It would appear to me that the current cultural obsession with gender and how one identifies with it is a distraction from true self-knowledge and understanding of each person's unique personality. The current ideas around "gender identity" pigeon-hole people into behaving certain ways to signal their "gender" but what does it even mean? When I was a kid, we were "free to be you and me" regardless of sex. Now it seems like things are going back in the other direction. Girls like pink and boys like blue and if a boy likes pink, he must have something different about his gender identity? It is regressive.
From the Wikipedia page for "Free to Be You and Me":
The original idea to create the album began with Marlo Thomas, who wanted to teach her then-young niece Dionne about life, in particular that it is acceptable to refute or reject the gender stereotypes expressed in children's books of the period. In an Emmy Legends interview Thomas explains:
I told my sister Terre "it would take Dionne 30 years to get over it (stories featuring traditional gender roles) the same as it took all of us. We need to find her some different books to read" and she said "You go and find 'em." Well there weren't any. And not only weren't there any, I was in the bookstore one day looking around and found this one (picture book - I'm Glad I'm a Boy! I'm Glad I'm a Girl! by Whitney Darrow Jr.) that showed a pilot on one page and a stewardess on a facing page (with a caption) that said "Boys are pilots, girls are stewardesses." Well I nearly had a heart attack right there in the bookstore....
Here's another high-rated comment from the NYT column, from another woman in Oregon, Lunita:
The author "jokes" that gender is a social construct... it is! Feminists have been working to dismantle gender (the hierarchy of men over women and the sex roles associated with that) for decades, which makes it all the more disappointing that most liberals assert its existence as internal and innate. You should express yourself however you please, but performing "gender" to an audience is not affirming; the fact that the author needs external validation for this proves how alienating it is. Gender is a caste system that needs to be abolished, not an identity to be celebrated.
Here's the reference to joking in the original column:
My friends and I had long joked, “Gender is a social construct!” every time one of us needed shoring up after a messy encounter with the expectations of the gender-conforming heterosexual world. But without that world, we now added a rueful punchline: “Too bad there’s no more ‘social’!”
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97 comments:
I wonder if Marlo can stand to watch "That Girl" anymore. It must nearly give her heart attack.
Girls like pink and boys like blue and if a boy likes pink, he must have something different about his gender identity?
Good to see this as the top rated comment at the NYT, highlighting just how little support the trans agenda has (it likely has very little support even among the trans). And she’s right, it is regressive as it locks people into narrowly defined roles and then insists it’s being progressive by creating a different label for every nuance of preference.
Lots of people in this world need to find something else to fill up their time.
Did Thomas discover this “free to be you and me” thing before or after teh rhinoplasty?
Women get bored easily and try to amuse themselves by constantly changing fashions.
This wasn’t such a terrible thing when they were mostly limited to altering their hemlines and refashioning their panties so they didn’t look like their mothers.
Now that we’ve created millions of featherbedding jobs for women in publishing and academia, women’s desire for a change in fashion is a deadly burden.
We need a war. We need to burn most of the world to the ground. That will keep the women entertained for a while. Then they can start the fashion show again from the ground up.
Look; the facts of the matters are:
a boy isn't a macho stud??? We NEED to tell him to cut off his penis
a girl isn't comfortable dressing up and wearing makeup? We Need to tell her to cut off her boobs
People are REQUIRED to do, EXACTLY what WE Tell them to do
People are REQUIRED to be, EXACTLY what WE Tell them to be
isn't This, the world we wanted?
When I was a kid, I was free to be me. So were all the neighborhood kids. And then we grew up.
When I was a kid, I valorized the boner I had for Marlo Thomas.
Conflating "gender" with "gender role."
I totally agree with the "pink and blue" statement.
When I hear what kids have said that have made their parents decide they are trans, it shocks me. It's just kid stuff.
I do find the idea that an adult realizes they are kind of performing gender for the outside world to be really illuminating. I can't read the whole article, but I do think that says a lot. (the idea of gender "affirming" surgery is one of the ridiculous things about the identity politics)
When you say "lots of people", Thomas how many are you meaning? I don't see any of this craziness in real life, so I suspect most of this obsession with gender sex dysphoria is limited to an insignificant portion of the population being amplified by social media clickbait whores.
