What is the difference between gender and gender norms?

[Thaluikhain]

Gender is an intrinsic and unchangeable quality inherent to one's very being determined by countless millennia of natural selection. One's entire body and brain itself have been shaped by to be in very specific ways for a male and very specific ways for a female and vice versa.

That's a bold claim, I'm going to go with "citation needed" here.

Imagine for a moment that we've got two parallel universes with two counterparts of the same 18 year old (any age would be relevant but for the sake of simplicity) person who have nothing different about them at all except for one thing. They have the same living, working, and schooling environment, the same friends, enemies, and general people they've encountered, their society even tells them both in every way overtly and subtly that they are female. The only difference either of them has is that one has been born a male and one has been born a female. They were going to have vastly different lives despite identical experiences and opportunities just by virtue of what gender they happen to be born as, even if they subsequently transition to the other gender at the same point.

Again, citation needed.

The male down to his skeleton might be built to be good at basketball because of his greater height than the other while the female might be built to be good at soccer and thus pursue those sports as a result. The female might end up with an IQ of 180 and become a scientist while the male might end up with an IQ of 156 and becomes a businessman. The female might become bulimic for a year and be hardly effected while the male might do so and die... it never ends.

For clarity, the last paragraph is referencing research showing the men are on average taller than women, women on average have higher IQs than men, (that one has gone back and forth over the years) and bulimic men die significantly more often from the condition than bulimic women do. All of this may be proven wrong at some point or a shift may make it no longer true, but for now it's something specific about either gender to reference.

So? Those are merely averages, there's massive variations. Any number of men are going to fall closer to the female average of things in various ways, an still be male (well, society may disagree). Men on average may be taller, but height isn't an inherent requirement of being male.

 

[Satinavian]

Wow, this thread got kinda shitty, huh..

Yup,

I think it is worse than any of these we ever had in R&P. Agree with your post.

TLDR: The point here is that gender goes way WAY deeper than hormones or sexual organs, it determines literally everything about a person. A person can even inherently want to become the other gender and make physical changes to accommodate that, but in the end they have so many things both microscopic and large that the gender they have been born as have effected about them that makes their minds and bodies are different in a myriad of ways from how it would have been had they been born the other gender in the first place.

You are talking about sex, not gender. All primary and secondary sexual characteristics are sex, not gender. Everything that is different between people of male sex and female sex and does not come from culture is not gender.

No one says that having a different sex would not make a different experience.

Also, sexual differences in the mind are badly researched and are hard to research.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

That would be you telling me I'm conflating being trans with mental sickness. Something I was not doing, not even close. And yet when Dreiko actually does it, you have no words for him, do you? Might want to think about what your motives really are here dude

Context of the discussion was people being able to lose their personhood or not being considered a person, specifically in relation to being trans. You segued into depression in the conversation as though the two were linked with your analogy. For it to be relevant to the conversation it required that depression and being trans are intertwined.

Remember, its the personhood aspect that you are suggesting can be impacted by what is being discussed. That is being refuted here.

Ah, I see we've gone from "I never said that" to "Okay I did say that, but what I meant was..."
Unfortunately what you meant isn't the matter here so the rest of your attempt to deflect is rather pointless. The fact, that you have now recognised, is that you did call me out when you thought I was linking being trans to mental sickness. You have not been when Dreiko does it, far more directly than I may have. Why the hypocrisy?

 

[Terminal Blue]

You segued into depression in the conversation as though the two were linked with your analogy. For it to be relevant to the conversation it required that depression and being trans are intertwined.

They are. Why is that a problem?

Depression has an environmental component. Discrimination, isolation and trauma and social rejection can all play a role in depression. Trans people face all of these things, and as such they are also at risk of depression. It's not a controversial point.

 

[Abomination]

You segued into depression in the conversation as though the two were linked with your analogy. For it to be relevant to the conversation it required that depression and being trans are intertwined.

They are. Why is that a problem?

Depression has an environmental component. Discrimination, isolation and trauma and social rejection can all play a role in depression. Trans people face all of these things, and as such they are also at risk of depression. It's not a controversial point.

Personhood. Always personhood.

I've always been discussing how this is in regard to personhood.

