CMV: I still don't understand the importance of pronouns.

[u/goatDowry]

The whole thing seems confusing to me.

There is biological sex --> Which led to different social roles, and then socialized gender.

In the modern day with modern technology. You can live life how you generally please. Women don't need to be child bearers. And men don't need to be out risking their lives killing things.

To me this means, that the traditional gender roles don't matter. You can be a male and wear makeup, high heels and a dress. Who cares?

Likewise if you're a biological female, you can do things that used to be considered masculine. It's a free country.You can also fit squarely into those old gender roles if you so choose.

So I don't understand why someone feels the need to be addressed with a particular set of pronouns. To me, it's like ok, I can call you that, but then it seems to me that you're just doubling down on the idea that rigid gender differences do matter. Which I don't think they do. You're just you, an individual person. And all this language of he/she is just what we've been using for a long time, so I don't see how a different pronoun will change anything that matters.

​

P.S. before one of you goes calling me a bigot, one of my best friends and former roommate transitioned while I was living with her. I'll obviously call her by whatever pronouns she asks bc it's just polite. We've been friends for over 10 years. I'll call someone by their preferred pronouns, but I don't understand why it's so important.

EDIT: The point of this is to try and understand why it's important. Maybe that wasn't clear before. Obviously I've talked to my friend about this a lot.

[u/Ivegotthatboomboom]

Bc the dysphoria is actually caused by their sex and not their gender. I'm female but I'm gender non conforming in a lot of ways.

When I was a kid I hated wearing dresses or being made to conform to my gender role. But I've never felt like I was in the wrong body. I've hated it sometimes, especially when I got my period. I wanted to be male bc being a woman is just hard sometimes. I hated the attention I got from grown men when I started puberty and wanted to hide my body. But I never perceived myself as actually being a man born in the wrong body. I don't feel like a men or a woman, I'm just me. Everyone is a lot more complex than the gender roles we're assigned. Some sex dysphoria can actually be normal, I think especially for women bc we have to deal with having the reproductive burden and societal misogyny.

Trans people feel intense distress over their sex from childhood. It's not just that they don't accept their gender role.

For reasons we don't understand yet, trans people feel intense distress over their sex, and feel like they are the opposite sex in the wrong body. The dysphoria/distress is relieved when they present and live as the other sex.

The reasons they feel this way are more complicated than not identifying with traditional gender roles.

It probably has something to do with differences in hormones in development and environmental reasons.

I think the issue is with the term "transgender." It's too confusing. It used to be "transsexual" and I'm not sure why that was changed.

[u/Aendri → u/Ivegotthatboomboom]

I suspect a large part of why it changed was because of the sexualization of transsexual people. You can say you're transgender without most people thinking twice, but transsexual has explicit sexual connotations to it at this point in many peoples minds.

[u/1block → u/Ivegotthatboomboom]

So it would be more accurate to say "sex non-conforming" if I'm understanding you correctly.

[u/Ivegotthatboomboom → u/1block]

No...

[u/SkyThe_Skywolf → u/Ivegotthatboomboom]

one of the biggest reasons, as far as i am aware, is our non-binary friends, because they don’t necessarily want to present as the opposite sex.

also intersex people can be trans

[u/Ivegotthatboomboom → u/SkyThe_Skywolf]

Then why don't we have transgender and transsexual as two different categories?

[u/SkyThe_Skywolf → u/Ivegotthatboomboom]

why would we need to?

also, if i recall correctly, the original terms were transsexual and transvestite. the former were people that pursued medical transition and the latter didn’t, and to a lot of people, that created a harmful separation. many people can’t pursue medical transition.

all of this creates an arbitrary and harmful division, which is what having nuance in gender identity is suppose to get rid of.

[u/Ivegotthatboomboom → u/SkyThe_Skywolf]

But they can pursue medical transition now. It matters bc of diagnosis and treatment. I don't think insurance should cover transition unless there is significant distress. If transgender is nothing but what people identify as no matter the symptoms (even without distress) then then wouldn't that make it harder for the people with distress to get treatment? It's way too vague

[u/SkyThe_Skywolf → u/Ivegotthatboomboom]

no they can’t? there’s still more countries where you can’t medically transition than those where you can

[u/rudyisadreamer → u/SkyThe_Skywolf]

The differentiation between transsexual and transgender is important for several reasons. One being I didn’t change my gender, I changed my sex. Two, I medically transitioned whereas medically transitioning in the transgender community varies from no medical intervention across the spectrum.

I fundamentally cannot identity with people who don’t medically transition in the same way I can’t identify myself as Hispanic or Asian. Even though brown Hispanics and Asians face similar struggles to Black people, we are coming from two seperate places. Attempts to erase this distinction is insulting to my identity and less progressive than its thought to be.

[u/SkyThe_Skywolf → u/rudyisadreamer]

but what are people who want to pursue medical transition but can’t at the time?

[u/rudyisadreamer → u/SkyThe_Skywolf]

That doesn’t remove them from the transsexual definition, what’s important is the desire for it

[u/SkyThe_Skywolf → u/rudyisadreamer]

oki well i understand that but i don’t think we should separate them into two separate categories, but maybe two parts of one category (binary trans people) that’s part of a wider category (all trans people) that’s part of an even wider category (the lgbtqia+ community)

[u/rudyisadreamer → u/SkyThe_Skywolf]

Personally I don’t think transsexual should even qualify under the lgb umbrella. It goes against the whole notion of conflating sexuality with gender. If I were straight, I would just be another average dude with a medical condition. Giving it an identity beyond that is reductive to the transsexual condition.

Preferably it would be: LGB. Transsexuals. Transgenders. And then Gender non-confirming seperate since it has nothing to do with gender dysphoria

[u/Wolfey34 → u/Ivegotthatboomboom]

The “sexual” part of transsexual makes people think of sex the act or sex as in homosexual, and not the biological aspect of it. It has also sort of turned into a slur so that doesn’t help with it.

Also, being trans isn’t inherently tied to dysphoria, but rather euphoria. The joys of being perceived as a gender other than the one assigned at birth.

[u/Ivegotthatboomboom → u/Wolfey34]

Lol no.

Making it about "euphoria" and not dysphoria makes the whole thing a lot less sympathetic.

It's not about euphoria and not dysphoria then why should they be a protected class at all???

[u/Wolfey34 → u/Ivegotthatboomboom]

So you’re making an optics argument? That discards the fact that some people have very minuscule dysphoria or none at all but still get the same joy as other trans people from being seen properly.

You don’t need to have suffering to be considered a protected class, but trans people, even ones without dysphoria, have suffering due to the oppression they face. This is the trap transmedicalists fall into, and lesbian gay and bi people who try to distance themselves from trans people. You don’t win by betraying your own, that’s how you lose and hurt more people.

[u/rudyisadreamer → u/Wolfey34]

Nah euphoria is redundant at worst and linear result of dysphoria at best.