They make more money when more people get worked up thinking it's a real issue foundational to the culture.
Stop being their meat puppet. Cougar town is just around the corner. Keep working out if you want to have fun in the upcoming roaring twenties.
The mass psychosis continues.
So these kids are just running with the wrong crowd?
Out: Switchblades and motorcycle jackets
In: Sex reassignment
"Feminists have been working to dismantle gender (the hierarchy of men over women and the sex roles associated with that) for decades..."
Decades.
Then a few men in dresses show how it's really done.
Feminism obviously just needed cock in leadership roles.
I am Laslo.
We did some kind of show using a spoken/song record of Free to Be You and Me. I remember a line about ''cause he's got a lot a meat on him' and a an overweight kid had to have the part...
Pretty sure if they are paying attention commenter wouldn't be referencing it.
What's wrong with behaving in the conventionally feminine way while being physically male or behaving in the conventionally masculine way while being physically female? "Free to Be You and Me" said there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
I remember Phil Donohue saying on his show when he saw Marlo Thomas, 'I had a bad thought'.
We all did, Phil.
In 2016 Trump labels CNN fake news. From 2016-2020, the media world rallies to CNN'c defense. In 2021, A CNN news writer asserts that we can’t know a child’s “gender identity” at birth.
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/cnn-news-writer-denies-the-biological-reality-of-sex-at-birth/
Sure sounds like some TERF bullshit there, Althouse. Yes, I just learned that word.
"Free to be You and Me" was pretty anodyne, iirc. Like a lot of mediated moments, it came well after the trend it was trying to celebrate. The trend toward greater freedom had been running for years by then. I looked up the dates -- 1972 for the initial book and record, 1974 for the TV special. Hadn't we already lived through the 1960s by then? In other words, wasn't it pretty old hat by the time it was made "official" by a celebrity?
Since you tagged Marlo Thomas. I saw her in a play on Broadway not too many years ago. Crush still there.
"Did Thomas discover this “free to be you and me” thing before or after teh rhinoplasty?"
'That's not a Banana! That's my nose!" - Marlo's dad.
"What's wrong with behaving in the conventionally feminine way while being physically male or behaving in the conventionally masculine way while being physically female?"
Aren't you just describing stereotypical gay and lesbian behavior, which is already pretty broadly accepted in current society? What's trans got to with that and why should I care?
I don't care what you feel like you are, as long as you leave me alone.
Bob Boyd said...
So these kids are just running with the wrong crowd?
Out: Switchblades and motorcycle jackets
In: Sex reassignment
Actually;
Out: Anorexia and Cutting
In: Sex reassignment
Colin Wright
https://mobile.twitter.com/SwipeWright/status/1377696915693793281
"About to publish my 10,000 word treatise in Quillette about why sex IS in fact a spectrum after all. Compiling all the evidence has truly been a monumental task. Sneak peak figure below."
Althouse said What's wrong with behaving in the conventionally feminine way while being physically male or behaving in the conventionally masculine way while being physically female?
Right on. Absolutely nothing is wrong with that! People may be genetically male or female but each person is a distinct conglomeration of personality traits, interests, activities that have been arbitrarily assigned to genders (male things and female things) but which have nothing at all to do with gender
Children (everyone) should be left free to explore what interests them. A girl who likes chemistry sets and building things...does not make that girl a boy and then subject to being treated with hormones and having her breasts lopped off. A boy who likes to cook, sew or paint...is still a boy and... leave his body alone. Children will also grow out of, or get bored with, passing likes and dislikes.
My parents raised us to pursue the things that interested us without any judgements or negativity.
I was (and still am) that girl who likes chemistry, geology, archaeology, science, music, cooking, art, hunting, camping, outdoors...and men. My brother is the boy who likes music, playing guitar and piano, writing, drawing, cooking, coding, and women. He disliked sports and outdoors, would not participate. NONE of this has anything to do with our gender, physical attributes dictated by DNA or sexuality.