Every other time something has been brought up tangentially to it is not addressing the primary aspect of what has been discussed.

Ah, I see we've gone from "I never said that" to "Okay I did say that, but what I meant was..."
Unfortunately what you meant isn't the matter here so the rest of your attempt to deflect is rather pointless. The fact, that you have now recognised, is that you did call me out when you thought I was linking being trans to mental sickness. You have not been when Dreiko does it, far more directly than I may have. Why the hypocrisy?

Personhood.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Personhood. Always personhood.

So, from where I see it as an outsider to this debate you've been having, here's my summary of events.

Dreiko believes that a person should not use artificial means to alter their body functioning unless it's to treat a physical illness, otherwise they are deluded and pursuing an unnatural and idealised identity rather than living their authentic identity.

Palindromemordnilap clearly decided to test Dreiko's unusual beliefs by presenting some different scenarios in which a person might wish to alter their body function. One of these scenarios was a person using anti-depressants to treat depression. This is not really an analogy. Palindrome is not trying to explain how being trans works using depression, they are presenting the hypothetical of depression to figure out how Dreiko's beliefs work in practice.

Unfortunately, Palindrome did phrase this in a slightly hostile way by asking of Dreiko felt a person taking anti-depressants was less of a person. However, this is a common turn of phrase which clearly and obviously referred to whether those people should be granted societal acceptance. Dreiko clearly does not believe that trans people who take hormones should be accorded societal acceptance, since doing so would make society as a whole complicit in the "mass delusion". It's a standard Ben Shaprio argument with some cheap window dressing of acceptance to make it look less horrible than it really is.

However, both you and Dreiko are either failing to understand that personhood in this case refers to societal acceptance and equality, or you are deliberately pretending not to understand and instead insist on treating personhood as the literal state of being conscious. Thus, you can argue that a delusional person is not a lesser person because they are still technically a person when this was never the point. When you claim to speak on behalf of society, when you seek to gatekeep societal inclusion, then you are implicitly creating different classes of people.

The whole trans/depression thing and the whole personhood thing are separate issues here. At best you could argue that "less of a person" was a poor choice of words, but that's kind of a tangent. It doesn't matter. The point is about acceptance.

Palindrome's point was to expose the fact that Dreiko's beliefs don't make sense, are clearly based in prejudice and are actually kind of shitty in application to the real world. I would say they succeeded, but that's just me.

 

[Abomination]

The whole trans/depression thing and the whole personhood thing are separate issues here. At best you could argue that "less of a person" was a poor choice of words, but that's kind of a tangent. It doesn't matter. The point is about acceptance.

Palindrome's point was to expose the fact that Dreiko's beliefs don't make sense, are clearly based in prejudice and are actually kind of shitty in application to the real world. I would say they succeeded, but that's just me.

If the intention was for the word to mean "acceptance" then use the word "acceptance". Using such charmed terminology as accusing the other party in the debate of not recognizing people as people because of their line of thinking is ad hominem at best. It is being used to accuse the other person of prejudice only and turn the conversation into one of that rather than exploring the situation being presented. There is no discussion anymore, one side has simply tried to poison the well.

It's possible to believe a person is delusional but at the same time still believe that person is still a person and is entitled to all the rights associated with being a person. That they are entirely accepted as an individual and that everything else about them one has no issue with. It's okay to disagree, as long as one never attempts to enforce that disagreement. There is also nothing wrong with desiring that folk should not entertain the delusion one perceives. Why can a person just not express disagreement without it being misconstrued as prejudice or discrimination?

As for generating different classes of people, I thought we desired that gender should never be a barrier to anything. That there's no difference between men and women except on a biological level. That there's no reason to stratify society under such social practices. There are no men jobs, women jobs, male or female responsibilities or expectations... but we're getting hung up on gender - literally a social construct, and people are so determined to place themselves into one of these pigeonholes. The entire situation is counter-intuitive. Gender identity is a BAD thing. We need to reject it entirely. Pronouns just for the sake of physical identification alone. "You should be able to see him next to the balloon stand." is simply to help someone locate an individual by halving the potential number of people they could possibly be.

