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this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2023
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the_dunk_tank
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A lot of my self-understanding as nonbinary, though, comes from
feeling cute, WILL delete later because PII
I don't appear quite AGAB, for various reasonsMost of the trans women in my life had a womanly demeanor, even pre-transition. Most of the trans men in my life likewise had a manly demeanor.
The number one way I defend trans people's existence and validity in the face of criticism or scrutiny is by saying "if you see them a certain gender at first glance or at a distance, and that's the gender they want, you can't just change your mind about it, your gut already told you the truth".
Idk it's kinda weird if we say that gender is a social construct and then deny the composition of its social construction.
Kermit the frog is a real man
drops a frog figure, plucked clean of feathers
"Behold, a man!"
Uhh, I don't know about this one. I do not pass. I look like a clocky ogre. Does that mean I'm a man now? Hell no. But I must try to conform to gender roles of aesthetics, because to not be perfectly feminine as trans woman makes you a subhuman evil creature, whereas doing the same as cis woman merely makes you rebellious/defiant. This just feels like forcing gender roles onto people, but couched in progressive rhetoric. I know nonbinary people who very much present as their agab. That doesn't make them any less nonbinary. I do not like this post and it's implied ideology.
I maintain that the mind is superordinate to the body; your woman's brain (that sounds weird but I mean this affirmingly) is what makes you a woman more than anything else. Anatomical mishaps are noise, and in the long run there is still the same signal as a cis person of the same gender. I did not mean to imply in any way that being able to pass perfectly (or even to a majority of people) was any sort of requirement or baseline.
I have no expertise or deep knowledge of gender; your comment has reminded me of the quandaries that can be involved in it. As it seems to me, the most coherent thing I can say is that gender is often a vector, and what matters most is what direction you're pointed in.
People have upvoted this and not argued with it, but if I took this same logic one tiny step further, I'm nervous that it would be seen as extremely problematic.
i get what you're trying to say, we want to respect people's gender identities and often how someone presents (not how/if they pass) is how they identify. like if you weren't nonbinary you might work out to get a "masculine" torso shape. but not always, it's a yardstick that relies on how people are conforming to problematic social definitions of gender
There is nothing lacking in someone who is presenting but does not pass. They are still the vanguard against gender oppression and braver than the troops. We are all a process of becoming, and when trans people present they make it abundantly clear what they're moving towards and should be unanimously considered as.
What I was leading towards is that gender as a model should be based on a coherent set of characteristics; otherwise, there isn't much point in having it at all. I think it's also important to be able to call out right-wing grifters who adopt the concept of gender transition as a joke and others who do it in bad faith, by contrasting them with trans people who have lived with distinctive masculine or feminine brains for most of their lives and experienced the friction that comes with that.
As for myself I don't insist on a certain set of pronouns unless people demonstrate that they're not certain by asking. Online is different because no one has an "appearance". But in-person, I feel like the mental energy for remembering a person's specific gender is better used on someone who actually experiences dysphoria than it is on me.