Ask Lemmy

Respectfully, HubertManne, it seems like you have not really thought about this topic very deeply from a perspective other than your own yet.

I myself am old enough that I can appreciate your comment that "my whole life sex and gender terms were one and the same," but many things change across the course of our lives, and "no one is even forcing me to study or anything now" is not a reason to stop learning and growing as a person.

If you are willing, I'd invite you to read this article on Minority Stress: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10712335/

Or, you might also read this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_stress , especially the section "Health outcomes among sexual minorities."

Here is a snippet from the introduction of the first article:

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Overview

The foundation of minority stress theory lies in the hypothesis that sexual minority health disparities are produced by excess exposure to social stress faced by sexual minority populations due to their stigmatized social status (relative to heterosexual populations). Since its introduction, which focused on sexual minorities, minority stress theory has been expanded to include gender minorities [3–5] in particular describing the role of gender non-affirmation as a stressor for transgender and nonbinary people [6].

Minority stress is distinguished from general stress—stress that all people may experience—by its origin in prejudice and stigma. Thus, a stressor, such as losing one’s job, could be a general stressor or a minority stressor depending on whether it was motivated by prejudice against sexual and gender minority people as opposed to, for example, economic downturns that impact all people regardless of sexual and gender identity.

Meyer [2] described both distal and proximal stress processes. Distal stressors include stressors that originate from people or institutions that impact the LGBT person. These include discriminatory policies and laws [7] acute major life events (e.g., losing a job, being victimized by violence) [8], chronic stressors (e.g., living in poverty) [9], more minor, “everyday” experiences of discrimination or microaggressions (e.g., being treated unfairly or with disrespect) [10], or even non-events—expected positive experiences or events that were thwarted due to stigma and prejudice [11].

Proximal stressors arise from a socialization process in which sexual and gender minority people learn to reject themselves for being LGBT (internalized stigma) [12,13], develop expectations to be stigmatized due to awareness of prevailing social stigma (expectations of rejection) [14], and/or hide their LGBT identity as a way to protect themselves against distal minority stressors (identity concealment) [15]. Concealment may be protective in some environments, but it also limits access to social support and affirmation, complicating its role in minority stress theory [15].

Collectively, these minority stressors constitute the excess stress burden that places sexual and gender minority people at greater risk for negative health outcomes compared with cisgender straight people. Against these stressors, there are individual- and group-level coping mechanisms that can reduce the negative impact of minority stress. Thus, the overall health impact in the minority stress model is determined by the negative impact of stressful experiences and the ameliorative impact of coping, social support, and resilience.

People have the right to define themselves however they want. Likewise, people have the right not to share those determinations.

If others have the right to see themselves however they want, I have the right to see themselves however I want too. Reciprocity works like that.