Hey all,
So I'm looking to take an active step here to understand better some things that my straight/white/cis/middle-aged male brain has had a tough time wrapping itself around, particularly in the gender identity front.
I'm working from the understanding of physical sex as the bio-bits and the expressed identity as being separate things, so that part is easy enough.
What's confusing to me though is like this. If we take gender as being an expression of your persona, a set of traits that define one as male, female, or some combination of both then what function does a title/pronoun serve? To assume that some things are masculine or feminine traits seems to put unneeded rigidity to things.
We've had men or women who enjoy things traditionally associated with the other gender for as long as there have been people I expect. If that's the case then what purpose does the need for a gender title serve?
I'll admit personally questioning some things like fairness in cis/trans integrated sports, but that's outside what I'm asking here. Some things like bathroom laws are just society needing to get over itself in thinking our personal parts are all that special.
Certainly not trying to stir up any fights, just trying to get some input from people that have a different life experience than myself. Is it really as simple as a preferred title?
Edit: Just wanted to take a second to thank all the people here who took the time to write some truly extensive thoughts and explanations, even getting into some full on citation-laden studies into neurology that'll give me plenty to digest. You all have shown a great deal of patience with me updating some thinking from the bio/social teachings of 20+ years back. ๐
You say that, but the only reason you're even talking about it is because of larger media discussion, and the things you're talking about and questioning are the exact talking points raised in the media to drive the exclusion of trans folk.
"It seems fair..." is the problem.
If it were unfair, it would lead to systemic advantage by trans people in sports, but trans people under perform compared to their cis peers. There are less trans people at every level of sport than you would expect given their participation number. If there were advantage, you would expect to see over representation at higher levels for their participation levels, not under representation.
Which is exactly my point. You jump to "steroids" and "seems unfair" because it sounds reasonable. But it's not. And as a result, you're empowering the conversation that leads to the harmful exclusion of trans folk from community sports, and to the visibility of trans role models for young trans folk.
I just did, and you skipped over it, without acknowledging it, to talk about a topic I explicitly flagged as a side issue used to muddy the waters.
There is no evidence of trans folk having sustained advantage in any sport at any level. Trans people are under represented at every level, even after accounting for their reduced participation numbers.