@FrightenedRat @RolloTreadway @GTMLosAngeles @autistic.me @actuallyautistic ime, you know it when you are denied it or it is coerced upon you.

When I came out as gay, that's when I was confronted by it. It wasn't really an issue for me before then (masking and gender, sure, but it didnt make me question anything).

You feel it when someone tries to tell you who you are or are not. A voice or feeling inside that replies, NO!

@FrightenedRat @RolloTreadway @GTMLosAngeles @autistic.me @actuallyautistic for me, being told that being attracted to women is a masc thing.

It's ridiculous now. But at the time I did believe it. And I believed that lesbians were *all* butch, and a whole bunch of other shit too.

For me, it's the voice saying "fuck you, liking women is now officially a woman thing".

@marytzu @RolloTreadway @GTMLosAngeles @autistic.me @actuallyautistic

I get reacting against being forced into a role that doesn't fit - like a male or female stereotype. Two responses:

1) society's gender expectations/categories are wrong.

2) I have a real internal gender different from what soc assigns.

I don't have a sense of internal non-imposed gender so went for 1). But I'm curious about what prompts 2) & if it's a +ive feel not a negation, & if most cis people have the same.

@FrightenedRat @RolloTreadway @GTMLosAngeles @autistic.me @actuallyautistic I suspect that if you have no strong feelings about it, you are cis.

Only oneself can define oneself, though.

Cis isn't a bad word. It's just an adjective that may or may not describe you.

@marytzu @RolloTreadway @GTMLosAngeles @autistic.me @actuallyautistic

But mightn't strong gender feelings tie to the 2 types of understanding above?

On the gender=normative language view, if someone (S)hes me & I don't notice behavioural assumptions, it doesn't impact my identity: I don't react. But to the extent that I notice their (S)he-ing invoking norms I'm 😡.

But on the gender-words-truly-map-to-internal-genders-with-matching-properties view, then all (mis)gendering invades id?

@marytzu @RolloTreadway @GTMLosAngeles @autistic.me @actuallyautistic
Gosh - looking at what I wrote 🔝 it seems I think gender language is muddled normative mess.

Most accept the historical norms as functional.

Some dismantle the concepts or try to reform them in a progressive logical way.

Some ... eh .. take the words literally?? As in begin from the view that the messy words do mean what they say ie map to something real. And, from that start, work to fix the mismatch with irl.
??

@marytzu @RolloTreadway @GTMLosAngeles @autistic.me @actuallyautistic

I'm aware that I'm thinking aloud about stuff which I truly don't understand, and which is really vitally important to others. And that's usually a bad look.

I really don't want to upset or offend anyone - my goal is always understanding, and the less I understand the more desperately I feel the need to make sense.

Apologies for my blundering. If anyone has the time energy & will to school me I'd be grateful.

@FrightenedRat @marytzu @RolloTreadway @GTMLosAngeles @autistic.me @actuallyautistic definitely not blundering 💝 you are questioning >>your<< understanding of the concepts & implications for >>yourself<< which that's in no way blundering at all 💖

It's different than denying or negating or pontificating about how <<other>> people should or should not "understand" something that I view as "blundering" ... sometimes that happens accidentally because of lack of awareness but sometimes it is someone's futile attempt to try & get <<other>> people to think or behave a way >>they<< feel more "comfortable" with 🤷‍♀️

@FrightenedRat @marytzu @RolloTreadway @GTMLosAngeles @autistic.me @actuallyautistic actually when I think about what I said... I recognize that it is a two edged sword... which probably reflects that I >>personally<< think there aren't as many absolutes as most people would like...

Also... I'm thinking that the attempts to constrain, direct or "control" others is really a stronger issue/conflict when disparate individuals feel "threatened" by others behavior 🤔 which is why when you have a community that likes >>you<< you're able to BE more you... but affiliation means you might find yourself doing stuff that doesn't exactly match your >>personal<< core values...

Like why would someone, who you knew as a kid as a really kind person, hook up with a bunch of people & then be seriously UNkind... what the @%/&< happened to that kindness!! Aaaarrggghhh! 😆

@Susan60 @juliasnz @FrightenedRat @RolloTreadway @GTMLosAngeles @autistic.me @actuallyautistic thanks everyone for sharing, it is interesting hearing your lived experience on the matter. info/emodump incoming, brave yourselves!

