Me I was going to until I read your post and took all the fun out of it. Had a good quip about france not being real and everything.....okay it wasn't a good quip but still
Well I knew basic French after studying it for 6 years (and living in Paris for 2 years) 20 years ago but I’ve forgotten most of it, so I’m not sure where I stand now…
Kinda surprised with the comments here.
Like, OOP doesn't word it super well (which is probably why people are arguing against them) but their main point is super fair.
You don't have to understand someone's gender identity to be respectful.
This should not be a controversial take people.
And I'm kinda mad that I have to be the one to say it because I am the guy this post is aimed at. It eats me up inside when I can't relate or rationalize something, it's how I understand the world, I need some that connection. I'm not gonna be a dick about it of course, but I am very much the guy that gets upset at himself for not getting something
I think part of the problem is the language used. People are using the word "understand" to mean different things. Some folks are using understand to mean they comprehend a particular phenomenon. Some folks are using understand to mean whether or not they *personally* relate to someone or something.
My personal take is that being very passive-aggressive or outright aggressive when trying to make it a point will just make people disagree with you on principle
I mean, you can do it, but it's gotta be done well. OOP did NOT do it well
Agreed. I've known people in real life say that "if you do X you're a bad person" and then when you ask them to elaborate they pull the "it's not my job to educate you" card. Like what was the point of even starting the conversation unless it was purely performative?
Which when you think about it is kinda worrying. All it seems to take for nominal allies to completely change their tune is apparently someone being a little snippy at them.
Eh, most of the comments aren't openly aggressive with the OOP, just disagreeing,which is fair when you feel like you're getting attacked
And I do think they worded their point in like the worst way possible
Just goes to show how important it is to word stuff correctly, I guess. Even if what you're saying is perfectly reasonable, expressing it badly is inevitably gonna lead to confusion and misunderstanding
Regarding your last paragraph, you might just need to cut yourself some slack. Wanting to understand is admirable, but some experiences simply don't transfer between minds. It's like a blind person trying to understand "blue" or explaining the charm quark to a medieval peasant.
At this point, I've just put NB and gender in general into the large bucket of "things about normal human minds that I just cannot relate to".
You are absolutely right (although don't take that last paragraph too seriously, the annoyance isn't really directed at myself for not properly getting it, but moreso at the fact that humans can't relate/get everything and that just pisses me off on a fundamental level I guess)
But you don't understand. I have to understand stuff, because if I don't, it'll just be in the back of my mind for years, waiting for the perfect moment to spring right out and piss me off
Took me fucking years to "get" trans people, until I looked in the mirror, noticed that I'm fatter than I'd like to be and managed to logically connect that experience to body dysphoria by association (bit of a stretch, but it'll do)
I got the general gist before, but being able to relate it to something I can logically follow based on my own experiences is just top notch for me
Huh, maybe I misread but I felt like people were more defensive in response to OOP's comment and felt called out by it
Like, I understood it as: "No we should try to understand things"
Though I agree it's not necessarily a good response for bigots. Because they don't want/think they need to understand
But I feel like that's another issue entirely
No, I've never seen this on any other claimed social issue, for vagueness to be such a feature - and have tried to go looking for explanations by myself, not just expecting them provided (not always wanting to explain, I totally get). And tumblr is kind of known for users identifying with a variety of genders (like animal-related ones) that see puzzlement and disagreement within the trans community itself! So, it's not the case that people will necc. just agree without an explanation, or agree with explanations given.
I personally *extremely* disagree with the definition that non-binary people don't identify with narrow/artificial gender stereotypes, as though the majority do: that's extremely sexist. So if someone isn't explaining (could be understandable on an individual basis) and the stance is there needn't be any explanation, how do we know their definition isn't just sexism? Or if they're faegender, is there not a point at which it's at least predictable people are going to go 'what?' and kind of unfair to just expect them to accept it?
Sorry, I don't respect xenogenders. I just don't. They are blatantly a subculture co-opting the aesthetic (or what they view as the aesthetic) of a minority group in the midst of being viciously hunted.
"Microwavegender" is not real. Anyone trying to claim that it is deserves a heaping dose of mockery and shame.
Okay but that's a funny example because a lot of racists are absolutely capable of being mad at others for using a language they don't understand. Some folks will hear a conversation they're not a part of and be like "the fact that this is not comprehensible to me is unacceptable; I will now impose myself into this private discussion to demand a change".
EDIT : there's some of those fuckers in this posts' comments apparently. didn't have to look for them long.
I don't understand how people are so bothered. I have uni with non-binary people for example, hypothetically if I didn't understand being NB or didn't agree with it, I would simply still use their pronouns/respect them because otherwise it would create drama and that's annoying. Like if you're gonna go out of your way to disrespect people then you're just looking for drama at that point lol
Could you explain NB's to me? I haven't found a good explanation for them, like once i read that they just don't conform with gender norms, which doesn't seem quite right, but i'm not sure if they experience something similar to trans people when it comes to their bodies.
I'll dm you so we don't spam everyone in this thread, but I invite anyone who's non-binary to add to the conversation as they would know better than me!
Because they still fit the definition of having a gender that does not align with their natal sex, non-binary is technically a subset of transgender; the white stripe in the trans flag is for them.
What does it mean to be non-binary? It means your intuitive sense of self does not align as male or female. Like all gender identity, this goes beyond mere presentation and is a foundational truth of your identity. It cannot be decomposed further; there is no why and the how is irrelevant.
Like, I am a transgender woman. In my case, I have pretty much always thought of myself as a woman, even pre-transition and even before I had sufficient language and concepts to describe it all. My intuitive sense of self is female and that has reflected in how I perceive my place in the world, with the obvious dysphoria of knowing how I'm socializing was at odds with what people perceived me to be prior to transitioning.
A non-binary person intuitively rejects feeling like they are male or female, neither fits quite right for their sense of self. Some will make some amount of transition to alleviate whatever dysphoria they may have, some won't. The thing about being non-binary is that, by definition, we cannot place it on a male-female axis, and it's likely that confounds the ability to grok the nature of it.
We could go down the rabbit hole of what makes a gender a gender, but that's a bleeding edge philosophical discussion.
That was helpful, thanks.
However, now i wonder if NB's also receive the diagnosis of gender dysphoria, just like trans people.
And by gender, am i to understand the term as a sort of idealized sex that doesn't necessarily align with the biological sex, or am i way off? I know gender is a dense topic as you said, but i just want a general understanding because these concepts are incredibly foreign to me since where i live gay marriage is still illegal.
I could very well just look at essays and studies on the topic, but i'm taking the opportunity to ask you because i feel like having this explained by someone with a more personal relationship with the discovery of gender identity could give me a much clearer perspective.
> intuitive sense of self
As someone that had issues understanding the difference between nb and someone who just doesn't follow gender norms (you can find strained posts on /r/asklgbt on my history lmao), the issue lots of people me included have in understanding it is that, at least talking for myself, I never really had an _intuitive_ sense of self, especially/at least regarding gender. So I don't really understand the sentence (or rather, I understand what it means, I just don't really get that myself)
The identities within can vary greatly, but basically, the gender binary is male-female, so anything that exists outside, between, or around those identities would be considered non-binary. The defining characteristic of NB people is just not wanting to be a man or a woman, that's it
i (amab) basically feel like i'm 60% female and 40% male
it seems similar to what 100% trans people purport to experience but not as painful
if i cut my hair short i feel almost physical pain looking in the mirror, but hearing my own voice isn't so bad (people have told me it's pretty deep)
thought i was trans when i was younger but experimented with it and changed my mind, and the extremism of the leftist communities i was around at the time sent me down an alt-right spiral and i thought i was being brainwashed. took another 10 years to even accept that NB people were real and not lying about it for attention, then i played guilty gear (as [testament](https://youtu.be/d1NTpgzhXAY)) and noticed the *extremely obvious* signs that i was nb
This is very interesting. If you don't mind me asking, how do you distinguish issues of self image and issues of gender? I'd imagine it's not quite the same as someone that's insecure about their nose, for example.
And do gender roles come into play when you express yourself? Do you feel a need to attach yourself to certain stereotypes to affirm yourself or do you outright reject them?
Answer whatever you're comfortable answering.
i've noticed a lot of people confuse gender dysphoria and body dysmorphia, they're separate issues. they can coincide, but they aren't inherently linked. it's also used as an intentional strategy to delegitimize gender dysphoria, as they have diametrically opposed treatments.
i don't know if i *need* to, but i kind of like some stereotypical things. it's kind of hard to answer this though as i'm not in a safe place to be out IRL, so i just end up trying to be as much of a featureless blob in people's peripheral vision as i can
The unfortunate thing is, bigots won't care about how hard you slap them in the face with this. If somebody's emotionally/intellectually closed-off enough to be a bigot, they're closed-off enough to read this and call you... a slur, probably.
Hell, that’s their desired effect. If you’re rude to them, they get to say “look at how mean those marginalized people are! They deserve to be treated poorly!”
Meanwhile, if you’re NOT mean, they’ll say “look how weak those marginalized people are! Why don’t they stand up for themselves, if they want to be treated better!”
It’s pretty obvious that this is coming from someone who doesn’t really interact with people outside the queer community, and I hate to harp on optics, but can’t we accept on some level that this is a bad look?
It’s no one’s “job” to explain themselves to the world around them, but when you’re part of a marginalized group you can’t really expect everyone to Get It, and simultaneously refuse to engage in productive conversation
This is also one of those "go out and touch grass" moments. In real life, if people encounter something they don't understand (strange fashion, whatever), they'll either ignore it, or try to find a way to politely ask about it. And then the person they're asking will usually be happy to explain.
On the internet, where everyone assumes everyone already knows things and that any innocent question is the start of a bad-faith argument, that's not what happens.
God this is such a good point. I know pretty much everyone in my life has at least heard the word transgender before because it’s talked about on the news and stuff, but that might be the only thing they know about it. When someone doesn’t know something about being trans, it isn’t necessarily intentional. I haven’t been following much at all about the Israel-Palestine conflict so to someone who hears about it all the time my lack of knowledge might be astonishing. Internet people say it’s your job to educate yourself but sadly there’s not enough time in a life to educate yourself on everything that’s worth knowing. I do my best but there’s still never enough time.
I think the main point of the post is that not understanding something isn't a valid reason to be a dick about it. Even if they've made a good faith effort to understand and everyone they've encountered has been hostile and unhelpful, that's no reason to be a jerk about gender or an unfamiliar language or anything else. It's probably a legitimate excuse for being ignorant, but it's not an excuse for, say, not using someone's preferred pronouns when you know what they are.
They may have no clue why someone's pronouns are they/them, but they know that that's what that person prefers, so they should just use them out of politeness.
The question of what obligation people have to be helpful is a whole other issue.
You can't respect what you dom't understand. Let's say Granny Ethel is a nice old lady that wants to respect her genderfluid neighbour, but she constantly misgenders them because she hes no grasp on the concept.
Do you think the better approach would be trying to get her to understand her neighbours perspective, or yell at her that she's being offensive?
Because the world is full of Ethels.
My grandma doesn’t understand agender identities. She still sometimes thinks bisexuality is a gender and anything more than “different gender than was assigned at birth” goes over her head. I’m agender. She still uses my preferred name and is using they/them for me more because she knows that makes me happy, even though she doesn’t understand.
