Gender

[Phantom]

Eh, I tried. I really did. But I'm drawn to people being rude... explains a couple of my past relationships.... I couldn't stay away.

 

[Zero Moment]

Pathos, you say you weren't being rude, yet you say you were calling him lazy?

I believe you invalidated your own argument, there.

 

[shy ♡]

Pathos, you say you weren't being rude, yet you say you were calling him lazy?

I believe you invalidated your own argument, there.

... What? I think he was being lazy, how is it rude to say that?

Allistic manners make no sense.

 

[Zero Moment]

... What? I think he was being lazy, how is it rude to say that?

It's rude to call someone something negative.

 

[ultraviolet]

I don't think I was actually all that rude to him; I simply asked him to read the thread, where the question had been previously asked an answered. I do think it got out of hand. I don't understand why that is not a valid response. Also, I am not/was not calling him a moron, I was calling him lazy; I don't believe he is stupid at all.

It's not so much what you said - it's fine to say that it's already been discussed - but you're being condescending. That doesn't seem to be what you meant to do, but it's how it came across.

Also, I really don't think an apology is fix-all for everything; I don't mean to say he committed heinous crimes but apologies don't erase the way people act or think. Apologies mean very little to me, honestly, I care more about what people do.

what else can Karkat do at this point aside from apologise? I'm not saying that apologies fix everything, but acting like it isn't good enough doesn't accomplish anything. He's telling you that he didn't mean to cause offence. Hopefully from this point he's not going to make the same mistake again and be more conscious of this kind of slip-up. I would hate to think that if I offended you, there wouldn't be anything I could do about it because apologies don't mean anything to you.

Because it's the right thing to do. That's like saying 'why should people support freedom' or 'why should people support having food' or 'why should people support air'. Not supporting it is wrong.

Yes, it is the right thing to do! However, this is not apparent to everyone: most people aren't educated in feminism and quiltbag ideas and so they don't know it's even an issue most of the time. The world isn't split into people who are feminists and people who are against feminists; most people don't even know about it. People start from the bare minimum, and asking questions.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here...? Karkat didn't even say he doesn't like my attitude, Hawke did, and Hawke insinuated that I'd lost an ally. But I'm still not sure what you're saying...

"They should be allies because, you know, it's the right thing. If they are dissuaded because someone is bitter? Then they were not allies to begin with. So if Karkat decides he does not want to be an ally because he dislikes my attitude? I don't think that is a big loss."

This is what I am referring to! It's completely unfair to say that they weren't an ally to begin with, just because they're dissuaded like that. I would be (and often am) dissuaded in the same way, because there's so much hostility that follows these threads. I also consider myself an ally. It's really hurtful to try and help to understand these things to be met with hostility. It feels like it doesn't matter if I care about these things or not if people I like/respect are going to be hostile about it when I do care. Most of the issues in this thread do not affect me whatsoever (in fact, most stuff that feminism discusses doesn't). But I want to know about these things so I can make it easier for people I know who are affected by this stuff.

I'm really sorry I made you feel that way. Honestly, I am. Please realize that I felt that way too. When people say that masculinity/femininity = male/female, it is honestly infuriating to me. Honestly, I'm angry now, and I feel like my anger has no place in this forum, or this thread; I feel like this is a thread about gender, and I felt like I had a place in this thread, but now I don't because someone who has no idea what gender even is stepped in.

You do have a place in this thread - but everyone else does, too. I want this thread to be educational, instead of a giant argument between people who aren't as informed on this stuff and people who are. I myself am not an expert on these issues and I wanted to learn more - hence, thread. I think it's generally agreed upon that this forum should be a more inclusive space, and I think this would be at least one way to accomplish that. People who don't know much about this stuff should be able to learn about it without feeling like they aren't welcome.

in any case maybe I'm just stressed and making a big deal out of this, but I would really like it if we could have much less hostility in this thread.

 

[shy ♡]

It's rude to call someone something negative.

Well, if that's how it works, then look at all the negative things uv and Hawke said about me. :v I don't think I was the rudest of the bunch, honestly.

