Anonymous #3 21h

and honestly I would say a lot of times gender is very uncomfortable no matter what you identify as. IDK about you guys, but my personal experience with it is that I never really like fitting into the boxes society says that I need to. but I still like existing as the color pink on the gender wheel because im ok with that being part of my existence.

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Anonymous #2 21h

^^^^^ this

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Anonymous #2 21h

Furthermore. My mother put me in ballet lessons even though I hated it because she said it was “girly” and i should be more girly. My grandpa yells at me for biting my nails because a woman should have delicate hands. Half the advice a woman gets is to sit down and shut up. The people who know their gender best is the people who can’t escape it

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Anonymous #2 21h

is this a rite of passage because same💀ballet and misogynistic sexist grandpa

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I disagree that CIS people don’t experiment lol. I don’t say that to discredit the trans experience because I understand that there are things as a cis woman I don’t understand about it. but I would say that the grueling process of picking yourself apart can be applied to other areas of life, and aren’t just exclusive to the trans experience. sorry if that makes me unpopular in my opinion, but I think it’s miopic and way too narrow minded to say that’s something cis people can’t experience

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Anonymous #3 21h

full stop. relating to the experience of gender and being trans, we still may have similar experiences that make us feel the same and experience things similarly. like idk why as someone that’s trans you would be against having shared similar experiences with other members of the human race. yes. being trans is unique to trans people. picking apart gender in order to better understand yourself is not

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Anonymous #3 21h

in fact, I would argue that irrespective of how you personally identify, this is one of the most gender conscious generations. and that’s really cool about our entire generation

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I’m not arguing about the trans experience. I said there’s plenty of shit I don’t know about how it personally feels to go through the trans experience. I said it’s ignorant and narrow minded and frankly stupid to say cisgender people can’t experience it or will never understand it full stop. I don’t think that touches the trans experience I think it more so focuses on the complete lack of nuance in that take LOL

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b/c the first part of the post I feel like everyone can agree with. the second part pisses me off because it’s inflammatory, based in feeling alone, and not actually true. isolating cis people in experience only furthers the divide for trans people in societies like the one we’re dealing with today, not the other way around. and if we’re tying it back to oppression, which im totally cool unpacking as well because it’s important to talk about, it only adds to it to not be able to discuss nuance.

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and maybe im giving off too much of Tori vega when she was like “I think we all sing” in that one interview rn so I can back off🤷🏻‍♀️but it made me feel a way and I cared enough to express it. sorry if I made anyone uncomfortable in sharing my experience and opinion as that was not my intention💛

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Anonymous #7 19h

even the most closed minded cis people unironically have some of the most deeply entangled, complicated relationships with gender.

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Anonymous #7 19h

^^^^THIS

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Anonymous #2 19h

many cis people have questioned gender, but trans people do that while also transitioning. transition generally garners a nuanced view of gender by its very nature; cis people have to go very out of their way to obtain the same understanding.

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Anonymous #7 19h

experiencing ≠ understanding

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Anonymous #8 19h

Out of their way? Like I said, I question my gender and its norms every time someone tells me I’m not ladylike enough (which happens a lot btw). I would never try to assume anything about the experience of transitioning, but let’s be frank, having lived in the same gender your entire life (an entire life of study and hands-on experience) has slightly more nuance over time than a transition later in life.

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Anonymous #8 19h

how can you not understand your own gender experience? no one’s saying cis people understand transitioning specifically, but what i am saying is that examination of gender isn’t something that only COMES from transitioning. nor is it as rare as a lot of trans people think it is for cis people to do. everyone is bombarded by the exact same gender roles and cultural expectations. the only difference is that we end up in difference places because we’re all different people with unique identities

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Anonymous #7 19h

it’s just weird to conflate transitioning with understanding gender. even weirder to imply no one but trans people understands their own complex gender identity fully. if that were true things like being gnc, breaking gender roles, etc. literally would not exist for anyone BUT trans people. but it doesn’t

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Anonymous #2 19h

Literally. Like even as a cis woman, I’ve never felt woman enough. I’ve questioned my gender many times because of it but ultimately feel like I’m ok being a woman. It’s even harder being a black woman because our femininity is always stripped from us historically.

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Anonymous #9 19h

Damn straight!

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Anonymous #10 18h

^^^^ exactly what I was trying to express but in better words

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Anonymous #2 18h

i love your input gave a lot of perspective. i also feel like this would only mostly apply to cis white straight men masculinity is never challenged or seen as a threat unless its from a person of color

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Anonymous #11 18h

I’m a white woman… but I see your point ❤️

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Anonymous #2 18h

what does that last part even mean 😭 everyone lives “an entire life of hands-on experience” with gender, same as how everyone uses money. most people don’t think about how they’re actively engaging with the social construct of currency daily unless they experience smth that challenges a perspective related to that construct. obviously, nuanced gender isnt exclusive to trans people lol. but the trans experience is one which inherently requires an active experimentation with gender.

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Anonymous #7 17h

the idea that only trans people question gender is braindead. that said, the trans experience is one of few (you listed some) that involve active experimentation & study of gender. many cis people aren’t required to do that research or work: sometimes they do, but trans people do almost always.

