ok this is a genuine curious question. So I'm gay and trying to understand other aspects of LGBT so here goes: how does being trans work if the gender binary or gender itself doesn't exist?? Like how can you consider yourself to be the opposite gender if gender isn't a thing in the first place?? Again, just a curious question so please no hate, i just want to understand. Keep being you!
It’s very hard to not take a question like this as hate/invalidation/an attack, because it is phrased in a very hostile and disrespectful way.
But I’ll try to write out a tl;dr answer for you, even though I’m still sick so I’m not sure how much sense I will be able to make.
But I will also encourage you to look into some of the decades worth of queer theory that is written on this subject. Studying something is a good way to learn, and is likely going to be able to bring you more in-depth knowledge and understanding than what you’ll get from messaging trans blogs on tumblr.
Gender:
Gender most certainly exists. I don’t know who’s been telling you that it doesn’t, but I don’t agree with them. A lot of people seem to misunderstand “gender is a social construct” as “gender doesn’t exist” though, and I feel like that might have been what’s happened for you, so I will get into that a bit more here.
Something being a social construct doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. It just means that it doesn’t exist naturally. Like, money is also a social construct. It’s something that we humans created. And because we created it, it is now a real thing that we have to deal with. Same goes for gender.
Gneder, as a concept, is generally more flexible than money though. So it’s not necessarily a perfect comparision. But it will hopefully help drive home the point of “something being a social construst” =/= “something not existing”.
Gender is, among other things, how someone conceptualizes themself in society and in their languages.
If someone relates to the concept of “being a boy”, for example, and they enjoy being called a boy and other typically masculine-coded words? There is a very good chance that they are a boy. Regardless of what gender they were assigned at birth.
There is not “opposite” gender, however, because:
The gender binary:
Is a lie.
It’s an entirely fake idea.
Seriously.
Like, the mere existance of genderqueer and nonbinary people is proving this. There are people who feel that our genders can’t be neatly categorized into the “man” or “woman” boxes, so there should - there are - clearly be other boxes available.
I’m not going to argue against getting rid of the boxes altogether, because putting yourself into a box where you feel that you belong is a wonderful feeling and it’s not something I want to deny anyone. The issue lies with people forcing others into boxes where they aren’t comfortable, or with there not being enough different boxes as options (and, of course, choosing to stand outside of the boxes should be an option too, for those who wish to do that.)
And in many cultures, the gender binar isn’t / wasn’t a thing. The gender binary is not an universally accepted idea and it never has been.
Even biologically, as in “sex” rather than “gender”, humans are far from binary. [I have a tag more or less dedicated to this]. And many intersex activists have written and talked at length about it, so I do highly recommend listening to their voices on this too.