Fee to be you and me is the way to go. Without government intrusion or busy bodies trying to mutilate your body and mind to conform to ..??? something... is just evil.
Teachers (parents, society)...leave those kids alone!!!
(Sorry to be so long. I am passionate about this)
Yes! Some famous person on Twitter talked about how their kid was trans and said that they took the kid to Target and the kid picked out a My Little Pony dress. Like that's supposed to mean something. It really annoys me. I'm not a very girly woman, but just because I wear men's shorts or have a pixie cut doesn't make me a man. I'm a woman.
"Boys are pilots, girls are stewardesses." Well I nearly had a heart attack right there in the bookstore....
Wow, that's crazy! Everyone knows boys are pilots and girls are flight attendants...
“Feminism obviously just needed cock in leadership roles.”
Thank u for this- I like u like this, Laslo.
The high schools up here are full of contrary constructs. I know girls taking testosterone and lopping off their breasts- boys changing their names and coloring their hair. It’s contagion. Celebrated on social media.
Self- mutilation should never be celebrated- and when you remove vital, intimate parts of self- I can’t imagine feeling whole. Out selves are not cancer-
But— I know of one heartbreak of a gal who seems to be doing this for her- his now- own good. Always socially quiet, so very tall and gaining weight daily- this person decided to be brave enough to change and I hate it. Yet- if it can give this person- an adult of 29, a sense of self: who am I?
I think it’s wrong- some scars never heal. I believe this person is celibate- Idk if that will change, and s/he has lost over 100 pounds and is social now.
This is not to be conflated w/very young prepubescent or pubescent children. And I believe it is still a sickness:
Only God can judge
Sex: male and female. Gender is sex-correlated attributes: masculine and feminine, respectively.
Brief OT: Fernandinande, that is Bimbo in your icon, isn't it?
Feminism, masculinism, are sex chauvinistic ideologies that serve neither women nor men, but their own special and peculiar interests.
Men and women are equal in rights and complementary in Nature/nature. Reconcile.
I work side by side w/my 6’2” husband doing very physical labor.
When he had his heart attack I did both of our work- w/help. Everything is made to fit a man in this agricultural life- shovel handles, heights and weights of things.
Adapt.
What's wrong with behaving in the conventionally feminine way while being physically male
Gender or social convention? Normalize, tolerate, or reject? Humanity, society have a compelling interest to normalize a favorable juxtaposition of the sexes.
The puzzle is cover for a mistake.
”What's wrong with behaving in the conventionally feminine way while being physically male or behaving in the conventionally masculine way while being physically female?”
In all species males and females innately differ in behavioral as well as physical characteristics. Human beings are the only exception to this rule, because feminism.
---In other words, wasn't it pretty old hat by the time it was made "official" by a celebrity?
And isn't that the usual pattern? A big media phenomenon only occurs when a large swath of the population is already there at whatever point the media finally elects to take special notice of it.
You can't even be sure that a ball of wax is a ball of wax. There are countless ways that sense data can be wrong. How are you supposed to tell men from women.
Hyperbolic doubt as a technique.
I work side by side w/my 6’2” husband doing very physical labor.
Pioneer. Everything old is new again.
Males and females are different across all of biology.
This recent focus is nothing but an invented cudgel. I have no notion of the end game, other than the fight. There is no goal.
Just as soon as child custody goes to men half the time we can talk.
Evil social construct my ass.
Genderphobia.
stereotypical gay and lesbian behavior
Even in couplets there are complementary: masculine and feminine patterns, partners.
Transgender is a state or process of divergence from normal.
That said, lions, lionesses, and cubs have a gay old time.
It’s a long lined heritage ...
And it’s getting old- I marvel at the passing time and the toll it’s taken.
Imagine how much happier trans kids would be if they learned to accept their bodies as they are in good working order and nature intended and their self as they discover it. Sometimes I think that they are cutting off their nose to spite the boomers. It doesn't spite us, it just makes us sad for you child.
"No girlz" signs on the cartoon boys' clubhouses suggests at least a girls are ikky difference at some age before puberty.
