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this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2025
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I don't think "identifying with social stereotypes" is really an accurate representation of what being trans is.
Sure, there are some people who transition and identify as stereotypical members of their desired gender, but there are also people who transition and are gender nonconforming after their transition, but still identify as binary trans.
Identifying with social stereotypes also doesn't account for physical dysphoria, which is very real for a lot of trans folks. Some trans folks change little about their presentation when they transition but still want hormones and/or surgery.
What I said is that for a trans, "gender relates to what stereotype (social construct) a person identifies with". I did not say their gender matches a particular stereotype, but that it relates to it.
Someone who does not identify with a typical stereotype and believes that this makes them be of a different gender, is defining their gender based on whether they fit (or don't fit, in this case) a specific social stereotype.
However, someone who does not believe gender relates to stereotypes at all would not see that person as having a different gender because that person's gender (for those people) would be unrelated to whether they match (or identify themselves with) a stereotype or not.
Yeah, no, that's not how being trans works.
I don't believe that gender relates to stereotypes.
I'm a trans woman. I don't "get" femininity, and to me, when I perform it, it feels like a performance. It has zero to do with my understanding of my own gender.
I'm still very much trans.
Stereotypes are complicated.. when I say "gender stereotypes" I don't mean that there are only 2 stereotypes.
Is perfectly possible (in fact, it might be common) to have in mind different stereotypes for the word "feminine" and for the word "woman".. otherwise terms like "feminine man" or "masculine woman" would make no sense.
The stereotype of what's a woman (ie, what makes people consider a person a woman independently of their lower bits) is not necessarily the same as the stereotype of a feminine person.
What makes me a woman is that I'm a woman. It really is that simple and has nothing to do with stereotypes. Stereotypes influence the way we express ourselves and our identities, they influence our behaviours, and the language we use. But they don't determine who we are.
I would be trans on a desert island. I would be trans if I was raised on an island of men and had never seen a woman. The language I use to talk about my identity would obviously be different, and even the way I understand it would be different, but underneath it all, I'd still be trans, even if it manifested differently.
And that's what I'm getting at. Sure, I'll argue that the fact I use the word "woman" is based on the social context in which I was raised, because gender is at least partly socially defined. But the identity that I'm describing with that label, that exists at a level below social norms, and below stereotypes, even whilst being influenced by them.
Ok, then I see we are talking about different concepts. I was talking about the label itself. To me "woman" or "man" are just labels, they don't define what I am and don't affect in any way the image I have of myself.
By your definition I'm neither a "woman" nor a "man" because I don't personally feel like I should box myself in an identity to fit any particular definition of a label.
However, I'll be perfectly ok with boxing myself in one particular label so other can better understand my behavior and the language they use.
So I'm not a woman or a man, but the result of my behavior can be commonly classified as one.. and that's the only thing that makes me, commonly, refer to myself in public as one of those roles. But I'm not adapting my behavior to those roles.. it's the other way around: the roles are created to classify my behavior. People would commonly say I'm "cis" because the category that fits me best happens to be the same one that I was assigned at birth, but the category does not have influence over what I am.. it's the category the one that fits me, not me who fits the category.
To me, the words "woman" and "man" only make sense when linked to specific properties that the label is trying to find ways to describe as a group. They only make sense as stereotypes, they don't make sense in a deep internal level because what I am is more complex than a set of specific behaviors and looks... the expression of my internal complexity might be classifiable after-the-fact (for example, you could say I'm a person who drives themselves by logic, sometimes a bit too much), but they are just external aspects and not something that goes much deeper than a set of behaviors I appear to present to the outside world.
I don't know if you're familiar with the term, but what you're describing is similar to the experience that many agender folk describe.
Suffice to say, I experience gender very differently to you. I've "felt" my gender since before I hit puberty. Before I had the words to understand it, before I knew what femininity or masculinity even were, before I experienced my sexuality...
I don't know, I would not say that I knew automatically when I was born what's the difference between "man" and "woman". Of course I have had clear feelings and preferences about a variety of topics, some instinctive and well defined, ever since I was born. But I don't think that's determined by a label. They clearly can fall into a particular label, but only "after the fact".
