@RolloTreadway @GTMLosAngeles @autistic.me @actuallyautistic
I'm very confused at the idea of feeling gender.
I only understood gender as being gaslit that I can't/shouldn't be who I am. I keep SHE to recognise my history of female suppression. I wear dresses to avoid trouser seams. I FEAR macho culture but fem norms = daft. My body doesn't feel wrong or right just weird.
Does any of this touch on what's meant by feeling gender? To me it's mystifying - like talk of experiencing God.
@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 when I say "women", I mean all women; cis and trans.
I feel like biological women is a contentious label. Also I hate afab ftr Like okay a doctor x many years ago put a big fat F on my birth certificate, big deal. Doesn't mean shit about who i am. It's just more shifting of goal posts albeit in a gender essentialist direction.
@Susan60 @marytzu @juliasnz @FrightenedRat @RolloTreadway @autistic.me @actuallyautistic
Please consider what that sounds like to hope that no one will care about gender. That’s akin to hoping no one cares about who you are, about some of your most personal interests and values. Of course there will be variation, but care about the variation that individuals identify. It matters.
To hope that no one be devalued or diminished, ignored or denigrated, due to their gender, that seems admirable. If that is what you mean, then maybe you mean to hope that we each care inclusively of any gender.
@GTMLosAngeles @Susan60 @marytzu @juliasnz @RolloTreadway
So if gender's not about physiology, or sex/rom tastes, to me that leaves arbitrary behavioural norms which get coerced on people. Some rebel. A subset reverse pronouns (which doesn't end coercion) & also bio markers (despite bio being irrelevant 😕).
The talk is what gender ISN''T - but if it's akin to core values could you give a +ive example & explain how that example necessarily links to *being man/woman* rather than generic person?
@FrightenedRat @Susan60 @marytzu @juliasnz @RolloTreadway
My 10-year old cisgender daughter talks about being a girl in a very fluid and comfortable manner, inclusive of activities not stereotypically female but glimmering in many things that are stereotypically female. It seems like a very comfortable and unrestrictive orbit for her.
My 10-year old enby talks about what they want and like and gets anxiously triggered by gender lines of any sort - bathroom signage or clothing categories, for example.
My 14-year old trans girl has similarly broad interests as our cisgender girl, appreciates the security of the “girl” orbit, but feels like she constantly has to course-correct (or deliberately decide not to course-correct).
In other words, I feel like they each have an innate sense of identity with gender as a component with wide variation among them. Over the years, they each let us know what gender identity best matches their inner state with social expectations.
My own experience has been fighting to stay in the boy orbit for decades, without ever realizing how much effort it was taking.
Perhaps that helps answer your question. But every experience may be unique.
@FrightenedRat @Susan60 @marytzu @juliasnz @RolloTreadway
As a further example, with the same teachers: we go shopping for clothes. The store has a girls section and a boys section.
Cisgender girl appreciates the girls section plans to make use of it, and knows that she will prefer the clothes there, but she’s happy to venture into the boys section to get a t-shirt with a character that she likes.
Enby is annoyed at the whole process, goes directly to the same choice of clothing every time, and wonders why they even have to be there at all.
Trans girl appreciates the girls section and uses it, but she knows it will be a struggle trying to find items that feel right.
I’m trying to convey the interaction between internal state and social expectations that they each navigate differently. This is just one of many, many factors they juggle every day. That juggling process is easier for some and harder for others, and changes for different social contexts, but the result always reflects a gender identity. And it is always easier when those around each of them are aware of and supportive of that gender identity.
@GTMLosAngeles @Susan60 @marytzu @juliasnz @RolloTreadway
I really appreciate your taking the time to reply. I was disappointed though because to me that's just interacting with the nonsense choices society lays out for us with it's fake Fem/Masc divides (not to mention navigating shops + fabrics/sizings etc 🤮). [I bought a sewing machine at 16 & only wore stuff I made.]
