Who decides if you’re animal vegetable or mineral?
None of this can work unless everyone carefully changes the meaning of core words, and why should we agree to do that in such a fatuous delusional cause?
The Guardian solemnly explains about these genius new young people who think you can change material reality by changing the vocabulary.
Who decides your gender?
Don’t be silly. You mean “sex,” and no one decides. The question makes no more sense than “Who decides your species?”
A growing number of kids say it is up to them – and are rejecting the traditional markers of “male” or “female” in favor of identifying as “genderqueer”, which refers to people who don’t fall squarely within the gender binary. Stars like Indya Moore have come out as non-binary and use they/them pronouns, and non-binary characters are increasingly featured in breakout TV shows, such as Asia Kate Dillon’s role in Billions.
Don’t be silly. You mean a growing number of kids are confused about what is material reality and what is human convention. If you can’t grasp that distinction then nothing you say is going to make any sense…and of course that’s how the rest of the article goes.
Yet non-binary kids say they are widely misunderstood, and they face prejudice. Donald Trump, for instance, recently decreed that protections against healthcare discrimination were to be applied based exclusively on biology rather than one’s inner sense of gender.
Meaning…what? Healthcare should be based on “one’s inner sense of gender” and not on biology? So boys should get pap smears if their “inner sense of gender” tells them they are girls? You might want to warn them that that will hurt.
After that there’s a lot of self-obsessed drivel from four of these enthralling “non-binary” kids. I don’t recommend it.
I do wish they’d stop conflating “gender” with “sex.” If they really meant “who decides where you adhere to sexist stereotypes — and where you don’t?” then “it’s up to us“ is a fine answer.
But you can’t change sex. Rejecting “traditional markers” of sex could include cutting off breasts or penises, I suppose, but doing so requires no dysmorphia or identity issues, nor any connection to gender. It could be treated like getting a tattoo or piercing your tongue.
I do too, but they won’t, probably because the slopping the two together makes it all possible. That’s why I flatly said they mean sex. It’s so obvious that it’s up to us whether we submit to the conventions for whichever sex we are that it’s not worth saying, besides which, feminists have been saying that since forever. The only way it can sound New and Exciting and Fuck-you-grownups is to blur the distinction.
Sort of, but not quite. I mean, feminist have been saying that these gender markers shouldn’t apply to one sex or the other, and we can still do “boy” things in a girl body, and vice versa. But what the TAs are saying is so different. They are saying that these things do apply to one sex or another, and you just get to pick which sex you prefer based on your gender markers.
Shame so few reporters seem to grasp that. They are so overawed by the “breaking” of gender stereotypes, they can’t see that there is no breaking ,there is merely the moving from one box to a different box based on the arbitrary, social convention gender markers rather than the biological, real sex markers.
So our body doesn’t mark our “gender”, but our habits do. To me, that’s extreme binary. (And they actually love the binary; without it, how could they be non-binary?)
iknklast, I just had a flashback to something I’m not sure ever happened. It’s like someone was singing in my head, “Free to Be You and Me.”
I probably need to go to the reeducation camp, because that sounds awfully transphobic.
Unless, of course, your sex and gender would cohere with societal expectations if you didn’t experience them the way the other sex would. One could be a normal XY male who knows they’re a butch lesbian who loves to do all things masculine. How would you know? You just do. There’s an inherently womanly way of rejecting feminine gender markers.
Thus, yet another gender marker.
Sastra, I once thought I would hold my breath until the trans lobby developed consistent arguments. I decided against it; holding your breath for eternity isn’t good for you.
I was a kid when “Free to be You and Me” came out. I don’t think I cared for it much (and it seemed like it was everywhere), but there’s no denying how sensible it was. Or how out of place it would be in today’s climate. Yes, there are boys and girls. Those words have always meant something. But how we express ourselves—who we are as people—isn’t dependent on whether we are boys or girls. Everyone wins. Everyone’s happy.