The no difference thing would be before that age.
Gender roles, other than reproduction, and males protecting females and children, and perhaps some other physiology-oriented occupations, are not gender specific, they are social constructs. So, we have female leaders, scientists, accountants, teachers, etc. The demand to become taxable commodities for the State is novel, and followed with the social progress wreaking havoc on relationships.
Men and women are equal in rights and complementary in Nature/nature. Reconcile.
The name of the author of the "I'm Glad I'm a Boy etc" book that shocked Marlo sounded familiar. Whitney Darrow Jr. was a top cartoonist for 50 years at .... The New Yorker. LOL. He was born in 1909, sold them his first published cartoon in 1933. Had four collections. A Princeton man from Greenwich, CT.
I don’t necessarily think it’s acceptance of their bodies-
It’s in their heads! How others accept their bodies-
They feel they need armor.
Life is a war now.
"What's wrong with behaving in the conventionally feminine way while being physically male or behaving in the conventionally masculine way while being physically female? "Free to Be You and Me" said there's absolutely nothing wrong with that."
You're right. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. It's the nature of the person to be what they are. What has become unnatural is the constant obsession about it, countless articles and books about it, the recruiting to think a certain way about it. It's as if this is an exclusive club and people are being recruited to become a member; to be Trans. Even to leave their nature and follow this cool trend. It's more important that you are. It's bigger than anything.
Ann Althouse said...
What's wrong with behaving in the conventionally feminine way while being physically male or behaving in the conventionally masculine way while being physically female? "Free to Be You and Me" said there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Nothing. As long as I'm free to think and say what I want to about it. That's what the current regime seeks to deny.
But when you talk about construction, don't you know that you can count me out
What Dust Bunny Queen said at 7:44.
My paternal grandfather, who I never met, apparently valued his son over his daughters. He also regularly beat the crap out him. My Dad valued both his sons and daughters and never spanked anyone. A lot of what happens in families is a reaction to other things that happened in families.
Mary Grace Canfield, "Ralph" of Green Acres was a pathbreaker.
Ralph: I was waiting for you in the closet...
Hank: Why don't we go stag and see if we can pick up a couple of girls?
What's wrong with behaving in the conventionally feminine way while being physically male or behaving in the conventionally masculine way while being physically female? "Free to Be You and Me" said there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Except that is not what we have today. Instead, we have SJW society telling physically male people who behave in conventionally feminine ways to castrate themselves and anyone who tells them otherwise to f**k off.
Wow, that's crazy! Everyone knows boys are pilots and girls are flight attendants...
Boys no longer have trouble becoming flight attendants, and haven't for years. More women are becoming doctors than men, etc.
I was too old when "Free to Be" came out for it to affect me. I do remember one song that let me know we could all be different but still share something in common. We could be fat, skinny, climb on rocks, be tough or a sissy, we could even have chicken pox, and yet, still share a love of hot dogs.
Sometimes the common thing that unifies us is obvious, sometimes you have to dig a little to find it.
Sometimes I despair for the species. But then I read some farmgirl comments.
How did this issue turn itself on it's head? We understand not to be cruel to someone experience gender dysphoria, but now we forced to enable something that doesn't exist in reality. It seems gender dysphoria in older male teens and men is always fetishizing what it's like to be a woman. Whether it is the make up, the dressing up, and the social interacting with other women bonding. No one can say "No" to these older men experiencing gender dysphoria, their feelings have taken over and we all have to play along.
I understand it's a lobby that pushes it through public policy and culture, but it's taking a toll on all women. Ironically the women that seem most progressive and smashing the patriarchy have let men right in and think being a woman is all play. It seems that these men, who experience gender dysphoria want the best of both gender roles. They get to keep their biological masculinity, while thinking being a woman is just about being pretty.
Who stand up against this? At least someone with some power to do so, with so many men and women just letting this all slide in fear of being called cruel or transphobic.
Funny stuff, RalphL!
"Feminists have been working to dismantle gender"
Not quite. They have been working to declare women special. Abortion as an opportunity for women to reflect on their morality, that sort of nonsense, peddled on this very blog.
