender people because that aspect of "choice" gives fodder to conservatives who want to use it against you. But you're pretending that "male" and "female" brains has no such implications? Does that not strike you as remotely hypocritical?
It strikes me as a strawman, since you're using arguments I'm not making to try and indicate that there is hypocrisy in my argument. I don't remember ever supporting the notion of "strict genetic determinism," for one. Weirdly enough, I would think that I break that and that you would know better based on past interactions. More importantly, the idea of a female brain in no way dictates anything else about me. That's roughly equivalent to saying that what I have, or what I "want" to have between my legs dictates who I am as a person. This is the third or fourth time I've made a similar point, and you keep ignoring this. I'm beginning to suspect you know that this argument is a non-starter.
A "female brain," whether strictly literal or not, ONLY becomes an issue of determinism if you stick to the same views that indicate your other body parts determine who you are. The ideas that say ovaries make you weaker than testicles, or that having a vagina means you like shopping and...whatever. I couldn't "girl it up" if I had a gun to my head. Again, if you want feminine-coded behaviour, you'll have to talk to my brother.
I feel like my body is wrong, and that I should have things which correspond to female physiology, culturally shorthanded as a "female body" or being a "woman." I'm not even, like, horribly attached to those labels as concepts except for the part where culturally, these are indicators of whether or not you are respected as the general category that corresponds with said identity.
The closest I can come to saying I believe in predeterminism is that, as far as I can tell, I was "born this way." I never made a choice to be trans, and if I could choose to simply not have an identity out of keeping with the body in which I was born, I would in a heartbeat. I view it as the easy way out, but fortunately, I'm a coward. Or maybe nearly being killed and actively being sexually assaulted multiple times does that to someone. I don't know. Or care. This is an element of me that appears to be indelible. But that's not strict genetic predeterminism.
So seriously, what position on gender do you have that could possibly be contradicted by someone who doesn't comply to gender norms or have any interest in the same? And why would a different brain be the thing that changes that? Hell, the only way I can see this being an argument against gender is if the desire to transition is also such a thing. But you called yourself an "ally," so I have trouble believing you think my desire for SRS somehow sets gender back.
But maybe it does, I don't know. I've tried to get answers, to figure out how this in any way harms whatever it is you're fighting for, but...I'm left with nothing but guesses.
