curlicuecal:

I get where you’re coming from, but–

As a biologist– no, you don’t! I think that’s a pretty common misunderstanding of how “reality” works. We’re humans–we’re built to categorize and generalize and simplify and this helps us function efficiently, make predictions, and communicate about abstract concepts or experiences.

But the world itself pretty much never falls into clean-edged categories because that’s not how things evolve. That’s not how natural, complex, multi-faceted processes *happen.* The concept of species is an artificial construct with a basis in biology. (Look up “ring species” for an awesome example!) The concept of “genes” is an artificial construct with a basis in biology that helps us talk about concepts. (Have you ever seen a scientist try to create an inclusive, concrete definition for what a “gene” is? It’s hilarious.)

Heck, the concept of *colors* is an artificial construct with a basis in biology. What’s red? What’s not red? When does red start being purple? How does pink fit into the picture?

I totally get why saying “let’s just not worry about the reality of gender and let everybody do what they want” is appealing! It appeals to me. I think it would work really well for a lot of people.

But the *issue* with saying that gender is 100% socially constructed is that it harmfully erases the experiences of trans people that experience non-social dysphoria (such as body dysphoria). I have straight up seen trans people shouted down about their own lived experiences and trauma over this; it’s not cool.

To be clear, I am using “gender” to describe the internal sense of “what I am” as distinct from “gender ROLES” (socially constructed) and “sex” (also kind of fuzzy-edged, but more related to chromosomes and phenotype).

Saying “gender is 100% socially constructed” also erases the experiences of non-trans people who have a strong internal instinct of “I am this”, although at least in those it is less likely to cause harm so much as to just clash hard with their ability to accept your logic.

One reason we know gender is not entirely socially constructed is that people raised as the
“wrong” gender are statistically very likely to have a lot of psychological issues, even if they don’t know they are being raised “wrong.” (An example: x)

Another reason we know that gender is not entirely socially constructed is that most animal species we study exhibit a “sense of what sex they are” that is DISTINCT from their “sex” and can be manipulated genetically, chemically, and environmentally. The more complex these systems get, the more room you have for lots of variation, creating a whole spectrum of ways for both gender and sex to manifest and interrelate.

And humans are even more complex, because we have the ability to think consciously about our sense of self and our sense of other people’s selves! But there is definitely a root for all of these (and even why so many people feel so very STRONGLY about this topic) somewhere, partially, in our biology.

Doesn’t mean we don’t have a shit-ton of work to do educating people and creating a better, more inclusive society.

If gender is innate, if girls and boys are just naturally different and naturally like different things, want different things, show different behaviors, why do we have to put so much effort, so much work into separating them?

If gender was innate it wouldn’t have to be indoctrinated into anyone. Everyone would naturally pick what they want to pick, and every girl would pick the same thing while every boy would pick the opposite. We would never have to tell any little girl or little boy anywhere, “this is not for you, it’s for boys/girls”.

Children Don’t Have Gender Identity – Blibli Blogging
(via face–the–strange)

robothugscomic:

New comic! (link)

It all just feels like so much work all the time. I don’t want to deal with this stuff! I have other things to think about!

Related: Trans people aren’t ‘obsessed’ with bathrooms, we don’t care about bathrooms ‘too much’. We want to not care about bathrooms at all. You’re the the weird ones obsessed with bathrooms. Don’t put that on us.

c0ffeekitten: I don’t give a flying fuck what you look like. If you tell me you’re a woman, then you’re a woman. If you tell me you’re a man, then you’re a man. If you tell me you’re more than one gender or non-binary or agender or anything else, then that’s what you are. That’s…

friendlytroll:

ghostbees:

The second issue of the Practical Handbook was all about queer readings so I made this non-fiction comic about reading Holmes as trans! It’s actually more of an introduction to the subject, ideally I’d like to turn it into a proper article some day, but it felt good to reflect on it and be able to have this in a publication as a valid reading. Researching critical material was emotionally draining since the very few published essays on the topic are incredibly transphobic and basically worthless, but that made me want to have my say even more. Many thanks to my good friends Mo and Elinor for helping me with the wording so as to make it accessible but to the point, and as always Katie for supporting my little transgender bum.

Something Ive always noted is that despite his noted distain FOR femminine ‘qualities’ or interests, Holmes has a marked passion towards cases where the victim is female. He becomes somewhat emotional, for Holmes; he will make remarks such as “If it was MY sister….” about a vulnurable woman in an unusual circumstance, and he will display coolheaded but *distinct* scorn for men trying to do badly by the women in their lives. 

Obviously one can take this as a kind of ‘the hero is kind to the cat’ which is in line of holmes (relative) charity to the under-served (gypsies, street urchins, the poor and bewildered). BUT it also snaps neatly into place in the context of Holmes as a trans individual. 

He is sympathetic because he is *empathetic*- the general powerlessness of women, and ill chances of being taken seriously or helped, would be something he has experienced. The triumph of The Woman to live her own life, by her own intelligence, and refuse masculine control is genuine admiration. Perhaps by someone who has been in a similar position. 

There is also the question of his peculiar gaps in knowledge: Sciences and social realms unimportant to his work. Astronomy is a noted gap; as in Sports. If we assume he was raised as a female, his acsess to education may have been limited at best; and his pursual of as much knowledge as possible would be limited to what he is *interested in*, and no real socialization to pay attention to sport. 

WOW OKAY I GUESS I FORGOT HOW MUCH I THINK ABOUT THIS I MEANT TO WRITE A SHORT COMMENT HERE WE ARE I GUESS

Male Stoicism is backed up by an incredible amount of emotional labor from women

lexrhetoricae: wikdsushi: softmotherswimming: thepeacockangel: Like men are able to get away with never expressing of requesting help with their feelings because women are trained from a very young age to observe men, watch for signs of emotional need and environmental stressors and deal with them without being asked.  It’s why women worry constantly about emasculating the men…

witchyroses: roachpatrol: grumpypedant: I think a lot of people have trouble understanding transgender issues because they try to see themselves as trans, but come at it from the wrong direction. i.e. a cis woman tries to understand transness by going, “what if I felt like/wanted to be a man” when she should be approaching it…

francescadarimini: bindingaffinity: brutereason: Sexual identity labels are maps, not territory. Anybody who claims that maps are useless has clearly never gone adventuring, and neither has anyone who claims that maps are a perfectly accurate representation of the territory. Also, much like maps, there are nationalists who get very very pissy about where to draw the…

shut the fuck up. no. stop. stop trying to make non trans characters into trans ones. it literally makes 0 difference. being trans isn’t interesting

wesschneider: medesha: rambleonamazon: Oh… Oh jeez, dude, you are late to the party. I’ve been so busy with work I haven’t done that is AGES. But I can see this means a lot to you, so you know who is just OBVIOUSLY trans? She-Hulk’s whole schtick is a transformation narrative brought about by the miracles…

ceruleancynic: the-real-seebs: surrealpolitik: Petition to replace the existing genders with up, down, top, bottom, strange and charmed. And then we’ll even have words for some of the common three-person relationships! (Two up, one down = “proton”.) I like it; it brings the nuclear family into the age of modern particle physics. it got better