Whatever the differences between men and women, it’s been around for a hell of a long time … for me, this means it’s always wrong for me to tell a woman how to be a woman, and I’ve lived quite happily ever since I made that decision … let the women be free to do what they do best and it doesn’t matter if men understand …
It was a weak hypothetical and you’ve weakened it further with this. The number of entirely sub Saharan heritage people who consider themselves white is essentially zero, as is the number of hypermasculine, XY-people.
If your point is that a negative impression of an identity might keep people from embracing it / push them towards embracing the opposite, then just say that. Ignoring the real nuances involved and posting a nonsensical hypothetical that also ignores the real nuances involved in the concepts used doesn’t support your point or make it clearer.
Did you post this into the wrong thread? 
AHunter3, I may have you confused with another poster or I may be confusing orientation with gender, which I know are two different axes. Either way, I apologize for getting that wrong.
I don’t know that you really addressed my point about other species, but that’s ok. I don’t really understand how you’re different than a transgendered person, but I respect your decision to identify how you like.
I don’t really travel in these circles and I feel like the gradations being discussed in this thread are a little too fine for me too understand given my level of experience and familiarity, so I’m backing out to avoid giving accidental offense. I’ll continue to read and try and broaden my understanding.
There are a shitload of people who have mostly subsaharan African ancestry who think of themselves as “not black”. They may even think of themselves as “white”, because they have been socialized with a set of rules that does not preclude dark skin from a “white” concept. These people just do not tend to the live in the US, where “whiteness” is rigidly defined.
Although I find the looser definition of “whiteness” pretty odd, I wouldn’t challenge it. At least not from the standpoint of “right” or “wrong”.
But if someone makes up a racial categorization that is not based on already established social rules but rather their own idiosyncratic ones (like “I don’t consider you a member of my racial group because you don’t think of yourself as a member of my racial group and don’t share my politics and thus I assume you don’t see the world the same way that I do and thus don’t understand my experience, so how can you claim kinship to me?!”), then of course I’m going to say that’s bullshit. That’s a decision rule laden with a bunch of untested and untestable and unnecessarily complicated assumptions. I think people should feel free to label themselves however they want. But in exchange for this freedom, they have to give up the luxury of being understood by everyone. Hell, people who walk around wth conventional labels don’t even enjoy this luxury.
And this doesn’t matter because it was a hypothetical. Do you not understand what an analogy is? It’s not an assertion that people actually think like this, dude. It’s a way of drawing parallels between two different scenario so you can illustrate a point.
A point that you seem to have understood perfectly well, as it were.
One thing that keeps popping up for me when using the “what if it were race” comparison scenario —
We don’t have any term or concept for “race as an identity” distinguished from “race as a set of physical characteristics”.
Not that we have a clear-cut and universally-recognized distinction for sex and gender, but that’s what this is all about. But if there were someone trying to create a social acceptance for someone who looks like Rachel Dolezal to identify as black, or Coleman Silk, the guy in The Human Stain, to identify as white, they wouldn’t even have separate words like “sex” and “gender” to work with.
XX and XY is a biological difference.
This isn’t true.
The collective American mindset has always allowed non-white categories to be defined based on ancestry. See the “one drop rule”. We speak of folks like Lene Horne, Julian Bond, Ben Jealous, Vanessa Williams, and Colin Powell as being “black” not because of their physical characteristics, but because they have relatively recent African ancestry. They may privately identify as other things, but they see the “black” label as acceptable for them in a political/social sense.
Coleman Silk didn’t identify as white. He eschewed his blackness, which isn’t quite the same thing. (If anything, he glommed on to a Jewish identity, hoping it would explain the frizziness of hair.)
I don’t know what you mean by not having “separate words”. We all know (at least most educated people do) that race is socially constructed. So is “ethnic group” or “cultural community”, so these terms are great stand-ins for race when someone doesn’t want to be pigeoned in that way. At any rate, there are plenty of people who “rebel” against pre-existing racial categorizations by coming up with new boxes, just like you are doing in the gender context. I think we should be open-minded to those boxes when they pop up, but I don’t think all boxes are equally reasonable and thus respectable. Like, I think a “Middle Eastern” category makes total sense for the US census. But I think a “Liberal” box is questionable enough to warrant debate.
I guess where I get all tripped up in this is what does it matter?
And I am not meaning to diminish anyone’s experience or anything. Just truly not understanding.
