aside from being cissexist the whole XX = female and XY = male thing is Straight-Up Wrong
AFAB people can have XO,XXX,XXXXandXY chromosomes while AMAB people have have XXYY,XYY, and XX chromosomes and since the majority of the population never has their karyotype examined, they’ll never know that they have one of these chromosomal quirks unless that specific combination has associated symptoms, and not all of them do. you could literally have one of the aforementioned combinations without even knowing it and meanwhile you’re insisting that all AFAB people are XX and that anyone else who has this must also be female
we could also talk about how hormonal patterns for XX persons can naturally and biologically mirror that of a typical XY person, or vis versa, which gives rise to things like androgen insensitivity disorder. here u have it, folks, an whole group of intersex people who have XY chromosomes and testicles and vulva and vagina, all grown naturally, all at the same time.
the number of people who are intersex mirror the number of people who are born with red hair, but no one goes around trying to say that red isn’t a natural hair colour just because the phenotype doesn’t manifest in the majority of the population.
seriously consider the bold if you are aggressively upholding the ridiculously flawed theory that is the sex and gender binary.
Big genetics nerd here, with a biology degree for whatever that’s worth. I’ve been saying this for well over a decade (i.e. it’s not a “tumblr thing” lol). The whole “XX = woman, woman = XX” thing, ditto for XY and men, works okay as a rough guideline but it’s simply not a universal “rule”.Sotelling trans people “you’ll always ‘really’ be [assigned gender], because chromosomes” is scientifically ignorant nonsense for three reasons:
Sex differentiation in humans isn’t really controlled by chromosomes. In species where it is, things like bilateral gynandromorphism can occur. That’s not possible in humans, though, because our development is controlled by hormones. Our chromosomes play only a very small role.
Because people don’t know other people’s karyotypes (or even their own, most of the time), they’re just pre-selecting the conclusion they want, then “proving” it with “evidence” they don’t actually have.
Because other conditions can also produce XX men and XY women, the idea that a trans person’s karyotype determines what they “really” are is a blatant double-standard. One which exists solely to “prove” the pre-determined conclusion that cis people’s genders are valid, and trans peoples’ aren’t.
Consequently, there are only two scientifically informed, logically consistent options:
Accept that nature is more complex than one learned in 5th-grade science class, and chromosomes can’t tell someone’s “real” gender. DNA is a truly wondrous molecule, not some Magical Essence of Gender.
OR, double down and demand to see everyone’s karyotype. Refuse to respect anyone’s gender if the results aren’t what one expected. Insist that all cis people with “mismatched” karyotypes must transition against their will, and be transphobic toward them until they do.
In other words, transphobes claim to be authorities on X and Y chromosomes, yet have no clue what they’re talking about.
Cisnormative society has a bizarre obsession with finding the One True Indicator of Biological Sex. Chromosomes are just the latest answer. In the past it’s been ovarian/testicular tissue, or penis/clitoris size. What will it be fifty years from now? But whichever One True Indicator is the current fad, there’s always at least one intersex condition which contradicts it, thus exposing how ridiculous and arbitrary these indicators really are.
Not that transphobes let facts stop them, of course. If someone doesn’t fit either One True Sex, they just don’t count! (I’ve literally heard this.) Cis people with reproductive, endocrine, or urogenital disorders still “count,” of course. An XY man with a small, hypospadic penis? An XX woman born without a uterus? Eh, just a man and a woman with minor quirks. A non-XX woman or non-XY man? They ~don’t count~, because ~disorder~. What an odd coincidence that this magical gender-invalidating power of “disorder” only applies to people who threaten the all-important binary. Circular logic at its finest: the binary is real because anyone who disproves it doesn’t count, and they don’t count because if they did, they’d disprove the binary!
That isn’t science. It’s not nature, or reason. It’s bigotry, plain and simple.
Do you ever just like hear someone next to you go “non-binary ppl don’t exist” and then it’s like hi? Hello. I’m right here. Look at me, existing. OooOoh spoopy.
the non-binary gender doesn’t exist. you do, but you’re just not non-binary.
Nonbinary people DO exist! You not believing in genders outside the binary doesn’t stop those genders from existing. The idea that there are two genders is not seen in every culture, it’s almost always coming from a perisexist worldview that isn’t accepting of intersex people, and it’s just messed up in general. Simply because certain genders are more common—men have the most common gender, followed by women—doesn’t mean those are the only genders out there.
And don’t think you can slide by with all that transphobic bull you keep reblogging. Shove off nonbinary peoples’ posts and leave—nothing about their existence greatly affects your life, so leave them alone.
QAC 76.5 - 11 Years In The Making: #TheBigChop || Non-binary | QPOC | Haircut |
two months after moving back to America from Japan, i’ve finally done what i’ve been dreaming about doing for years…! that is, cutting off my butt-length locs of 11 years– i.e., the #BigChop.
as a #nonbinary person i’d been conflicted about the length and style of my hair for years, but unable to do much of anything about it for various reasons, so finally being able to do away with them now is quite literally a dream come true.
even so, adjusting to life post-locs comes with new challenges, not only in terms to adjusting to the new hair itself, but also adjusting to others differing perception of me and my own unstable perception of myself. and what better way to deal with it all than to document the first week of it daily vlog style…?
