LGBTAI+ Questions and Discussion thread IV 2b or not 2b?

[Jormengand]

No, it is not. No-one forced the baby to do something by using force or threats. Watering down the meaning of a word such as coercion - so central to other problems such as when a sexual act might be rape - does no-one any favours.

GW

For a start, trigger warnings. Use them when talking about that. Second:

Spoiler: TW: Rape

Show

I've been raped. I've also been coercively assigned male at birth.

Which one do you think I resent more? I'll give you three guesses; the first two don't count.

[ThurlRavenscrof]

And please, if there was no coercion involved in being assigned a sex / gender than people would have no issue with people transitioning.

Yasss queen

[WarKitty]

So I have a question about referring to trans or non-binary people in non-open environments. I sometimes refer to my friends of varying gender identities in front of my parents. Now my parents are most definitely not on board with LGBTQ stuff. I already have to put up with stupid lectures every time there's reporting on pride or on transgender bathroom policies or something. So I'm not eager to use non-binary pronouns in front of them. I'm not going to win them over to anything, so I don't really want to start an argument that, let's face it, is just going to end in me being annoyed. Yet at the same time it feels a little disrespectful to not use people's pronouns.

What would y'all do here?

[noparlpf]

So I have a question about referring to trans or non-binary people in non-open environments. I sometimes refer to my friends of varying gender identities in front of my parents. Now my parents are most definitely not on board with LGBTQ stuff. I already have to put up with stupid lectures every time there's reporting on pride or on transgender bathroom policies or something. So I'm not eager to use non-binary pronouns in front of them. I'm not going to win them over to anything, so I don't really want to start an argument that, let's face it, is just going to end in me being annoyed. Yet at the same time it feels a little disrespectful to not use people's pronouns.

What would y'all do here?

Probably ask your friends how each of them feels about it and what pronouns they'd prefer you use around people they're not out to. Staying closeted around intolerant people is a perfectly acceptable survival mechanism.

[Chen]

So I have a question about referring to trans or non-binary people in non-open environments. I sometimes refer to my friends of varying gender identities in front of my parents. Now my parents are most definitely not on board with LGBTQ stuff. I already have to put up with stupid lectures every time there's reporting on pride or on transgender bathroom policies or something. So I'm not eager to use non-binary pronouns in front of them. I'm not going to win them over to anything, so I don't really want to start an argument that, let's face it, is just going to end in me being annoyed. Yet at the same time it feels a little disrespectful to not use people's pronouns.

What would y'all do here?

Assuming your friends are ok with it, they (as singular) is pretty commonly used even when people are talking about cisgender people who have no problems with binary pronouns. I mean it might come off a bit odd in some sentences, but it's not something people would pick up on I think.

[Delicious Taffy]

In regards to the "coercion" thing, the word itself is defined as "the practice of persuading someone to do something by using force or threats" (emphasis mine). Without making any assumptions about whether it properly applies to gender assignments, I'd like to ask how it would. All the doctor is doing is checking a box, based on the biological parts on the infant's body; any enforcement of that is entirely out of the doctor's hands, so I'm not clear on how the baby has been coerced at that particular stage. Wouldn't any coercion be up to literally everyone else but the doctor? That doctor and infant may never even meet again, so any enforcement of the assigned sex/gender is up to the parents and everyone else in the child's environment. I am absolutely not denying that it could be coercion to decide the gender of the child based on anatomy, for the record. I am only trying to understand how it is.

Regarding the matter of what pronouns to use in reference to a non-binary/trans friend or family member, when speaking to someone else: I, personally, refer to my brother by male pronouns in most cases, without mentioning his status as a non-cis person. The only time I won't is if the other speaker doesn't know either of us very well and it's more of a headache to explain the whole thing, and risk outing him, than to simply acknowledge that we're talking about the same person and move on.

[Jormengand]

The assignment is effectively itself coercive because of the legal and cultural mandate it places on people. The doctor may not themself be doing any coercion, but it's not unfair to say that the assignment is characteristically a coercive one, or the fact that such assignments exist at all is inherently linked to coercion.

