When did we "agree" that sex wasn't the key component of gender?

submitted by clownworlddropout from self.TumblrInAction

In hearing people's stories it sounds like at some point there was a Tide Pod Challenge moment to accept this stuff, is that a thing? Was the meme "TWAW, pass it on?" I have seen online content creators being coerced to repeat that message, and I've seen it repeated in other social media as well.

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[–]Musky༼⁠ ⁠つ⁠ ⁠◕⁠‿⁠◕⁠ ⁠༽⁠つ 🐈 8 insightful - 2 fun8 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Some decided not to see 1984 as a cautionary tale but instead an instruction book.

The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.

Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought-crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.

This seems relevant as well: Language Strategists: Redefining Political Frontiers on the Basis of Linguistic Choices

[–]Alienhunter糞大名 4 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

Was never either. 1984 is a cookbook! It's a cookbook!

But seriously it was absurdist satire of socialist/communist movements specifically but especially how political movements like to appropriate language to obscure thought. People thinking it was a prophecy or an instruction book miss the point, 1984 resembles our society in 2023 because our society has always resembled 1984, just as assuredly as we have always been at war with Russia and Germany has always been our ally.

[–]According-Junket-885 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The real question is, when did we "agree" that gender is the same thing as gender identity?

[–]Q-Continuum-kin 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Gender was introduced about the 1970s to represent the social construct of the sex based caste system. In the 80s "gender bending" fashion became popular where men and women rebelled against strict gender roles but there was no confusion the men in belly shirts were still men and women wearing angular shoulder pads were still women. In the 90s grunge became a thing and people dumped the elaborate clothing. Men and women were basically wearing the same outfits. No one really used the word "gender" except in academia. In the 00s people were starting to incorrectly use the word "gender" as a more polite way to say "sex" but were often corrected by others from academia and transgender people at the time would say "no gender is a social construct" because they actually understood the academic writings behind it. 3rd wave feminism is brewing where people are putting into writing about how every type of oppression links to every other type. By the 10s gays had become normalized and gay marriage legalized. All those giant gay rights organizations were desperate to stay in business so they shifted over to "trans rights" and needed to come up with some new catch phrases. Tumblr exists where teenagers make really bad takes on academic writings.

This is about the time the public is fully confusing the word "gender" and now transgender people have flipped 180 on that definition. Now instead of correcting people they are now saying the terms "man and woman" are the social constructs and therefore detached from "sex" which was still generally accepted as biological. I think that puts the pin in your timeline. I think the "TWAW" thing is some sloganeering from the newly refocused gay trans rights groups.

More recently in the now 20s they have been saying some more crazy shit that sex itself is the social construct and the only "real" thing is their "gender identity".

.

I don't think it's so much a memo went out as much as the slogans reinforce the clusterB delusions so they feed off each other.

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

"TWAW" and "trans" probably have limited shelf life--"are you saying some women are DIFFERENT from the rest?! enjoy being hounded for two years until you jump off a parking structure!"

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

Sex and gender were synonyms until the TRAs decided to stealth change the definition of gender. Nobody explicitly agreed on it, rather it was trojan-horsed into the common lexicon and used to gaslight people who reject the definition.

[–]Alienhunter糞大名 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Around the same time everyone agreed to pay me $1,000,000.

[–]Chipit 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Oh, that's easy. Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949). A breakthrough work of feminism.

"One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. No biological, psychological, or economic fate determines the figure that the human female presents in society; it is civilization as a whole that produces this creature, intermediate between male and eunuch, which is described as feminine."

Trannies all come from this idea that she came up with.

More about her: https://youtu.be/1KVCUubgYI0

[–]beazer12beard 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I haven't read The Second Sex, but it always seemed like a willful misinterpretation of that sentence for the whole trans ideology to stem from it. It sounds like it means that no woman is born liking the color pink or baking cookies or wearing skirts. That those stem from culture, not biology (which makes sense because pink used to be a boys' color and men in Burma wear skirts), and women shouldn't be limited by those cultural gender standards.

Then the trans movement comes along and says that gender identity is innate, that we all know in our brains at birth that we are an American boy with a natural disinclination to wear a skirt (or a Burmese boy that would absolutely wear a skirt).

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

pink used to be a boys' color

That's a myth

I haven't read The Second Sex

Go read it. The whole point is that women can be whatever they want. Including men.

[–]fuck_redditThou/Thee/Thy 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Many people are devoid of thought and logic due to an extremely poor education. If someone they trust (TV or social media influencers) tells them something with a confident tone, they generally believe it.

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

I thought it was John Money who first proposed the idea that a person's "gender" was separate from their sex, and attempted to prove it by performing vaginoplasty on a boy after a botched circumcision and having the parents raise him as a girl.

This didn't work out too well, and the parents eventually had to tell him what happened. He went on the Phil Donahue show as an adult to talk about it, which you can find on YouTube.

His brother, and then later he committed suicide.

Where Money and modern gender ideologues differ is that they believe gender identity is innate, so Money's approach wouldn't have worked if the kid's identity wasn't inherently female. But nevertheless queer theorists held on to the idea that sex and gender are completely separate.

I'm sure these ideas predate Money, but some were more influential than others.