The view here is that gender doesn't matter, because someone's gender never should matter. One should treat men or women equally. Easiest way to do that is to stop focusing so much on trying to adhere to social expectations as to how one of those genders should behave. Behave how you want, don't feel compelled to act in an entirely arbitrary fashion to suit an outdated premise rooted in discrimination. Do not waste time and resources trying to change a body to fit an outdated mould. Fuck the mould. Be glad you don't fit it. People that expect you to are idiots. Don't behave the way idiots want you to behave.

 

[Saelune]

The whole trans/depression thing and the whole personhood thing are separate issues here. At best you could argue that "less of a person" was a poor choice of words, but that's kind of a tangent. It doesn't matter. The point is about acceptance.

Palindrome's point was to expose the fact that Dreiko's beliefs don't make sense, are clearly based in prejudice and are actually kind of shitty in application to the real world. I would say they succeeded, but that's just me.

If the intention was for the word to mean "acceptance" then use the word "acceptance". Using such charmed terminology as accusing the other party in the debate of not recognizing people as people because of their line of thinking is ad hominem at best. It is being used to accuse the other person of prejudice only and turn the conversation into one of that rather than exploring the situation being presented. There is no discussion anymore, one side has simply tried to poison the well.

It's possible to believe a person is delusional but at the same time still believe that person is still a person and is entitled to all the rights associated with being a person. That they are entirely accepted as an individual and that everything else about them one has no issue with. It's okay to disagree, as long as one never attempts to enforce that disagreement. There is also nothing wrong with desiring that folk should not entertain the delusion one perceives. Why can a person just not express disagreement without it being misconstrued as prejudice or discrimination?

As for generating different classes of people, I thought we desired that gender should never be a barrier to anything. That there's no difference between men and women except on a biological level. That there's no reason to stratify society under such social practices. There are no men jobs, women jobs, male or female responsibilities or expectations... but we're getting hung up on gender - literally a social construct, and people are so determined to place themselves into one of these pigeonholes. The entire situation is counter-intuitive. Gender identity is a BAD thing. We need to reject it entirely. Pronouns just for the sake of physical identification alone. "You should be able to see him next to the balloon stand." is simply to help someone locate an individual by halving the potential number of people they could possibly be.

The view here is that gender doesn't matter, because someone's gender never should matter. One should treat men or women equally. Easiest way to do that is to stop focusing so much on trying to adhere to social expectations as to how one of those genders should behave. Behave how you want, don't feel compelled to act in an entirely arbitrary fashion to suit an outdated premise rooted in discrimination. Do not waste time and resources trying to change a body to fit an outdated mould. Fuck the mould. Be glad you don't fit it. People that expect you to are idiots. Don't behave the way idiots want you to behave.

You dont know what its like to be transgendered and should stop talking like you do.

 

[Terminal Blue]

It's possible to believe a person is delusional but at the same time still believe that person is still a person and is entitled to all the rights associated with being a person.

It's weird that you are willing to pedantically debate the technical meaning of being a person, yet clearly haven't considered what calling someone delusional actually means.

Delusion is a clinical term. It describes a belief which is so wrong or without reason that a person could not arrive at it via a healthy thought process. Examples of delusions would be me believing that I can fly, that aliens are controlling my thoughts or that a television advert contains secret messages intended just for me. To call someone delusional is inherently to imply that they have a mental illness, it implies that their perception of reality is warped or without reason.

You can call someone delusional and not necessarily mean to suggest that they are mentally ill, just as you can describe someone's beliefs as dehumanizing and not mean that that person consciously believes that some people are not human. If you can't handle the fact that dehumanization is a metaphor, then don't use delusion as a metaphor.

As for generating different classes of people, I thought we desired that gender should never be a barrier to anything.

You've misunderstood. The point was that when you start calling people delusional, you are making judgements about who is and is not capable of reason. The barrier you are creating is between "normal" people like yourself, who see the world clearly and whose logic is valid, and "delusional" trans people, who are crazy and whose logic is invalid and warped.

The irony is, of course, is that same barrier you've put up actually casts you in a very bad light, because it puts you in clear disagreement with the hard-fought outcomes of scientific and medical debate and in contradiction of everything we know about gender.