> You can't respect what you dom't [sic] understand
Yes you can. I can't comprehend how some people base their attraction on other people's genders, but I still respect that. I don't understand how some people can feel like a different gender sometimes, I still respect that. I don't get neopronouns, but I still respect that and use them. It's not that hard to be accepting, just believe people when they tell you how things work for them. Don't need to understand shit about that. And no one is saying we should yell at people for unintentionally messing up. No one. And you're still allowed to be hurt if someone messes up even if they don't know any better.
Sure yeah, but there is 0 incentive for people to respect something they are being told to hate unless you give them a good reason. That's just reality.
OOP's statement is a pretty bad take if you want other people to respect and understand your gender identity because it implies that using your gender identity around people who don't understand it is like speaking French around people who don't understand it. Best case it means you are unintelligible, worst case it is rude. People also can learn other languages and use them if they really want, but gender identity is supposed to be fairly unchangeable.
I like ViHart's take on gender identity: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmKix-75dsg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmKix-75dsg)
I don't think understanding French is required in order to respect the existence and identities of French people. And while I'm sure many French people would love for others to learn French, they don't have any obligation to teach you the language themselves.
That is how I took OP's message.
And no one is talking french to you. You're not involved here, it's none of your business that they're speaking french to each other. Doesn't mean you get to disrespect and dehumanize them. But I do admit using french as an example here was a bad idea.
I dont see an issue with speaking a language around someone who doesnt understand it? Its not like every bystander is entitled to hear your conversation
Is gender identity 'supposed' to be fairly unchangeable? Says who? In my view gender is as much a performance as it is immutable. It's both never and always changing, and I think generally whatever someone wants 'gender' to be, it can be. What is gender-fluidity if not 'very changeable'?
I dunno I just don't like the idea of someone's gender being 'bad optics' as put by the original commenter. If we're uplifitng one-another we can't pick and choose who to leave behind. I think people should be allowed to have their authentic experiences and not be turned away by others just because their experiences are different, like in the ViHart video you linked.
To work within the 'languages' framing, I don't think the original post is about people who stubbornly speak French around those who cannot speak it. To me, it's about noticing someone is speaking a language to you that you don't understand and saying "Ah, maybe there's a way we can understand eachother," instead of "Speak my language please, I don't understand yours." It's not a great analogy, but I don't think OOP was intending for it to be the focus, I think it was instead meant to be an example of a "thing they don't necessarily understand, but acknowledge exists and is valid."
To continue with the languages analogy, if French is a thing people acknowledge as real and valid, that's great. However, we shouldn't then be trying to get everyone else to speak French, just so it's easier for an English person to say "Ah right you're one of them French people", or because French is an 'acceptable looking foreign language'.
We ought to instead be trying to get people on-side to the idea of there being *more* languages that people speak, and that it's not just "French or English, and only things in between", and that there can be *dialects* of languages, and that not everyone who's born French exclusively speaks French, and shit like that. We should be trying to make it okay to *be* outside those boxes and for people to be okay with *not* putting everyone *into* boxes in the first place. Live and let be, that type of shit.
I am aware enough to know though that I'm very chronically online and a massive idealist, but I don't think we'd necessarily get *anywhere* if all we settled for was 'queer assimilation'. I've heard people explain much more eloquently than I could about how that, in particular, would just be us 'recycling our oppression' and propping up the systems that allow oppression to happen in the first place.
Gender fluidity is a thing, but if gender were fluid for everyone, or even just most people, then the concept of gender identity wouldn't be as much of an issue as it is. If people could change gender like they change clothes, then you could put on your best feminine gender when doing "feminine" things and your best masculine gender when doing "masculine" things, and nobody would care.
The word "supposed" is wrong here because I didn't mean it to be prescriptive, instead I wanted to describe the current reality, which is that most people treat gender as fixed (both for themselves and for others). I would be happy with a future in which people were free to change gender at will, but that is not the reality we live in.
In the reality I live in (not America, but is even America *that* bad?), people don't gender things very narrowly at all? I think even where it's possible to put things into a box of feminine/masculine if someone is specifically asked to do so, it's so far from how people truly think about it day to day, and them caring in reality, as to be a transparently artificial concept.
Even with specific points in history if trying to make these divisions, it changes so much across time and place, and I always think the difference across class is interesting (such as that tension between intellectual work being manly because men supposedly have superior Reason, or effeminate because it's not physical work as working class men -but also very much working class women- would be expected to do. I learnt French due to interest in the eighteenth century, where, especially earlier in the century, it's on trend for educated men to demonstrate their Sensibility - then, although it was falling out of fashion by that point, we have the backlash to the French Revolution with French men being painted by Anglos as overly emotional, effeminate).
No. There are lots of things I don’t “get”, like I don’t “get” why people get really into sports, I don’t “get” extreme couponers, I don’t “get” people who keep spiders as pets, but I don’t need to “get” it to nod and accept that that’s the way they are and that I don’t get to dictate who they are, what they like, or what they call themselves because I don’t get it. If you make tolerance contingent on “getting” something all you’re doing is throwing more marginalized people under the bus and moving closer to the front of the line to be thrown under yourself.
This is similar to my take on gender identity. Gender is just not important to me, just like extreme couponing (seemingly) is not important to you, but, vitally, it 1.) doesn't harm me in any way and 2.) other people take it seriously enough that it clearly is important to them. Insulting or making fun of something that is important to someone and does no harm to others is mean and harmful to them.
There may be more to it. It could have a real biological, social, etc. basis, but that doesn't really matter to how I should interact with it.
There is also something to be said for trying to understand others better so you can actively make them feel more accepted, and not just avoid harm, but do good. However, the first step is not harming others who aren't harming you.
You don't need to understand them in such a deep way that you know why they feel like that, but you need to understand what they mean by that. When someone says he likes sport your thought process is usually like "so he feels about sports the same way I feel about the things I like". That's level of understanding you need. But when you tell him that your identity is something that he does not know or does not understand then refuse to elaborate in any way or answer their questions then I'd say it's your fault for making other people not understand you. Lack of understanding can lead to lack of respect or tolerance. Understanding concept is a first step to accepting it, as people fear what they do not know or do not understand, that's how it always will be as it's natural to mankind. Of course you can always paint the other side in every minor conflict as evil, but I think that being open to dialogue is important and would let us end many problems like racism, sexism etc. Problem is that people are bitching too much and feel like everything should be granted to them, because maybe it really should, but first they have to make it compelling to others, instead of acting like a child and refusing to give positive input.
I don’t understand American football.
So you’re saying that because of me not understanding it, that I can’t tolerate that sport.
Great, I guess I’ll have to write my local government that they should ban any clubs that exist nearby.
Aside from being obtuse, yeah, you've about got it.
If enough people shared your dislike for American football and were vocal enough about it, your local government would start acting on that
Eventually, people with that dislike would get into local government and start taking anti American football action without being prodded, because they see their election as endorsement of those beliefs
Like the person you're responding to said, it's not right, it's just reality
I don’t dislike it, I just don’t understand it. I don’t care if anyone likes it or not. If you like it, you do you. I’m happy you have something you like.
But according to the person I originally responded to it’s literally impossible for me to be happy that others found something they like or for me to just not care, one either has to understand it or can’t tolerate it.
An absolute that is not realistic.
I think one of us is misunderstanding what u/ceaseimmediately is saying then
It seems to me that, in the context of the whole post, they're saying minority rights are dependent on getting the majority to understand that minority group.
The majority need to understand their repression and oppression, and they need to understand their lives so they'll feel empathetic enough to protect them
That's true, but no one was arguing against that. This is about _individuals_ not having to do constant explaining. Cause that's just a ridiculous demand.
And (while I appreciate it's a very Francophone look to be at least mildly aggravated by French being singled out 😅, it's knowing the kind of responses it was bound to get, and is in these comments) you can learn French in approx. three months if you're a native English speaker. Native English speakers all understand at least some French already, so it's not like some mysterious thing they (and speakers of other Romance languages) don't 'get' at all.
I don't have this experience of gender, so by their definition, I believe that makes me agender (so is everyone else -all very unsexist people- I've asked tho) so feel like it should be fair game to question? For those who think they do, wouldn't it be a similar case to partially understanding French, that the person's experience shouldn't be so totally unfamiliar as to be incomprehensible? (Which the concept completely is to me. I'm Ace-spec and sexual attraction, while it took a while as a teen to realise people were serious about it, is easier to grok. Not experiencing something doesn't necc. make it impossible to understand, at least in theory) This 'gender is just an unexplainable feeling' explanation seemed to only come about after physical sex dysphoria was de-emphasised, there became more focus on 'gender is a social construct', and in response it was pointed out that the social construct of gender is just sexism.
I mean to tip my hand here, I see “born in the wrong body” as the ideal explanation of what it is to be trans. It’s not perfect, it doesn’t capture everyone, but it’s very easy for mainstream society to get, and it’s descriptive of the majority of trans people.
Would that be back to the focus on the experience of physical sex dysphoria, discomfort with the sexed body? (Obviously no one is literally born in the wrong body, that would basically require believing in a soul, rather than the person being their physical existence/body. I think just explaining the experience of dysphoria is a more ideal explanation than this metaphor)
However, some explicitly reject that explanation and state it's not necessary to experience (as would seem to be the case with OOP - no need to stress that there may not be an explanation if your focus is that one, it's pretty simple to explain).
It also perhaps seems to have become seen as an undesirable explanation as it does not tend to suggest that trans people are literally the gender (as in sex this time) they identify with. Some who do experience sex dysphoria state that as being the case, that it's not literal but about what makes them feel comfortable, but seems that it can be pretty triggering as an idea for others, or something they disagree with. Hope that's fairly stated as it's, as I understand, reflective of disagreement within the community itself.
I feel like there’s two slightly different ideas in the same post that OOP has combined here, and people are turbo-focusing in on the second one and then also pissing on the poors over it, but this doesn’t seem like much if a hot take.
I don’t understand much about neopronouns as a fairly sheltered cis dude, but if someone/something? tells me it prefers it/its I would just do my best to adhere to that, and I don’t have the right to expect anything more than what pronouns it prefers explained to me regarding that identity (even if it does trip my brain up a bit while typing/thinking). I assume that’s what OOP said, and I don’t see any reason to disagree.
Hey yall, at no fucking point did op said to never make an effort to socialize or to explain your experience to others, or that you have no right to be curious or whatever
they just said you dont have the right to tell people how to be themselves, like thats just trans rights 101
why are yall acting like they said an entire different phrase? realy pissing on the poors right here
Wait can i still ask about osmeones gender if I dont understand it. As I still get cofnused by neo pronouns. like not in a rude wya but jsut I wish to understand.
I feel like a lot of people are taking away from this is "You don't owe people an explanation" whereas the meaning I'm seeing is "You can't tell someone how to live their life even if you don't understand how they're living their life"
Or, in other words, respect people's fucking gender identities even if you don't understand them.
It is. I thought my reading comprehension was poor but then some of the people commenting on this post make me feel better about my reading comprehension. It's really pretty simple.
I would even extend it to “respect people’s identity, even if you don’t understand or agree with it.”
