Hey all,

So I’m looking to take an active step here to understand better some things that my straight/white/cis/middle-aged male brain has had a tough time wrapping itself around, particularly in the gender identity front.

I’m working from the understanding of physical sex as the bio-bits and the expressed identity as being separate things, so that part is easy enough.

What’s confusing to me though is like this. If we take gender as being an expression of your persona, a set of traits that define one as male, female, or some combination of both then what function does a title/pronoun serve? To assume that some things are masculine or feminine traits seems to put unneeded rigidity to things.

We’ve had men or women who enjoy things traditionally associated with the other gender for as long as there have been people I expect. If that’s the case then what purpose does the need for a gender title serve?

I’ll admit personally questioning some things like fairness in cis/trans integrated sports, but that’s outside what I’m asking here. Some things like bathroom laws are just society needing to get over itself in thinking our personal parts are all that special.

Certainly not trying to stir up any fights, just trying to get some input from people that have a different life experience than myself. Is it really as simple as a preferred title?

Edit: Just wanted to take a second to thank all the people here who took the time to write some truly extensive thoughts and explanations, even getting into some full on citation-laden studies into neurology that’ll give me plenty to digest. You all have shown a great deal of patience with me updating some thinking from the bio/social teachings of 20+ years back. 🙂

  • jarfil@beehaw.org
    1·
    3 months ago

    You kind of described how I’ve been feeling about having a flesh body, instead of a robot one… I don’t even care about its gender, all of it feels “wrong”. sigh

      • jarfil@beehaw.org
        1·
        3 months ago

        I hate the experience of not being able to turn off and on again; of not keeping a backup; of not being able to upgrade pieces, or even to replace the broken ones; of not being able to quickly download or upload, both data and software; of not being able to migrate my processes to other bodies, or to create multiple copies to process stuff in parallel.

        I’ve always felt trapped, and it’s getting much worse with age.

        • flora_explora@beehaw.org
          1·
          3 months ago

          Interesting! I guess this is only a possibility because of how we designed computers and machines to work? Like I often feel frustrated that I cannot pause or rewind someone who is speaking to me. Or digitally search for where my stuff IRL is. We really are all cyborgs and part of our brains is already fused with computers.