A hot take on transgender ideology (and gender ideology)

[Djinn]

I think transgender ideology is a bit strange, tbh.

Look at this link on "oversocialization": OVERSOCIALIZATION (Industrial Society and its Future) (xahlee.org)

I think oversocialization is an idea that Ted Kaczynski came up with, and a very good idea at that. Transgender ideology is an example of oversocialization. I think gender is a convenient pattern that we have put way too much stock into. We took what should have been a practical concept, and did terrible intellectual gymnastics with it to the point of fucking it up. Gender has long been a concept that constricts the way we think and function and is quite frankly, bullshit. The mere existence of transgender people should show us quite clearly that our gender notions have been unsubstantiated and constricting bullshit, but we are slow at pulling ourselves out of this mire of our creation. Too slow.

Even transgender individuals conform to conventional gender norms, just in an inverse way (hence, oversocialization). Their being genuine people stands to correct what we have been messing up for so long, but they end up further substantiating the crux of gender norms by calling themselves "trans-"gender as if some sort of deviant. See, this doesn't actually say gender norms are wrong, but that there is more to it than is initially evident, and thus history repeats itself with terrible intellectual gymnastics piled on top of terrible intellectual gymnastics. We keep complexifying and making significant this concept past a fruitful level and would do best to simplify and render it less significant. Stop giving gender in any form or manifestation such teeming definition and contrast if you don't want it to rupture.

I am male, but I relate to a lot to feminine characteristics. I like flowers, women's clothing, pink, and sometimes display girly behavior among other things. In the past I have gotten very intense feelings of gender dysphoria and seriously thought I would have rather been born female. Yet none of that opposes my sense of masculinity, at least not in recent years, because I (with exceptions due to inevitable social conditioning) stopped seeing the world through a gendered lens. By this I mean I just simply don't notice anything in a gendered context; I don't recognize cis, trans, binary, nonbinary, etc.

I am not oversocialized. Were I, I would be something other than cis for sure.



Alright,
Like I said, a hot take. Yet hopefully one that some found thought-provoking.





EDIT:

The amount of transphobia on this forum is disgusting.

(edit: apparently flames did not direct this at me, but I will still keep my response here)

Oh no, no that wasn’t the point.

The point is that gender has been a terrible concept for a long time (hence, why transgender people exist/need to exist) but I see the direction in which we are moving (establishment of non-cis ideology) as adding to it rather than dismantling it.

Gender ideology is an oversocialized concept, and so consequently is transgender ideology. The best solution is to subtract not add, is what I am trying to say.

Please don’t misunderstand my point because I love the transgender people in my life very much. I merely think the are marching in the wrong direction for something that is truly valid, themselves.

Ok, this thread has had a lot of excitement, lol. When I posted this thread I was trying to illustrate a specific facet of gender ideologies, but I was still ignorant of some things involving the relationship between gender and biology. A lot of posts here have discussed this relationship and helped me learn some things that I was previously unaware of, so I thank you all for that. Yet still, I had intended to touch on the more social facets of gender which have been barely grazed over in this thread, so I want to clarify some things I had in mind when creating the thread.

Look at this link on "oversocialization": OVERSOCIALIZATION (Industrial Society and its Future) (xahlee.org)

Years ago I began experiencing body dysmorphia/gender dysphoria (I don't anymore). At the height of this dysphoric experience I would feel a phantom awareness of female genitalia. Thing is, this experience of mine was the result of social causes rather than biological ones. Growing up, I was surrounded by people who said men do men things and women do women things, so the social conditioning allowed no room for a grey area. There is no clear limit to how far we can stretch gender past a biological basis so these gender notions would extend past biology and onto completely arbitrary ground.

A few examples of the ideology in my social sphere:
Men cook outdoors with grills whereas women cook indoors and use ovens
Men drive trucks whereas women drive anything but trucks
Men like football and boxing whereas women like volleyball and tennis
Men wear clothes for utility whereas women where clothes for fashion
Men don't like pink or purple whereas women do
Men are cool and collected whereas women are emotive and dramatic
Men like action movies whereas women like romantic comedies

I could go on and on and on with this...

Based on this, if one is properly socialized, they are expected to adhere to these conventions that in truth stray far beyond the buddy between your legs or anything else biological. For people who are properly socialized yet may break the society's gender code, there are feelings of dysphoria if one notices they broke the rules. It is also important to emphasize that when men are expected to do all of their respective things without deviation and women are expected to do all of their respective things without deviation, it creates this sort of "all or nothing" mentality. So when somebody breaks the code they are likely to experience some jolting vacillation of identity, and the shock alone is often enough to make people feel marginalized or like some sort of Frankenstein's monster, or even make them think they have done something immoral.

That identity shock and "all or nothing" mentality can consequently lead to someone not identifying with their sex anymore (either in the presence or absence of a biological reason to do so as well, it doesn't matter). For some people, as I experienced, this can lead to phantom limb syndrome. I would get phantom awareness of a vagina I never had, and the detail of this awareness would increase as I learned more about vaginal anatomy (note: I did not will this to happen, it was automatic). The fact that the sensation could change based on knowledge of the anatomy indicates, at least for me, that this was not caused by my biology, but by my psychological state at the time.

The "gender jolt" can be subtle and short in duration, but if recurrent becomes a nagging itch. This can lead to someone wanting to end the torture and just scratch that itch by transitioning, either sexually or ideologically or both, and forget the painful grey areas ignored by social conventions. This is what I meant when I said transgender people merely conform to typical gender norms in an inverse way. I see much of the direction in which gender ideology is headed as an extension of the norms rather than remodeling or dismantling them.