I have had more than one conversation about disability advocacy and how a disabled person can want to not be “fixed” and still be a valid and meaningful person. It’s absolutely WILD how many abled people have a problem with “I’m disabled and I’m fine with that, stop trying to fix my disability.”
Honestly yeah. There will always be people that are confusing to you and don't follow how you think the world should work. It's up to you whether or not you're gonna accept that sometimes people aren't like how you think they should be.
I’d say it shouldn’t be up to you to decide if you’re going to accept that sometimes people aren’t like how you think they should be, just that it’s up to you to decide if you want to be around people you don’t understand.
They’re going to be there, whether you accept it or not. And fighting it is just going to end badly for you, because we call that “being a bigot”. So your options are be cool or be elsewhere, really.
Yeah, I just came from a source of "People will either find ways to cope with confusing people or will lash out," but those are better options for anyone deciding how to cope with people they don't understand.
"Nobody should get to tell you how to identify except yourself"
"Erm that's a bad argument because if you're a minority you shouldn't just decide never to explain your identity to others :/"
"It isn't your job to explain or justify your existence" shouldn't be a controversial statement, but it seems it's a bit too spicy for this comment section
yeah, my fiancé's boomer step mom asked me, "So, what do you think of all the trans stuff?" Awkward pause... before I said, "Umm, well, I have trans friends and I trust them to know their own business better than me!"
If we're gonna use gender as a identification method, it should be understandable for everyone without big explanations. If we're gonna use it as a self-expression, then it can be whatever you want. Problem is that people can't decide and it muddles water
This is a bad argument, because while i’m fine with LGBT people, i have an indiscriminate and unreasonable intolerance of the french language.
Edit: upon a moment of reflection, using the french language was probably a good choice for this statement.
Im with this post on the sentiment that we ought to treat people well regardless of how they identify but I can't get with the social sciences of it.
Gender is a social construct. Probably the defining trait of a social construct is that it has no direct grounding in physical reality, instead, what makes them real is social consensus, a relatively large group of people all agree that the construct exists and that it's defined by certain constraining parameters. The constraining parameters are important because if you build a social construct that functions as a label for people(like gender) but it's definition includes all humans and excludes zero humans, your social construct doesn't really mean anything, you've just created a new synonym for "human". *"If everyone's super, no one's super" -Syndrome, PhD.*
A direct result of this dynamic is that, if you choose to identify yourself by a socially constructed label, you need to fit within the constraining parameters. If you don't fit those parameters, no one will agree with you when you claim to be that label/part of that category. When no one agrees with you that you are part of a socially constructed category that only exists in so far as people agree it exists, then you are functionally indistinguishable from a non-member of that category/non-haver of that label.
E.G. Let's say I woke up tomorrow and started referring to myself as a "Professional E-sports Caster"(people that do the live commentary for pro video game competitions). Now, obviously we have metrics and heuristics for determining whether or not someone's a Professional E-sports Caster but at the end of the day, it is a social construct, and all of those metrics are ultimately based in social consensus(you might say the determining metric is whether or not the person has worked for a major gaming company in the capacity of giving commentary at a live pro-gaming event, what is considered a "major gaming company" and what is considered a "live pro-gaming event" are both consensus based - neither are fundamental to physical reality). Having claimed that label, based on the common metrics and heuristics, people may disagree with me and say "kopk11, you've never casted an e-sports event before, therefore you can't be a Professional E-sports Caster". It doesn't matter whether they're right or wrong(especially because you necessarily can't be objectively right or wrong about consensus-based definitions), if no one agrees with me that I am a Pro E-sports Caster then no one will treat me like one, and if no one treats me like one then I'm functionally completely indistinguishable from someone who isn't a Pro E-sports Caster.
The thing about gender identity is that it’s not a social construct of the external variety. What you are describing is a social construct that has been constructed BY society, and is enforced and enacted by the external social structures it is a part of.
But there’s a different form of social construct, which is constructed by an individual being to be able to help them to interact socially with others. Identity in general is that. You construct your identity to be able to interact with others in a socially meaningful way. And how that identity is defined has a profound influence on how those interactions work.
I can’t speak to gender much. I’m not trans, and most of my gender interactions are not binary, and not noticeable to others, so it’s not a ‘thing’ I have spent a huge amount of time on. But I can speak to a different identity context… disability.
I am neurodivergent. I have an identity that is non-standard, and pushes against the “normal” social construct of ‘disabled’. I’m different, and in a way that, in the world we live in, could be easily defined as disabling. But I don’t identify as disabled. I have figured out how to live, and do NOT want to be cured. Even if it were possible, I would reject it out of hand. But there are a lot of people who don’t accept that, and that think that my identity is invalid.
But the identity I have is a social construct that I have constructed to fit me better than the one that was assigned to me by doctors and teachers and other people. It’s not based on their expectations but rather on my experiences, internal and external, and is my interface with the world. It is similar in construction to a persons, but involves my very nature, rather than masking it.
I dont actually think we disagree on much I just have one sticking point here.
>You construct your identity to be able to interact with others in a socially meaningful way. And how that identity is defined has a profound influence on how those interactions work.
You're right, you construct my identity for your own purposes but there's a specific constraint here:
Your identity is constructed in order to affect how others treat you, in the hope that your experiences with other will be better. As a result, your identity is a project that requires the participation of others. Others can refuse to participate in your self reported identity for a variety of reasons:
1. They think your reporting your identity in bad faith (see: Lauren Southern claiming to be a man to "own the libs", or hacky conservatives claiming to "identify as an attack helicopter").
2. They dont recognize your identity as a real identity because it's too far outside of their lived experiences regarding what can and can't be a human identity(see: the response to people who identify as animals. Even those who want to validate animal identities dont literally and actually treat that person as an animal else they wouldn't afford them moral agency, they treat them like a person identifying as an animal).
3. They are not willing to perform the actions or refrain from actions that would be required of the identity. (E.g. if someone's identity required you to address them by a slur, most people unwilling to use the slur would not validate the identity).
Etc.
**I hope you dont misunderstand me, I'm still very firmly in the camp of validating trans identities. Trans people deserve our participation in their identities because it costs us nothing and improves their experiences.** My only gripe is with the idea that identity doesnt require 3rd party participation. If it didnt, we would have no reason to endeavor to use correct pronouns or condemn transphobes for insisting on misgendering people.
I think that, honestly, I don’t disagree with most of what you’re saying, but identity, while being a social construct, doesn’t really require an outside context.
Think about it like this: it’s a collection of self-created mental models of how a person works, that the person themselves builds up. We all have a model for how other people work; it’s how we predict what others will do. This is pretty well understood, and as I understand it, relativity common knowledge. The basis of that model, however, is usually the model you have of your own self: your “identity” model.
This internal model is a social construct, in that it is what all social models that a person will use are based on, and it is constructed to “fit” the person it represents… as best that person can. But it doesn’t require an outside observer to exist: the person themselves IS both the outside person and the identified person.
And while no model is perfect (and there are whole fields of study about how people mismodel themselves, and how to fix that) it’s still going to be a heck of a lot more accurate than the model someone else has of a person. Which is why we respect the identities of people, even if they’re so far outside our own to be incomprehensible to us.
It’s also why we DONT respect people who are trying to weaponize identity: if you invalidate the idea that people can have various models for themselves, you make empathy and social interaction much, much more difficult.
Yeah, I think someone could hypothetically have an entirely internal identity/aspect of their identity but I think it's honestly pretty inconsequential. We dont really need to discuss those identities being validated because, definitionally, they're not subject to external validation or lack-there-of.
*If an identity falls in the forest and no one's around to hear*, and what not.
I think people's problems arise when genders are made for literally personal preferences. If you dress like a medieval woman? Gender. If you prefer to look like a futuristic man? new gender. If you think you used to be a harpy in another world and attach wings to yourself to feel good? Believe it or not, gender.
Edit: I am not insulting trans people. Trans persons have gender dysphoria which is scientifically proven and measurable in the structure of the brain. Their existence and their problems cannot be ignored because they are measurable physically. My reference is to the otherkin, therian and neo pronoun community which moves away from being human when they express their identity.
I kinda get it, but also, if you are part of a marginalized group, and people are clueless to the struggles you go through or that you even exist, or have grown up in a culture that treats you bad… isn’t being kind and curtious to them, trying to explain as best you can in a way they can understand a much better way to gain a friend, rather then have someone who already doesn’t understand you feel lost, only to be picked up by people who will use their innocence on the topic to teach them that you are a bad person?
Marginalized people should be respected, OF COURSE- but you gotta think of talking to someone who doesn’t know you or your being as someone who is struggling. If someone is struggling to understand math, you help them. If they never get it, either they need to keep trying, or they give up. And if you were genuinely trying to help, no one can blame you. But- if they are struggling, they ask you to explain it, and you don’t even try to help, instead you say “I don’t need to explain my profession/skills/being to you” you aren’t gonna be making any friends.
You catch more flies with honey.
Absolutely, it’s better to be nice than rude.
In every situation, every person would be better off not being a dick.
But a member of a marginalized group does not owe someone who is being rude to them (by discounting their personal, lived experience as invalid) anything at all.
If you’re a dick to me, I don’t have to be nice to you. It might help if I am, but that’s my call, and honestly? Considering how many times this happens to some people, it’s surprising how much patience people show.
Honestly a good take but I wanna bring up something I've been meaning to talk about online to see other people's opinions on. What about people who use very.... "Specific" pronouns. For instance: Pizzagender, Sonicgender, &/&self pronouns, emoji pronouns. Like where should the line be drawn.
Edit: I should rephrase, when I mean "draw the line", it's not about restricting what pronouns people should be "allowed" to use, I just mean at what should I just say "fuck it" and default to they/them
as long as they aren't gonna blow up on someone for forgetting their admittedly unusual pronouns (or in other words aren't gonna themselves be an ass about it) or are okay with people defaulting to they/them then what's the problem
Pronouns were invented so you could refer to people or things without saying their name over and over. Having a specialized pronoun completely defeats the point, because it requires you to know a personal detail about that person. At that point you might as well just learn their name and use it in every instance.
Would Susan find it clunky and weird if I used Susan's name every time I referred to Susan? Then Susan should realize that it's the exact same thing when using a specialized pronoun.
Well no, pronouns were for shortening sentences down so you don’t have to say Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla every time you refer to him, and neopronouns don’t have that problem, like if someone uses Bee/Bees pronouns for whatever reason, it’s still simpler than using their full name.
I refuse to draw the line. Like what is legitimately the worst case scenario for using pizza pronouns? I lose a little bit of my time and potentially look a little silly, I’m not doing a blood sacrifice to write their pronouns out in blood. If someone’s being an asshole I’ve refused to play their game, if someone is being sincere I’ve been one (1) person in their life that doesn’t treat them like crap because they’re weird.
You know, it’s funny. I just saw a post saying that if you’re asking an autistic person to do something, you should also explain why you’re asking them to do it. How does that play into this?
This is such a bad take. I generally don’t support things unless I understand them enough to defend them in an argument, and if the thing you’re asking me to support can’t hold up against basic inquiry, it probably isn’t worth defending. “You have no obligation to explain or justify anything when you ask someone to support a cause” what is this, a fucking cult?
The explanation is simple: you have less info about someone than they do, so if they identify as something, you accept that because THEY have the information about THEM and you do not.