So I will share my framework for gender. We may not agree. That's fine. Disregard it if you wish. It's just some food for thought.

I think sex and gender in general are bimodal distributions (two peaks with a small offset and a large overlap). 1/

@Susan60 @juliasnz @FrightenedRat @RolloTreadway @GTMLosAngeles @autistic.me @actuallyautistic gender is a complicated abstraction of behaviours and probably other things too.

I think that while allistics have a bunch of subconscious social protocols that we do not have by default (hence the need to mask), there is another layer beneath that for gender.

There is an intersection there for gendered masking. But even without masking there is still gender. 2/

@Susan60 @juliasnz @FrightenedRat @RolloTreadway @GTMLosAngeles @autistic.me @actuallyautistic I think for the far majority of us, it is completely subconscious.

So just like talking to allistics about masking is pretty frustrating coz they just don't get it coz it's subconscious. It's similar for gender.

It's so hard to pin down because it's running in the background. It's only when gender.exe is in conflict with something else it forces a reboot 3/

@Susan60 @juliasnz @FrightenedRat @RolloTreadway @GTMLosAngeles @autistic.me @actuallyautistic I do suspect that just like autists generally do not have the social masking bloatware installed, some people naturally don't have gender sub-layers going on. What that looks like i don't know. But I think we can guess.

4/

@Susan60 @juliasnz @FrightenedRat @RolloTreadway @GTMLosAngeles @autistic.me @actuallyautistic controversial bit incoming, please don't hate me. I think this is why gender abolition is largely pointless.

Like if sufficient *women suddenly used as they/them pronouns. All it would do is flip the nomenclature. They/them would be the new mode of the distribution. It would effectively be a substitution, x=z. With no meaningful change. She/her would become the other 6/

@Susan60 @juliasnz @FrightenedRat @RolloTreadway @GTMLosAngeles @autistic.me @actuallyautistic and yeah please don't get me wrong. Everyone has the fundamental human right to identify however they wish. And I do not wish to impede on that.

I'm just making some macroscale observations here 7/

@Susan60 @juliasnz @FrightenedRat @RolloTreadway @GTMLosAngeles @autistic.me @actuallyautistic I don't think we can abolish gender.

If we try to, then all it is is a superficial change of wording.

I think a more productive endeavour is to reclaim and detoxify the genders and to eliminate coercion from it. 8/

@marytzu @Susan60 @FrightenedRat @RolloTreadway @GTMLosAngeles @autistic.me @actuallyautistic that's an excellent discussion of your thinking! Thanks for sharing 💝 I actually come at the gender thing from a, I guess it's different but to me it >>seems<< logical because... it is what I regularly observe so it's based on my "experience" ...

No idea if I'm going to be coherent because... pretty tired but I'll mumble & wave my arms figuratively & probably am so tired I won't notice when everyone goes... "huh? 😐".... 🤣💖

@marytzu @Susan60 @FrightenedRat @RolloTreadway @GTMLosAngeles @autistic.me @actuallyautistic okay... so, I work with animals particularly very special sheep... wild, not domesticated

Sheep are particularly interesting from a behavioral perspective because... about 10% of rams (male sheep) have a stable (it doesn't vary over time, like THEY know who they like) & very strong preference for... other rams & are completely uninterested in ewes (female sheep) which demonstrates clearly to me they are behaving >>naturally<< for THEMSELVES.

No one has told them they have to prefer something else & that they are "wrong" for having their own preference.

Add to that there's actually over 1500 different species of animals that have been directly observed engaging in same sex courtship, bonding, sharing parental duties.... like full on... I CHOOSE >>you<< & you are my mate behavior which is entirely based on their individual CHOICE & a mutual agreement between them that it's awesome & their thing... none of this omg you can't do that because...blah, blah, blah 🤣

A lot of these species have been around considerably longer than humans &... they are doing just fine... individuals' "choices" aren't leading them towards any kind of "apocalypse" 🙄 it appears they really just go with their own instincts for who they like & trust & want to hang out with...

So yeah, humans can fuss about "gender" labels & "preferences" but... they might be important for an individual to help them define themselves but the labels are just... labels 🤔💝