• @[email protected]
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    11 year ago

    Gender isn’t sex. Their gender is what’s in their brain, not what’s in their pants. I thought this would be obvious by now but I guess not.

    • very smart Idiot
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      -31 year ago

      It is not obvious to me yet.

      If gender is in the brain, why does it relate to sexual (physical) properties?

      Or am I missing something?

      Because so far I understood that for example the sex can be female, and so can the gender. But what sense does it make to have female gender? There is just a human in your head.

      So to me it seems like gender is a belief. Because beliefs are also located in the brain.

      But then again… how important is this belief? And why are people claiming that there are more than two genders? Because of gender refers to sex, then what is going on there?

      • @LegionEris
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        41 year ago

        I’m gonna throw a common metaphor at you. See my previous post in here for a more thoughtful exposition on my gender experience.

        Gender is kind of like shoes. If you have the right kind of shoe, well fitted, on the right feet, you don’t think about your shoes much at all. You know you have a certain type or brand of shoes on, but it’s not an essential element of your daily life. You’re not constantly aware of them. This parallels the common cisgender notion that the self isn’t gendered, that “there is a just a human in your head.” If your shoes are too small, on the wrong feet, or made wrong for your feet, it’s a whole problem all fucking day. It’s uncomfortable and disorienting. It’s distracting and persistent. Over time, it becomes painful, and you use increasing amounts of focus and energy dealing with your footwear incompatibility. This is what being gender incongruent is like. You spend huge amounts of time and energy trying to deal with a profound discomfort and incompatibility that nobody else understands or acknowledges because their shoes are fine.

      • @[email protected]
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        31 year ago

        Because so far I understood that for example the sex can be female, and so can the gender. But what sense does it make to have female gender? There is just a human in your head.

        But then again… how important is this belief? And why are people claiming that there are more than two genders? Because of gender refers to sex, then what is going on there?

        Their are neurological and therefore psychological differences between people of different genders. These are normally aligned with their physical sex and hormones. When there is a misalignment between gender and sex that’s what trans people are. It’s not belief, it’s brain structure.

        There is just a human in your head.

        Do you not feel attached to your birth gender at all? Or any other gender? Like if you woke up in a body of the opposite sex would you be okay with that?

        Statements like this sometimes make me thing the person I am talking to is either very ignorant or a very confused agender person.

        • very smart Idiot
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          -11 year ago

          Because so far I understood that for example the sex can be female, and so can the gender. But what sense does it make to have female gender? There is just a human in your head.

          But then again… how important is this belief? And why are people claiming that there are more than two genders? Because of gender refers to sex, then what is going on there?

          Their are neurological and therefore psychological differences between people of different genders.

          But there are many nuances between people. It wouldn’t make sense to try to distinguish between those nuances.

          These are normally aligned with their physical sex and hormones. When there is a misalignment between gender and sex that’s what trans people are. It’s not belief, it’s brain structure.

          This is a rather bold statement. To my knowledge scientists have yet to understand how the brain works. And I believe studies to identify peoples brain structure as gay, trans or straight would be very questionable. And dangerous I should say. Depending on the governments, this would be very dangerous. Imagine what the Russians or Chinese would do…

          There is just a human in your head.

          Do you not feel attached to your birth gender at all? Or any other gender? Like if you woke up in a body of the opposite sex would you be okay with that?

          I don’t think that I would care much. I guess I would be annoyed by menstruation. I really cannot see any blood, I become unconscious and fall over like a bad soldier. But other than that, I do believe that I could be happy in any kind of healthy body.

          Statements like this sometimes make me thing the person I am talking to is either very ignorant or a very confused agender person.

          I am just confused. So much is going on in this world. And then suddenly people create new concepts that are still somewhat in the making, under constant change, concepts that I have nothing to do with, but I don’t want to get out of touch. And I do understand that something is driving people, and usually people have good intentions (even people that are on the other side of a discussion). But I find this gender stuff to be difficult to understand. Especially the need to identify with something. For me happiness comes from another place. Not from a (and don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to offend) self centred perspective. I don’t feel the need to identify who and what I am. I think one quickly falls into a mental trap there, because thinking and identity is something far too complex to articulate in language. I’d rather just enjoy time with people that are important to me and do stuff that we enjoy.