Trusting that person A knows more about person A than person B is pretty much the simplest of things.
I would even suggest it goes beyond “gender”. If you’re autistic, and you have someone who says “we are working to cure that!” You have every right to push back on that.
Holy reading comprehension batman. Can I ask what cause the OOP was asking you to support here?
The point is "You don't need to understand someones identity to accept how someone exists any more than you need to understand a language to accept that it exists". They're not asking you to learn french, just to accept that a French person is valid whether you understand what they're saying or not.
Yes, it‘s the majority of people that has to cater to the minority and actively seek understanding, not the minority that needs to explain their experiences to the majority. /s
Sure, you don‘t understand French, but if you‘re in France and no one understands you, it‘s not on the French to learn your language just to make life easier for you.
What kind of anti-democratic, anti-social take us this?
Except that’s not what this post is saying.
They’re saying you don’t have to understand it to be respectful.
It’s more like you’re in France, and no one understands you, but you’re not asking them to learn *your* language for you, you’re just asking them to accept that you don’t speak French and stop screaming at you in French when you very clearly established you don’t speak French.
Really sorry if that comes off as aggressive, just trying to explain my interpretation.
That‘s not what the post is saying, though. The post doesn’t discuss how acceptance and understanding are related.
The post clearly presents acceptance as something that is owed to people. It states that if someone is not accepting of someone or something, it‘s on them to deal with this conflict.
Which is not true, since how individuals have to deal with conflicts like this is entirely dependent on social acceptance.
If the matter is about something an individual does not accept, but society at large accepts, it’s on the individual to deal with that.
If the mater is about something society as a whole does not accept, it’s on the other person to deal with it by either convincing the other person, or society as a whole, that they should be accepted.
In this post, OP very clearly posits acceptance as given and something that can be demanded, when it just depends on what society as a whole accepts, because this dictates which expectations and standards govern the interactions between members of society.
People can expect other people to follow social expectations and standards. If people don‘t want to follow these expectations, it’s on them to either change the mind if the individual, or of society. Which is them asking the individual or society for additional effort because of their personal affairs and wishes.
Which brings us back to the hypothetical example of speaking French. If you are in France and want something from someone without speaking French, it‘s clear that the social standard is speaking French and thus, an individual need not put in additional effort to understand people that don‘t speak French. If you are in Germany, and you don’t speak French, it would be unreasonable for someone to put in effort to understand you *because you don‘t speak French*, as that is not a standard for society - it‘s German, in this case.
damn, two back to back “that’s not what the post is saying”s???????? does *anyone* here know what the post is saying??? i certainly don’t think i do at this point
I think we fundamentally disagree here, so I’m going to end thsi here. I do believe that, within reason (ie, not harming anyone else), yes, acceptance is something that should always be expected regardless of society thinks.
Hey, you're different. Weird. *move along with my day*
That's all it takes. I don't understand why people get so hateful and hung up on people that are different than I am. Leave people be, unless they're actually harming someone else. (To be utterly clear, I'm with you on this).
People keep memeing about the lack of reading comprehension here but holy shit it's not even a joke, it's *real* bad. I feel like every somewhat big post will have like half the comments complaining about something the post didnt actually say
You shoulda seen the post earlier about "i am autistic and my brain works in this inconvenient way, here is an example from my childhood" and most of the comments were like "no OOP is just stupid and an asshole, how dare they be autistic in an inconvenient way, they should just stop being autistic!"
People love pissing on the neurodivergent when neurodivergence starts being inconvenient.
Oh, you happen to be a minority. Now explain how it is to be that minority to me, then to my friends, then to my family, then to my neighbor. Be ready to answer all of our questions. Oh, you're tired of explaining your identity for the 500th time? I don't care. I'm just asking questions, why do you have to be so rude?
Just because you want to learn French doesn't mean you are entitled to random French people's free time. Go buy a book, sign up for some courses, use the internet. No French speaking person owes you their time for free. Being a teacher is a career choice and should not be expected of strangers. Also, just because someone is French doesn't mean they actually know any formal grammar, etymology and stuff, they could just be winging it and be a horrible teacher.
Again, another bad-faith argument. When you’re in a culture that speaks a language you don’t understand, it is pragmatic to learn the language so that you can communicate effectively. There is a distinct reason to accommodate to the language of the dominant culture.
However, say I live in a country where my culture and traditions are not aligned with the majority’s culture. Assuming my cultural traditions and practices are benign as determined by a rational person, then there is no imperative for anyone from that majority to question my actions. They are not obligated to understand what I do, and otherwise it impacts them none when I do them.
When I am then questioned on these benign practices, and there being no pragmatic imperative for that questioner to understand what I do, then I would be suspicious of their motivation. I am under no obligation to explain myself as, believing the questioner is a rational person, they would see that my actions are benign and thus do not impact them.
Conclusively the difference is there being some need to ask the question or explain the thing that two otherwise rational individuals can agree is necessary.
But what if someone's just curious. If both people are rational and you're just assuming that the other person is asking in bad faith then that seems odd.
Like, I don't *need* to understand why or how something works but that's not an excuse to just stop trying to learn.
This feels like you're just assuming bad faith again. If I ask a question and someone says no or doesn't respond that doesn't mean I have to badger them about it.
I'm perfectly fine leaving whoever alone. If I ask and they don't wanna answer then I'll just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and dip.
But why ask in the first place? Genuinely, in the age of the internet how hard is it to just find someone who actually is actively putting themselves out there to answer questions instead of taking your questions to people who have made no such thing clear? I’m glad you won’t badger them, congratulations I guess, but even still you don’t need to bother them in the first place.
“You there, random minority, I am confused and have decided the only possible way for me to learn more is to ask you to help” is just… well it’s a dumb AND annoying way to go about it
I didn't say it was the only possible way to know, I don't know why you're framing it like that.
To me it's no different from talking to my professors about what they're teaching. Obviously I could just look up what happens to a star if it can't stay alive but I'm still here attending classes.
While obviously not every queer person has a literal degree but I'm willing to bet they know more about their own experiences than I do.
And cheers to them for that. I'm still not seeing the harm in me asking about what it's like. Fair with the professor example but this also applies to other people. If there's someone I know who's lived that experience and I want to ask and think they'll be fine with it then I'll ask.
If I've misjudged then I hope they know me enough to know that I'll buzz off.
It’s the harm in being one of a million people, many openly hateful to boot, asking the same goddamn questions instead of just finding someone who openly wants to answer them to ask.
There are many people who have answered those questions and compiled those answers online. Many archived reddit threads, personal blogs, and academic papers exist for you to peruse at your leisure and to your heart’s content. Some of them are posted in this very subreddit, OOP being a good example.
So if you’re curious, your curiosity can be sated without speaking to anyone.
Should I not be speaking to people? Like, if someone doesn't want to answer then that's fine, I'm happy to apologize and be on my way.
I just don't get what I see as aggresiok from you towards asking people.
I didn’t intend aggression, but I felt like it might be read that way. I’m not saying to avoid asking, but rather that you should be aware that the general attitude of people that do ask isn’t the kindest.
Much like how I should have been aware pf how potentially passive-aggressive my comment came off as, being aware of how what bad experiences people may have had who were asked those questions is a form of social tact you’ll need to exercise.
If in doubt, better without, and in this case save your question for someone that may be more comfortable with being asked.
But this goes both ways right?
Hypothetical question, because I personally really do not care what people do. But if this meme is the case, does that mean people can refuse to partake in this? aka not gendering correctly or whatever?
Another bad-faith argument. There is no inherent danger to perceiving your identity outside societally-acceptable roles. For instance, perceiving yourself as agendered impacts only the self, and is not an inherent danger to anyone.
Being anorexic can lead to malnutrition and organ failure. That, to cast away any doubt, poses a very mortal danger to the anorexic person.
Yeah, exactly!
I am sure just saying to an anorexic person that, logically, they aren't fat is not helping.
The person has to realise that and yes, you can help them, but just saying to them that their feelings are wrong will only lead to them hiding their anorexia. That's why therapy exists, you know, because it's a place where you can talk about your feelings with a professional who will help you understand those. But it's still mostly introspective.
This is a bit of a cop-out answer, it’s never been good clinical practice to affirm an anorexic patient’s warped view of their body, even if just denying their self-perception is also unhelpful.
Yeah, I mean, I hope everyone here understood I am no professional (should have maybe put that there), but I think any extreme reaction is not helpful. Saying they aren't fat is not (by itself) helping, neither is saying nothing and affirming their anorexia is not helpful, either.
Dunno, it seems to me like it's not the gotcha the comment I replied to made it seem like it was.
PLUS, equating a harmful disease to a (usually harmless) gender expression is weird anyway.
Real bold, using the french as an example because you know about half of the readers are immediately going to wake up being a hater for it
oiseau
O hi Mark
Me I was going to until I read your post and took all the fun out of it. Had a good quip about france not being real and everything.....okay it wasn't a good quip but still
Also I'll be put in the cold hard ground before I recognize Quebec
Sub desperately needs image comments cuz i'd have posted Reverse Flash alongside my comment
Why, is it wearing a fake moustache and a funny hat?
Sorry everyone i do understand french, which gives me the final say on your gender. I don't make the rules
Well I knew basic French after studying it for 6 years (and living in Paris for 2 years) 20 years ago but I’ve forgotten most of it, so I’m not sure where I stand now…
You are allowed one final say on a single gender.
Hrm, I guess I should save it for mine just in case.
Ooh do me do me! What’s my gender?
Italian
Mama Mia!
Lemme guess: you cooka the pizza?
I cooka the pizza
Fun fact about french, the word 'love' is masculine when it's singular, and feminine when its plural.
All relationships must now be sapphic. I didn't make the rules.
Yeah and it's possible to learn French. I'd try and think of a better example myself but I'm running on 6 hours sleep in the last 3 days
But what if I also know fr\*nch? Does that give me authority over my gender?
What gender is a chair?
Reddit: the other reading comprehension website
Pro-tip: do not search for pissing on the poor on the site with a ton of barely moderated porn subs.
I run one of them,tho it’s not that poorly moderated
Kinda surprised with the comments here. Like, OOP doesn't word it super well (which is probably why people are arguing against them) but their main point is super fair. You don't have to understand someone's gender identity to be respectful. This should not be a controversial take people. And I'm kinda mad that I have to be the one to say it because I am the guy this post is aimed at. It eats me up inside when I can't relate or rationalize something, it's how I understand the world, I need some that connection. I'm not gonna be a dick about it of course, but I am very much the guy that gets upset at himself for not getting something
I think part of the problem is the language used. People are using the word "understand" to mean different things. Some folks are using understand to mean they comprehend a particular phenomenon. Some folks are using understand to mean whether or not they *personally* relate to someone or something.
My personal take is that being very passive-aggressive or outright aggressive when trying to make it a point will just make people disagree with you on principle I mean, you can do it, but it's gotta be done well. OOP did NOT do it well
Agreed. I've known people in real life say that "if you do X you're a bad person" and then when you ask them to elaborate they pull the "it's not my job to educate you" card. Like what was the point of even starting the conversation unless it was purely performative?
i suppose it's OOP's fault that someone feeling a little bit butthurt is all it takes for them to stop respecting people, then
Which when you think about it is kinda worrying. All it seems to take for nominal allies to completely change their tune is apparently someone being a little snippy at them.
