Are you a gender abolitionist?

[Ikarus]

 

What is gender abolition? or put quite simply, why be boy? 

In a nutshell gender abolitionism or postgenderism argues that gender creates unnecessary harm by enforcing arbitrary limitations on the human experience.

Imagine a world where there are no men or woman, just people. In this world people would dress however they wanted without being pidgeon holed into a restrictive social category. Basically there would be no expectations based purely on an individuals appearance or genitals. 

Changing ones expression or body would be unimportant since there are no more expectations attached to painting nails, or wearing tuxedos.  

What do we call blue eyed people? People, not bleebs, nor do we use special ble/bler pronouns. The genetic trait of blue eyes is irrelevant. This is what we do with gender. We attach an arbitrary set of social rules for people based off of their sex. Society conflates sex and gender, those who do not conform are treated with contempt. 

In this world there would be no harassment because no one would care anymore about the implications of dressing or acting a certain way. 

But what about trans people? Trans people would still exist.

In a post-gender society, some people would feel dysphoria and need to make changes to their body to feel comfortable and happy. Also there is some evidence that being trans can be a matter of biology for some folks. 

A transgender person is someone who does not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth. Consider the implications of a posgender society to a trans person. If you were never assigned a social gender and forced to abide by its rules, there is nothing to transition away from, socially speaking. 

Well that is what gender abolitionism is. Are you a gender abolitionist? Is postgenderism the future? 

Edited July 7 by Ikarus

[DeltaAro]

Personally, I dislike gender. It is an endlessly confusing concept to me.

But if we abolish enforced gender roles, or abolish gender as an official category used by the state, we haven't actually abolished gender. It would still exist as a self-identity.

And there is no way to abolish gender in that sense without interfering in people's freedom of self-expression. I guess people really like identifying with a gender. It is a source of happiness and life fulfillment, as strange as that may sound to agender people.

Of course, humans might organically lose their interest in gender identities in the future (though that's unlikely). In that case, I certainly wouldn't miss gender.

But there is no justification to go on a sort of crusade against something that can be perfectly harmless. While gender can be harmful, I haven't seen a good argument why it should be essentially related to harm.

Therefore, I am not a gender abolitionist.

PS: Originally, abolitionism meant the movement for the abolition of slavery. I dislike modern attempts to use that term for something else.

Abolitionism is venerated since it succeeded in abolishing this "stain on humanity" even in the face of enormous economic pressure. So I regard the term "gender abolitionism" as an illegitimate grab of the positive connotations from slavery abolitionism.

Edited June 15 by DeltaAro

[Rook on the Hook]

Not at all. I'm very much against the forced imposition of gender on people, but I think trying to abolish it entirely would just strip a lot of people of identities that are very meaningful to them. In my experiences, even cis people tend to have a pretty strong connection to their gender, and it really can't be understated just how rich and varied ideas of gender actually are globally and throughout history--hell, I think the reason transphobia is as potent as it is, is because gender is so sacred to people's sense of self, and anything that feels like a challenge to that feels like a challenge to their identity and worldview. You really can't get rid of gender wholesale without getting rid of a lot of cultural identities and traditions that are very important to people. The way I see it, we need to expand gender beyond the Western binary that's been violently enforced onto people to allow for a wider range of both individual and cultural expressions of gender, not throw it out the window.

And on a personal level, being regarded as genderless doesn't make me feel liberated, it makes me feel misgendered. Part of that certainly comes from the fact that cis people will frequently de-gender me when they want to disregard my trans identity without being blatantly transphobic, but at the end of the day, I'm just not agender. My masculinity is something that brings me a huge amount of comfort and joy, and while there are certainly traditionally masculine traits of mine that I like because they're just fundamental to who I am as a person, there are also things I enjoy just because they're masculine. one of the best parts about being trans for me is that I'm able to take so much joy in things cis people take for granted, and I would absolutely not experience that in a society that disregards gender entirely. Gender is a performance, and I am absolutely jamming on the stage.

[Ikarus]

On 6/15/2024 at 7:10 AM, DeltaAro said:

Personally, I dislike gender. It is an endlessly confusing concept to me.

But if we abolish enforced gender roles, or abolish gender as an official category used by the state, we haven't actually abolished gender. It would still exist as a self-identity.

And there is no way to abolish gender in that sense without interfering in people's freedom of self-expression. I guess people really like identifying with a gender. It is a source of happiness and life fulfillment, as strange as that may sound to agender people.

 

Gender is equally confusing for me as I am also agender. For now on I will use the term posgenderism in my replies since it comes with less baggage. 

Is a posgender world possible. Theoritically their is a future where people have gone far beyond the reaches of gender binaries. The philosophy of gender liberationists is normalized. This philosophy being there is no right or wrong way to be boy. Now for the sake of argument lets say this principle is practiced for several generations or so. How long does it take until gender becomes a meaningless category since anyone can be boy and boy begins to mean nothing?

Let me just say this, a society without gender playing a big role in peoples lives is very easy for me to imagine as an agender person but is it at least plausible in some world that gender loses its meaning over time? The binary will become more and more vague. Men woman, demi girls, all the genders will be less attached to personality traits, ways of dress etc since their would be gender freedom to break the binary. It would be as common to see a woman acting sterotypically masculine as a man acting steretypically feminine but both could be commonly accepted as either a man or woman. What is gender then over time? This is just a theory though, a gender theory, thanks for reading. 