…sure is an unscripted, experimental video if ever there was one.
*sweats*
So happy for Vesper! Everything seems to be coming together for them right now, and it is so wonderful to see <3
But on the subject of hair: while I am sad to lose an ultra-long hair buddy, I am so happy this worked out for them. Between the cut and the glasses they look a) amazing and b) somehow more like themself. I dunno, obviously the only look I have ever known on Vesper is locs, but just the way their energy has changed makes it clear this look is their Look.
Something I find interesting as relates to my own experience, though, is the fact that preliminary results suggest losing the hair has resulted in more gender confusion. This is exciting of course, but also interesting because as I try to articulate why I persist in keeping my hair long, one of the things I’ve hit on is that if I cut off all my hair, I would be a Lesbian, mystery solved.
Now, I’m not trying to say that there aren’t already people who identify my as a lesbian from how I dress, just that there’s more variety at this moment than I anticipate there would be if I chopped off all my hair. But, you know, then tension is real; my brother’s wedding isn’t until next March but already my biggest question is, what am I going to do with my dumb hair?
(It doesn’t help that I am terrible at hair care/styling (although I did do a deep cleanse on it recently and it doesn’t feel perpetually gross anymore, so that’s a positive). It’s so hard to figure out who to trust, especially when I cannot find anyone else with hair that looks like mine because only a crazy person would keep their hair as long as I do.)
Anyway, recently I’ve been having more fun with color than length (I wore blue to visit Grandma and wow was that a good time), but I so happy to see Vesper in love with their new look. Congratulations!
thanks for the kind words…! several people have said similar things about me looking “more like [my]self” post-Big Chop and… i have unprocessed Feels (neither negative nor positive Feels, mind you, but #Feels) about that and what that even means? both for me personally and in a more general sense? still processing that, but that’s beside the point.
on the topic of anticipating being perceived as a lesbian—#MysterySolved—should you cut off your hair, as opposed to the seemingly greater variation that exists in how people perceive you now with long hair… oh do i have feels that too, in addition to having feels about how my partner’s assumed gender becomes an additional #Checkmate to that #MysterySolved in most people’s eyes… i feel like i ought to expand upon and unpack my own feels about those things in a proper blog post or video at some point in the future, but long story short, i empathize so much with you there.
and while i may have bowed out of the Ulta Long Hair Club, i still retain lifetime membership to the Pain In The Ass Hair + Trust Issues Club and wholly understand that struggle. glad to see you’ve found some respite in coloring your hair at least and appreciate you taking the time to bounce off of my experience / thoughts with hair with your own.
i am so Here for any & all discussion of the complex, intersectional nature of hair, self-expression, and identity. <3
[image description: an extreme close-up of light blue forget-me-not flowers against a blurry blue background. white art deco letters in all caps say “monosexuality is a heterosexist idea used to oppress gay people and erase bisexuality from history and society”]
like what if they were right? what if the concept of monosexism rests on the insistence that there ARE two and only two genders, two and only two sexes, two and only two gender roles, to pair up in the first place? that makes sense, doesn’t it?
what if that means that it doesn’t just loathe bisexuals, because our very existence breaks that binary, but also intersex people, aces/aros, and trans people of all types?
what if that means that it does tolerate both straight and gay people, on the surface, but it’s demanding a rigid adherence to gender norms that the majority of gay people don’t fit into in the first place?
remember how Senator Barney Frank, and the HRC, fought for years to keep “gender identity and expression” out of the united states’s Employment Non-Discrimination Act? and even the Advocate magazine said, if it had passed that way, “many LGB individuals would have still been vulnerable to job loss as it would remain perfectly legal to fire a masculine-presenting woman or a feminine-presenting man. Those viewed as somehow outside of what society expects from us in terms of gender would remain a target.”
what if that’s heterosexism versus monosexism?
One part of our community sees things as being centered around “gay versus straight”, and thinks that we are only oppressed if people think we’re gay. Some of those folks acknowledge that cissexism exists alongside it, so people are oppressed for being gay or trans. In this worldview, people who “look straight” - intersex people, aces/aros, “het-partnered” bisexuals, nonbinary people, straight and passing trans people - are privileged. Gay men, lesbians, and anybody who will be read as gay or non-passing, are oppressed.
The other part of our community sees things as being centered around “violating the gender binary”, and thinks that we are oppressed when we are seen as bending or breaking that binary. This includes gay men, lesbians, and/or non-passing trans people, but it also includes everyone who is nonbinary, passing trans people, intersex, ace, aro, bi, et cetera.
Because the rule of the gender binary is that there have to be two and only two genders, which have to correspond correctly with the two and only two sexes that are acknowledged, and the two and only two gender roles, and they have to be with each other, and only each other. That is how the gender binary works. That’s what it is.