Am I looking for something deep when it really just is one's tolerance for an arbitrary norm set with arbitrary boundaries?
@FrightenedRat @Susan60 @marytzu @juliasnz @RolloTreadway
The experience you describe sounds closest, among my three examples, to our enby child. What you may be missing is that your experience is very different than what the other two kids experience. Our cisgender girl feels a very deep and powerful connection to her gender identity as a girl. She notices arbitrary norms and arbitrary boundaries, but those are secondary. She has tolerance for those that she comes up against in our society, but she would have less tolerance in a society more restrictive for girls. But that change in tolerance has no effect on her sense of being a girl."
When you ask if you are looking for something deep, the best I can see is that there is something deep for some and not something deep for others. It varies, but it is a different dimension entirely from tolerance for boundaries.
@GTMLosAngeles @Susan60 @marytzu @juliasnz @RolloTreadway
I suppose by "something deep" I mean something transcending society's fleeting prescriptions - a universal to apply in any place or time.
You imply there is maybe a primal instinct at play - maybe I lack it or aren't good at interoception of it, or am too fixated on finding explicit rules.
Again the analogy that occurs is that some folks *feel" God, it doesn't fit my xp/beliefs, but I've learned not to deny its significance for them.
@FrightenedRat @GTMLosAngeles @Susan60 @juliasnz @RolloTreadway I think its like allistic masking. You don't *feel* it unless you don't have it. Or it's in conflict with something else.
My two cents. Sorry if I sound like a broken record, lol.
@marytzu @GTMLosAngeles @Susan60 @juliasnz @RolloTreadway
Gender expectations are super alienating, but since EVERYTHING about fitting society alienates I wasn't motivated to class it as special - partly because I find the m/f norms too nonsensical to grant them legitimacy (especially if hived off from physical/hormonal woes).
So there's conflict. I'm sceptical that I'm living the Cis dream. But I process concepts more than feels. Do I need to FEEL some gender to be Agender? Because that's 🤯💥
@FrightenedRat @marytzu @GTMLosAngeles @juliasnz @RolloTreadway
I wouldn’t read too much into it. What matters is that you feel comfortable & authentic. I think that’s how my enby oldest now feels. I’m happy to identify as female & be recognised as such, as long as I am respected & people’s outdated ideas of what it “means” to be a woman aren’t foisted onto me. (Which does happen occasionally of course, & I’m apprehensive about being treated like an “old lady”.)
@Susan60 @marytzu @GTMLosAngeles @juliasnz @RolloTreadway
Yes, you are right. None of this impacts my belief that people should be free to express themselves how they want. And if society insists on making male female divides, folks must be free to choose where to place themselves.
My difficulties aren't about how to be me or how to behave but how to understand the topic - my brain yearns to grasp the ontology & epistemology & have clear logical statements.
But that's not how one peoples.
@FrightenedRat @marytzu @GTMLosAngeles @juliasnz @RolloTreadway
😁 Or it’s not how most people people. A source of consternation for many of us.
@Susan60 @GTMLosAngeles @juliasnz @RolloTreadway
@FrightenedRat One very easy thing you can do if you think you might not be cis, is to make an alternate account with male bio, pronouns, avatar.
Use it for a week (less than that, the sample size might be too low). See how it feels.
If it feels no different then yeah maybe that's a sign of being NB or agender. If it feels right, maybe trans masc. If it feels wrong, you're probably a cis woman.
@FrightenedRat @marytzu @GTMLosAngeles @juliasnz @RolloTreadway
I was once referred to as “mate” when standing next to a man at a deli counter. I was wearing shorts, t-shirt & runners, short hair. He then looked at me properly & was most embarrassed. I laughed & said it wasn’t a problem, which it wasn’t. But I suspect he still felt terrible, which is a shame.
FrightenedRat 🏴
Marytzu
Julie Smith
Looking for explanations…
TheClothesHaveNoEmperor