No one would ever mistake me for presenting as anyone other than a typical white guy. I am big, bald, and as white as they come. I am from the South (GA) and I am also a Christian.
From that, many will assume certain things about me. Especially if all one has to go on is my description or my phyical presentation. And probably a number of those assumptions would be correct, but others would be wrong.
But if you treat me with respect like a regular human, we will be fine. I don’t really care if you think I am a redneck. Or a biker. Or a white guy that has benefited from privilege, but treat me as you would any other and we are good.
I have known one particular guy for a long time. He owns his own florist and decorates homes at Christmas, arranges venues for weddings, etc. He has an effeminate voice and so I am sure many have assumed he was gay. I am also certain (though never discussed) that he knows people assume that about him. Now, he could be gay, he could be bi, but he is married to a woman and they have been married for a long time. They have two sons and though both are grown, he is still married to a woman.
My point is, I doubt he cares what people assume about him, as long as they treat him with respect.
Now sure, once someone gets to know me personally, they may still hold certain thoughts about my appearance, but they will know what I am really like.
So if someone presents as one gender, I assume that means they want to be seen as that gender. Getting into well, I know I present as female, but I want to you to use the non-gendered pronouns, just seems odd.
I guess what I mean by that is, that person seems to want us to care what they are and really, most people don’t.
I have limited bandwith in my life. The vast majority of people I come into contact with are just passing through. I really don’t care about their likes and dislikes or what gender pronoun they prefer. If it is someone that I am connecting with, then I will learn what I need to know about the person.
I can assure you most people don’t care about your hangups or the groups you associate. Most are not trying to keep you down, or build their group up. Most of us only have enough energy to make it through work and traffic and family drama and the stuff we have to do in life, we don’t have the wherewithall to plot overthrowing someone else (this does not include politicians who seem to spend all their time doing these things).
I don’t think AHunter believes these things point to one’s gender. Just their biological sex.
True… but
We don’t don’t have Word A which means “this is the category that you look like, your physical characteristics”, and Word B which means “this is the category into which you place yourself, and into which we agree to place you if we don’t dissent with that”.
and…
But if we do not know Lena Horne, Julian Bond, Vanessa Williams, et. al, we’re back to:
… and that’s based on what the person looks like — their observable physical characteristics, if you see what I mean.
It seems to me (as a person who isn’t really in this situation) that if woud be conceptually useful to have two terms: one that refers to the race that Vanessa Williams identifies as (racial identity) and a different one that refers to the race that the majority of nonblind people from our culture would assign Vanessa Williams to on the basis of appearance if they did not know her.
Or, at least, it would be useful to a person seeking to uncouple those two factors, to open the social doors to the possibility of race being an identity that is first and foremost chosen by the self, while still being able to refer to the “altercast” (assigned-by-observers).
Depending on how well you know him and whether you think both of you would be comfortable doing so, go ask him about the years before he had a partner and whether or not any of it mattered. Whether he thinks he would have benefitted from a shared cultural notion about how feminine guys get girlfriends, and from shared cultural notions of sexy feminine guys who are experienced as hot by some of the girls; whether he thinks he would have liked to occasionally hear advice provided to single guys who wish they had girlfriends that was not tailored exclusively towards non-feminine guys and not anchored in the notion that the pool of potential girlfriends was entirely composed of girls who wanted masculine-flavored boys as boyfriends. Ask him if any of it matters. Tell him what I’ve written about and ask him if he thinks it’s irrelevant to anyone but the self-immersed Ahunter3.
“Who?”
cats and gorillas have more sexual dimorphism of their bodies than humans have, certainly with regard to typical body mass, and I bet in other ways, as well. I imagine some animals have more or less sexual dimorphism of their brains, as well.
Can you just go with the umbrella “Non binary”? Or do you think that implies more masculinity than you prefer?
I have a friend who calls himself a non-gender, conforming man. He’s very femme in personality, but has decided that he’s comfortable with his male body, and had no plans to change it.
I am not sure I conveyed what I was intending. I am seeking to understand. I know you are not a Millenial, but this seeking to be recognized seems to apply more to Millenials than to our generation.
I am not saying that a young person doesn’t need support or encouragement, or understanding or role models to guide them. And yes, those that fit more into the socially acceptable buckets will have an easier time of all that.