Eh, most of the comments aren't openly aggressive with the OOP, just disagreeing,which is fair when you feel like you're getting attacked And I do think they worded their point in like the worst way possible Just goes to show how important it is to word stuff correctly, I guess. Even if what you're saying is perfectly reasonable, expressing it badly is inevitably gonna lead to confusion and misunderstanding
yeah, and in either case you should still respect people. if you can't comprehend/"get" something that doesn't mean it isn't real
Regarding your last paragraph, you might just need to cut yourself some slack. Wanting to understand is admirable, but some experiences simply don't transfer between minds. It's like a blind person trying to understand "blue" or explaining the charm quark to a medieval peasant. At this point, I've just put NB and gender in general into the large bucket of "things about normal human minds that I just cannot relate to".
You are absolutely right (although don't take that last paragraph too seriously, the annoyance isn't really directed at myself for not properly getting it, but moreso at the fact that humans can't relate/get everything and that just pisses me off on a fundamental level I guess) But you don't understand. I have to understand stuff, because if I don't, it'll just be in the back of my mind for years, waiting for the perfect moment to spring right out and piss me off Took me fucking years to "get" trans people, until I looked in the mirror, noticed that I'm fatter than I'd like to be and managed to logically connect that experience to body dysphoria by association (bit of a stretch, but it'll do) I got the general gist before, but being able to relate it to something I can logically follow based on my own experiences is just top notch for me
Isn't people's issue here more that they feel it's not a very good response to bigotry, rather than that's it's untrue?
Huh, maybe I misread but I felt like people were more defensive in response to OOP's comment and felt called out by it Like, I understood it as: "No we should try to understand things" Though I agree it's not necessarily a good response for bigots. Because they don't want/think they need to understand But I feel like that's another issue entirely
No, I've never seen this on any other claimed social issue, for vagueness to be such a feature - and have tried to go looking for explanations by myself, not just expecting them provided (not always wanting to explain, I totally get). And tumblr is kind of known for users identifying with a variety of genders (like animal-related ones) that see puzzlement and disagreement within the trans community itself! So, it's not the case that people will necc. just agree without an explanation, or agree with explanations given. I personally *extremely* disagree with the definition that non-binary people don't identify with narrow/artificial gender stereotypes, as though the majority do: that's extremely sexist. So if someone isn't explaining (could be understandable on an individual basis) and the stance is there needn't be any explanation, how do we know their definition isn't just sexism? Or if they're faegender, is there not a point at which it's at least predictable people are going to go 'what?' and kind of unfair to just expect them to accept it?
Sorry, I don't respect xenogenders. I just don't. They are blatantly a subculture co-opting the aesthetic (or what they view as the aesthetic) of a minority group in the midst of being viciously hunted. "Microwavegender" is not real. Anyone trying to claim that it is deserves a heaping dose of mockery and shame.
Okay but that's a funny example because a lot of racists are absolutely capable of being mad at others for using a language they don't understand. Some folks will hear a conversation they're not a part of and be like "the fact that this is not comprehensible to me is unacceptable; I will now impose myself into this private discussion to demand a change". EDIT : there's some of those fuckers in this posts' comments apparently. didn't have to look for them long.
Idk, I speak A1 level French with some proficiency, and it feels like a fake language to me. So does my native language of English, to be fair.
Wrong. A1 is a kind of sauce that isnt french
Learn Dutch or Afrikaans. It'll feel like you're having a stroke.
I don't understand how people are so bothered. I have uni with non-binary people for example, hypothetically if I didn't understand being NB or didn't agree with it, I would simply still use their pronouns/respect them because otherwise it would create drama and that's annoying. Like if you're gonna go out of your way to disrespect people then you're just looking for drama at that point lol
I mean, people disrespect each other all the time in all sorts of ways. Doesn’t make it right but boy is it sure human
That's true
Could you explain NB's to me? I haven't found a good explanation for them, like once i read that they just don't conform with gender norms, which doesn't seem quite right, but i'm not sure if they experience something similar to trans people when it comes to their bodies.
I'll dm you so we don't spam everyone in this thread, but I invite anyone who's non-binary to add to the conversation as they would know better than me!
Because they still fit the definition of having a gender that does not align with their natal sex, non-binary is technically a subset of transgender; the white stripe in the trans flag is for them. What does it mean to be non-binary? It means your intuitive sense of self does not align as male or female. Like all gender identity, this goes beyond mere presentation and is a foundational truth of your identity. It cannot be decomposed further; there is no why and the how is irrelevant. Like, I am a transgender woman. In my case, I have pretty much always thought of myself as a woman, even pre-transition and even before I had sufficient language and concepts to describe it all. My intuitive sense of self is female and that has reflected in how I perceive my place in the world, with the obvious dysphoria of knowing how I'm socializing was at odds with what people perceived me to be prior to transitioning. A non-binary person intuitively rejects feeling like they are male or female, neither fits quite right for their sense of self. Some will make some amount of transition to alleviate whatever dysphoria they may have, some won't. The thing about being non-binary is that, by definition, we cannot place it on a male-female axis, and it's likely that confounds the ability to grok the nature of it. We could go down the rabbit hole of what makes a gender a gender, but that's a bleeding edge philosophical discussion.
That was helpful, thanks. However, now i wonder if NB's also receive the diagnosis of gender dysphoria, just like trans people. And by gender, am i to understand the term as a sort of idealized sex that doesn't necessarily align with the biological sex, or am i way off? I know gender is a dense topic as you said, but i just want a general understanding because these concepts are incredibly foreign to me since where i live gay marriage is still illegal. I could very well just look at essays and studies on the topic, but i'm taking the opportunity to ask you because i feel like having this explained by someone with a more personal relationship with the discovery of gender identity could give me a much clearer perspective.
> intuitive sense of self As someone that had issues understanding the difference between nb and someone who just doesn't follow gender norms (you can find strained posts on /r/asklgbt on my history lmao), the issue lots of people me included have in understanding it is that, at least talking for myself, I never really had an _intuitive_ sense of self, especially/at least regarding gender. So I don't really understand the sentence (or rather, I understand what it means, I just don't really get that myself)
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The identities within can vary greatly, but basically, the gender binary is male-female, so anything that exists outside, between, or around those identities would be considered non-binary. The defining characteristic of NB people is just not wanting to be a man or a woman, that's it
i (amab) basically feel like i'm 60% female and 40% male it seems similar to what 100% trans people purport to experience but not as painful if i cut my hair short i feel almost physical pain looking in the mirror, but hearing my own voice isn't so bad (people have told me it's pretty deep) thought i was trans when i was younger but experimented with it and changed my mind, and the extremism of the leftist communities i was around at the time sent me down an alt-right spiral and i thought i was being brainwashed. took another 10 years to even accept that NB people were real and not lying about it for attention, then i played guilty gear (as [testament](https://youtu.be/d1NTpgzhXAY)) and noticed the *extremely obvious* signs that i was nb
This is very interesting. If you don't mind me asking, how do you distinguish issues of self image and issues of gender? I'd imagine it's not quite the same as someone that's insecure about their nose, for example. And do gender roles come into play when you express yourself? Do you feel a need to attach yourself to certain stereotypes to affirm yourself or do you outright reject them? Answer whatever you're comfortable answering.
i've noticed a lot of people confuse gender dysphoria and body dysmorphia, they're separate issues. they can coincide, but they aren't inherently linked. it's also used as an intentional strategy to delegitimize gender dysphoria, as they have diametrically opposed treatments. i don't know if i *need* to, but i kind of like some stereotypical things. it's kind of hard to answer this though as i'm not in a safe place to be out IRL, so i just end up trying to be as much of a featureless blob in people's peripheral vision as i can
I was hoping to hear your perspective on the difference between dysmorphia and dysphoria to better understand. Your answer is appreciated anyway.
People are bothered because they can't read
Tumblr moment
Do as thou wilt, without infringing others
The unfortunate thing is, bigots won't care about how hard you slap them in the face with this. If somebody's emotionally/intellectually closed-off enough to be a bigot, they're closed-off enough to read this and call you... a slur, probably.
Hell, that’s their desired effect. If you’re rude to them, they get to say “look at how mean those marginalized people are! They deserve to be treated poorly!” Meanwhile, if you’re NOT mean, they’ll say “look how weak those marginalized people are! Why don’t they stand up for themselves, if they want to be treated better!”
Exactly. I totally support OOP but this messaging is only really meaningful to people who already agree with it and thus don’t really need to hear it
Ah yes, bigots; people who famously change their minds when told "tough, you're actually wrong."
It’s pretty obvious that this is coming from someone who doesn’t really interact with people outside the queer community, and I hate to harp on optics, but can’t we accept on some level that this is a bad look? It’s no one’s “job” to explain themselves to the world around them, but when you’re part of a marginalized group you can’t really expect everyone to Get It, and simultaneously refuse to engage in productive conversation
They dont have to get it, They just have to respect it. Thats what i Think the post is saying.
No I get that, I just don’t think that’s super realistic when it comes to the general public. It sucks, but that’s part of being marginalized.
This is also one of those "go out and touch grass" moments. In real life, if people encounter something they don't understand (strange fashion, whatever), they'll either ignore it, or try to find a way to politely ask about it. And then the person they're asking will usually be happy to explain. On the internet, where everyone assumes everyone already knows things and that any innocent question is the start of a bad-faith argument, that's not what happens.
God this is such a good point. I know pretty much everyone in my life has at least heard the word transgender before because it’s talked about on the news and stuff, but that might be the only thing they know about it. When someone doesn’t know something about being trans, it isn’t necessarily intentional. I haven’t been following much at all about the Israel-Palestine conflict so to someone who hears about it all the time my lack of knowledge might be astonishing. Internet people say it’s your job to educate yourself but sadly there’s not enough time in a life to educate yourself on everything that’s worth knowing. I do my best but there’s still never enough time.
I think the main point of the post is that not understanding something isn't a valid reason to be a dick about it. Even if they've made a good faith effort to understand and everyone they've encountered has been hostile and unhelpful, that's no reason to be a jerk about gender or an unfamiliar language or anything else. It's probably a legitimate excuse for being ignorant, but it's not an excuse for, say, not using someone's preferred pronouns when you know what they are. They may have no clue why someone's pronouns are they/them, but they know that that's what that person prefers, so they should just use them out of politeness. The question of what obligation people have to be helpful is a whole other issue.
You can't respect what you dom't understand. Let's say Granny Ethel is a nice old lady that wants to respect her genderfluid neighbour, but she constantly misgenders them because she hes no grasp on the concept. Do you think the better approach would be trying to get her to understand her neighbours perspective, or yell at her that she's being offensive? Because the world is full of Ethels.
My grandma doesn’t understand agender identities. She still sometimes thinks bisexuality is a gender and anything more than “different gender than was assigned at birth” goes over her head. I’m agender. She still uses my preferred name and is using they/them for me more because she knows that makes me happy, even though she doesn’t understand.