But, I think it is more rude to lie and not say what you are thinking, unless you think what you say will hurt the person too much.

 

[shy ♡]

It's not so much what you said - it's fine to say that it's already been discussed - but you're being condescending. That doesn't seem to be what you meant to do, but it's how it came across.

Iiii can't really control that?

what else can Karkat do at this point aside from apologise? I'm not saying that apologies fix everything, but acting like it isn't good enough doesn't accomplish anything. He's telling you that he didn't mean to cause offence. Hopefully from this point he's not going to make the same mistake again and be more conscious of this kind of slip-up. I would hate to think that if I offended you, there wouldn't be anything I could do about it because apologies don't mean anything to you.

Well, he could do what I suggested and read the thread, or word his questions better. Like I said, it is action that matters to me, and he made no good ones except for apologizing (which does matter, but not as much as actually changing behavior). I can't actually answer his questions in a way that helps him if I have no idea what he is asking, or if his questions are triggering to me.

(Also you are starting from a much higher point than he is, since I don't even know him, and I do know you, so if you offended me it wouldn't be really the same as if a stranger did... just semantics here.)

Yes, it is the right thing to do! However, this is not apparent to everyone: most people aren't educated in feminism and quiltbag ideas and so they don't know it's even an issue most of the time. The world isn't split into people who are feminists and people who are against feminists; most people don't even know about it. People start from the bare minimum, and asking questions.

"They should be allies because, you know, it's the right thing. If they are dissuaded because someone is bitter? Then they were not allies to begin with. So if Karkat decides he does not want to be an ally because he dislikes my attitude? I don't think that is a big loss."

This is what I am referring to! It's completely unfair to say that they weren't an ally to begin with, just because they're dissuaded like that. I would be (and often am) dissuaded in the same way, because there's so much hostility that follows these threads. I also consider myself an ally. It's really hurtful to try and help to understand these things to be met with hostility. It feels like it doesn't matter if I care about these things or not if people I like/respect are going to be hostile about it when I do care. Most of the issues in this thread do not affect me whatsoever (in fact, most stuff that feminism discusses doesn't). But I want to know about these things so I can make it easier for people I know who are affected by this stuff.

See, this is what I'm talking about. You are dissuaded from a belief because of members in that group; it makes no sense. You don't have to be a party in the group. You don't have to like the people. You just have to believe they are people and have rights. If you interact with, let's say, a black person, and that person is mean to you; and then we'll escalate that and you interact with lots of people of colour and they're all mean to you (maybe you asked rude questions about not being white and expected them all to explain this to you, maybe they're just bitter because life is difficult as a poc); if you come away from this thinking, "Hey, you know what? All the people of colour I've met were mean to me and hurt my feelings so I don't think I need to fight for their rights. I don't think they even need rights", then I don't think you are a worthy ally.

I think a worthy ally is someone who fights for causes because they know it is right. Not because maybe they want people who belong to those causes to show them appreciation, or something along that line, I don't know. Just because it's right. That's the only reason necessary.

If you want information that is an entirely different issue.

You do have a place in this thread - but everyone else does, too. I want this thread to be educational, instead of a giant argument between people who aren't as informed on this stuff and people who are. I myself am not an expert on these issues and I wanted to learn more - hence, thread. I think it's generally agreed upon that this forum should be a more inclusive space, and I think this would be at least one way to accomplish that. People who don't know much about this stuff should be able to learn about it without feeling like they aren't welcome.

in any case maybe I'm just stressed and making a big deal out of this, but I would really like it if we could have much less hostility in this thread.

I try to be educational and inform people, honestly. It's just very hard for me to reiterate the same point over and over again. Consider that this isn't the only place I get asked that question; maybe I don't have to answer his question, but maybe he could have taken the time to find the dozen other posts where it was answered. I'm more than willing, and actually enjoy, answering questions that are written in a way I understand and not triggering. If someone else wants to answer other questions, go ahead, I can't stop them.

 

[Crazy Linoone]

Um.