The entire situation is counter-intuitive. Gender identity is a BAD thing. We need to reject it entirely. Pronouns just for the sake of physical identification alone. "You should be able to see him next to the balloon stand." is simply to help someone locate an individual by halving the potential number of people they could possibly be.

Again, you are confusing involuntary psychological attachment to the idea of gender (gender identity) for the existence of restrictive gender roles, and assuming those are the same thing. They empirically are not.

This is a standard TERF argument, and like all TERF arguments it is hypocritical. It is hypocritical in the fact that it is only ever used to attack trans people, never to attack cis gender identities or indeed your own gender identity, which would be the logical conclusion. It is never accompanied by a genuine embracing or respect for gender non-conformity, only a rigid insistence that everyone adhere to their proscribed "biological" destiny.

If you genuinely believe that gender identity is a bad thing and should be rejected, then why aren't you rejecting your own gender identity? Why aren't you living as some radical politically non-binary gender anarchist? Oh right, because that's actually hard and would deny you the societal acceptance which comes from being gender normative.

We see through you. You'll say "fuck the mould", but you won't actually break the mould. If it's too hard for you, why do you expect us to do it?

 

[McElroy]

Gender identity is a BAD thing. We need to reject it entirely.

Most people conform to hetero- and cisnormativity without much problem. There's nothing for them to think about it. It's a problem avoided. A person feeling great about themselves without ever paying mind to gender identity can be just as satisfied with their life as someone who's deep in introspection every other day (and they probably are and then some, ignorance is bliss and all that). The latter could even be envious of the former, since they don't have the luxury to take the same things for granted like most people do. Having to simply reject it seems like a raw deal.

Another thing comes up when you imagine somebody who isn't able to fit in. When they see society try to adapt and be inclusive, it would seem counter-intuitive, dumb even, to say screw it and go their own way instead. After all, nothing promises a good result at the end of that path either -- who would want to be an outcast.

I get it that you're going for an ideal situation, but it would require grand reconstruction of our society to get even close.

 

[Abomination]

It's possible to believe a person is delusional but at the same time still believe that person is still a person and is entitled to all the rights associated with being a person.

It's weird that you are willing to pedantically debate the technical meaning of being a person, yet clearly haven't considered what calling someone delusional actually means.

One can be deluded about a particular subject without being deluded over every other subject. Hell, religions exist.

If you can't handle the fact that dehumanization is a metaphor, then don't use delusion as a metaphor.

There is a significant difference between someone who is deluded about a topic or one who is no longer considered a human. There is no metaphor in someone being deluded over a particular topic.

Again, you are confusing involuntary psychological attachment to the idea of gender (gender identity) for the existence of restrictive gender roles, and assuming those are the same thing. They empirically are not.

They are intrinsically linked. They feed off each other. "Men are supposed to be stoic and provide for their families and be the front line of defence of the household" and so men are expected to do so and feel they should behave so in order to be a man. The role defines the identity.

This is a standard TERF argument, and like all TERF arguments it is hypocritical. It is hypocritical in the fact that it is only ever used to attack trans people, never to attack cis gender identities or indeed your own gender identity, which would be the logical conclusion. It is never accompanied by a genuine embracing or respect for gender non-conformity, only a rigid insistence that everyone adhere to their proscribed "biological" destiny.

No, I never used it in that manner. I reject gender, all gender. I think it's stupid that we hold on to it as an identifier and as a societal expectation - the two of which determine the other. Nobody is biologically obligated to do shit. If you want to have a kid, have a kid. If you want to fornicate with people of the same, opposite, or both sexes go nuts. The only thing that should matter between male and female is sex, literally, having sex and who you want to do it with... or don't want to do it with.

If you genuinely believe that gender identity is a bad thing and should be rejected, then why aren't you rejecting your own gender identity? Why aren't you living as some radical politically non-binary gender anarchist? Oh right, because that's actually hard and would deny you the societal acceptance which comes from being gender normative.

I do reject it. I don't identify or consider it at all in my decision making process.

We see through you. You'll say "fuck the mould", but you won't actually break the mould. If it's too hard for you, why do you expect us to do it?

I have done it. I don't care what society expects from me based on a particular gender role or behaviour. It's easy to reject it, just don't... conform.

I mean, tell me how someone has to behave in order to reject gender expectations.

