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. 🙂
So this starts into my lack of understanding of terms then. From what I've gone with sex being the XX or XY and the sexual organs that go with that. I recall that all start with XX and then develop different traits based on that chromosome pair. Persona and gender expression of the self and societies expectations being entirely separate. Are those not as distinct as I was thinking, or maybe I have them reversed?
Terminology again, so you ID as woman (MTF) but don't prefer traditionally feminine things? It goes to one of my other replies then of what differentiates a 'boyish woman/tomboy' from a MTF transgender?
That part has a more specific distinction for me. It really has nothing to do with identity but more for things like someone who grew up male, with all the associated hormonal traits to that, most specifically testosterone and the typically associated muscle difference transitioning and then competing with cis women in something like weight lifting or other mass-centric sports before any HRT has put them more on par with their cis counterparts. Much the same as how steroid use is not allowed in sports rather than it being anything to do with what they where born, it's a fairness concern rather than 'trans bad'. I'm all for people in the early parts of HRT competing, but in which division and for how long that takes to be more on more 'equal' terms I'm not versed enough in the bio matters to say.
Just a little quibble here: Trangender is an adjective, not a noun.
Trans woman then? Sometimes the phrasing to specify is a bit clunky to me without going into some unnecessarily long descriptor.
Yeah, that's right! You didn't know(and it's great that you're trying to learn!), but bigots like to call us "transgenders", so it's common for us to dislike that.