To me, "man" and "woman" can't be labels that go beyond the social/behavioral because I don't know what it feels like to be a man anymore than what I know it feels like to be a woman.. I only know myself, I can't possibly compare what I feel to what others feel, because those feelings are a "qualia" that cannot be simply be transmitted with words.
And without communication to compare and reference, I could not judge whether what I feel is "man" or "woman" at the level that you choose to do it. To me it's logically impossible to set a gender at such a deep level.
An analogy would be how I can never be sure that other people experience the same thing I experience when we both see and point to the color "green". "Green" is a construct based on our common understanding of the experience a particular wavelength that is emitted by an object we are pointing to. But the label "green" cannot go beyond that external consensus, because what I experience when the impulses caused by that wavelength reach my brain could perfectly be different than what you experience when that same wavelength causes yours.
We might even agree on what are the wavelengths that we call green, based on our own internal experience, because the experience I feel when seeing green might be similar every time I see green (and the same will happen for you)... but that does not mean that we are both having the same experience, it could be that what you experience as blue I experience as green and that what you experience as green I experience as blue, and yet every time we would agree on calling the same wavelengths the same way, because we would have learned to call them that way.
So it would be meaningless to say beyond any social agreement that I deeply think that this color should be "green" only based on my experience alone, because it would not be any different from saying that this color should be "blue"... the only thing that makes us both agree on calling a particular color experience as green and not blue is the social understanding of that experience matching a common external pattern we both agree on, and that we each match it with our respective (and possibly different) subjective experiences (qualia) when we see that color.
Nor did I. For me, it came around the same time I started to understand gender and sex. The more I understood it, the more I knew it was wrong.
For me, it was initially tied in the physical. I knew my body should have been different. I wished it was different. I dreamed, prayed, hoped and fantasized that it would be different. It was an awareness that I was "like them" with girls and "not like them" with boys. I knew it was wrong when I was grouped with boys.
That's what it felt like. Not an understanding of others peoples experiences, but an understanding of how my own sense of self was at odds with both my body, and the assumptions that my body created in people.
For someone who doesn't feel gender, then of course you aren't going to understand the experience of folk who do, anymore than I can understand what it's like to not feel it. All I can is that analogies about colour aren't particularly apt here, because it doesn't work like that. My gender doesn't exist because of shared consensus (although it is shaped by that consensus). My gender doesn't exist because I was able to understand other peoples experiences. My gender is just something I've always felt, and that I've tried to make sense of over the years. I describe it now in clear, defined terms, but when I was younger, it didn't work like that. I knew my body was wrong, but the social stuff, the gender stuff? Finding the words for that would take decades. But even as I said, I was finding the words to describe an experience that was always there.
The experience you describe requires interaction with other people who you (and society) categorizes as "girls" and "boys".
Without this interaction with this external categorization: would you have been able to find anything was "different"?
I feel that in order to have something feel "different" you need to have something to compare it to. Something you can perceive from others and that thus it must be reflected externally and not just something purely internal at the level of qualia (otherwise you wouldn't be able to compare it). So this is what I meant by archetype/label/stereotype/pick-your-word. That thing you felt was different which you perceived when comparing with other people outside of yourself.
Yes.
The words I use to describe it would be different. If I grew up on an island of men, I'd have been completely lost trying to understand it, and may never have found the words, but I would still have felt it, because I was already feeling it before I had the words.
Trans people are real. Our experience of gender is real. Those experiences don't align with yours, but that doesn't stop them being real. Trans people exist in one form or another, across every civilisation, and have done so through the length of recorded history.
You won't find a "gotcha". You won't make other folks experience match yours, just because you don't understand theirs.
In an island of men (not women) you would be exposed to the same different external behaviors and preferences associated to the archetype that you do not identify with, so of course you would feel a difference.
These external behaviors and preferences you perceive as different is what I was referring to with archetype/label/stereotype/pick-your-word.
