I want to preface this by saying that we have a zero tolerance policy for transphobia. Your comment will be removed and you will be banned if you spout transphobia here. Our existence is not up for debate.
That said, how do you differentiate being transgender and being trans racial?
I’m curious how to answer this question in a good faith debate with someone. Emotionally I know that they’re not the same and that one is wrong and the other is not wrong, but I’m unsure as to why that is and am curious if anyone else has given any thought about it.
I think they’re saying that women and men will live inherently different lives, regardless of sexism, but people of different races only do because we as a larger society continue to reinforce that. I don’t know if I agree with the first part though. It’s kind of hard to imagine, honestly.
I hope this isn’t considered transphobia on this sub, but I think gender might also cease to exist in a completely nonsexist society. I see sexism mostly as the imposition of gender norms on people and if people were no longer forced into boxes by the culture, they might cease to identify with gender roles at all. To put it another way, I think there would be no dissonance between people wearing frilly dresses and practicing Jiu-Jitsu, so people could choose the individual things that appeal to them without “picking a camp,” if that makes sense.
I do think it’s utopian enough to be a moot point though, because we still see a dissonance between liking football and warhammer, even though both are masc coded. We put people into so many boxes, even aside from race and gender, I don’t think we’ll get rid of the most fundamental distinction we recognize among people (maybe second after age?)
Removing gender from society would resolve much of my dysphoria, but not all of it.
I’d still have struggled with the body I was born with, and I’d still have needed to deal with that reality, even in a genderless society.
This is a huge misunderstanding of trans identity.
Trans people aren’t trans because “dresses” or the like. If we’re able to come out trans and deal with the reality and harassment that brings, then we could also simply have dressed in a way that society doesn’t like, or broke other gender norms, without coming out as trans if that’s all it took, because those things are nearly always easier than coming out as trans.
I think that would fall under the same category as any other medically prescribed plastic surgery, like reconstructive surgery, but it wouldn’t necessarily be linked to a gender. A person would just still be a person and other people would still be able to see whether they have breasts or a beard, but that doesn’t mean they’d draw any additional conclusions from that fact. It’s, again, really hard to imagine.
All I’m saying is that trans people would still exist in one form or another in a genderless society. The words might be different, and we might conceptualise ourselves and the context we exist in differently, but we would still be here.
To use your wording, I’d still have to have “picked a camp”, because the one I was placed in to by biology was a source of distress, and for many of us, that distress would still exist in some form even in a genderless society
I also think there would still be trans people, but no gender (splitting hairs here). People would still be dysphoric about their body (not necessarily parts, but also processes), but that would not necessarily be related to a gender. A person could of course choose a gender, they’re not outlawed in my ideal post sexism world, but it’s kind of like identifying as a jock or a drama kid after high school: it would be fucked up for someone else to assume it of you, but feel free to identify with it. If you do, you might have to explain to others what it means.
That sounds like my kind of world