And possibly having a book that helps explain some of this (at least in the absence of having someone physically there) would be helpful to those going through this.
But I would say that is true in many areas. At the age of 14 our oldest revealed that she was cutting because she did not know how to handle the emotions that were going on with her. She felt she was attracted to both boys and girls and of course coming out of middle school and starting high school, and not feeling like she could really talk to anyone that understood what she was feeling, she felt trapped.
The turning point for her was getting it out to us. Her parents cared for her and wanted the best for her. Sure we did not know what she was going through, but we were able to show her that we loved her no matter.
I know not every young person has that support.
Again, I am not saying it is wrong. But I also know that young people that have limited life experience put more weight on others interactions with them, than they would later in life. From what I have seen so many teen suicides are over things that adults might find minor, but to the teen were not.
As for conversations with him on this matter. I am not that close with him. It could be that his experience is much like yours. It could be that he is gay, but based on family, religion, etc. choose to marry and just live life. It could be that those things are painful for him, or that he has moved on. There could be a lot of things, but again, we are not close enough for me to sit down and get that personal with him.
No, we don’t have a Word A. If people don’t know what race box a person belongs to or they want to be exceedingly polite, they describe the individual based on their appearance. “She has dark brown skin with curly black hair” paints enough of a picture.
“Ethnic group” doesn’t speak to a particular “look”, but it encapsulates what someone may want to identify as when race doesn’t work. Even if I looked like Ivanka Trump, I would still identify myself as a African American because this is my cultural group.
Let’s say Vanessa Williams identifies as a “Becky”. That’s the racial identifier that she’s adopted for herself because she rejects what "black"and “white” mean, and she wants to let other Beckies it is okay to be who they are.
If I were a high school student writing a biological sketch about Vanessa Williams, I wouldn’t describe her as a Becky. Because at it stands, that doesn’t exist as an established social construct and no one would really know what it means. No, I would describe her as a African American woman. Not based on her appearance, but because that is the social group that comes closest to describing her cultural background and the ways in which she has been socialized (and thus influenced). It paints a picture that Becky fails to do. “African American” is meaningful even if it is imperfect. “Becky” doesn’t have any meaning to anyone except for the few people who think that’s meaningful.
I think “male girl” is more coherent than “becky”. But is it superior to “feminine man”? Maybe one day it will be, but not now.
I get questioned about my race all the time. People want to know “what are you?” and when I tell them, sometimes they are confused by my answer because it doesn’t fit what their eyes see. And that’s fine. I don’t expect everyone to understand why someone with a yellow complexion would call herself “black”, nor do I think their understanding of this is required for them to be cool with me. I don’t insist that that anyone see me as black. I just want people to give me the freedom to identify myself that way. (Again, it is one of those “What else am I?” issues for me. I ain’t white or Asian or Native American. or Indian or Pacific Islander. So what else fits but black?)
As long as people give you the freedom to identify yourself the way you want to and they don’t give you a hard time about it when you bring it up in the appropriate context, I don’t know what else you can reasonably expect from people, to be honest.
In that case, we’re on the same page 
I’m trying to make a social change. I haven’t done so yet, and I agree that it makes no sense to use (or expect other people to use) social constructs that aren’t in use yet because, as you said, no one would know what the heck it means.
Kind of puts me in a double-bind but I’m not really about trying to get other people to use my words (not yet, anyway); at this stage it’s about trying to hold people’s attention long enough to convey the concepts. I’m sort of “proposing” words and terminologies as I go, I guess.
I belong to several groups of “nonbinary” people. Like “genderqueer”, it’s a word that applies accurately to me.
It’s a bit nonspecific but so is “genderqueer” — there’s a whole lot of etcetera going on in both places. Establishing more specific terms is a long-range project.
- thumbs up *
My parents made a home in which it was safe for me. I was never made to feel that my parents would have preferred a boy who wanted to play sports (etc etc) and never once did I get any of that “act like a man” stuff on the home front. They did wish I had more friends and worried a lot about my lack of social connections. And they sympathized and tried to be supportive when I was being harassed.
But they could not make it so that I had dates or a girlfriend in junior high and high school. I had to carry the decently-good self-esteem they’d helped me develop into the social world and do the best I could. At the time I felt very very alone despite their love for me.
I have the notion that telling my tale (and installing a new identity on folks’ maps of possibilities) will make it easier, that I can be a part of young folks’ support systems by doing so.