I think this lacks an open mind. This reaction isn’t that surprising though, I do get why you and other people are very invested in this. I think you’re too wedded to gender overall though, I find the camp of trans people writing about the idea that eventually society will enter a post-gender phase to be the most compelling theory. If gender can be abolished then it can also change.
Gender abolitionism usually focuses on roles and rigidity surrounding it, not the idea that we will eventually have no actual genders. Gender is biologically real but all the social constructs surrounding it are not. If this is not what you have read, I’m interested in links.
But there is no world in which I am not a woman - but very much a world where I am happy to reject the social constructs built up around womanhood.
I still posit that anyone that can actually change their gender (not realize it and change presentation and potentially roles) was gender fluid in the first place.
This reasoning errs much too close to bio-essentialism for me, it’s the same line of thinking that leads people to “you have to have dysphoria or you’re not trans”.
I believe all trans people. I do believe that all trans people have gender dysphoria (otherwise there wouldn’t be a reason to transition) though many do not recognize it and believe they are trans (which they are) but do not experience dysphoria (which they do). Think of this in a pure motivation sense. One does not make major life changes without something informing that decision, which is what dysphoria is.
I am seriously interested in gender abolitionist takes that aren’t just abolishing the strict roles/styles/behaviors affiliated with gender. I don’t think you can provide this, because gender abolitionists do believe people have an intrinsic gender (or rather, one may have an intrinsic gender, wrt agender individuals) they just don’t believe that one’s gender should be defined by someone else and that a lot of the roles and behaviors attributed to gender are regressive and need abolished. To which I agree. I am a woman but I am not gender conforming (rarely wear dresses or skirts, present relatively butch, and reject all gender roles).
Your rigid line of thinking here could easily convince someone that conversion therapy is a reasonable treatment for gender dysphoria, which it most certainly is not. Because why would it not be, if it could work? My answer to that is that my intrinsic gender is too much a part of me to rip out: you can’t change my gender. I would not be me if you tore my gender out of me.
Frankly, I’m kind of growing tired of discussing trans issues with cis people, especially when they keep telling me I’m biased (“I know why you’re so defensive about this”). I have a gender, if you don’t then that is good for you, but you can’t take my gender from me. Please genuinely consider that this is based on my life experiences, whereas your view is informed second hand on others’ lived experiences, if you wish to continue this discussion with me.
You can’t “believe all trans people” while also not believing the trans people who say their experience is not gender fluidity but an actual mid-life change in gender.
Ultimately you can only be one or the other.
As for those people without dysphoria, several of them will openly say they think they can choose one or the other, but prefer one, but don’t think this is the same as gender fluidity. Are they wrong?
“I believe all trans people” while having a biological gender essentialist belief is not possible.
I am seriously interested in gender abolitionist takes that aren’t just abolishing the strict roles/styles/behaviors affiliated with gender. I don’t think you can provide this
This is the basis for literally all cyberpunk and transhumanist takes on gender as the elimination of biological limitations turns the entire of sexuality into something of an avatar swap. If you’ve spent any time in VR, where some insight into behaviours of people and culture has played out, you start to get a sense for where this could go. What gender is that person with the smoke avatar? No gender. Which, for the record here, is a gender that a lot of people say they already are, which does not at all fit into the gender biological essentialism. You NEED to exclude people who say they have no gender at all (not non-binary, those with explicitly no gender) in order to fit this concept together.
Frankly, I’m kind of growing tired of discussing trans issues with cis people
I am not cis. Not sure why you’ve decided this, fucking disgusting response and the reason I waited days to bother responding to this tbh. The way this part of your response makes me feel is unlikely to ever go away when I see you elsewhere on this site, wtf were you thinking.
I believe all trans people.
I want to say, once again, that this is a platitude. It does not fit into the view that you’re taking. You genuinely can’t believe all trans people while having this view.
Sorry I assumed you were cis. Nothing you said implied otherwise, you never talked about your experience with gender and referred to trans people in a way that made it sound like you weren’t a part of them. This conversation isn’t going to go anywhere because you are insistent on telling me what I believe and don’t care when I say otherwise. I don’t believe in all that stuff you said I do. I will know to avoid the topic of gender when I see you on this website in the future as well. Goodbye.
What I’m telling you is that you’re stating things that are incompatible views.
You can’t “believe all trans people” while explicitly saying that you disagree with trans people who say they have no gender, or trans people that say they are not gender fluid and very much feel like they can and have changed gender at a later point in life.
These are not compatible things. One of these things MUST be untrue.
You want to by hyper-inclusive and nice to all people, I get that you don’t want to exclude people which is why you are saying “I believe all trans people” (because you’re not a bad person). But at the same time you are stating a position that is not open to a certain position, largely for good reasons, you are defensive about how it could be used to harm us and have a naturally protective reaction that wants to reject the very idea of it because of the danger it also opens us up to. This has explicitly been the only reason you’ve presented for opposing it “this could be used to argue in favour of conversion therapy” - purely a position taken from a trans activism perspective. What I am trying to get at is that you shouldn’t approach this from the trans activism position but rather than from a philosophical perspective analysing gender.
Doing a “I don’t wanna talk to you anymore” doesn’t make any of the things I’ve pointed out here any less true. You can’t hold incompatible positions simultaneously. They need to be more deeply examined.
I certainly can believe all trans people are trans while not believing that they are necessarily correct about their views of when or how they became trans. I simply don’t necessarily believe every aspect of the narrative they tell about their gender. People aren’t that self aware.
You believe they’re trans but don’t believe their stated gender? So you want? Secretly misgender them inside your head?