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Anonymous #8 17h

I mean idk as a cis woman I’ve always had to examine my gender and experiment with that. I’m sorry I just think it’s part of the human experience of existing in the societal structure we exist in. as long as gender exists, everyone is examining their gender and experimenting with it and questioning it. even to the smallest degree. i think everyone does it, but some people as cis people have the privilege of checking out and saying “eh I don’t care that much about gender” because they

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Anonymous #8 17h

so many cis people are absolutely required to though?? someone else already mentioned it, but as a black woman i’ve also never had to luxury to not question and examine my gender and the roles it plays in my life because of how people like to masculinize us. there are so many things of my own culture that don’t align with who i am as a person that have made me question my gender, what it means to me, what is and isn’t allowed, etc

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Anonymous #3 17h

simply don’t care about it in the same way for whatever reason that is (there can be several reasons for why that is). but everyone I’ve met and interacted with has at some point in their lives thought about “what does it mean to me to be a man/woman?” “when I grow up, I want to be this kind of a man/woman because of X person I saw do this” is that not gender exploration?

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Anonymous #7 17h

I would honestly argue that existing in the binary is just as taxing and frustrating than saying “hey fuck the binary” or saying “I reject the heteronormative structure of the binary I was forced into and im transitioning to the other side of the binary.” It’s just a DIFFERENT kind of frustrating and taxing. we can absolutely say being trans is really hard and difficult because it’s always been a hard world to be deemed different. but cisgender people, esp in our generation after everyone was

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Anonymous #3 17h

being forced into noncomformity naturally garners a nuanced opinion of the system; it’s the same for sexuality. I’d say queer people generally know more about sexuality than cishets, and I’d imagine people here would agree. same concept for trans people: they all HAVE to think about it, rolling it in their hands daily… most cishets might have passing thoughts

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Anonymous #3 17h

forced to collectively examine gender and roles differently than past generations, also have a different responsibility to figure out positive ideals of femininity and masculinity

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Anonymous #3 17h

everyone has a sexuality, and may question it even to the smallest degree: does that mean cishets (in general) understand sexuality just as much as queer people? not being part of the norm creates a dissonance that we are forced to address. cishets may sometimes experience some dissonance, but—as you said—it’s not to the same degree.

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Anonymous #3 17h

it really is, and if it weren’t for character counts i could write a whole ass essay about it lol. there’s no one thing that triggers gender examination. and what a lot of people forget is that even the most “traditionally cis” people are still grappling with gender roles and engaging with the constraints of them. just because we don’t see that struggle as clearly as a visible transition, or don’t hear it talked about as much, doesn’t mean it isn’t there. it’s just different

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Anonymous #8 17h

but just because it’s not to the same degree doesn’t mean that dissonance is not intrinsically part of the human experience and something that unites us all as a common experience. and that’s literally all I disagreed with in this post

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Anonymous #7 17h

did I say cis people weren’t required to -_- your experience is one of the ones I mentioned that’s grouped with the trans experience as “inherently requiring experimentation & study.”

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Anonymous #3 17h

frankly, this is a pretty abstract/overly-general discussion, and we’re all thinking of different situations—likely from our own lives. personally, I’d like to know what inspired this post, since the discussion on that would more demonstrably show our beliefs ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Anonymous #8 17h

ig not, but you’re still assuming being a part of a norm also means not experiencing any friction within that norm as well, and acting like the vast majority of cis people aren’t required to. 😭 when you really sit down and add up all the experiences that “count.” you realize there’s actually a big ass group of cis people required to have a deeper understanding of gender

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Anonymous #7 17h

esp when the original point being made was that cis people have no clue what gender is bc they never question it period. that’s just flat out wrong no matter what context you add to it

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Anonymous #7 17h

I never said the vast majority of cis people aren’t required to, I simply meant the vast majority of trans people are. key difference.

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Anonymous #7 17h

and people often make posts as vents, and don’t say what they mean. this is the internet, there’s gonna be miscommunication 😭 obviously you’re allowed to be upset abt it, but saying “no context makes it better” is reductive as hell

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Anonymous #8 17h

no in another thread you directly drew a comparison implying that most cis people don’t engage with the social construct. you’ve been moving the goalpost from “experience =/ understand” to “most cis ppl don’t” to “they can but trans ppl do more” too. not really upset about anything, im just taking their words at face value. they made an absolute statement that’s 100% wrong, you can’t get more reductive than that lol. if they meant something else then by all means, i’ll wait for a clarification

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Anonymous #7 15h

if you’re referring to the currency comparison, you misread it lol. I said most people don’t think about it “daily.” I haven’t moved the goalposts a single time, and I’ve stayed consistent with my points. I’m sorry if you’ve misinterpreted, but it artificially detracts from my point to make claims about my comments that simply aren’t true.

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While that’s true, I don’t think you understand what I mean when I say trans people have to have an academic understanding of gender. As a trans man, I’ve had to prepare and present an academic-style explanation of sex and gender almost every time I’ve come out. That means the bimodal distributions of sex and gender, the split between sex and gender, and scientific studies that give evidence for commonly accepted theories. All this just for a chance at not being constantly treated as subhuman.

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Anonymous #2 9h

hold up. are you saying all of this as if it’s unique to cis women…? and insinuating that cis people “know their gender best”, not just that we’re all on a level playing field? not to mention suggesting that trans people can “escape” our genders, as if we can simply opt out of transness at no major personal cost? idek where to begin lmao

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Anonymous #15 9h

I mean, isn’t part of the point of transitioning to escape the gender you were born into because it doesn’t match what you feel on the inside? I’m a cis woman, I don’t plan on transitioning. So yes, I can’t escape my gender. And yes, I will forever stand by that cis women know a little more about what it means to be a woman more than those who transition

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Anonymous #2 8h

when I consider how much I’d have to explain in order for you to grasp what’s wrong with what you’re saying, I simply cannot justify the effort & time expenditure 🫡 not here to guide you, just wanted to clarify & draw attention to some things you were saying there

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Anonymous gipsum 7h

Idk bro saying that the gender that is societally oppressed FOR their gender has “no clue about gender” is just crazy to me.

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