 

[Silvanus]

The view here is that gender doesn't matter, because someone's gender never should matter. One should treat men or women equally. Easiest way to do that is to stop focusing so much on trying to adhere to social expectations as to how one of those genders should behave.

Well, hang on-- you're going quite a hell of a lot further than arguing they "shouldn't matter"; you're arguing they don't exist (which is way beyond the scientific and societal consensus).

 

[Abomination]

I get it that you're going for an ideal situation, but it would require grand reconstruction of our society to get even close.

Of course it would, and it would help if those pushing for change embraced the idea that gender is a social construct and should be abandoned. Suffrage and true egalitarianism demands it.

 

[Abomination]

The view here is that gender doesn't matter, because someone's gender never should matter. One should treat men or women equally. Easiest way to do that is to stop focusing so much on trying to adhere to social expectations as to how one of those genders should behave.

Well, hang on-- you're going quite a hell of a lot further than arguing they "shouldn't matter"; you're arguing they don't exist (which is way beyond the scientific and societal consensus).

They physically don't exist. Gender roles and behaviours are cultural. Cultures can be abandoned. Nobody lives like a Carthaginian anymore, or like a Pict, or like a Roman, or like the Huns...

Gender is entirely a belief system that we've been taught since a younger age, girls wear pink, boys wear blue, dresses are for girls, boys grow up to be doctors and women grow up to be nurses and wear makeup while men never touch makeup and they need to bottle up their feelings whereas women should always gossip or wear floral print to look pretty and blah de blah stereotypes everywhere and expected behavioural norms.

Fuck'm.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

To imply that thinking someone delusional is to not deem them worthy of social acceptance is an asspull if I've ever seen one. They need more help than the average person, if anything.


Isn't it ableist to imply that by definition if I think someone delusional I must think of them as somehow lesser? That I must think of them as somehow inferior or fine to trample on? Aren't you making an assumption in deciding this?

These are all things you're assuming in order to make an ad-hominem here but you'd be the first to attack someone making these points in a vacuum.

You can socially accept someone who has a problem. Helping them fix their issue in a way you personally think of as helpful (but which may not jive with someone's politics) is NOT the same as malevolently wanting to marginalize them.

Wow, this thread got kinda shitty, huh..

If you're trans, that by definition means you ALREADY feel like you're a man. So you don't need any help feeling like one.

There is a really obvious difference between identity as a mental construct and identity as part of the relationship between individual and society.

It's also important to remember that identity is socialised. You didn't spontaneously come to the conclusion that you were male. You were born with a male body, and because of that you will have been treated as male. The reason some trans people choose to take hormones is because, like it or not, bodies still signify something in this society.

Yes, being trans is defined by interior identity, but if your physical presentation doesn't match your mental self-image you will be perceived differently, and because you have to live in a society that might also affect how you perceive yourself.

If gender identity was so fickle and transient that it required a constant, proactive "feeling", we wouldn't be talking about it.

What you're saying here implies that one can affect their feeling of transgenderism in such a way that it is potentially possible that one might alter them to the point of extinction. If we are to agree on what you're saying here, that possibility will arise. The whole thing about it being "choice" if we talk frankly.


Are we going to establish that? I'm working on a basis that prioritizes establishing that if you're transgender, that's just your innate self and not something you can affect. I think that's what most people who speak about this care the most about protecting, even beyond societal acceptance.

I feel like you overplayed your hand a bit there.

On one hand, you seem to be arguing that gender identity is pure feeling and that any efforts made to confirm gender identity is a sign of delusion. Yet here, you're arguing that despite being pure feeling, gender identity has to fit (what you see as) a sexual binary. Which is it?

Also, human genitals are composed of homologous structures, meaning there are no human hermaphrodites. Intersexed and androgynous people were historically exhibited in freakshows as "hermaphrodites", but that's not a history you want to be referencing, and it's also completely unscientific.

Mainstream psychology almost universally accepts the existence and validity of non-binary gender identities. Being non-binary has absolutely nothing to do with being intersexed, and most intersexed people identify as either male or female.

