Reddit: If gender is a social construct. Doesn't that mean being transgender is a social construct too?

submitted by WildApples from self.GenderCritical

https://www.reddit.com/r/TooAfraidToAsk/comments/koaab4/if_gender_is_a_social_construct_doesnt_that_mean/

There is a lot of rationalizing and back-bending to try to validate transgenderism, but at least the overwhelming consensus is that sex is real and distinct and that gender is a social construct (and therefore so is transgenderism).

It is fascinating to see people try to reconcile acknowledging biological reality with still remaining on the supposed right side of the gender movement. I did not read all the thousands of comments, but I did not see anyone explain why if sex is real we need to use the BS "assigned at birth" rhetoric.

In other words, the word gender was never supposed to mean the same thing as “sex.” It was coined specifically to help talk about the non biological parts of perceived roles. It took years of misinformation to fully get to the current stage where some think gender==sex.

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I don't see how your sex is ASSIGNED. People have male and female genitalia (leaving out the aforementioned people with ambiguous genitalia). Their SEX is factual. That person does not need to conform to the social gender roles associated with those sex organs, however.

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So both being cisgender and being transgender are social constructs and are interdependent.

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Yes, being transgender means you're reinforcing stereotypes,

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Gender and sex are two different things. Sex is what you were born with and can't be changed. Your sex is what they require for many government forms as it correlates to your DNA

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[–]SnowAssMan 12 insightful - 2 fun12 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

Of course someone mentioned the David Reimer case & of course that comment got the most upvotes & awards. Here is how to respond to it (which I have done in the replies of that comment):

Sorry to rain on your parade but David Reimer was socialised a boy for the first 2 years of his life, then sexual abuse took its place under the guise of “re-socialisation”. So the major case purported to favour felt-gender theory, did the opposite.

Conversely, the vast majority of infant males assigned female at birth & socialised accordingly did not desist:

https://sites.oxy.edu/clint/physio/article/GenderIdentityOutcomeinFemaleRaised46XYPersonswithPenileAgenesisCloacalExstrophyoftheBladderorPenileAblation.pdf

[–]Vari4 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

My copy-pasta response:

People look at this study and think that because David was raised as a girl but still knew he was a boy there must therefore be some innate sense of gender hardwirded into us.

However, what people fail to consider is that David spend his entire childhood having people (including his parents, siblings, and doctors) poke and prod him about his gender and genitals.

Contrary to popular belief David was not raised as a girl. David was systematically sexually abused by a bunch of adults obsessed with his gender.

Now children are dumb. But they aren't that dumb. Any kid with a few neurons to rub togeather would understand that these adults were unto something and hiding information about him from him.

David found out that he was a boy by sneaking a peak at his medical records when the doctor was out of the room.

I don't think this case shows that David had an innate sense of boyness. I think it shows that he was rightly paranoid and suspicious of whatever the doctors were up to with their regiment of medications, injections, genital inspections, and simulated rape.

If this had happened to me i would have probably come to a similar conclusion.

[–]lefterfield 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's also worth noting that David Reimer's twin, the "normal" one who was also sexually and medically abused (but as a boy), killed himself two years before David. People seem to willfully forget that in favor of the narrative that David wasn't allowed to be his "authentic gender" and that's why he committed suicide. No, this was a story of a psychotic doctor who ruined the lives of both children, even well into adulthood.

[–]emptiedriver 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I don't think this case shows that David had an innate sense of boyness.

He also had a mutilated boy body. The idea that an "innate sense of boy-ness" was in his head is out of left field...

[–]WildApples[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I saw that and thought it strange. I did not realize people see the Reimer case as proof of the need for gender validation. I always saw it as quite the opposite, as a warning tale of medical hubris in trying to overcome biology.

I do not see how the conclusion that follows would be that gender is real and cannot be denied. The more simple and apparent conclusion would be that sex is real and cannot be denied, since he ultimately identified with his biological sex. To say he had a feeling of gender is a post-hoc rationalization similar to TRA attempts to paint lesbian and cross-dressing figures in history as transgender.

[–]lefterfield 7 insightful - 4 fun7 insightful - 3 fun8 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

Uh oh. Reddit seems to be in need of reeducation.