Not to be a mini-mod or anything, but can someone please answer Karkat's question? I kind of want to know the answer; I asked the same one a while back (twice, in fact), but both of them got buried under a bunch of people ragging about random things and nobody ended up answering my question... Here are my questions again. I think this is what Karkat was trying to ask as well; apologies if it's not the case. I also apologize if I accidentally offended someone somehow; I had tried my best to phrase my questions in a politically correct manner and will try not to make the same mistake next time if I do offend someone accidentally.

Okay, I'm kind of still confused about this whole gender identity thing. I mean, I understand why people are transsexual* (if you look at your bits and feel an urge to yank it out and it makes you depressed because you hate it, etc etc), but since I view gender as a total socially-induced thing, I don't really understand the difference between transgender people and the people who are just breaking social norms to do whatever they want. So, a question:

Assuming that all gender conceptions don't exist and all male and female and whatever people are treated equally (dresses aren't a female-only thing, males can have long hair tied up in pretty ribbons, females are viewed as just as competent in engineering and computer science, both males and females have equal responsibility in asking their significant other to the prom, etc.), would transgender people still exist?

*By transsexual, I mean people who would like to change their bits, hormones, etc. They don't necessarily need to have changed their bits or are planning to change their bits (maybe they can't afford it or they don't think the operation is good enough). By transgender, I mean people who are guys but have female bits and girls who have male bits who have no plan to change them/would not change them if they can do so. Just a clarification so we don't end up arguing over words.

In an attempt to go back on topic, I will rephrase and repost my question which kinda got drowned in all the drama.

I understand that gender identity is important to a lot of people. What I don't understand is why. This could be because I view gender as a completely socially induced thing. Thus, I'm trying to clarify the whole concept of gender so I can actually understand it.

So a question for everyone: Do you think that gender is a completely socially induced thing? If not, then what makes transgender people transgender?

Also, this is actually on-topic. Yay.

 

[shy ♡]

Bluh.

Me:

Gender is just what you feel you are. It's a marker for yourself. I am this. I am not that. It does not mean I can't do laundry or something. It just means I am this. It's like a name. If you were assigned a name at birth and you hate it, you would want to change it. You'd feel pretty crap with that old, terrible name that you hate until you got to change it.

I don't understand why gender identity and gender roles have to be interconnected. Gender identity would be tied to sex. Connection to gender roles is societal; gender identity is just, it's just who you are. Honestly, if we got rid of gender roles, we'd still have gender because we still have bodies.

I mean that, to a certain extent, people are male-bodied and female-bodied, and obviously there are those that do not fit those categories. But there will always be people who are male-bodied and female-bodied, and that creates gender; like how can you have a sex without thinking about it at all? Someone would eventually realize hey, I'm female. Or male. Or agender or gender-neutral or something. Because it works with or against their body.

Jolty:

If gender as we know it did not exist and everyone was free to do whatever they wanted without anyone giving a sod, I myself would still transition because I would still be stuck with boobs and a voice that I despise to death and looking like a little kid. And I'd still hate all of it.
So I guess people who transition largely due to body dysphoria would still do so, whereas people who don't intend to get hormone treatment/SRS/etc... if there's no such thing as gender, then what would be the point??

We are sort of getting at the same point here. Gender identity is related to body dysphoria and the realization that (well this was my realization I don't mean to put words into other trans* peoples mouths) you were born wrong. It would exist without gender constructs because it has nothing to do with it; it is, in my eyes, simply a body deformity. Again, I can't speak for trans* folk who believe their body is male because they are male, etc. and do not wish to transition; I can only speak for myself. But to me it is basically like I was born with a tumour and I need to have it removed because it is cancerous, and it would still be cancerous if society did not have negative connotations connected to cancer (beyond the idea that if you have it you die, you know).

I can't explain what it means to feel like you are male/female/otherwise. It's not really a thing or a feeling, it's just a knowledge, you know you are. Just like you know you are human or that you breathe or something, you just know you are. Sometimes it takes a while to realize it, but... it's just... knowledge, and you can't really explain that?

Other posts about gender identity.