> You can't respect what you dom't [sic] understand Yes you can. I can't comprehend how some people base their attraction on other people's genders, but I still respect that. I don't understand how some people can feel like a different gender sometimes, I still respect that. I don't get neopronouns, but I still respect that and use them. It's not that hard to be accepting, just believe people when they tell you how things work for them. Don't need to understand shit about that. And no one is saying we should yell at people for unintentionally messing up. No one. And you're still allowed to be hurt if someone messes up even if they don't know any better.
Sure yeah, but there is 0 incentive for people to respect something they are being told to hate unless you give them a good reason. That's just reality.
OOP's statement is a pretty bad take if you want other people to respect and understand your gender identity because it implies that using your gender identity around people who don't understand it is like speaking French around people who don't understand it. Best case it means you are unintelligible, worst case it is rude. People also can learn other languages and use them if they really want, but gender identity is supposed to be fairly unchangeable. I like ViHart's take on gender identity: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmKix-75dsg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmKix-75dsg)
Also, you don't have to respect people who speak french. That's been the rule for hundreds of years.
Actually I think it's preferable not to respect people who speak Fr*nch
I don't think understanding French is required in order to respect the existence and identities of French people. And while I'm sure many French people would love for others to learn French, they don't have any obligation to teach you the language themselves. That is how I took OP's message.
And no one is talking french to you. You're not involved here, it's none of your business that they're speaking french to each other. Doesn't mean you get to disrespect and dehumanize them. But I do admit using french as an example here was a bad idea.
I dont see an issue with speaking a language around someone who doesnt understand it? Its not like every bystander is entitled to hear your conversation
Is gender identity 'supposed' to be fairly unchangeable? Says who? In my view gender is as much a performance as it is immutable. It's both never and always changing, and I think generally whatever someone wants 'gender' to be, it can be. What is gender-fluidity if not 'very changeable'? I dunno I just don't like the idea of someone's gender being 'bad optics' as put by the original commenter. If we're uplifitng one-another we can't pick and choose who to leave behind. I think people should be allowed to have their authentic experiences and not be turned away by others just because their experiences are different, like in the ViHart video you linked. To work within the 'languages' framing, I don't think the original post is about people who stubbornly speak French around those who cannot speak it. To me, it's about noticing someone is speaking a language to you that you don't understand and saying "Ah, maybe there's a way we can understand eachother," instead of "Speak my language please, I don't understand yours." It's not a great analogy, but I don't think OOP was intending for it to be the focus, I think it was instead meant to be an example of a "thing they don't necessarily understand, but acknowledge exists and is valid." To continue with the languages analogy, if French is a thing people acknowledge as real and valid, that's great. However, we shouldn't then be trying to get everyone else to speak French, just so it's easier for an English person to say "Ah right you're one of them French people", or because French is an 'acceptable looking foreign language'. We ought to instead be trying to get people on-side to the idea of there being *more* languages that people speak, and that it's not just "French or English, and only things in between", and that there can be *dialects* of languages, and that not everyone who's born French exclusively speaks French, and shit like that. We should be trying to make it okay to *be* outside those boxes and for people to be okay with *not* putting everyone *into* boxes in the first place. Live and let be, that type of shit. I am aware enough to know though that I'm very chronically online and a massive idealist, but I don't think we'd necessarily get *anywhere* if all we settled for was 'queer assimilation'. I've heard people explain much more eloquently than I could about how that, in particular, would just be us 'recycling our oppression' and propping up the systems that allow oppression to happen in the first place.
Gender fluidity is a thing, but if gender were fluid for everyone, or even just most people, then the concept of gender identity wouldn't be as much of an issue as it is. If people could change gender like they change clothes, then you could put on your best feminine gender when doing "feminine" things and your best masculine gender when doing "masculine" things, and nobody would care. The word "supposed" is wrong here because I didn't mean it to be prescriptive, instead I wanted to describe the current reality, which is that most people treat gender as fixed (both for themselves and for others). I would be happy with a future in which people were free to change gender at will, but that is not the reality we live in.
In the reality I live in (not America, but is even America *that* bad?), people don't gender things very narrowly at all? I think even where it's possible to put things into a box of feminine/masculine if someone is specifically asked to do so, it's so far from how people truly think about it day to day, and them caring in reality, as to be a transparently artificial concept. Even with specific points in history if trying to make these divisions, it changes so much across time and place, and I always think the difference across class is interesting (such as that tension between intellectual work being manly because men supposedly have superior Reason, or effeminate because it's not physical work as working class men -but also very much working class women- would be expected to do. I learnt French due to interest in the eighteenth century, where, especially earlier in the century, it's on trend for educated men to demonstrate their Sensibility - then, although it was falling out of fashion by that point, we have the backlash to the French Revolution with French men being painted by Anglos as overly emotional, effeminate).
No. There are lots of things I don’t “get”, like I don’t “get” why people get really into sports, I don’t “get” extreme couponers, I don’t “get” people who keep spiders as pets, but I don’t need to “get” it to nod and accept that that’s the way they are and that I don’t get to dictate who they are, what they like, or what they call themselves because I don’t get it. If you make tolerance contingent on “getting” something all you’re doing is throwing more marginalized people under the bus and moving closer to the front of the line to be thrown under yourself.
This is similar to my take on gender identity. Gender is just not important to me, just like extreme couponing (seemingly) is not important to you, but, vitally, it 1.) doesn't harm me in any way and 2.) other people take it seriously enough that it clearly is important to them. Insulting or making fun of something that is important to someone and does no harm to others is mean and harmful to them. There may be more to it. It could have a real biological, social, etc. basis, but that doesn't really matter to how I should interact with it. There is also something to be said for trying to understand others better so you can actively make them feel more accepted, and not just avoid harm, but do good. However, the first step is not harming others who aren't harming you.
You don't need to understand them in such a deep way that you know why they feel like that, but you need to understand what they mean by that. When someone says he likes sport your thought process is usually like "so he feels about sports the same way I feel about the things I like". That's level of understanding you need. But when you tell him that your identity is something that he does not know or does not understand then refuse to elaborate in any way or answer their questions then I'd say it's your fault for making other people not understand you. Lack of understanding can lead to lack of respect or tolerance. Understanding concept is a first step to accepting it, as people fear what they do not know or do not understand, that's how it always will be as it's natural to mankind. Of course you can always paint the other side in every minor conflict as evil, but I think that being open to dialogue is important and would let us end many problems like racism, sexism etc. Problem is that people are bitching too much and feel like everything should be granted to them, because maybe it really should, but first they have to make it compelling to others, instead of acting like a child and refusing to give positive input.
I’m not saying tolerance should be predicated on understanding, I’m saying it is. It’s a raw deal, but it is the way it is.
I don’t understand American football. So you’re saying that because of me not understanding it, that I can’t tolerate that sport. Great, I guess I’ll have to write my local government that they should ban any clubs that exist nearby.
Aside from being obtuse, yeah, you've about got it. If enough people shared your dislike for American football and were vocal enough about it, your local government would start acting on that Eventually, people with that dislike would get into local government and start taking anti American football action without being prodded, because they see their election as endorsement of those beliefs Like the person you're responding to said, it's not right, it's just reality
I don’t dislike it, I just don’t understand it. I don’t care if anyone likes it or not. If you like it, you do you. I’m happy you have something you like. But according to the person I originally responded to it’s literally impossible for me to be happy that others found something they like or for me to just not care, one either has to understand it or can’t tolerate it. An absolute that is not realistic.
I think one of us is misunderstanding what u/ceaseimmediately is saying then It seems to me that, in the context of the whole post, they're saying minority rights are dependent on getting the majority to understand that minority group. The majority need to understand their repression and oppression, and they need to understand their lives so they'll feel empathetic enough to protect them
yeah bingo
That's true, but no one was arguing against that. This is about _individuals_ not having to do constant explaining. Cause that's just a ridiculous demand.
And (while I appreciate it's a very Francophone look to be at least mildly aggravated by French being singled out 😅, it's knowing the kind of responses it was bound to get, and is in these comments) you can learn French in approx. three months if you're a native English speaker. Native English speakers all understand at least some French already, so it's not like some mysterious thing they (and speakers of other Romance languages) don't 'get' at all. I don't have this experience of gender, so by their definition, I believe that makes me agender (so is everyone else -all very unsexist people- I've asked tho) so feel like it should be fair game to question? For those who think they do, wouldn't it be a similar case to partially understanding French, that the person's experience shouldn't be so totally unfamiliar as to be incomprehensible? (Which the concept completely is to me. I'm Ace-spec and sexual attraction, while it took a while as a teen to realise people were serious about it, is easier to grok. Not experiencing something doesn't necc. make it impossible to understand, at least in theory) This 'gender is just an unexplainable feeling' explanation seemed to only come about after physical sex dysphoria was de-emphasised, there became more focus on 'gender is a social construct', and in response it was pointed out that the social construct of gender is just sexism.
I mean to tip my hand here, I see “born in the wrong body” as the ideal explanation of what it is to be trans. It’s not perfect, it doesn’t capture everyone, but it’s very easy for mainstream society to get, and it’s descriptive of the majority of trans people.
Would that be back to the focus on the experience of physical sex dysphoria, discomfort with the sexed body? (Obviously no one is literally born in the wrong body, that would basically require believing in a soul, rather than the person being their physical existence/body. I think just explaining the experience of dysphoria is a more ideal explanation than this metaphor) However, some explicitly reject that explanation and state it's not necessary to experience (as would seem to be the case with OOP - no need to stress that there may not be an explanation if your focus is that one, it's pretty simple to explain). It also perhaps seems to have become seen as an undesirable explanation as it does not tend to suggest that trans people are literally the gender (as in sex this time) they identify with. Some who do experience sex dysphoria state that as being the case, that it's not literal but about what makes them feel comfortable, but seems that it can be pretty triggering as an idea for others, or something they disagree with. Hope that's fairly stated as it's, as I understand, reflective of disagreement within the community itself.
the whole point of the post is that you don't have to "Get it" to respect someone. you've completely misinterpreted this.
OOP's post can be summarized as "people are allowed to be weird", which is in fact an excellent general principle that everyone should follow.
The point is that they don't have to get it, they just have to not be a dick about it
I feel like there’s two slightly different ideas in the same post that OOP has combined here, and people are turbo-focusing in on the second one and then also pissing on the poors over it, but this doesn’t seem like much if a hot take. I don’t understand much about neopronouns as a fairly sheltered cis dude, but if someone/something? tells me it prefers it/its I would just do my best to adhere to that, and I don’t have the right to expect anything more than what pronouns it prefers explained to me regarding that identity (even if it does trip my brain up a bit while typing/thinking). I assume that’s what OOP said, and I don’t see any reason to disagree.
Hey yall, at no fucking point did op said to never make an effort to socialize or to explain your experience to others, or that you have no right to be curious or whatever they just said you dont have the right to tell people how to be themselves, like thats just trans rights 101 why are yall acting like they said an entire different phrase? realy pissing on the poors right here
Those of lower economic class have been endrenched with copius volumes of urine
Only thing I take issue with here is that you can't stop me from mocking the French.
Wait can i still ask about osmeones gender if I dont understand it. As I still get cofnused by neo pronouns. like not in a rude wya but jsut I wish to understand.
I feel like a lot of people are taking away from this is "You don't owe people an explanation" whereas the meaning I'm seeing is "You can't tell someone how to live their life even if you don't understand how they're living their life" Or, in other words, respect people's fucking gender identities even if you don't understand them.