[Chen]

The assignment is effectively itself coercive because of the legal and cultural mandate it places on people. The doctor may not themself be doing any coercion, but it's not unfair to say that the assignment is characteristically a coercive one, or the fact that such assignments exist at all is inherently linked to coercion.

How are you defining coercion? Maybe that's the problem I'm having here. It just doesn't seem to fit the normal usage of that word. In any other context, saying something was "coercively assigned" you'd gather the person doing the assignment was the one under coercion.

[Delicious Taffy]

The assignment is effectively itself coercive because of the legal and cultural mandate it places on people. The doctor may not themself be doing any coercion, but it's not unfair to say that the assignment is characteristically a coercive one, or the fact that such assignments exist at all is inherently linked to coercion.

This... doesn't clear it up at all, actually. All I got from this was "The doctor maybe isn't coercing anyone, but someone is still being coerced", with no indication of who is or is not performing the act of coercion. You mentioned a "legal and cultural mandate", but never elaborated on what that means. If the doctor checks "male" on a paper, there is absolutely no way to, by law, force the parents into treating the child as a boy, so I don't understand the "legal" part of that. The "cultural" half I can understand, since there are definitely systems in place which make it hazardous for the child to not present as male, to varying degrees based on environment. If you're referring to those systems, I believe we're on the same page, there, since there is certainly a level of threat to them. However, unless I'm mistaken, the doctor still has to check a box, through no fault of their own.

Unless your point is that the overall system of binary gender is coercive, thereby making assignment-at-birth an extension of that coercion? I could get on board with that, with no further confusion.

[Jormengand]

How are you defining coercion? Maybe that's the problem I'm having here. It just doesn't seem to fit the normal usage of that word. In any other context, saying something was "coercively assigned" you'd gather the person doing the assignment was the one under coercion.

Saying that an assignment is coercive in its nature doesn't mean that the person who is making the decision of which assignment to give is the one doing the coercion, but the coercion is still implicit in the assignment.

If someone's wielding a defective rifle it doesn't mean that the person using the rifle is themself defective in some weird kind of analogy-of-attribution kind of way: it's talking about the weapon itself irrespective of any of the people who may have made, used or owned it. Similarly if someone's making a coercive assignment then that doesn't mean that the person themself is responsible for the coercion taking place.

If the doctor checks "male" on a paper, there is absolutely no way to, by law, force the parents into treating the child as a boy, so I don't understand the "legal" part of that.

I'm going to go ahead and say that you probably live in either the USA, Canada, or Western Europe, right? Maybe Australia or New Zealand, possibly one of the Nordic countries? I know I'm missing a few to say the least, but suffice to say this isn't necessarily a true statement globally, de facto if not de jure.

Also, even in the USA or UK, having a legal gender has ramifications, such as segregated education, judicious use of Genuine Requirement clauses, and anti-trans bathroom bills in the USA.

However, unless I'm mistaken, the doctor still has to check a box, through no fault of their own.

To be clear, this is a point supporting your statement that gender assignment can in no way be described as coercive?

Unless your point is that the overall system of binary gender is coercive, thereby making assignment-at-birth an extension of that coercion? I could get on board with that, with no further confusion.

I mean, that too.

[Delicious Taffy]

Saying that an assignment is coercive in its nature doesn't mean that the person who is making the decision of which assignment to give is the one doing the coercion, but the coercion is still implicit in the assignment.

Well, there's that cleared up.

I'm going to go ahead and say that you probably live in either the USA, Canada, or Western Europe, right? Maybe Australia or New Zealand, possibly one of the Nordic countries? I know I'm missing a few to say the least, but suffice to say this isn't necessarily a true statement globally, de facto if not de jure.

USA, specifically, yes. Although, now, I'm interested to know which countries can legally force a person to present as their birth-assigned gender. Mostly so I can start making a list of places not to live in, should I ever have a non-cisgendered child.

Also, even in the USA or UK, having a legal gender has ramifications, such as segregated education, judicious use of Genuine Requirement clauses, and anti-trans bathroom bills in the USA.