But it's true that transgenderism differs from feminism and spurns the "social construction" bit. It shows that for progs nothing is set, everything is always up for grabs. Gotta have something new to keep the struggle going. And of course as soon as the vanguard declares a new dogma, everyone must fall in line.
(blush)
gender roles - definition
Something society as a whole creates unconsiously or perhaps subconsiously based on the biological realities imposed by nature.
It should be noted that those espousing the elimination of gender roles are usually vociferously against drafting women into the armed services because of their female specialness.
"I'm Glad to be a Girl" sounds like one of those propaganda tracts to make us adjust to our role as women and mothers. I would have hated that.
When my parent brought home "Feminine Mystique" it sounded like more of the same so I didn't read it. My parent never mentioned it so it must not have gone where she wanted it to go, like how to mystify a man and make him your slave.
I must have read it ten times since then.
how to mystify a man - definition
A synonym phrase for "be nice to him".
Normality is not to be excepted, everyone has to be neurotic all the time.
it is acceptable to refute or reject the gender stereotypes
There is a big difference between rejecting gender stereotypes, which can be somewhat arbitrary (pink/blue), and rejecting gender, which is an ontological reality.
I don't care what you feel like you are, as long as you leave me alone.
I agree. Yet, I think that's what the original article was attacking. If you don't affirm a person's gender then it supposedly takes away from that person. You are no longer free to be you or me, because you aren't accepting me as one of you. That, on face value, is a psychosis. The demand is for us to share in that psychosis.
What was even weirder was that while making the argument, the writer even acknowledged the physical attributes that determine gender at birth, but that adding those attributes post birth didn't aid their psychosis. They were so close to the epiphany, yet failed to take the next step out of the psychosis.
farmgirl said...
I work side by side w/my 6’2” husband doing very physical labor.
When he had his heart attack I did both of our work- w/help. Everything is made to fit a man in this agricultural life- shovel handles, heights and weights of things.
Adapt.
What?! You didn't spend your days writing threating letters and organizing protest marches aimed at having the equipment manufacturers completely redesign their product lines?
Something society as a whole creates unconsiously or perhaps subconsiously based on the biological realities imposed by nature.
Right. Or consciously, on purpose, because men and women(in general) have different physical abilities.
AND because women are the ones who bear and nurture children. In the past, women were the ones staying close the campfire/cave/village to care for children because...ahem...they have the tits with milk. Women also did the foraging for nuts and berries types of food and also cultivated small patches of grain. Might as well cook while we are at it then.
Men being stronger and not having to "nurture" the babies did the heavier lifting, hunting, building. The dangerous, physical things. Bringing home the bacon.
Doesn't mean there wasn't overlap in the duties of survival.
So...eventually, the "chores" became those of men or women. Plus those things that either/or could do. What we have in society, assigning gender roles, is a remnant of those days of yore before we had mechanical conveniences to do the work.
Iman said...
Did Thomas discover this “free to be you and me” thing before or after teh rhinoplasty?
She might have had a nose job, but ya gotta admit; her doctor was an artist. Nothing like some of these modern day hacks that makes everyone look alike.
Even little fishwraps like my local paper, that have taken over by gannett, they are full in trans on thousand currents sky dragon worship et al
“... While you fawn over him, not all ladies would.”
I believe it’s called chemistry.
Try to grok any understanding from this
https://www.news-journalonline.com/story/news/politics/2021/04/02/police-respond-call-possible-shooting-u-s-capitol/7064125002/
I don’t believe any of us are truly aware of our own biases- not completely.
That’s why “the things that happen in families are a result of the things that happen in families- whether consciously, or not.
We all have an Achilles heel(even Achilles;0))
In real science, IMhumbleO- there are no real scientists any longer. $$$ is God and artificial add ions to life skew left...
With the Em ace of the sacraments of The Pill and abortion- who knows why so many have lost the Truth?
.... and ask: What is Truth?
Artificial additions...
