this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2024
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It's not really a tenable position that binary trans challenges gender more than cis. I wish I could just dig up my old rant on this but basically it went that a trans woman (to pick an example) is not rejecting masculinity as a concept nor challenging its place in society, she is merely rejecting personally practicing it and instead practicing a different role that co-defines masculinity. She is embracing the concept of masculinity and femininity as pillars of human existence by remaining in one of their silos.
Mind you, I think it's wrong to say they challenge gender less than cis people because that would be absurd, since cis people overwhelmingly constitute what gender is on a base level (as a product of patriarchal social order). Some terfs try to basically blame gender on binary trans people and it's immensely stupid, so let me be extra clear that I don't mean that.
The only people who I think can credibly be called the vanguard of gender abolition are those who reject their personally having a gender identity rather than just inventing a new one. Everyone else, myself included, is plainly not doing something comparable to this, though there are other productive things to be doing, and I support the traditional communist angle of attacking gender by attacking sexism (which ultimately defines gender) and the idea that there is any difference between what men and women should do on account of their gender (e.g. there is no such thing as a "man's job", a "woman's place", etc). Gender and sexism are intrinsically kind of the same thing in the same way that race and racism are, in that they have no substance without a belief in practical difference, which is widely understood on an intellectual level to be bigotry but still not really felt in many cases.
I wince at calling myself a "man" but, beyond that, call myself male out of social convenience. If the gender vanguard announced tomorrow that there would be no more men, it would change nothing about my self-perception or presentation.
Yes, that's what being homosexual means. I can't speak for others, but I prefer to be what is associated with men (physically speaking) because it's functional, while the aesthetic of women, for historical reasons relating to patriarchy, is overwhelmingly slanted towards being non-functional for things other than childbearing/rearing. I guess we have something in common because I tend to be more attracted to women who are fit rather than just thin, which by the definition I just laid out makes them a little more "masculine".
idk, breasts are attractive (see the unfortunate discourse on the front page) but I would never want to have them or any of the other pouches of fat that characterize visible female sexual dimorphism beyond wider hip bones (which seem fine to have), thinner bones (which no one should have) and of course genitalia. On that last point, well, I don't know how to explain this to someone who doesn't already understand it, but I am fine with having my own genitalia but am moderately revolted by those that aren't mine. Think of it like shitting, it's disgusting when it's someone else but with you it's just whatever. Vaginas are disgusting as well, but they are less visible and mechanistically get along with dicks pretty well most of the time.
That was my best attempt at simply explaining being a male cishet Marxist.
Edit: I think it's weird to get offended at this question being asked. It's not like it tagged people. If it annoyed me too much, I'd simply ignore it and/or block the poster. Wanting to understand the perspective of other people is good, actually.
Edit: I think if I was AFAB I'd either be butch or fully transmasc and still prefer women because dicks are still gross. Obviously my current perspective is deeply socially conditioned, so that speculation means nothing, but there it is.
Totally agree, I once grappled with the question of whether it would be better to be a greatly non-conforming lad or a be transfem. Though I settled on calling myself non-binary I thought like I was mtf for a time, and it was uncomfortable. Simply rejecting gender rather than inventing another one does sound like a great solution.
At this point I understand being a cishet man. Not too much effort, and women are great. Flip it for women. Again I’m not saying people shouldn’t be cis, I just thought it was an interesting question.
Personally, female fat distribution seems decent, though I wouldn’t like it’s extremes. Mostly hips are the superior part. Genitalia are gross, but at least female it’s out of the way,