I wasn't aware of any segregated education. It's not particularly a thing, in my region. What a strange concept. Is it anything like that episode of The Simpsons, where the school is segregated into the boys' and girls' sides, and the math "lessons" consist of the "teacher" saying meaningless nonsense instead of actually teaching anything?

To be clear, this is a point supporting your statement that gender assignment can in no way be described as coercive?

I never made any such statement, and it was never my point. I have only been trying to understand how and on what level the assignment is coercive. Please do not attribute nonexistent statements to me. I fully understand that, if the system itself is coercive, the doctor is also, to some extent, a victim of this coercion.

[Chen]

Saying that an assignment is coercive in its nature doesn't mean that the person who is making the decision of which assignment to give is the one doing the coercion, but the coercion is still implicit in the assignment.

I agree with that. And written in that manner I can see it. Written as "coercively assigned" has me link the act of coercion to the act of assigning since it's being used as an adverb there. Hence my statement that saying "coercively assigned" seems to imply that the person doing the assignment was coerced into doing so.

[Jormengand]

I wasn't aware of any segregated education. It's not particularly a thing, in my region. What a strange concept. Is it anything like that episode of The Simpsons, where the school is segregated into the boys' and girls' sides, and the math "lessons" consist of the "teacher" saying meaningless nonsense instead of actually teaching anything?

It usually comes in the flavour of boys' schools and girls' schools. There are no good schools (in terms of teaching quality) in my area which aren't gender segregated like that. Which sucks.

No comment on the maths teacher, though...

[TaiLiu]

I agree with my trans comrades, but I also feel compelled to point out that the coercion of gender assignment is intimately connected to colonial trauma. If colonization is coercive - it is - then gender assignment is coercive. Maria Lugones goes over some of that in her writings on coloniality of gender.

[Vinyadan]

A question for transgender people: if there were a pill that makes your dysphoria disappear by making your mind identify with your biological sex (the one you were born with), would you take it? Why?

[AmberVael]

A question for transgender people: if there were a pill that makes your dysphoria disappear by making your mind identify with your biological sex (the one you were born with), would you take it? Why?

No way. That's basically putting my identity under the knife. It doesn't make things easier for me if I'm not me at the end of it.

[Delicious Taffy]

A question for transgender people: if there were a pill that makes your dysphoria disappear by making your mind identify with your biological sex (the one you were born with), would you take it? Why?

How about a pill that changes the body to match the mind, instead? Y'know, actually do something about the problem that doesn't erase the person's identity? If I woke up in a woman's body, knowing I'm a man, I don't expect I'd very much want a pill that forced me to think I'm a woman.

[Rain Dragon]

A question for transgender people: if there were a pill that makes your dysphoria disappear by making your mind identify with your biological sex (the one you were born with), would you take it? Why?

I'm not sure if I'm really answering your question, but I'd find it hard to take any pill that alters my mind like that. That's scary and I don't even know if it's ethical or what coincidences there'd be to those changes or even what it'd really change.

[Eldest]

A question for transgender people: if there were a pill that makes your dysphoria disappear by making your mind identify with your biological sex (the one you were born with), would you take it? Why?

Heck no. I'm a woman. I don't want to be a man. That's terrifying.

[Honest Tiefling]

So I have a question about referring to trans or non-binary people in non-open environments. I sometimes refer to my friends of varying gender identities in front of my parents. Now my parents are most definitely not on board with LGBTQ stuff. I already have to put up with stupid lectures every time there's reporting on pride or on transgender bathroom policies or something. So I'm not eager to use non-binary pronouns in front of them. I'm not going to win them over to anything, so I don't really want to start an argument that, let's face it, is just going to end in me being annoyed. Yet at the same time it feels a little disrespectful to not use people's pronouns.

Binary here, but a good rule of thumb for any situation regarding a decision that affects others to let them decide and not take that decision from them.

Some will probably want to argue with your parents to stand up for themselves and anyone else who doesn't want them to use the proper bathroom. Some will not want you to be have to lie and being 100% truthful to them. Others will worry about your safety and well-being, given that you seem to live with your parents. Others still will probably put on a sparkly cape, get onto a unicycle and start singing while wearing signs of protest in front of your house. If people get offended by you trying to respect their own freedom, they're probably too easily offended.

