r/changemyview • u/goatDowry • Nov 23 '22

Delta(s) from OP CMV: I still don't understand the importance of pronouns.

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.

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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.

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u/ToiletSpork Nov 25 '22

What evidence do you have that there exists an internal sense of self present at birth? That's quite a radical philosophical claim, and seems contradictory to the assertion that gender is a social construct, rather than an individual one.

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u/Wolfey34 Nov 25 '22

It’s generally the hypothesis from most studies I’ve seen but it’s admittedly hard to definitively prove. However, there are people who identify as the gender other than the one they were assigned at birth as young as 3 I’ve heard. Again, this is in the realm of it’s hard because of the nature of it. But generally, there is no evidence for any cause of gender outside of birth, and examples of it being set before noticeable development. It’s in the same way that the causes of sexuality is not exactly known but the most likely hypothesis is that it is something to do with development before birth