 

[Crazy Linoone]

Ummm, I'm still confused. I thought there's this big distinction between gender and sex? But then you said:

We are sort of getting at the same point here. Gender identity is related to body dysphoria and the realization that (well this was my realization I don't mean to put words into other trans* peoples mouths) you were born wrong. It would exist without gender constructs because it has nothing to do with it; it is, in my eyes, simply a body deformity. Again, I can't speak for trans* folk who believe their body is male because they are male, etc. and do not wish to transition; I can only speak for myself. But to me it is basically like I was born with a tumour and I need to have it removed because it is cancerous, and it would still be cancerous if society did not have negative connotations connected to cancer (beyond the idea that if you have it you die, you know).

I understand why people are transsexual. Hating your bits and wanting to change them is totally natural and understandable. What I don't understand is why people are transgender. I understand it for those people who doesn't want to change their sex because it's too expensive/not good enough, but I don't understand the transgender people who are perfectly okay with their body parts and only wants to change their gender. I said that in my question but I suppose I wasn't too clear...?

I suppose if it's just a thing, like how being gay is a thing and being straight is a thing, then I can understand that. However, that means that gender is not purely a social construct, as I previously thought. If this is so, then what is gender?

Unless I'm confusing gender with sex here. As I far as I know, gender is what you identify as, and sex is what your bits are, am I correct? So a transsexual person would have their bits corrected (or at least would want their bits corrected), but a transgender won't.

I'm sorry if I seem like an idiot or is being really offensive with my idiocy, but I'm just trying to understand this...

 

[Jolty]

Unless I'm confusing gender with sex here. As I far as I know, gender is what you identify as, and sex is what your bits are, am I correct? So a transsexual person would have their bits corrected (or at least would want their bits corrected), but a transgender won't.

I think someone made a post earlier about transgender and transsexual meaning pretty much the same thing, just that transgender is becoming more commonly used or something

 

[shy ♡]

Also re: transexual/transgender, it is mostly just a personal preference, however some people prefer transexual because they are changing their sex and not their gender. I prefer transgender just because I prefer how it sounds, but I don't particularly mind either.

The official meaning is that transgender is when do not identify with the gender assigned to you at birth but you are, at least for now, not transitioning physically. Transexual means you are transitioning physically. But again, the working definition is just personal preference.

Please don't use the official definition, Linoone, no one will understand you. Also never ever use transexual as a verb.

 

[Zero Moment]

Please don't use the official definition, Linoone, no one will understand you. Also never ever use transexual as a verb.

I don't believe they did?

 

[nastypass]

The post does say "I understand why people transsexual", but I just thought she'd accidentally failed to type "are" in there.

 

[Crazy Linoone]

I think someone made a post earlier about transgender and transsexual meaning pretty much the same thing, just that transgender is becoming more commonly used or something

...That could be why I'm confusing everyone..! I thought transgender and transsexual are different things.

Also never ever use transexual as a verb.

Uh yeah, that was a typo. It's fixed now. Sorry about that.

I suppose I should rephrase my question then: are there people (I'm pretty sure there are, but it wouldn't hurt to check) who are perfectly okay with their bits but want to change their genders (aka the people who would "officially" be called transgender), and if there are such people, why would they want to change their gender instead of just doing whatever they want regardless of their gender?

 

[surskitty]

They're not changing their gender; they are whatever gender they are. They might, say, have been assigned female and present as male and have no intention of surgically altering their body.

 

[Crazy Linoone]

Mrf. Here's my inability to phrase anything properly coming to bite me in the butt again.

I suppose the question will now boil down to: what is the thought process of the people who are okay with their body but not okay with the gender most people think of when they see a person of that sort of body?

Hopefully I didn't phrase anything wrong this time...

 

[Hiikaru]

pathos: You keep saying people should just look things up, but how can they? Lots of times they're not really sure enough what it is they're wondering to be able to find anything about it (there's lots of vocabulary they're not aware exists, or they're really confused about how to phrase their questions). Are they just supposed to look up blogs about gender and read through all of them? And then hope they're actually good and accurate blogs, because since they don't have any of those feelings themselves, they're not really sure how to tell?

