Transsexual Toilet Trouble

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

If we are going to go into this, let's go. Gender is an artificial construction. It is based on social and cultural norms opposed to biological sex. Women are not born with dresses and men into black-tie dress. I will lazily just point to this topic on Wikipedia for you to read as it contents all the information there.

In fact, gender has never always been a simple binary into masculine and feminine either. This is a product of Western culture and you can easily see differences by looking into other cultures.

In India, there were the Hijra.
In Native American society, known as the umbrella term of Two-Spirit.
We also have the Māhū in Hawaiian and Tahitian cultures.
We also have the Takatāpui as an umbrella term describing differences of understanding within Maori culture.
There are the Kathoey in Thailand.
There are the Fa’afafine in Somoa.
The Skoptsy which are a Christian Sect in Russia.
The Femminiello in Neopolitan society.
The Mino in Benin, known as the Dahomey Amazons.
There is also Iran's take on transsexuality. I remember watching a documentary about it where the Imam describes it akin to baking bread. Cannot remember the source though.


There is are many more examples I can list. I think I will stop here because I think I have made my point.

The world is an amazing diverse place. You can learn a great deal if you put your head outside its comfort zone.

I contest your premise - the fact that some express a non-binary gender does not make gender an artificial construction, the fact that not everyone fits a binary gender does not mean that those who conceive of their gender in binary terms do so primarily because they are conditioned to do so. Some humans have twelve fingers and twelve toes and yet the accepted scientific number is ten of each - variance does not obliterate "normal".

AGAIN - your argument undercuts the transgender people you are purporting to defend. If gender is a purely artificial construct then transgenderism is a purely artificial construct, it's not a real thing.

I think your mistake is that you are confusing gender and gender roles - so a soldier who is female must be partly masculine, and Russian heretics who mutilate their bodies as a commitment to chastity must be intersex.

Monasticism is both asexual and robustly masculine and that is in no way a contradictory statement. Not for the first time I note that you try to pigeonhole me into some sort of cookie-cutter right-wing intellectual box, which is ironic given the current thrust of your argument.

The fact your argument has a thrust doesn't make it any more masculine, in case you were wondering.

You've actually pivoted from supporting transgender rights to talking about gender-non conformity when the transgender examples you pictured ARE gender conformant, in fact most trans-gender people you will see tend to either be highly conformant or they look like they are in drag. I've encountered both and the latter are, frankly, quite bizarre in their bearing - the trans-women who fall into that category are really a terrible parody of womanhood.



But please, tell this young lady her gender-identity is an artificial construct.