Right, Mary
1 step forward- 2steps back
and tell us why men are superior to women in competing in those "brain" jobs. Particularly if women are not exclusive to childbearing/rearing and some don't seek that role in the first place.
Who says that? Not I.
Especially since I spent my working life in a 'brain' job and what is normally considered a man's occupation. And did very well thank you.
And today women are NOT exclusive to childbearing and rearing. Today.
Society just hasn't caught up with technology.
I love my pink dress shirts. Do I have a gender ID issue? Fu(k no.
comment limbo - definition
The place where blog comments go when they disappear without a "Removed by" tag. Such as the one between 9:30-9:54 concerning Nietzsche.
"What's wrong with behaving in the conventionally feminine way while being physically male or behaving in the conventionally masculine way while being physically female? "Free to Be You and Me" said there's absolutely nothing wrong with that."
Nothing at all, really.
But do we have to be told about everything that every 'non-traditional' person does at every point in their life.
A great number of us don't really care...
You're free to be whoever you want to be, but I would also invite you to shut up about it.
It's like the old joke: How do you know that someone is a Harvard alum? They'll tell you.
And last, don't make anyone else subsidize your desires or fetishes. The government (me, my taxes) should stay out of it.
Gender isn’t real. It’s the reification of stereotypes.
Those who believe that the concepts of male and female are merely social constructs don't spend much time explaining how a particular belief becomes a "social construct". But it seems to me how this happens is nothing more than when the cultural leaders of a society come to believe X is true. Why they believe x is true is irrelevant. So if these people come to believe the concepts of men and women do not name actual facts of nature, then these words have no actual basis in reality.
This same reasoning can be applied to the idea of "species." So if a member of what is commonly referred as the class of "homo sapiens" believes, or feels like, they are a bird or a crocodile, they are.
comment limbo - definition
The place where blog comments go when they disappear without a "Removed by" tag. Such as the one between 9:30-9:54 concerning Nietzsche.
Can't blame the moderator for that, after all Nietzche is mightily offensive.
Don't know the rules here yet. So, apologies.
How about we men do what other have proposed, we have a "Day without men.'
Spiders will go uncrushed. Jars will remain unopened. Remote controls will remain unprogrammed. Lawns will grow shaggy. Air in tires will escape without consequence. Seats on crowded buses will not magically become vacant. Doors will have to be opened by oneself. Dishes in upper cabinets will remain on the countertop. Anything heavy will stay in place...
: )
Evolution! Clean-up on aisle Western Civ!
soliloquy - definition
Usually an instance of one speaking thoughts aloud without regard to audience presence.
This can appear to occur in blog section comments when one commenter's messages are removed.
Boys no longer have trouble becoming flight attendants, and haven't for years.
Of course the outrage was not the barriers to entry for men becoming flight attendants but that women can't be pilots. I've taken a low four figure number of flights in my life and could count the number of female pilots on one hand with some fingers and thumb left over.
...and way to step all over my joke.
That's what I've been saying for a while. Marlo Thomas and Seventies feminism were all about the idea that you could like football and trucks and still be a girl (or you could like fashion and dance and still be a boy). The unasked question was whether you could like football and trucks and not be a lesbian (or fashion and dance and not be gay), but the activist gays of the day believed that you could be a woman and love women or a man and love men. "Gender" didn't define who one was or what one could be or who one could love.
Now all that seems to have been turned on its head: if you are a girl who likes football and trucks and crushes on girls, you must be a boy, and if you are a boy who likes fashion and dance and crushes on boys, you might be a girl. It looks like a violation of everything the feminist and gay movements were talking about back then, but it's embraced by everyone who wants to appear woke. Seventies feminists would think it's all a massive step backwards.
Technology was obviously a big factor. If there weren't operations and meds, "trans" wouldn't be such a phenomenon. The need for an "identity" is also a factor. Claiming a unique "gender" for one's self seems to be a way of self-definition. The argument over transsexuality has been going on for some time. The Transsexual Empire, a scathing feminist tract against transsexuality, came out over forty years ago. But if we can stand any more discussion about the topic, we are probably due for a serious conversation about what it means to "feel" like a woman or "feel" like a man.
