you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]QuondamPhysics 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The concept of 'masculine' and 'feminine' varies so strongly from culture to culture, and even from era to era in the same culture, that to ascribe an object or activity as being inherently one way or the other is chauvinistic. Just ask any man named "Evelyn" or a male aristocrat from the 18th century who was obliged by society to cake his face in layers of healthy lead-based face paint. Imbuing clothes and cosmetics with some kind of near-spiritual significance is a function of society known as "fashion", and the concept of what is fashionable evolves so constantly that most people don't keep track. However, as participants in society we are often pressured to adhere to fashion trends in order to get ahead in life. The female corporate vice-president isn't rocking that killer pantsuit because she's expressing her femininity, she's doing so in order to meet the expectations of what her bosses consider is professional for a female executive. Speaking personally however, literally every man and woman I know all wear the same blue jeans and hoodies.

While culture is transitory and ever-evolving, biology is constant. Masculine and feminine can change in our own lifetime, but binary sexual reproduction, in a variety of expressions, has been around for billions of years. Many cultures throughout history have invented rituals, practices, and sacred ceremonies to symbolically transform individuals into something else, whether the opposite sex, another species, or even someone else entirely, infusing their bodies with chemicals, sacred herbs and spices, even bodily scarification and alteration. It's meaningful to them, sure, but no matter what gods or demons they invoke, it doesn't change their body from doggedly trying to heal from whatever was done to it. To the TQs a neovagina is a symbol of their ritual transmogrification, but to their body it's a festering open wound that's constantly trying to heal closed.

Don't get me wrong, it's fun to play pretend, and I don't want to spoil anyone's fun. Nor do I want to run afoul of the doctors/professionals you mentioned who are getting Oprah-rich selling expensive cosmetic surgeries and menopause and prostate cancer medicine as a solution to people's various Cluster B disorders. The money they make from an entire class of bourgeois patients needing lifelong medical intervention isn't "easy come, easy go" money, it's "I will kill you and your entire family and make it look like a right-wing hate crime" kind of money. But don't expect the rest of us to enthusiastically participate, because like any fashion trend, the clock is ticking, and the furries are in the wings warming up.

(Edited for punctuation)