Also let me add that the message I got from my limited experience of watching youtubers talk about posgenderism is that gender liberationism will eventually lead to the break down of the gender binary which will then lead to gender being less identifiable or noticable in society. Men and woman will be thought more as people first rather than gender. It is a long process not a rule enforced by the government. Its basically a long social evolution theory. 

Edited July 7 by Ikarus

[ABC]

Agreed with how even if gender becomes irrelevant in society (I wish!), people will still hold onto it.

With the difference that it would be as personal as religion. I have my religion or lack of, and you have yours, and there will be clubs for members who share commonalities. If people can keep being religious in a secularized world as in nobody’s pushing anything down their throats (except family or certain countries), the only decision they follow is what clicks with them, surely the same can be done with gender.

No more M/F (and whatever the intersexed use) in government ID is a dream.

Great idea for people to be people first and for gender to be irrelevant…as irrelevant as religion.

Personal relevance yes, but imagine no societal obsession towards it, with the exception of the clubs to gather for it.

Also for sexual characteristics, they will be irrelevant except for toilet training, specific healthcare for those parts, and adult matters.

Although I’m not trans myself, I think they would still be there. If we go back to hypothetically treating gender like religion, if people can move between religions and have it be a personal matter that’s comfortable for them, then surely trans people will still exist if it’s what’s comfortable for them.

So it’s theoretically possible for gender to be separated from state just like how it’s possible for religion to be separated from state.

But realistically, I just don’t see this gender-obsessed society to ever stop being obsessed with gender and especially the limiting stereotypes it tries to constrict everyone into.

[Ikarus]

It doesn't have to be all or nothing at all. If at the very least, the absolute bare minimum, society begins to shift toward treating gender beyond strict binaries. Well, thats all I could realistically hope for. I don't think im asking for the moon here. It starts with mens fashion. Why?

Woman can dress in pants or dresses. Men on the other hand cannot wear anything remotely feminine or appear feminine without committing entirely to the bit. You cannot have a stubble of facial hair with feminine clothing. On a positive note woman have been able to get away with wearing mens clothing, especially suits and so forth in the 80s. Once men can wear womans clothing without everyone losing their minds, well we might be getting somewhere folks. 

We have already come a long way towards challenging strict binary gender expression and I believe society can and will continue to move the binary until we can finally have femboys in public. As long as people can stop thinking its okay to kinkify guys who simply like wearing skirts. Celebrate the small victories we have accomplished and strive towards steps in the right direction. That direction simply being challenging strict conformity.

[ABC]

I saw this: https://www.reddit.com/r/RoleReversal/

If only this is more mainstream instead of just being confined to a forgettable niche!

Media representation (advertisements etc) have been too rigid for several decades, and the moment marketing shows something that challenges strict conformity, the vocal nonconformity-phobes would whine and scream online, threatening to cancel “woke” companies and other worse threats towards the individuals involved. They don’t understand that we’re not doing it for them, we’re doing it for ourselves because it’s what some of us really want to do, we don’t even perceive those strict noncomformity-phobics, we just want to be free, and they act like it’s the apocalypse if we try to normalize nonconformity.

But yes, continuing to push it despite the haters is the right direction to make noncomformity more acceptable. It’s still a long way to go before it becomes mainstream, but if we give it several more decades, we might eventually see that change we want to see.

It got me thinking back to the what if gender was treated like religion analogy, some people wear necklaces or headwears to display their faith, and the impact it has is generally pretty minimal, with exceptions (fellows sharing the same faith will notice it more than a non-believer, but if it was a different faith, it might be a bigger deal for both those in the ingroup and the outgroup).

While if anyone has or doesn’t have facial hair, short or long hair, curvy or rough chest, makeup or no makeup, high, medium or low speaking voice, it’s affecting everyone, even if they’re trying to just be neutral, certain factors like speaking voice or how someone’s facial hair or chest shape is, will give biased perceptions to the entire individual’s personality on first impressions. In a dream society, instead of using the 2 binary pronouns assumed on everyone based on a judgement of the combination of these characteristics, why not normalize just calling everyone “they/them” until they give preferred pronouns, or using names to differentiate individuals. Imagine if everyone walked around with nametags of preferred names. What a dream!

And then we come back to the noncomformity-phobic people who would perceive their existence and act like it’s the apocalypse, making threats and suchlike, but even the loud threateners do know that if they actually act upon their threats, they will be accountable for fines and jail time. It’s difficult for them, but they just have to get used to a broader range of expressions/presentations. They can stay at home and not go online or not turn the TV on if they’re so phobic to seeing nonconformity, while we will keep being ourselves, whether we ‘conform’ or not isn’t even what matters, it’s just that if some of us happen to ‘not conform’, it should be accepted side-by-side with the ‘conforming’. Like ‘tomboys’ are already ‘normal’/‘mainstream’, so should femboys.

And then there’s intersectionality, for now, society will still conflate some characteristics with other unrelated characteristics, to the point they become stereotypes and if someone doesn’t fit that stereotype the conformists will whine again…At this point we should just ignore their whining if they’re not threatening us, and if they attack we have all rights to self-defense, after all they started the attack first by reacting to ‘nonconformity’ negatively/aggressively.

Instead of gender abolitionist, gender conformity abolitionist is much, much better. Of course you should still dress appropriately for school, work, parties etc, but if we remove the notions of conformity specific to gender, everyone’s wardrobe freedom would be doubled.