Stop trying to tell me my own experience. You don't experience gender. Stop trying to speak for people who do.
Sorry, I was just agreeing with what you said in your second paragraph. Because it makes complete logical sense what you said there. So the "of course you would" was just a reaffirmation of what you described yourself, not a mandate over what you should feel.
Also, I do experience gender, just the same way as I experience color, taste, pain, happiness and all other experiences. I tried to explain it when I gave the example with "green" before. I experience green.. what I don't know is if "what it feels like" to experience green for me could really be identified with "green" beyond the social understanding I have from my interactions with other people when we see green.
@Ferk
Why does "man" and "woman" have to be defined by social/behavioral traits? Not all women are the same, and not all men are the same. This statement applies whether they are CIS or trans.
I agree. But this also applies to all social/behavioral labels.
Not all pizza-lovers are the same, not all left-handed people are the same... etc.
The question is: what is it that makes a "man" be considered different than a "woman"?
What do those 2 men, who are different, have in common that makes you still call them "men"?
If you go by social behavioral cues and personality traits, I am trans, or more specifically a woman with a penis.
Whereas others would argue that the only real difference is anatomy, and that social behaviors and personalities are flexible and fluctuate.
That seems to be what the argument is about. What is the actual definition of a "man" and a "woman?"
Yes, I agree, that's essentially what I was saying before.
Some people seem to think what makes a man or a woman is purely biological (or like you said, "anatomy"), whereas others think the distinction has more to do with what's understood as a "social construct" (or like you said, "behavioral cues").
So, in the comment you were replying to I was taking the second interpretation, that's why I was saying it's defined by social/behavioral traits.
But if you go by social/behavioral traits, any powerful women could be potentially be classified as a man because they don't display the traditional social and behaviors and traits of a woman, even though they very much consider themselves a woman. I know a lot of women who would consider such a notion as being sexist, stereotypical, and insulting.
And then you have the problem that these things change over time. In some cultures of the past, men used to wear dresses and have long hair. Now in most of the western world it is the opposite. The term "gentleman" originally came from the fact that these "gentle men" were considered to be more feminine than normal men. Women uses to stay home and make babies and take care of the home. Now they are workers and CEOs of companies. Times change.
I think it would be hard to get everyone to agree on which specific behaviors or traits correspond to "man" or "women," especially considering how much they change over time.
Yes, I agree with all that.
Social / behavioral archetypes can be complex and fuzzy, they might change with the society and with time. It could be that what we consider today as a "pizza-lover" might not be what was considered a "pizza-lover" in the antiquity, when Europe did not even have such a thing as a "tomato" and the word "pizza" might have been used for a completely different dish that today we would not call "pizza".
This is why I personally think that the internal way in which I feel should be independent from the concept of gender role / gender expression... I am what I am.. I'm not necessarily a "man" or "woman" in a universal and unequivocal social way, I'm just me. I might fit very precisely one of those labels now as generally they are understood.. but who knows if I'll fit the social label they'll have in the year 4000.. or if I fit the label from year -4000. Or the labels they might use in the planet Aldebaran 2.
I don't like labels either, but society, individuals, and even the dictionary still gives these words definitions. Regardless of how we perceive ourselves and how we define these words, others will perceive us different and even define words differently.
Or more specifically, no matter how I define myself, others will attempt to classify me, label me, and describe me using whatever words they decide is appropriate. I can object to the words they use, but even if I silence them, those words are still in their head.
That means that while I personally don't use labels on myself, some people will classify me as a trans woman, or a feminine male, or a ladyboy, or as cisgender, or as eccentric.
Labels galore. That does not change how I view myself, however.
Or one I recently learned, a non gender conforming cisgender person (NGC CIS). That is one of the reasons why my profile says I am CIS and Trans at the same time. No one can agree on how to classify me. LOL.
I think your take is reductive. Gender isn't about stereotypes. I'm sure that for many trans people, part of their trans discovery was not feeling like a stereotypical member of their sex, but there's more to it than that. You can say that gender relates to a lot of things. Gender is ultimately an internal experience that means different things to different people, and isn't necessarily related to identifying or not identifying with any given stereotype.