It's about purely feeling, as in, purely feeling which of the two things you fit in. If you have the option between eating pizza or sushi, how is it not purely feeling when you decide which to eat? Is it not purely feeling because the option to decide to eat tacos doesn't exist in this reality? No, it's still purely feeling, it's just not omnipotent freedom.

If we are to say that you can feel anything at all then you enter helicopter meme territory btw, so that's not a good place to go either.

 

[Silvanus]

They physically don't exist. Gender roles and behaviours are cultural. Cultures can be abandoned. Nobody lives like a Carthaginian anymore, or like a Pict, or like a Roman, or like the Huns...

Behavioural traits develop (in all animals and plants) as a result of myriad different factors. Culture is only one of them; there are also evolutionary causes for behaviour, chemical reasons, causes related to the hierarchy of needs, psychological reasons. These behavioural traits do not physically exist, obviously, but they clearly exist nonetheless.

Seeking shelter is a behavioural trait. Bonding with family is a behavioural trait. Communicating contentment or fear is a behavioural trait-- shared between millions of species, well documented and analysed. They do not physically exist, but they blatantly exist and cannot be disregarded. That's psychology, anthropology, and basic behavioural science for you.

Gender is entirely a belief system that we've been taught since a younger age, girls wear pink, boys wear blue, dresses are for girls, boys grow up to be doctors and women grow up to be nurses and wear makeup while men never touch makeup and they need to bottle up their feelings whereas women should always gossip or wear floral print to look pretty and blah de blah stereotypes everywhere and expected behavioural norms.

Sounds like you're only talking about the most simplistic, surface-level manifestations, then.

Do Lionesses hunt while male lions stay at home purely because of the "gender norm" expectations of other lions? Please tell me you believe they do.

 

[Saelune]

The view here is that gender doesn't matter, because someone's gender never should matter. One should treat men or women equally. Easiest way to do that is to stop focusing so much on trying to adhere to social expectations as to how one of those genders should behave.

Well, hang on-- you're going quite a hell of a lot further than arguing they "shouldn't matter"; you're arguing they don't exist (which is way beyond the scientific and societal consensus).

They physically don't exist. Gender roles and behaviours are cultural. Cultures can be abandoned. Nobody lives like a Carthaginian anymore, or like a Pict, or like a Roman, or like the Huns...

Gender is entirely a belief system that we've been taught since a younger age, girls wear pink, boys wear blue, dresses are for girls, boys grow up to be doctors and women grow up to be nurses and wear makeup while men never touch makeup and they need to bottle up their feelings whereas women should always gossip or wear floral print to look pretty and blah de blah stereotypes everywhere and expected behavioural norms.

Fuck'm.

Alright, ya know what, lets say I take you at face value. The problem here then is you're putting all the pressure on trans people, instead of the people making life harder for us than it already is. Instead of talking down to trans people, maybe focus on the problems of gender enforced by straight cisgendered people who demand that boys be boys and girls be girls.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

Ah, I see we've gone from "I never said that" to "Okay I did say that, but what I meant was..."
Unfortunately what you meant isn't the matter here so the rest of your attempt to deflect is rather pointless. The fact, that you have now recognised, is that you did call me out when you thought I was linking being trans to mental sickness. You have not been when Dreiko does it, far more directly than I may have. Why the hypocrisy?

Personhood.

Yeah see its not because I literally provided a quote of you doing the exact thing I'm accusing you of doing. When you think I'm linking being trans with mental illness you call me out. When Dreiko does it, you do not. You're holding one standard for someone defending trans rights and another for the guy calling them delusional. And your continued attempts to try and deflect from that hypocrisy suggest very strongly you're aware of what you're doing and what it says about you

Palindromemordnilap clearly decided to test Dreiko's unusual beliefs by presenting some different scenarios in which a person might wish to alter their body function. One of these scenarios was a person using anti-depressants to treat depression. This is not really an analogy. Palindrome is not trying to explain how being trans works using depression, they are presenting the hypothetical of depression to figure out how Dreiko's beliefs work in practice.

Unfortunately, Palindrome did phrase this in a slightly hostile way by asking of Dreiko felt a person taking anti-depressants was less of a person. However, this is a common turn of phrase which clearly and obviously referred to whether those people should be granted societal acceptance. Dreiko clearly does not believe that trans people who take hormones should be accorded societal acceptance, since doing so would make society as a whole complicit in the "mass delusion". It's a standard Ben Shaprio argument with some cheap window dressing of acceptance to make it look less horrible than it really is.