[Scorpion_Strike]

These may just come off as ignorant questions typical of someone for whom gender and sex have never been in conflict, but I'm honestly wondering: when decoupled from sex, what is gender and why is gender identity significant? Without a physical basis, it seems to me like gender's left as an entirely abstract concept, an archaic holdover from a bygone age and a way to put people in boxes that hold no practical significance or meaning anymore. So what makes gender identity so valuable to people that they feel compelled to fight for it? Why not dispose of gender and its arbitrary standards entirely?

[Jormengand]

A question for transgender people: if there were a pill that makes your dysphoria disappear by making your mind identify with your biological sex (the one you were born with), would you take it? Why?

Mind control weirds me out enough without the forced cis-ness that comes with this particular idea...

These may just come off as ignorant questions typical of someone for whom gender and sex have never been in conflict, but I'm honestly wondering: when decoupled from sex, what is gender and why is gender identity significant? Without a physical basis, it seems to me like gender's left as an entirely abstract concept, an archaic holdover from a bygone age and a way to put people in boxes that hold no practical significance or meaning anymore. So what makes gender identity so valuable to people that they feel compelled to fight for it? Why not dispose of gender and its arbitrary standards entirely?

I feel you may be confusing the social construct of gender stereotypes and the psychological phenomenon of gender itself. The former is a set of confusing unwritten social rules, the latter is an experience.

Which is incidentally why I die a little inside every time someone says that "Gender is a social construct".

[The_Snark]

I feel you may be confusing the social construct of gender stereotypes and the psychological phenomenon of gender itself. The former is a set of confusing unwritten social rules, the latter is an experience.

Yes. It's worth noting that there are people who don't have the latter, or who never experience it strongly enough to notice. Sometimes these people identify as agender; often, though, they think of themselves as cis people who don't particularly care about their gender, or cis-by-default. (Sometimes it's something they've never bothered to think about, but by no means always.)

This, I think, is a big part of that confusion: cis-by-default folks are pretty common, and if you've never seen or felt gender as an internal thing, it's easy to assume that that's how it works for everyone. (Especially when you have gender-as-social-construct around as a possible explanation for why some people seem to feel differently.)

So, the short answer to Scorpion's question is: because it's deeply important to some people on a fundamental level. You may not understand it - I don't either, really, it's not something I experience myself - but that's okay, provided we're aware of it. People vary in a lot of ways. This is another of 'em.

(I realize this is only answering half the question, but I don't feel well-equipped to try and explain what gender identity feels like from the inside, or why people value it - someone else can take a shot at that, maybe.)

[Chen]

So, the short answer to Scorpion's question is: because it's deeply important to some people on a fundamental level. You may not understand it - I don't either, really, it's not something I experience myself - but that's okay, provided we're aware of it. People vary in a lot of ways. This is another of 'em.

As a follow-up to this then, how does one who does experience their gender, determine if it is male or female? Due to the distinction made earlier between gender and societal gender norms, I imagine it doesn't have anything to do with that. So presumably someone who did experience their gender woke up with no memory of society or the like, they'd still have the feeling of being male or female. I'm interested in how that is determined.

[Lycunadari]

As a follow-up to this then, how does one who does experience their gender, determine if it is male or female? Due to the distinction made earlier between gender and societal gender norms, I imagine it doesn't have anything to do with that. So presumably someone who did experience their gender woke up with no memory of society or the like, they'd still have the feeling of being male or female. I'm interested in how that is determined.

It's really hard to explain, because I just know. Like, being male just feels different than being female, or some nonbinary genders. I guess it's somewhat similar to emotions - just like I know when I'm sad/happy/exited/etc I know when I'm male/female/other. It just feels very different. (And just like emotions can be fuzzy, my experience with gender often is as well, so sometimes it's less "I'm male" and more "I'm somewhat male but not completely, there's something else there as well, but I'm not sure what, definitely not female".) And yeah, I guess without society, I might not have words for my genders (for some I actually don't have words because they're completely independent from the gender binary), but the feeling would stay the same.