Also lots of times people just don't know that there's anything amiss that they even could look up. In those cases telling people they should have just looked it up doesn't really make sense - they're just going to have to either make the mistake and get corrected, or have someone randomly come up to them and teach them about it.

Also gender stuff is a really big deal for me and I still don't know any gender resources or how to find any. So how can someone who doesn't know anything about it have them?

I think you've said before that you just "taught yourself" about all the problems and looked things up on your own, but how did you find anything about it? What did you do? (Also, you kind of have a headstart on a lot of people since you already knew something was wrong.)

Also! It meshes perfectly well with me that people could read the whole thread and still not get it. Still having a question, even if it's been answered before, doesn't mean they didn't read, it just means it's a really confusing subject and it's really tough for people to explain and then even the really good explanations don't always make sense to everyone! And I think the discussion has helped some people understand a bit, too - so they definitely can learn, it's just really tough.

Mrf. Here's my inability to phrase anything properly coming to bite me in the butt again.

I suppose the question will now boil down to: what is the thought process of the people who are okay with their body but not okay with the gender most people think of when they see a person of that sort of body?

Hopefully I didn't phrase anything wrong this time...

Well, what bothers me is that when a big majority of people look at me, they're already making up all sorts of things about me that just aren't even close to true based on stereo-types, and lots of times if I'd try to correct them and say no, I don't think $thing, they'd actually argue with me about it. Even though surely I must be the authority on my own feelings...?

Every day people are deciding things I *must* be like just because I happen to have a particular set of body parts, even people in my family! And it doesn't really matter too much that people mean well; it still feels icky.

If I could have something that told people "no, I'm not that gender" then that would at least help some, even if it got ignored a lot or if people told me I shouldn't feel that way it's wrong. Like online I can just not fill in a gender field and then people don't get to see what I look like to make assumptions. It's common for people to just decide I'm a boy or a girl (hi, binary) and then still make assumptions, but they're less certain assumptions, and if I correct them they're more likely to give up on thinking an assumption. If I could make that be a thing in real life, too, that would be really helpful.

When I first started figuring out I had bad feelings, I thought I'd feel better presenting myself as opposite, but then after trying to online for a while, I figured out that felt bad, too. People still made lots of assumptions that they wouldn't let go of!

All the assumptions kind of do make me feel icky about how I am physically, but it's not really what bothers me. If I'm left alone about it for a while, I don't feel icky about it. It's still weird, but I don't think the weirdness is that attached to how I feel about my gender. Some of it, sure, maybe! But I think, too, a lot of it is just regular uncomfortable feelings that anyone has - and I've thought about it and I think for the most part changing how I look wouldn't make me happier just by itself. It would be nice if I could look like I wasn't either sex so that people wouldn't make things up, but just on my own I don't think it would help. And it would be scary to change that, too!

If there were zero stereo-types and no one made assumptions ever, I don't know if I ever would have felt bad! Maybe I would have - it seems a little odd that I wouldn't ever figure out I wasn't cisgendered. But maybe I wouldn't have, too!

Also maybe you could say "perceived gender" to make it easier to talk about?

 

[Phantom]

So I've noticed more people using these pronouns. And it's confusing the hell out of my brain. I'm sorry but every time I see ' e ' used I keep thinking they're talking like Hagrid or that their 'h' key doesn't work. My brain just doesn't work on that frequency yet. I mean I understand them, and the reason for them, but I keep having to find myself double reading things because my brain keeps looking at... like 'eir' and my brain stops and thinks, "Wtf word is that?...oh wait, that. Right...".

 

[Ether's Bane]

Sorry for the mini-derail, but any opinions on the following:

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1014003--swedish-preschool-takes-aim-at-gender-stereotypes

STOCKHOLM—At the “Egalia” preschool, staff avoid using words like “him” or “her” and address the 33 kids as “friends” rather than girls and boys.

From the colour and placement of toys to the choice of books, every detail has been carefully planned to make sure the children don’t fall into gender stereotypes.