I think that one perspective is what we label as “heterosexism,” and the other is what we label as “monosexism”. I think this is the big divide that has always, always been present in the community. And I think that lately we’re being told over and over, by the first group, that believing monosexism exists is anti-gay, and it’s keeping everyone from seeing that actually, monosexism itself is anti-gay.
Today, please consider what sorts of trans people are visible.
Art of trans bodies is overwhelmingly white, is overwhelmingly trans men with top surgery scars and vulvas and trans women with breasts and a penis.
There are trans men/transmascs who don’t get top surgery! There’s also trans men/transmascs who get bottom surgery! I’ve never ever seen any art of phalloplasties/metoidioplasties, or even the scars on the arm/leg that come with them. There’s even trans men/transmascs who never go on HRT!
There are trans women/transfemmes who don’t have noticable breasts! There are even some transfemmes who wear binders or get top surgery to keep a flat chest. There are also transfemmes who get bottom surgery, and transfemmes who never go on HRT!
Trans people have all sorts of body/genital combinations!
Trans people do not become trans only after we medically transition!
If you’re an artist who wants to depict more types of trans bodies, I highly recommend Transbucket. It has a huge range of gender confirmation procedures with lots of pictures.
[ID: a screenshot of a comment from reddit, with no username visible. The commend reads: This doesn’t make a ton of sense to me either. Setting aside the question of whether gender/sex is assigned or observed at birth, the gender I was assigned at birth was ‘boy.’ The gender I have now is ‘man’. Boys and men have different gender roles, and few adults identify as boys anymore. From this standpoint, every adult has a different gender than the one they had at birth. End ID]
Framing “girl” and “boy” as separate genders from “woman” and “man” is such an amazing take. it’s a framework that accommodates and explains so many trans experiences. Some trans people never were their AGAB. Some feel like they were their AGAB, but that that changed (usually when puberty hits, which is when you start “becoming a man/woman”. The accepted societal path is that girls grow up to into women, and boys grow up into men. But some girls grow up into men, and some boys grow up into women. This guy was a boy who grew up into a man, which generally works out pretty well for people. Some boys and girls grow up into people who aren’t men or women, even! It’s like this random cis guy skipped right over transgender 101, 102, 201, etc. and stumbled directly into Transgender Nirvana.
The distinction between boy/man and girl/woman as societal genders is evident once you start understanding gender as an intersectional phenomenon. A boy of color who is forcibly assigned the incongruent role of “man” by institutions like the police has his very identity fundamentally undermined and a whole different set of societal expectations thrust upon him compared to what a boy-assigned-boy does. A disabled woman who is assigned an identity of “girl” through infantilization is barred from interacting with the world the way that women-assigned-women do.
Beyond just age, there are other lines along which the gender binary is revealed to actually be an amalgamation of multiple distinct social genders. “Frigid woman,” for example, has historically been treated as a separate gender phenomenon from “mother,” wherein mothers are “real” women and “frigid” women are failures who are barred from accessing true societal acceptance as women. Even among women who do fulfill the societal expectation of childrearing, the roles of “mother” and “grandmother” are different, and people fitting those roles will have very different experiences navigating the same world, both on an internal and an external level.
In cultures where there is high stigma against alcoholism, “alcoholic” is practically a removed gender from “man.” And when you consider the relationship that stigmatized perceptions of alcoholism have with traits like parenting ability, impotence, ability to work, aggression, attraction, etc, the link between consumption and gender becomes quite evident!
And it really wasn’t all that long ago when the functional framework for queer attraction within sexology was to understand homosexuality as a third (bio)sex assignment. Being gay and being trans used to be one and the same; “attraction to/has sex with men” was a core requirement of the “woman” gender and “attraction to/has sex with women” was a core requirement of the “man” gender, such that what we think of as a gay man of today would have been just as effectively conceptualized as a woman back then, and vice versa. The first known use of the word “bisexual” was to refer to somebody “possessing characteristics of both sexes,” ie somebody who could perform relationships with both men and women, ie somebody who could perform as both a man and a woman. The concept of gender being something distinct from attraction has only been a mainstream concept for a handful of decades now.
Basically, if an anthropologist with no bias towards binarism looked at how human society behaves, they would see quite a lot of genders, even among people who the binary system currently considers to be cis. They would see boys, girls, partnered mothers, single mothers, partnered fathers, single fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, twinks, bears, dykes, femmes, working women, homemakers, alcoholics, asexuals, manual laborers, white-collar workers, and so many others.
A poststructuralist lens specifically would tell you that all the lines in the sand are arbitrary, whether that’s the binary or any other taxonomy we come up with around any other criteria. At the end of the day, categories are what we use to try to make sense of the world, but challenging the supposed innateness of those categories through intersectional analysis is important and necessary work. The fact that the gender binary is so easy to deconstruct via the intersection of age demonstrates how flimsy of a model it is for describing real human diversity.
