All: Why do a lot of trans people insist that being non binary or trans has nothing to to with stereotyoes, and then suddenly it really is about stereotypes?

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[–]Greensquidsphone 4 insightful - 8 fun4 insightful - 7 fun5 insightful - 8 fun -  (1 child)

Honestly a tough question to answer, especially for me since I was the exact opposite, but anyone who has had dysphoria from a young age has had a VERY warped experience with societal expectations of gender placed on them by society, their parents, their friends, etc. It wasn't my experience because from like 8-12 or 13 I was in hyper-repression mode (which obviously has a whole lot of other baggage but not relevant), but I think it's kind of hard to look at trans or nb people and say something like "well well well you say you don't uphold traditional gender roles but when you were 5 you looked up to your dad when he fixed the truck that one time explain yourself!" without taking into account that children are affected by society and take on a lot of influence from their parents without even realizing it. I don't really think it's reasonable to compare the actions of impressionable children to adults who have changed their own outlook and interaction with gender roles.

In other words I think it's reasonable to say "something like playing with dolls when I was 6 being raised around traditional gender roles is how I can safely say I knew" without that impeding any more current, reasoned view on gender roles and stereotypes being circumnavigated 15-20 years later.

[–]adungitit 18 insightful - 1 fun18 insightful - 0 fun19 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

anyone who has had dysphoria from a young age has had a VERY warped experience with societal expectations of gender placed on them by society, their parents, their friends, etc.

Considering the amount of trauma girls and women amass because of their female bodies, I don't think this is exclusive to trans people.

without taking into account that children are affected by society and take on a lot of influence from their parents without even realizing it.

We know. Which is why we're against transitioning children. And since we know how affected not only children but grownups are in our patriarchal society, this is also why we don't blindly believe any man the moment he uses "she/her" pronouns or any woman who's "not like other girls".

I don't really think it's reasonable to compare the actions of impressionable children to adults who have changed their own outlook and interaction with gender roles.

But doesn't the argument go that dysphoria is all about your brain having the opposite sex, and that by virtue of wanting to internalise all the opposite sex messaging, you are psychologically not any different from the girls and women who actually have experienced said messaging all their lives? When you have trans people almost universally claiming this, pointing out their history of gender conformity speaks volumes. To be clear, GC doesn't believe that gender conformity or nonconformity makes someone male or female. We just think that the way that trans people engage in these is pretty telling of the deeply rooted patriarchy inherent to the movement.

Moreover, the vast majority of adults never think about gender beyond the superficial patriarchal view on it, especially not men. Even self-proclaimed feminist men tend to be misogynists, let alone the progressives and liberals. It seems dishonest to then claim that a man becomes automatically immune to and purged of all of this because he claims he's a woman now, especially considering how rife trans communities are with sexist statements like the ones mentioned in this thread.