Gender Assumptions

Sometimes, so I think, God's voice is way too shallow, or faint, deep perhaps, for us to make much - or anything - of it. I've tried to address this at times - where part of the problem is our ability to consciously connect with it. Where ... if the voice were loud ... we might hear it and steer towards it and all that, but maybe the difference isn't all that significant when the quality of the gained understanding matters.
I mean, I can talk - and write and stuff - and there sure are qualities to that. Yet barely, if ever, has God been that straight with us.

So - over time then, I assume, God "spoke" to me, but I couldn't "hear" it. Until one day it clicked. That as I was, once more, about to concern myself with a specific term - and it dawned upon me as echoes might, so I now consider it a bad word. That term is: 'to misgender'.


And maybe it clicked, because I was ready for it to do so. Say ... an idea, an urge, growing from a confusion brought about by varying, conflicting ideas. Yet I was never quite able to "work it out". But now, with the premise of regarding 'misgendering' a bad word, I can. If that premise had however been made loud, we might find ourselves turning into transphobes in all of their hatespeechie glory. Well, maybe not - but things wouldn't have been clear. Unless an explanation was given.

Now, what is gender? Saying that it is a social construct, is like saying that a house is a physical construct. It is true, but that wouldn't help us knowing what a house is.
Nor would it be fair to show someone a statue under the assumption that it is close enough to being a house.

A bird might be able to appreciate it, a human however not so much.

So, what is a man? What is a woman? At first, the matter is clear. Both are expressions of a ... well ... mostly bimodal genome, driven by two hormones. Either hormone is strongly associated to a certain body type, predominantly recognized by the presence of specific, generally mutually exclusive organs; But also psychological properties.

While psychology isn't as easily understood as the physical/visible plane, the primary argument would be, that these properties are aligned to the 'sex'es individual 'purpose'; as some "high end" approximation of a multitude of factors - probably related to reproduction.

The respectively emergent cultural habits and norms are what we recognize as a 'social construct' - also referred to as "gender roles". "Gender theory" is hereby at first a school of thought emergent from the recognition that these roles aren't identical or in direct relation to the associated body's function. This permits further consideration, such as that the common lines drawn between the sexes don't always hold up; Once more highlighting the "constructed nature" of the gender roles.

This eventually results in an antithetical school of thought, that is: one minded of preserving the construct. We might label them as 'gender extremists' or 'gender fascists'.
Here the man is generally seen as strong and dominant - and the woman as weak and subservient. Strength and Dominance are thereby regarded as liabilities, via associated responsibilities (protection, leadership), and the service of women the corresponding privilege - as in turn a responsibility of the woman; Who has the privilege of safety without risk.
Fundamentally however does the reproductive process of humans put the woman into a state that inhibits her ability to serve. The validity of that role thereby depends on the social surroundings. Saying that if no woman is present, the man eventually needs to fulfill certain womanly functions.
Also does the cultural success of mankind lessen the need for survival and leadership in the classical sense.

Either way, Gender can here be defined by a set of "secondary functions" (protection, cooking, building, planning, etc.) that supplement the 'biological foundation'; Whereby "the default" (strength and dominance vs. weakness and subservience) eventually prove to be inadequate - more so as matters of the mind start to matter.
Though gender fascists like to contend, that the man is also the more reasonable or rational, and while gender theorists like to call that wishful thinking, we may independently maintain an individual's proclivity towards certain "secondary functions" as a kind of 'social role' - independent from sex and quality.

This social role - as part of the individual - combines with sexual tendencies and intellectual capacity into a sort of 'cultural interest'. Which is, in my opinion, the most adequate 'vessel' for respecting an individual within an enlightened society.

This is also something that does roughly translate into the initial concept of 'gender' - as it is otherwise somewhat 'lost' in the underlying complexity. So are there models that would make 'social role' a matter of gender; And the same goes for sexual tendencies and intellectual capacity. Either model, or any combination thereof, further has to deal with the concepts of hetero- and homosexuality ... essentially across the entire spectrum of available solutions.

As the range of available genders thus tends to be beyond any simple grasp, the matter of 'misgendering' does pretty much turn into a non-issue.

But yet there is ... an issue. To start simple, we may start with a duality. One being: Gender as a matter of external versus gender as a matter of internal identification.
While both rely on an individual model, the external one tends to lean on appearances whereas the internal one leans on experiences.
And this leads us to "the transgender issue".

Hereby, linguistically, we nowadays recognize three genders. Male, Female and Other/Undefined (he, she and it). And "transgenderism" tends to express itself by an individual's desire to transition from one to the other; Practically rooted in an incongruence between the external and the internal identity.

And there's a lot to it - with varying degrees of intimate reasoning. But, one has to note, that by and large any internal identity can only be externalized on a "trust me" basis - which gets simplified when regarding it as: trust me that I just want to live my life.
Hereby, in as far as the sex hormones come with psychological implications, the mind also comes with such. And the degree to which they align could be reasoned into a degree of "transness". Such and such. It should be relatively self-explaining.

All of this however also means, that any number of lines we might draw, does probably fall into gray areas.
And so I think the true problem of misgendering comes as a matter of drawing these lines. Be it from the individual in demand of recognition, or from the observer by implied biases. Either way does misgendering come as an inevitability.

There are, however, yet again, two types of misgendering. There's the gender fascist type that insists on biological traits as the only valid source of identification, saying that a man can't be a woman and vice verso, and so on; And there's the 'accidental' misgendering that doesn't come from an intent to disrespect an individual's identity. It, I'd argue, stems from a perceivable incongruence between the own 'standards' and what is being perceived. Voice and shape per chance. This still is a fault of the one midgendering externally, as they hold too narrow of an idea of the gender the misgendered individual identifies as; But also one of the misgendered individual by presenting outside of the biological norm.

Naturally, to me, gender fascism is unacceptable. Beyond that, trans people just are 'vulnerable' to misgendering. That is to say, 'to be regarded by properties ascribed to a different gender than the one they identify as'. While so far the solution to that was thought to enforce respect, I still think that respect is paramount to working this out. But I don't think, that getting hung up over pronouns is the way.
I mean, they sure are a part of it - but with that I think come certain problems. So is the matter of 'regarding an individual by properties ascribed to the gender they identify as' important for the gendering to 'make sense' - but that may cause discomfort as one's identity is a mix of public and private "items". A trans person would regard them as irrelevant but 'micro-expressions' aren't like always on the screen sotospeak. Long story short: I think us trannies can also do gender affirming care. So, as an experimental suggestion, when "misgendered" we might try to lean into it. Thus affirming the person in their perception of us; Rather than trying to hide what maybe can't be hidden. On the other hand, when gendered correctly, we can do the same - leaning into that side of us; And over time that might help set things into order. I'll try.

With gender fascists though ... I don't know. But I don't think we should be afraid of not perfectly passing.
Anyway - I think I need some time to let this ... boil, as it were.