Gender is a caste system that needs to be abolished, not an identity to be celebrated.
Plenty of deep class, caste, tribal, ethnic or religious identities have been more or less "abolished. People are dissatisfied with identities based solely on which albums or movies they like or which detergent or car they buy or which store they shop at. One response is to tribalize on political lines. I guess this gender nonsense is another way of striving for a sense of deep identity that people don't get from anything else. Egalitarian societies often have problems providing people with satisfying ways of distinguishing themselves or identifying themselves.
"Everything is made to fit a man in this agricultural life- shovel handles, heights and weights of things.
Adapt."
What?! You didn't spend your days writing threating letters and organizing protest marches aimed at having the equipment manufacturers completely redesign their product lines?
Rather than communicating with your XY complement, marching with a pussy... cat in a hat, protesting the Matriarch, Gaia. The B-word.
Sex (genetic): male and female. Gender ("phenotypic") is sex-correlated physical and mental (e.g. sexual orientation) attributes: masculine and feminine, respectively. Separately, partially, there are sex-correlated gender-correlated social constructs (e.g. career, wardrobe) motivated by natural imperatives and a compelling interest to normalize a favorable juxtaposition of the sexes. So, what social constructs are fixed, perhaps context-sensitive, or choice and negotiable?
That said, the difference between trans/homo/bi/inter "stable" states and trans/neos is that the former don't experience in the same degree the cognitive dissonance that forces dysphoria stemming from an incongruity between their cognitive state and physical and mental attributes.
I wouldn’t even want to be a feminist- I was too busy tagging along behind my Dad- in the end our farm was sold anyway. I had an Associate(degree)- but, alas- no penis. And I told my Dad that. I don’t blame him at all. Is what it is.
Now- I have a new role(25yrs new)(same as the old role). I understand.
I claimed for many years to be- not a feminist, but a womanist. I loved that concept. Thought it was mine, even. When I decided I probably should look it up- it was taken. So I stopped using it. I understand.
So now- I’m just me.
(Now posted to the right thread)
As I have mentioned before, no one really knows what it is to be a man or a woman. You only know how to be you. You can try to extrapolate your experience to the population at large, but that is about it unless you can read minds. That's not to say that your genitalia is not important - it is important for many things - but it doesn't decide everything. There are as many ways to be a man or a woman as there are people.
Deciding to rip out your genitalia because you don't match some stereotype is lunacy.
I Enjoy Being a Girl - Flower Drum Song
https://youtu.be/LtQBrShqgls
I was going to excerpt some lyrics for you guys, but you really have to watch it. OK, here's one:
When I hear a complementary whistle
That greets my bikini by the sea
I turn and I glower and I gristle
But I'm happy to know the whistle's meant for me
Lurker21 11:13,
That is the thing that's been rankling me about this. Various people have been claiming that transpersons are just people with a birth defect: They were born with a male brain in a female body, or vice versa. But how do you define male and female brains? Apparently by going back to the 50s (the decade of stupid gender stereotypes, or so I'm told).
This is what spooks me about the movement to "transition" kids. I was, by all accounts, a "tomboy." I liked math and played around with model gliders and played D&D and Nomic. I spent time researching various critters, like toads and water-striders. I spent a hell of a lot of time by myself. I wasn't an athlete -- that was my sister, the gymnast -- but otherwise I was mostly into stereotypical Guy Stuff.
Suppose I were 12 years old right now. Wouldn't there be some pressure to turn me into the person I "really" am?
Now I know, from talking to my husband, that in his school, at least, the trans kids he has in his classes haven't been pressured by their parents; they have in fact to use their "deadnames" on concert programs and the like, because at least one of their parents can't stand the way they live. It's terrible and pitiable. And yet . . . might my classmates or my parents (assuming parents other than the very-Lefty-but-still-sane ones I actually have) have convinced me that I was "really" male, only in a female body? I hope not, but I'm not sure.
Deciding to rip out your genitalia because you don't match some stereotype is lunacy.
Deciding to rip out your genitalia in order to change your wardrobe is lunacy.
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