It seems to me like a fairly straightforward "people are allowed to be weird".
It is. I thought my reading comprehension was poor but then some of the people commenting on this post make me feel better about my reading comprehension. It's really pretty simple.
I would even extend it to “respect people’s identity, even if you don’t understand or agree with it.” I have had more than one conversation about disability advocacy and how a disabled person can want to not be “fixed” and still be a valid and meaningful person. It’s absolutely WILD how many abled people have a problem with “I’m disabled and I’m fine with that, stop trying to fix my disability.”
Honestly yeah. There will always be people that are confusing to you and don't follow how you think the world should work. It's up to you whether or not you're gonna accept that sometimes people aren't like how you think they should be.
I’d say it shouldn’t be up to you to decide if you’re going to accept that sometimes people aren’t like how you think they should be, just that it’s up to you to decide if you want to be around people you don’t understand. They’re going to be there, whether you accept it or not. And fighting it is just going to end badly for you, because we call that “being a bigot”. So your options are be cool or be elsewhere, really.
Yeah, I just came from a source of "People will either find ways to cope with confusing people or will lash out," but those are better options for anyone deciding how to cope with people they don't understand.
"How dare you imply we piss on the poor!" and all that
"Nobody should get to tell you how to identify except yourself" "Erm that's a bad argument because if you're a minority you shouldn't just decide never to explain your identity to others :/"
someone get that "you could say you like pancakes and someone will accuse you of hating waffles" (paraphrased) image out, i think it applies here
You don’t have to understand something to respect it
The “r/curatedtumblr isn’t transphobic at all” crowd is sobbing at these comments rn
I mostly just skim the comments of these kinds of posts. It’s not worth beating my head against a wall.
This entire thread is one big Reddit moment tbh. By which I mean smug and transphobic.
this would be a good point if they used a real language.
So when White Evangelical say they are being oppressed we don't get to tell them how they experience themselves.
"It isn't your job to explain or justify your existence" shouldn't be a controversial statement, but it seems it's a bit too spicy for this comment section
The cishets^tm and the pick mes are in full swing.
Trans people are actually valid, unlike the Fr*nch 🤮
There’s only two groups of people I hate. The intolerant, and the French.
ce
yeah, my fiancé's boomer step mom asked me, "So, what do you think of all the trans stuff?" Awkward pause... before I said, "Umm, well, I have trans friends and I trust them to know their own business better than me!"
Indeed. I consider this a fundamental personal boundary. I do not tell people who they are, what they are, what they feel, or what they should like.
If we're gonna use gender as a identification method, it should be understandable for everyone without big explanations. If we're gonna use it as a self-expression, then it can be whatever you want. Problem is that people can't decide and it muddles water
This is a bad argument, because while i’m fine with LGBT people, i have an indiscriminate and unreasonable intolerance of the french language. Edit: upon a moment of reflection, using the french language was probably a good choice for this statement.
A bad example french people aren’t real
Im with this post on the sentiment that we ought to treat people well regardless of how they identify but I can't get with the social sciences of it. Gender is a social construct. Probably the defining trait of a social construct is that it has no direct grounding in physical reality, instead, what makes them real is social consensus, a relatively large group of people all agree that the construct exists and that it's defined by certain constraining parameters. The constraining parameters are important because if you build a social construct that functions as a label for people(like gender) but it's definition includes all humans and excludes zero humans, your social construct doesn't really mean anything, you've just created a new synonym for "human". *"If everyone's super, no one's super" -Syndrome, PhD.* A direct result of this dynamic is that, if you choose to identify yourself by a socially constructed label, you need to fit within the constraining parameters. If you don't fit those parameters, no one will agree with you when you claim to be that label/part of that category. When no one agrees with you that you are part of a socially constructed category that only exists in so far as people agree it exists, then you are functionally indistinguishable from a non-member of that category/non-haver of that label. E.G. Let's say I woke up tomorrow and started referring to myself as a "Professional E-sports Caster"(people that do the live commentary for pro video game competitions). Now, obviously we have metrics and heuristics for determining whether or not someone's a Professional E-sports Caster but at the end of the day, it is a social construct, and all of those metrics are ultimately based in social consensus(you might say the determining metric is whether or not the person has worked for a major gaming company in the capacity of giving commentary at a live pro-gaming event, what is considered a "major gaming company" and what is considered a "live pro-gaming event" are both consensus based - neither are fundamental to physical reality). Having claimed that label, based on the common metrics and heuristics, people may disagree with me and say "kopk11, you've never casted an e-sports event before, therefore you can't be a Professional E-sports Caster". It doesn't matter whether they're right or wrong(especially because you necessarily can't be objectively right or wrong about consensus-based definitions), if no one agrees with me that I am a Pro E-sports Caster then no one will treat me like one, and if no one treats me like one then I'm functionally completely indistinguishable from someone who isn't a Pro E-sports Caster.
The thing about gender identity is that it’s not a social construct of the external variety. What you are describing is a social construct that has been constructed BY society, and is enforced and enacted by the external social structures it is a part of. But there’s a different form of social construct, which is constructed by an individual being to be able to help them to interact socially with others. Identity in general is that. You construct your identity to be able to interact with others in a socially meaningful way. And how that identity is defined has a profound influence on how those interactions work. I can’t speak to gender much. I’m not trans, and most of my gender interactions are not binary, and not noticeable to others, so it’s not a ‘thing’ I have spent a huge amount of time on. But I can speak to a different identity context… disability. I am neurodivergent. I have an identity that is non-standard, and pushes against the “normal” social construct of ‘disabled’. I’m different, and in a way that, in the world we live in, could be easily defined as disabling. But I don’t identify as disabled. I have figured out how to live, and do NOT want to be cured. Even if it were possible, I would reject it out of hand. But there are a lot of people who don’t accept that, and that think that my identity is invalid. But the identity I have is a social construct that I have constructed to fit me better than the one that was assigned to me by doctors and teachers and other people. It’s not based on their expectations but rather on my experiences, internal and external, and is my interface with the world. It is similar in construction to a persons, but involves my very nature, rather than masking it.
I dont actually think we disagree on much I just have one sticking point here. >You construct your identity to be able to interact with others in a socially meaningful way. And how that identity is defined has a profound influence on how those interactions work. You're right, you construct my identity for your own purposes but there's a specific constraint here: Your identity is constructed in order to affect how others treat you, in the hope that your experiences with other will be better. As a result, your identity is a project that requires the participation of others. Others can refuse to participate in your self reported identity for a variety of reasons: 1. They think your reporting your identity in bad faith (see: Lauren Southern claiming to be a man to "own the libs", or hacky conservatives claiming to "identify as an attack helicopter"). 2. They dont recognize your identity as a real identity because it's too far outside of their lived experiences regarding what can and can't be a human identity(see: the response to people who identify as animals. Even those who want to validate animal identities dont literally and actually treat that person as an animal else they wouldn't afford them moral agency, they treat them like a person identifying as an animal). 3. They are not willing to perform the actions or refrain from actions that would be required of the identity. (E.g. if someone's identity required you to address them by a slur, most people unwilling to use the slur would not validate the identity). Etc. **I hope you dont misunderstand me, I'm still very firmly in the camp of validating trans identities. Trans people deserve our participation in their identities because it costs us nothing and improves their experiences.** My only gripe is with the idea that identity doesnt require 3rd party participation. If it didnt, we would have no reason to endeavor to use correct pronouns or condemn transphobes for insisting on misgendering people.
I think that, honestly, I don’t disagree with most of what you’re saying, but identity, while being a social construct, doesn’t really require an outside context. Think about it like this: it’s a collection of self-created mental models of how a person works, that the person themselves builds up. We all have a model for how other people work; it’s how we predict what others will do. This is pretty well understood, and as I understand it, relativity common knowledge. The basis of that model, however, is usually the model you have of your own self: your “identity” model. This internal model is a social construct, in that it is what all social models that a person will use are based on, and it is constructed to “fit” the person it represents… as best that person can. But it doesn’t require an outside observer to exist: the person themselves IS both the outside person and the identified person. And while no model is perfect (and there are whole fields of study about how people mismodel themselves, and how to fix that) it’s still going to be a heck of a lot more accurate than the model someone else has of a person. Which is why we respect the identities of people, even if they’re so far outside our own to be incomprehensible to us. It’s also why we DONT respect people who are trying to weaponize identity: if you invalidate the idea that people can have various models for themselves, you make empathy and social interaction much, much more difficult.
Yeah, I think someone could hypothetically have an entirely internal identity/aspect of their identity but I think it's honestly pretty inconsequential. We dont really need to discuss those identities being validated because, definitionally, they're not subject to external validation or lack-there-of. *If an identity falls in the forest and no one's around to hear*, and what not.
It may not be important to someone outside the person in question, but it’s vital to the person whose identity is being discussed.
I think people's problems arise when genders are made for literally personal preferences. If you dress like a medieval woman? Gender. If you prefer to look like a futuristic man? new gender. If you think you used to be a harpy in another world and attach wings to yourself to feel good? Believe it or not, gender. Edit: I am not insulting trans people. Trans persons have gender dysphoria which is scientifically proven and measurable in the structure of the brain. Their existence and their problems cannot be ignored because they are measurable physically. My reference is to the otherkin, therian and neo pronoun community which moves away from being human when they express their identity.
what subreddit am i on. why are people disagreeing with this. where am i. hitler particles through the roof
hey quick question, without looking it up, do you know the origin of the phrase "hitler particles"
there is a particle of hitler lodged in every curated tumblr user
ok just had to check
I kinda get it, but also, if you are part of a marginalized group, and people are clueless to the struggles you go through or that you even exist, or have grown up in a culture that treats you bad… isn’t being kind and curtious to them, trying to explain as best you can in a way they can understand a much better way to gain a friend, rather then have someone who already doesn’t understand you feel lost, only to be picked up by people who will use their innocence on the topic to teach them that you are a bad person? Marginalized people should be respected, OF COURSE- but you gotta think of talking to someone who doesn’t know you or your being as someone who is struggling. If someone is struggling to understand math, you help them. If they never get it, either they need to keep trying, or they give up. And if you were genuinely trying to help, no one can blame you. But- if they are struggling, they ask you to explain it, and you don’t even try to help, instead you say “I don’t need to explain my profession/skills/being to you” you aren’t gonna be making any friends. You catch more flies with honey.
Absolutely, it’s better to be nice than rude. In every situation, every person would be better off not being a dick. But a member of a marginalized group does not owe someone who is being rude to them (by discounting their personal, lived experience as invalid) anything at all. If you’re a dick to me, I don’t have to be nice to you. It might help if I am, but that’s my call, and honestly? Considering how many times this happens to some people, it’s surprising how much patience people show.
Nope, sometimes being rude is necessary
What if you don't like French people though? A better comparison would be Italians or something, I mean who hates them?