“Society expects girls to be girly, nice and pretty and boys to be manly, rough and outgoing,” says Jenny Johnsson, a 31-year-old teacher. “Egalia gives them a fantastic opportunity to be whoever they want to be.”

The taxpayer-funded preschool which opened last year in the liberal Sodermalm district of Stockholm for kids aged one to six is among the most radical examples of Sweden’s efforts to engineer equality between the sexes from childhood onward.

Breaking down gender roles is a core mission in the national curriculum for preschools, underpinned by the theory that even in highly egalitarian-minded Sweden, society gives boys an unfair edge.

To even things out, many preschools have hired “gender pedagogues” to help staff identify language and behaviour that risk reinforcing stereotypes.

Some parents worry things have gone too far. An obsession with obliterating gender roles, they say, could make the children confused and ill-prepared to face the world outside kindergarten.

“Different gender roles aren’t problematic as long as they are equally valued,” says Tanja Bergkvist, a 37-year-old blogger and a leading voice against what she calls “gender madness” in Sweden.

Those bent on shattering gender roles “say there’s a hierarchy where everything that boys do is given higher value, but I wonder who decides that it has higher value,” she says. “Why is there higher value in playing with cars?”

At Egalia — the title connotes “equality” — boys and girls play together with a toy kitchen, waving plastic utensils and pretending to cook. One boy hides inside the toy stove, his head popping out through a hole.

Lego bricks and other building blocks are intentionally placed next to the kitchen, to make sure the children draw no mental barriers between cooking and construction.

Director Lotta Rajalin notes that Egalia places a special emphasis on fostering an environment tolerant of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. From a bookcase she pulls out a story about two male giraffes who are sad to be childless — until they come across an abandoned crocodile egg.

Nearly all the children’s books deal with homosexual couples, single parents or adopted children. There are no “Snow White,” “Cinderella” or other classic fairy tales seen as cementing stereotypes.

Rajalin, 52, says the staff also try to help the children discover new ideas when they play.

“A concrete example could be when they’re playing ‘house’ and the role of the mom already is taken and they start to squabble,” she says. “Then we suggest two moms or three moms and so on.”

Egalia’s methods are controversial; some say they amount to mind control. Rajalin says the staff have received threats from racists apparently upset about the preschool’s use of black dolls.

But she says that there’s a long waiting list for admission to Egalia, and that only one couple has pulled a child out of the school.

Jukka Korpi, 44, says he and his wife chose Egalia “to give our children all the possibilities based on who they are and not on their gender.”

Sweden has promoted women’s rights for decades, and more recently was a pioneer among European countries in allowing gay and lesbian couples to legalize their partnerships and adopt children.

Gender studies permeate academic life in Sweden. Bergkvist noted on her blog that the state-funded Swedish Science Council had granted $80,000 for a postdoctoral fellowship aimed at analyzing “the trumpet as a symbol of gender.”

Jay Belsky, a child psychologist at the University of California, Davis, said he’s not aware of any other school like Egalia, and he questioned whether it was the right way to go.

“The kind of things that boys like to do — run around and turn sticks into swords — will soon be disapproved of,” he said. “So gender neutrality at its worst is emasculating maleness.”

Egalia is unusual even for Sweden. Staff try to shed masculine and feminine references from their speech, including the pronouns him or her — “han” or “hon” in Swedish. Instead, they’ve have adopted the genderless “hen,” a word that doesn’t exist in Swedish but is used in some feminist and gay circles.

“We use the word ‘hen’ for example when a doctor, police, electrician or plumber or such is coming to the kindergarten,” Rajalin says. “We don’t know if it’s a he or a she so we just say ‘Hen is coming around 2 p.m.’ Then the children can imagine both a man or a woman. This widens their view.”

Egalia doesn’t deny the biological differences between boys and girls — the dolls the children play with are anatomically correct.

What matters is that children understand that their biological differences “don’t mean boys and girls have different interests and abilities,” Rajalin says. “This is about democracy. About human equality.”

Just what is needed, or going too far?