Sort of? It was indeed a segue not an analogy, which I explained at the time, but I'll accept that it may have been seen as a direct comparison and people wouldn't like that. So sure, my bad, if I have to more thoroughly explain myself I'll do that. My problem is...well, see above. If Abomination is so principled that he calls me out on maybe comparing the two, why isn't he doing the same when Dreiko actually does? If he has an issue with me mentioning being trans and mental illness within the same argument, why is he silent when Dreiko out and calls trans folk delusional? It just shows his argument up as hollow and disingenuous, and I'd really quite like it if he just admitted that

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Sort of? It was indeed a segue not an analogy, which I explained at the time, but I'll accept that it may have been seen as a direct comparison and people wouldn't like that. So sure, my bad, if I have to more thoroughly explain myself I'll do that. My problem is...well, see above. If Abomination is so principled that he calls me out on maybe comparing the two, why isn't he doing the same when Dreiko actually does? If he has an issue with me mentioning being trans and mental illness within the same argument, why is he silent when Dreiko out and calls trans folk delusional? It just shows his argument up as hollow and disingenuous, and I'd really quite like it if he just admitted that

That's cause I never called trans people delusional for just being trans. I called the trans people people who believe taking testosterone affects how much of a man they are delusional on the basis of testosterone not mattering at all in that regard, not on the basis of them being transgender. I'm literally responding to them in 100% the same way I'd respond to my uncle if he one day up and decided to take testosterone to be more of a man.

I'm of the opinion that they are already fully a man hence don't need more testosterone, not sure how that's being for social ostracizing or what have you.

 

[Terminal Blue]

One can be deluded about a particular subject without being deluded over every other subject. Hell, religions exist.

I'm pretty sure if someone exhibited an actual delusion. Say, if someone believed that they were responsible for causing earthquakes, or that a famous celebrity was in love with them and sending them secret messages, you would not give much consideration to the fact that they were only delusional about one thing. You would correctly identify that something was very wrong with them.

Normal religious beliefs are not delusions, no matter how many fedoras you wear. You may disagree with them or think they are silly, but they are things a person can arrive at through a normal process. A religious person can usually explain why they are religious, and it is common for religious people to change their minds or even to abandon religion altogether.

Again, the way you are using delusion is a metaphor (an unfortunate metaphor, given that you're talking about people who in the past would have been confined to insane aslyums). I'm just pointing out how weird it is that you can use metaphor like this, but can't understand the metaphor of a person being "less human".

They are intrinsically linked. They feed off each other. "Men are supposed to be stoic and provide for their families and be the front line of defence of the household" and so men are expected to do so and feel they should behave so in order to be a man. The role defines the identity.

Even if that were true (spoiler: it's not) they still are not the same thing.

You may have noticed that the vast majority of men who do not meet traditional gender expectations, or even those who are consciously gender non-conforming, have not decided to become women. If the role defined the identity, then those who failed to meet the role would reject the identity. No idea of non-conformity would be possible.

The reality is that it's woefully simplistic to assume there is a single normative or hegemonic male role at all. The mythical alpha Chad foretold in incel forums, for example, is not defined by a requirement defend his home or provide for his family, but rather to slay mad puss, exist in a state of permanent contrapposto and exhibiteth a brow ridge most pronounced.

No, I never used it in that manner. I reject gender, all gender.

What have you done to reject gender?

I do reject it. I don't identify or consider it at all in my decision making process.

Which clothing section do you shop in?

Which public bathrooms do you use?

It is impossible to live in a gendered society and not consider gender in your choices. Since you are presumably gender normative, you can pretend you aren't considering it, you can pretend there is only one choice and that you are making the only natural or reasonable choice, but gender has defined what is natural for you. If you won't go against what you see as nature, that is a choice.

It's easy to reject it, just don't... conform.

We don't.

I mean, it's hard when irritating cis people on the internet start calling you delusional whenever you won't conform, but at the end of the day we're the ones who didn't kill ourselves. The reason we didn't kill ourselves is that we learned not to care what you think.