That’s pretty much how it already works. It’s just that the pressure to make the “correct” choice is fucking crazy.
It would be so interesting if humans didn't have a gender assigned at birth and could choose who they want to be.
Submitted 2 weeks ago by DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
Comments
yesman@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Luci@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
For some of us we didn’t know there was a choice
definitely_AI@feddit.online 2 weeks ago
Like, for 99.9% of humanity? How common is it to question your gender? For the vast majority of humanity the question doesn’t come up just like the questions “are my legs fake” doesn’t come up. Surely those people are also ok to be fine with whatever? It’s ok to be man or woman and be heterosexual, too, right? Just checking.
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
For all of us we didn’t know there was a choice, we were all infants at the time. We were still figuring out which amorphous blob gives us the milk.
This is why others decide on sex for us through observation, that much is sensible enough. But we’re discovering more and more that this is an imperfect system and that more often than we realized the answer is not straight forward.
GalacticSushi@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
It’s just that the pressure to make the “correct” choice is fucking crazy.
I feel pressured to only ever present as a cisgendered heterosexual person regardless of whether that’s correct or not. The pressure is for LGBTQ+ people to simply disappear from public society. Correct has nothing to do with it.
Horsecook@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
[deleted]definitely_AI@feddit.online 2 weeks ago
Why would someone not be able to choose their gender. Gender is a social construct. Of course people can choose. People can choose to be gay too, if they want. People have free will, don’t they?
Voidian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
I think it’s fine to look at general biological markers and categorize people for healthcare reasons. Most of the time being in the ballpark works for most people. Maybe in the future we can have some full body scan thing that picks up the optimal healthcare setup for each individual but in the meanwhile, we’ll go with what we got.
But that doesn’t have to have shit to do with their internal experience of themselves, or how the social environment should react to them. And I reiterate: “most people”. Meaning there’s going to be outliers and that’s okay, and they’ll need more individualized care.
db2@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
This would only make sense if humans were some neutral sexless gender until they decided, which would have to be biologically enforced until the brain was sufficiently developed enough to choose.
Wataba@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
There’s an episode of TNG where Data builds his child. He specifically says that he designed their base form to be sexless and speciesless, so that they could choose it for themselves.
If only the Trek fandom at large would acknowledge how unfathomably based that episode is. I swear there’s still a massive contingent of right wing boomers driving the narrative.
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Yea that’s what I meant: If in a hypothetical alt-world, Humans were evolved so that biological sex is neutral for everyone.
But since “Gender” and “Sex” both translates to “性別” in Chinese, so when I first learned those English words, my brain kinda just mixed up both terms and encoded into my lexicon to mean the same thing.
ThunderQueen@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
In a lot of western early education they ae used intechangably; which is where a lot of te local discourse stems from too. I think its because kids are taught that “sex” is naughty so they sitch the terms for “ease” of lesson only to further confuse people. The american public school system atually does this with a lot of subjects.
BillibusMaximus@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
I think it would be more interesting if you could change at will. Wake up and pick your gender line you pick your outfit for the day.
ArgumentativeMonotheist@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Ranma 1/2? 😅
definitely_AI@feddit.online 2 weeks ago
Can’t you? People literally do that. I truly don’t understand this game.
ArgumentativeMonotheist@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Do you really think people just behave in certain, sex-related ways, because they’ve been told they’re this sex or the other? That sex-related behavioural differences don’t appear naturally but are just learned? Also, you definitely can “choose who you want to be”, lol, God made us all free-willed entities! But I cannot be a camel, nor can I be a non-material entity, or (ethnically) Nepali. We have degrees of freedom but we are fundamentally constrained by reality. If you deny reality (a very post modern, perspectivist approach that’s been very popular in the West for some decades now), then sure, you’re no longer constrained but then you lose the capacity to make any “objective” assertions about the world (because you denied an external reality).
FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Op isn’t talking about our current reality, they’re posing a hypothetical situation in which humans are born without sex and can choose
ArgumentativeMonotheist@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Not really, they just mentioned not having a “gender” assigned at birth, regardless of your bits and bobs. Or at least that’s how I read it.
spittingimage@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Imagine coming to Lemmy and being told you picked the wrong gender distro.
TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
It’s not really that it’s a choice to not be cis, but yeah, we shouldn’t assume people’s gender at all imho until they tell us themselves (and as children can’t tell us until they’re older don’t assume until they’re older), and even when they do it shouldn’t need to affect stereotypes or the way we grammatically refer to them or anything, just maybe what body they want to have and who can be attracted to them
definitely_AI@feddit.online 2 weeks ago
Why would you trust anything someone says about themselves outright? What if they’re crazy? What if they’re lying? What if they’re wrong? Is that impossible, or does every person on Earth have perfect knowledge of themselves and their true self at all times, and always speak the truth?
TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Why would you trust what someone else says about them rather than what they say about themself? If someone says they’re depressed, do you believe them, or do you need ‘objective proof’? Gender [dysphoria/euphoria] is the same, it’s an internal experience.
super_user_do@feddit.it 2 weeks ago
Assuming there’s no major difference between men and women excluding their gender roles, I don’t get why would anyone want to reinforce the same system that oppresses them. Maybe it would be more effective to teach people that their gender has nothing to do with the person they are instead of pushing transgenderism to little children who can’t even conceptualize the concept of gender yet
belazor@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Can you please elaborate on how someone died “because of this” in the context of the rest of your message? I am genuinely curious, because 100% of stories of loss of life involving the concept of transgenderism has been teenagers/young adults committing suicide as a result of having their entire support system taken away overnight because they express themselves differently than their assigned gender at birth.
I would also challenge the concept of anyone “pushing” transgenderism on children, because I have seen exactly 0 evidence for this, but I also understand that “pushing” is a subjective term, not a scientific one.
shane@feddit.nl 2 weeks ago
It can be done:
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net 2 weeks ago
Developmentally, babies don’t even have gender yet. Gender develops in the brain between the ages of 2 and 4 (and keeps developing until the end of puberty). I don’t think it’s developmentally appropriate to gender babies. All babies are nonbinary, and we should encourage children to choose a gender and pronouns as a rite of passage on their fourth birthday.
FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted. I agree. Internal sense of gender develops later. If babies do have a gender identity, they can’t communicate it. We shouldn’t push gender expectations on babies.
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net 2 weeks ago
Oh, it’s just the normal everyday cisheteropartiarchy burned into people’s brains why they’re downvoting Me. My suggestion goes outside their comfort zone, and they don’t know Me well enough to seriously consider what I’m saying, they just feel a negative emotional reaction to radical new ideas. Thinking new ideas is hard work, cognitively taxing, so they perceive My new ideas as a threat.
EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
It would be even more interesting if humans were a mono-gendered (or effectively genderless…since everyone is the same) species.
devolution@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Let’s be real. Who would actually pick to have a penis?
TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Probably men
Ryanmiller70@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Penis vs periods. That’s the ultimate battle.
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
:(
Can we do the blood type thing where like it’s O-Type?
definitely_AI@feddit.online 2 weeks ago
I would. Every single time the better choice by far.
Apytele@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
How do you know you didn’t and you just happened to guess wrong?
definitely_AI@feddit.online 2 weeks ago
How do we know anything at all? How do we know that we’re not all just living in an alien simulation and in fact are multidimensional dragons from some parallel universe?
Apytele@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
This is what I’m saying! Maybe it’s like that game from rick and Morty. 1% chance you get a brain tumor, 1% chance you just get put in the wrong body in some way or other cuz fuck you that’s why.
OriginEnergySux@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
As long as i dont have to care and can keep focusing on myself
s3rvant@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Check out the Fluidum comic on Webtoons
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
With only 1% trans, I think if we’re just willing to ACCEPT when they tell us we got it wrong, apologize and leave it at that, that would be enough.
definitely_AI@feddit.online 2 weeks ago
Is it possible that any of them ever got it wrong?
arcterus@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
The amount of people who detransition is incredibly small compared to the overall trans population, and even then most people detransition because society didn’t accept them and battered them down until they gave up.
GalacticSushi@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
“Wrong” is probably not the best term for it. People’s understanding of their own identity can evolve over time, but their own assessment of their sense of self will always be the most accurate barometer to go by. Yes, some people detransition, but as others have stated they’re a small minority and ultimately that’s their decision to make whether it’s due to a change in how they identify or pressure from external forces.
But to the original commenter’s point, we should just allow people to be the masters of their own identity and meet them where they are at any given point. If that were the case, the idea of getting it “wrong” wouldn’t be a big deal at all, they could simply give us an update and the world keeps turning.
vivalapivo@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
That’s the problem. You forgot that the left wants to pump this number to the levels of 10-20% before 2050
RudeOnTuesdays@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I think you have your numbers confused. The right wants to reduce trans numbers to 0%. The left doesn’t care about increasing numbers, only treating trans people like human beings.
Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 2 weeks ago
they do?
chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
If that means more people have a voice, then I’m all for it.