Bioessentialism in turn reduces people to genitals, and sort of refuses to address intersex people because something something "outliers don't count". At best it says sure, you can dress up however you want, but it's super important that everyone know What You Really Are so they can put you in a box and appropriately segregate society.
It's reductive if you see "stereotypes" as something simple. Imho, stereotypes are very complex (or perhaps another word would be "archetypes", if the word "stereotypes" has too many secondary connotations for native speakers, maybe).
To me the "stereotype" (or "archetype", or "social construct" like I pointed in my first comment) of a "woman" includes every characteristic or aspect that could make someone identify a person as a "woman". Not all aspects might manifest in all women, the more aspects match, the more confidence the person would have to identify the other as a woman. Same for "man", in fact, it could be a person matches both stereotypes/archetypes at an equal amount. Also there can be other gender stereotypes outside those two, because as long as you are using a word to describe a category of people you'd often have a complex set of properties that people would use to define whether it fits that category or not.
I agree that putting people in a box is just contributing to segregation, but I did not choose that, I'm just trying to understand how people are using the words other people invented. It's almost inevitable, even the word "trans" is in some way a category, and there are even super and sub categories... like say "LGBTQ+" or "non-binary".
And there are also people like me. I am feminine and have male anatomy. I don't feel the need to have surgery to conform to other people's gender stereotypes. I am a feminine man. People just have to deal with the fact that not everyone conforms to society's stereotypes. And, while I respect other people's right to alter their bodies how they see fit, I don't think I should change my body just because someone says men aren't supposed to be feminine.
Of course you (or anyone) don 't need to have surgery to conform to other people’s gender stereotypes. But I don't think that's what was implied here.
What's "feminine"? is that not a gender stereotype? I don't think there's anything wrong about being a man that closer fits a feminine stereotype than a masculine one.
I say "feminine" for lack of a better word. I'm not trying to be a "woman" and don't wear women's clothes but my default personality traits, preferences, and demeanor are closer to that end of the spectrum, what most people consider feminine and what most people think of as not masculine. I'm also capable of being more assertive, but that was a learned skill and not my default way of being. In the end, I'm me, whatever you want to define that. I'm not trying to be something else. The word "feminine" is used to give people a reference point, not used to define me.
I'm not sure who "they" are in your sentences, but I personally consider myself a male because I have male equipment. I could have surgery and change that, but I didn't. It has nothing to do with my identity, personality, sexuality, self-view, demeanor, philosophy, or anything else. I was born with a certain anatomy and I'm okay with that. I don't fit gender stereotypes, and that took longer to get comfortable with especially with the bullying in my youth. But I've come to terms with that too.
Other people have their own experiences and situations, so what feels right for me may not feel right for someone else. If they want to alter themselves and change their configuration, they are welcome to do so. I'm just describing my personal experience which may be different than other people's.
@Melmi
What do you mean by that? Wouldn't that mean you were born with female sexual equipment and act like a stereotypical female? I thought that was CIS. Or are you referring to someone who had surgery to change their sex?
I'm a trans woman. Before I transitioned, I wasn't feminine. I never experimented with family members makeup or borrowed their clothing. Even now, 8 years after coming out and transitioning, I'm still not feminine. No one looked at me after I came out and said "Oh, it all makes sense now". I don't wear makeup, I don't have my ears pierced, I'm loud, argumentative and competitive. I ride an illegally overpowered fat tyred monster bike, and I'm happiest in a tshirt and jeans.
Yet I'm still very much a woman and very much trans.
Of course, many trans folk do embrace gender stereotypes, but you need to understand, that is "after the fact". For some folk, it's simply a matter of protection and ensuring that their gender doesn't get denied them by society. For others, it's a source of joy, being able to embrace something that they were not able to explore earlier in their lives. And for others, it is inherently tied to how they experience their gender.
But for all of us, it is not our gender, even if it is strongly connected.