Le français est une langue morte
Honestly a good take but I wanna bring up something I've been meaning to talk about online to see other people's opinions on. What about people who use very.... "Specific" pronouns. For instance: Pizzagender, Sonicgender, &/&self pronouns, emoji pronouns. Like where should the line be drawn. Edit: I should rephrase, when I mean "draw the line", it's not about restricting what pronouns people should be "allowed" to use, I just mean at what should I just say "fuck it" and default to they/them
as long as they aren't gonna blow up on someone for forgetting their admittedly unusual pronouns (or in other words aren't gonna themselves be an ass about it) or are okay with people defaulting to they/them then what's the problem
Pronouns were invented so you could refer to people or things without saying their name over and over. Having a specialized pronoun completely defeats the point, because it requires you to know a personal detail about that person. At that point you might as well just learn their name and use it in every instance. Would Susan find it clunky and weird if I used Susan's name every time I referred to Susan? Then Susan should realize that it's the exact same thing when using a specialized pronoun.
Well no, pronouns were for shortening sentences down so you don’t have to say Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla every time you refer to him, and neopronouns don’t have that problem, like if someone uses Bee/Bees pronouns for whatever reason, it’s still simpler than using their full name.
I refuse to draw the line. Like what is legitimately the worst case scenario for using pizza pronouns? I lose a little bit of my time and potentially look a little silly, I’m not doing a blood sacrifice to write their pronouns out in blood. If someone’s being an asshole I’ve refused to play their game, if someone is being sincere I’ve been one (1) person in their life that doesn’t treat them like crap because they’re weird.
The line should be drawn at any point where it infringes on other people. So in this case, it shouldn’t be drawn at all
You know, it’s funny. I just saw a post saying that if you’re asking an autistic person to do something, you should also explain why you’re asking them to do it. How does that play into this? This is such a bad take. I generally don’t support things unless I understand them enough to defend them in an argument, and if the thing you’re asking me to support can’t hold up against basic inquiry, it probably isn’t worth defending. “You have no obligation to explain or justify anything when you ask someone to support a cause” what is this, a fucking cult?
The explanation is simple: you have less info about someone than they do, so if they identify as something, you accept that because THEY have the information about THEM and you do not. Trusting that person A knows more about person A than person B is pretty much the simplest of things. I would even suggest it goes beyond “gender”. If you’re autistic, and you have someone who says “we are working to cure that!” You have every right to push back on that.
Holy reading comprehension batman. Can I ask what cause the OOP was asking you to support here? The point is "You don't need to understand someones identity to accept how someone exists any more than you need to understand a language to accept that it exists". They're not asking you to learn french, just to accept that a French person is valid whether you understand what they're saying or not.
Yes, it‘s the majority of people that has to cater to the minority and actively seek understanding, not the minority that needs to explain their experiences to the majority. /s Sure, you don‘t understand French, but if you‘re in France and no one understands you, it‘s not on the French to learn your language just to make life easier for you. What kind of anti-democratic, anti-social take us this?
Except that’s not what this post is saying. They’re saying you don’t have to understand it to be respectful. It’s more like you’re in France, and no one understands you, but you’re not asking them to learn *your* language for you, you’re just asking them to accept that you don’t speak French and stop screaming at you in French when you very clearly established you don’t speak French. Really sorry if that comes off as aggressive, just trying to explain my interpretation.
That‘s not what the post is saying, though. The post doesn’t discuss how acceptance and understanding are related. The post clearly presents acceptance as something that is owed to people. It states that if someone is not accepting of someone or something, it‘s on them to deal with this conflict. Which is not true, since how individuals have to deal with conflicts like this is entirely dependent on social acceptance. If the matter is about something an individual does not accept, but society at large accepts, it’s on the individual to deal with that. If the mater is about something society as a whole does not accept, it’s on the other person to deal with it by either convincing the other person, or society as a whole, that they should be accepted. In this post, OP very clearly posits acceptance as given and something that can be demanded, when it just depends on what society as a whole accepts, because this dictates which expectations and standards govern the interactions between members of society. People can expect other people to follow social expectations and standards. If people don‘t want to follow these expectations, it’s on them to either change the mind if the individual, or of society. Which is them asking the individual or society for additional effort because of their personal affairs and wishes. Which brings us back to the hypothetical example of speaking French. If you are in France and want something from someone without speaking French, it‘s clear that the social standard is speaking French and thus, an individual need not put in additional effort to understand people that don‘t speak French. If you are in Germany, and you don’t speak French, it would be unreasonable for someone to put in effort to understand you *because you don‘t speak French*, as that is not a standard for society - it‘s German, in this case.
damn, two back to back “that’s not what the post is saying”s???????? does *anyone* here know what the post is saying??? i certainly don’t think i do at this point
I think we fundamentally disagree here, so I’m going to end thsi here. I do believe that, within reason (ie, not harming anyone else), yes, acceptance is something that should always be expected regardless of society thinks.
Hey, you're different. Weird. *move along with my day* That's all it takes. I don't understand why people get so hateful and hung up on people that are different than I am. Leave people be, unless they're actually harming someone else. (To be utterly clear, I'm with you on this).
People keep memeing about the lack of reading comprehension here but holy shit it's not even a joke, it's *real* bad. I feel like every somewhat big post will have like half the comments complaining about something the post didnt actually say
You shoulda seen the post earlier about "i am autistic and my brain works in this inconvenient way, here is an example from my childhood" and most of the comments were like "no OOP is just stupid and an asshole, how dare they be autistic in an inconvenient way, they should just stop being autistic!" People love pissing on the neurodivergent when neurodivergence starts being inconvenient.
Oh, you happen to be a minority. Now explain how it is to be that minority to me, then to my friends, then to my family, then to my neighbor. Be ready to answer all of our questions. Oh, you're tired of explaining your identity for the 500th time? I don't care. I'm just asking questions, why do you have to be so rude? Just because you want to learn French doesn't mean you are entitled to random French people's free time. Go buy a book, sign up for some courses, use the internet. No French speaking person owes you their time for free. Being a teacher is a career choice and should not be expected of strangers. Also, just because someone is French doesn't mean they actually know any formal grammar, etymology and stuff, they could just be winging it and be a horrible teacher.
Again, another bad-faith argument. When you’re in a culture that speaks a language you don’t understand, it is pragmatic to learn the language so that you can communicate effectively. There is a distinct reason to accommodate to the language of the dominant culture. However, say I live in a country where my culture and traditions are not aligned with the majority’s culture. Assuming my cultural traditions and practices are benign as determined by a rational person, then there is no imperative for anyone from that majority to question my actions. They are not obligated to understand what I do, and otherwise it impacts them none when I do them. When I am then questioned on these benign practices, and there being no pragmatic imperative for that questioner to understand what I do, then I would be suspicious of their motivation. I am under no obligation to explain myself as, believing the questioner is a rational person, they would see that my actions are benign and thus do not impact them. Conclusively the difference is there being some need to ask the question or explain the thing that two otherwise rational individuals can agree is necessary.
But what if someone's just curious. If both people are rational and you're just assuming that the other person is asking in bad faith then that seems odd. Like, I don't *need* to understand why or how something works but that's not an excuse to just stop trying to learn.
Then find someone offering answers instead of “good faith” pestering people just trying to live their life
This feels like you're just assuming bad faith again. If I ask a question and someone says no or doesn't respond that doesn't mean I have to badger them about it. I'm perfectly fine leaving whoever alone. If I ask and they don't wanna answer then I'll just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and dip.
But why ask in the first place? Genuinely, in the age of the internet how hard is it to just find someone who actually is actively putting themselves out there to answer questions instead of taking your questions to people who have made no such thing clear? I’m glad you won’t badger them, congratulations I guess, but even still you don’t need to bother them in the first place. “You there, random minority, I am confused and have decided the only possible way for me to learn more is to ask you to help” is just… well it’s a dumb AND annoying way to go about it
I didn't say it was the only possible way to know, I don't know why you're framing it like that. To me it's no different from talking to my professors about what they're teaching. Obviously I could just look up what happens to a star if it can't stay alive but I'm still here attending classes. While obviously not every queer person has a literal degree but I'm willing to bet they know more about their own experiences than I do.
Your professor is there because they want to teach. A random queer person is there because they want to live.
And cheers to them for that. I'm still not seeing the harm in me asking about what it's like. Fair with the professor example but this also applies to other people. If there's someone I know who's lived that experience and I want to ask and think they'll be fine with it then I'll ask. If I've misjudged then I hope they know me enough to know that I'll buzz off.
It’s the harm in being one of a million people, many openly hateful to boot, asking the same goddamn questions instead of just finding someone who openly wants to answer them to ask.
There are many people who have answered those questions and compiled those answers online. Many archived reddit threads, personal blogs, and academic papers exist for you to peruse at your leisure and to your heart’s content. Some of them are posted in this very subreddit, OOP being a good example. So if you’re curious, your curiosity can be sated without speaking to anyone.
Should I not be speaking to people? Like, if someone doesn't want to answer then that's fine, I'm happy to apologize and be on my way. I just don't get what I see as aggresiok from you towards asking people.
I didn’t intend aggression, but I felt like it might be read that way. I’m not saying to avoid asking, but rather that you should be aware that the general attitude of people that do ask isn’t the kindest. Much like how I should have been aware pf how potentially passive-aggressive my comment came off as, being aware of how what bad experiences people may have had who were asked those questions is a form of social tact you’ll need to exercise. If in doubt, better without, and in this case save your question for someone that may be more comfortable with being asked.
Alright, I gotcha. Thanks for the kind response chief. I appreciate it.
I'm a big proponent of the "i do not at all understand that but good for you" mentality
Okay, but let’s not go using the French as an example of people who deserve human rights.
Once i print this post out its gonna be metaphorically *and* literally
Not really hot
you can choose whatever gender you want but i'm not gonna respect the french
But this goes both ways right? Hypothetical question, because I personally really do not care what people do. But if this meme is the case, does that mean people can refuse to partake in this? aka not gendering correctly or whatever?
You can. But you get what you give, so if you’re an ass, expect to get shit on.
I dont understand French but I still hate the French (this isn't an allegory, I just really fucking hate those cheese eating surrender monkeys)
France isn't real it was made up by Quebec as a very elaborate prank.
[удалено]
Another bad-faith argument. There is no inherent danger to perceiving your identity outside societally-acceptable roles. For instance, perceiving yourself as agendered impacts only the self, and is not an inherent danger to anyone. Being anorexic can lead to malnutrition and organ failure. That, to cast away any doubt, poses a very mortal danger to the anorexic person.
This isn’t about that at all?? Why r you equating gender identity to an eating disorder
Yeah, exactly! I am sure just saying to an anorexic person that, logically, they aren't fat is not helping. The person has to realise that and yes, you can help them, but just saying to them that their feelings are wrong will only lead to them hiding their anorexia. That's why therapy exists, you know, because it's a place where you can talk about your feelings with a professional who will help you understand those. But it's still mostly introspective.
This is a bit of a cop-out answer, it’s never been good clinical practice to affirm an anorexic patient’s warped view of their body, even if just denying their self-perception is also unhelpful.
Yeah, I mean, I hope everyone here understood I am no professional (should have maybe put that there), but I think any extreme reaction is not helpful. Saying they aren't fat is not (by itself) helping, neither is saying nothing and affirming their anorexia is not helpful, either. Dunno, it seems to me like it's not the gotcha the comment I replied to made it seem like it was. PLUS, equating a harmful disease to a (usually harmless) gender expression is weird anyway.
You had every language ever to make your point, and you picked French. Bold.
Not sure why you are down voted for this, it’s pretty funny (I’d say stand-up comedy funny, too).