I’m being intentionally uncharitable here because I don’t think you’ve examined this and really think you should. I do not think you’re a bad person, just that you haven’t yet examined these contradictions.
I think this lacks an open mind. This reaction isn’t that surprising though, I do get why you and other people are very invested in this. I think you’re too wedded to gender overall though, I find the camp of trans people writing about the idea that eventually society will enter a post-gender phase to be the most compelling theory. If gender can be abolished then it can also change.
Gender abolitionism usually focuses on roles and rigidity surrounding it, not the idea that we will eventually have no actual genders. Gender is biologically real but all the social constructs surrounding it are not. If this is not what you have read, I’m interested in links.
But there is no world in which I am not a woman - but very much a world where I am happy to reject the social constructs built up around womanhood.
I still posit that anyone that can actually change their gender (not realize it and change presentation and potentially roles) was gender fluid in the first place.
This reasoning errs much too close to bio-essentialism for me, it’s the same line of thinking that leads people to “you have to have dysphoria or you’re not trans”.
I believe all trans people. I do believe that all trans people have gender dysphoria (otherwise there wouldn’t be a reason to transition) though many do not recognize it and believe they are trans (which they are) but do not experience dysphoria (which they do). Think of this in a pure motivation sense. One does not make major life changes without something informing that decision, which is what dysphoria is.
I am seriously interested in gender abolitionist takes that aren’t just abolishing the strict roles/styles/behaviors affiliated with gender. I don’t think you can provide this, because gender abolitionists do believe people have an intrinsic gender (or rather, one may have an intrinsic gender, wrt agender individuals) they just don’t believe that one’s gender should be defined by someone else and that a lot of the roles and behaviors attributed to gender are regressive and need abolished. To which I agree. I am a woman but I am not gender conforming (rarely wear dresses or skirts, present relatively butch, and reject all gender roles).
Your rigid line of thinking here could easily convince someone that conversion therapy is a reasonable treatment for gender dysphoria, which it most certainly is not. Because why would it not be, if it could work? My answer to that is that my intrinsic gender is too much a part of me to rip out: you can’t change my gender. I would not be me if you tore my gender out of me.
Frankly, I’m kind of growing tired of discussing trans issues with cis people, especially when they keep telling me I’m biased (“I know why you’re so defensive about this”). I have a gender, if you don’t then that is good for you, but you can’t take my gender from me. Please genuinely consider that this is based on my life experiences, whereas your view is informed second hand on others’ lived experiences, if you wish to continue this discussion with me.
You can’t “believe all trans people” while also not believing the trans people who say their experience is not gender fluidity but an actual mid-life change in gender.
Ultimately you can only be one or the other.
As for those people without dysphoria, several of them will openly say they think they can choose one or the other, but prefer one, but don’t think this is the same as gender fluidity. Are they wrong?
“I believe all trans people” while having a biological gender essentialist belief is not possible.
This is the basis for literally all cyberpunk and transhumanist takes on gender as the elimination of biological limitations turns the entire of sexuality into something of an avatar swap. If you’ve spent any time in VR, where some insight into behaviours of people and culture has played out, you start to get a sense for where this could go. What gender is that person with the smoke avatar? No gender. Which, for the record here, is a gender that a lot of people say they already are, which does not at all fit into the gender biological essentialism. You NEED to exclude people who say they have no gender at all (not non-binary, those with explicitly no gender) in order to fit this concept together.
I am not cis. Not sure why you’ve decided this, fucking disgusting response and the reason I waited days to bother responding to this tbh. The way this part of your response makes me feel is unlikely to ever go away when I see you elsewhere on this site, wtf were you thinking.
I want to say, once again, that this is a platitude. It does not fit into the view that you’re taking. You genuinely can’t believe all trans people while having this view.
Sorry I assumed you were cis. Nothing you said implied otherwise, you never talked about your experience with gender and referred to trans people in a way that made it sound like you weren’t a part of them. This conversation isn’t going to go anywhere because you are insistent on telling me what I believe and don’t care when I say otherwise. I don’t believe in all that stuff you said I do. I will know to avoid the topic of gender when I see you on this website in the future as well. Goodbye.
What I’m telling you is that you’re stating things that are incompatible views.
You can’t “believe all trans people” while explicitly saying that you disagree with trans people who say they have no gender, or trans people that say they are not gender fluid and very much feel like they can and have changed gender at a later point in life.
These are not compatible things. One of these things MUST be untrue.
You want to by hyper-inclusive and nice to all people, I get that you don’t want to exclude people which is why you are saying “I believe all trans people” (because you’re not a bad person). But at the same time you are stating a position that is not open to a certain position, largely for good reasons, you are defensive about how it could be used to harm us and have a naturally protective reaction that wants to reject the very idea of it because of the danger it also opens us up to. This has explicitly been the only reason you’ve presented for opposing it “this could be used to argue in favour of conversion therapy” - purely a position taken from a trans activism perspective. What I am trying to get at is that you shouldn’t approach this from the trans activism position but rather than from a philosophical perspective analysing gender.
Doing a “I don’t wanna talk to you anymore” doesn’t make any of the things I’ve pointed out here any less true. You can’t hold incompatible positions simultaneously. They need to be more deeply examined.
I certainly can believe all trans people are trans while not believing that they are necessarily correct about their views of when or how they became trans. I simply don’t necessarily believe every aspect of the narrative they tell about their gender. People aren’t that self aware.
You believe they’re trans but don’t believe their stated gender? So you want? Secretly misgender them inside your head?
I’m being intentionally uncharitable here because I don’t think you’ve examined this and really think you should. I do not think you’re a bad person, just that you haven’t yet examined these contradictions.