Post by FaerieKim on Mar 18, 2016 21:43:03 GMT 8
What do you say to people who accuse non-binary identified people of being "special snowflakes"? What do you say to TERFs and other radfems who say that gender is all socially constructed stereotypes and that you should identify in line with your biological sex and just be a non-typical man or woman?
I'm tired of having to second guess myself every time I hear these opinions, and letting people confuse and upset me like that. I need better ways of asserting the validity of my identity and my reality.
Is gender socially constructed? Is biological sex the only sense in which gender is at all real or true? Are the scientific studies that indicate a kind of gender in the brain - are they reliable studies or is there a flawed assumption behind them (eg. brains do actually change due to environment and experience anyway - so those differences could actually be created by social factors anyway)? What is the real definition of "man" or "woman"? Is there a kind of inner, immutable sense of gender or is that a fiction we have created to justify trans experiences? Is identity just what you happen to call yourself or is it deeper than that? What the f is gender anyway?
Some of those questions genuinely perplex me, others are just me playing devil's advocate - but I'm sick of feeling confused and distressed by all this gender stuff. I've been feeling that way all my life - and identifying the way I do is an attempt to move beyond that and learning to feel more comfortable with who I am - but then people always seem to want to confuse me and mess with my head about it. And I don't know how to respond without getting more confused and upset about it all. Sucks when people always want to doubt the validity of my experiences.
I'm tired of having to second guess myself every time I hear these opinions, and letting people confuse and upset me like that. I need better ways of asserting the validity of my identity and my reality.
Is gender socially constructed? Is biological sex the only sense in which gender is at all real or true? Are the scientific studies that indicate a kind of gender in the brain - are they reliable studies or is there a flawed assumption behind them (eg. brains do actually change due to environment and experience anyway - so those differences could actually be created by social factors anyway)? What is the real definition of "man" or "woman"? Is there a kind of inner, immutable sense of gender or is that a fiction we have created to justify trans experiences? Is identity just what you happen to call yourself or is it deeper than that? What the f is gender anyway?
Some of those questions genuinely perplex me, others are just me playing devil's advocate - but I'm sick of feeling confused and distressed by all this gender stuff. I've been feeling that way all my life - and identifying the way I do is an attempt to move beyond that and learning to feel more comfortable with who I am - but then people always seem to want to confuse me and mess with my head about it. And I don't know how to respond without getting more confused and upset about it all. Sucks when people always want to doubt the validity of my experiences.