[Eldest]

As a follow-up to this then, how does one who does experience their gender, determine if it is male or female? Due to the distinction made earlier between gender and societal gender norms, I imagine it doesn't have anything to do with that. So presumably someone who did experience their gender woke up with no memory of society or the like, they'd still have the feeling of being male or female. I'm interested in how that is determined.

These are my definitions, are not universal, and should be taken as my answer alone and not as answering for the community, because everyone's different.

Gender: how you identify.

This is simplified, but hey. What gender you identify as, be it male, female, something else, both, or neither. This is entirely internal, and shapes the way you react to things. Discovering this is something of a self-discovery journey for people whose gender doesn't match what society expects of them.

Gender expression: how you express your gender.

Quite simply, this is what you see. If I wear nothing but tshirts and jeans, that is how I am expressing my gender. If another friend of mine refuses to wear anything but skirts, that is how she is expressing her gender. If a man decides to wear a dress, that is how he is expressing gender. None of these change who you are internally (your gender: notice how I had both a man and a woman in the examples wearing traditionally feminine clothes), but it is what other people see and will react to. I get more "sir"s than I would like, as a result.

Gender norms: how you are expected to express your gender.

This is the whole social expectations thing. It's not as simple as it first appears: for people whose gender differs from what they were assigned at birth, it's a catch-22 of damned if you do, damned if you don't. Even if the expectations went away, you would still have a gender (most of the time, agender people exist) and so you'd have gender expressions.

[WarKitty]

Yes. It's worth noting that there are people who don't have the latter, or who never experience it strongly enough to notice. Sometimes these people identify as agender; often, though, they think of themselves as cis people who don't particularly care about their gender, or cis-by-default. (Sometimes it's something they've never bothered to think about, but by no means always.)

This is kind of how I am. I don't particularly strongly identify as "female." I find gender experimentation curious and interesting. But by and large gender is just kind of...there. I don't mind being identified as female, but the whole topic is just kind of meh.

[Chen]

And yeah, I guess without society, I might not have words for my genders (for some I actually don't have words because they're completely independent from the gender binary), but the feeling would stay the same.

What is it though, that causes you to identify some of the feelings as male and female though, as opposed to others as feelings for which you don't have words? I mean is it purely due to the societal constructs for what a man and woman should be? I apologize if this is sounding obtuse or anything it's just not something I can grasp. My biology and genetics show that I am male. I've identified as such because I've neither felt nor seen any reason not to. I don't feel that maleness though in any non-physical way. I really can't fathom when (or where or how) I'd "feel" gender, which is why I'm asking the questions.

[Jormengand]

What is it though, that causes you to identify some of the feelings as male and female though, as opposed to others as feelings for which you don't have words? I mean is it purely due to the societal constructs for what a man and woman should be? I apologize if this is sounding obtuse or anything it's just not something I can grasp. My biology and genetics show that I am male. I've identified as such because I've neither felt nor seen any reason not to. I don't feel that maleness though in any non-physical way. I really can't fathom when (or where or how) I'd "feel" gender, which is why I'm asking the questions.

What is it though, that causes you to identify some of your emotions as happiness and sadness, as opposed to others as other feelings? It's very difficult to explain one's own experiences in such a way as an external viewer might understand, unless they share those experiences.

Or, how do you explain what sight is like to someone who was born without eyes?

[Chen]

What is it though, that causes you to identify some of your emotions as happiness and sadness, as opposed to others as other feelings? It's very difficult to explain one's own experiences in such a way as an external viewer might understand, unless they share those experiences.

Or, how do you explain what sight is like to someone who was born without eyes?

Fair point. In regards to happiness and sadness it is purely related to how those words have been defined by society. I agree without that common nomenclature there'd be no good way to describe the feeling. I can see in the dysphoric case where someone feels their body doesn't match their gender, it follows that the "feeling" that would be described would that of the opposite sex. In the case of someone who is more genderfluid, I guess the question is why label the feelings as maleness or femaleness? Is it based on current society gender perception in some way?