Welcome!

This is a BIG topic and it opens a LOT of wormholes. 

We’re gonna do this in pie slice statements that will hopefully help explain what I mean. Please keep in mind I’m going to simplify many things for the sake of readability.

1) What is a social construct? 

Social constructs are ideas that are negotiated by social groups. Something being a social construct does not make it ‘not real’. 

For example, money is a social construct. Yes, we have cash - coins, credit cards - but these are physical props that are REPRESENTATIVE of the idea of currency. You have some form of credit to your name - the money is a socially agreed-upon idea of value being represented by bills in your hand, by numbers in your bank account. 

[Description: Two humanoid figures are standing side by side. The right-side figure is holding a rock in its hand. 

Right side figure: Let’s agree that this shiny rock is worth 2 sheep.

Left side figure: Sounds fake but ok.]

Technically, countries are also social constructs. We, as a society, negotiate what a country is, and this can be changed.

[Description: Two figures are standing on either side of a dotted line drawn on the ground. The left figure is pointing down at it while the right figure watches, its arms crossed.

Left figure: Let’s pretend that everything on this side of the imaginary line is mine.

Right figure: ...ok but my house is over there.

Left figure: ... for 3 shiny rocks you can come visit.]

Does that mean canada isn’t real? No. (I mean, obviously canada ISN’T real, but we all agree to pretend it is.) The thing that makes it real is that we are in agreement, and all follow the social rules of pretend to make it seem like the Canadian border, the idea of Canadian citizenship, etc... is an objective fact. (It’s not. These are in fact, negotiable limits and parameters. We have laws in place to define it in legal terms, but those laws can be changed, or may change in the minds of communities. That’s why it’s a construct.)

By that same token, I hold the view that gender, as we largely perceive it in modern society, is a construct. Why? Because it is not inherent; we, as a society, negotiate its meaning. 

2) What is gender? 

People will probably fight me on this and that’s fine, but here’s my (simplified) understanding of gender (from someone who personally has none)

Gender is a social category negotiated by cultures based on your assigned or desired role in your community that influences, among many other things, your physical appearance, your role in family units, your expected position in jobs, etc. 

How I think it happened:

[Description: Two figures are standing on either side of the panel, both holding children-looking figures. The one on the left is wearing purple. The one on the right is wearing green.

Green figure: Hey, I’ve got an idea. What if we separate the babies into two groups based on physical traits they have no control over?

Purple figure: Wh-- okay...?

Green figure: And then limit the jobs they can do and the community ritual involvement available to them based on that!

Purple figure: ... I feel like this is going to backfire on us someday.

Green figure: Nah, it’ll be fine.

The past panel is a dramatic closeup on the purple figure’s face - which is featureless - betraying a deeply doubtful emotion. It says nothing.]

Important points to remember: what gender looks like, what the limits are, what the expectations are... are not inherent to any human biology. We make up gender roles. This is evident in the fact that across the world, gender roles differ by culture. The positions people of a certain gender are allowed to take up are different. What is perceived to be ‘girly’ or ‘boyish’ is different across cultures. 

Simply speaking - currently the (western) model we have, dumbed down, is:

You are assigned male at birth because of physical characteristics

You are raised being told to ‘toughen up’ and ‘boys don’t cry’ and encouraged not to show emotions

You are taught to wear male-coded clothes and discouraged from female-coded fashion choices

You are given more opportunities to participate in sports, encouraged to engage in physical activity, etc

You are not expected to need time off for child-rearing 

Here’s where gender as it works in society breaks down into being not a real thing but instead something we thought up: 

Nothing about having a penis necessitates wearing pants. Nothing about having XY chromosomes means you need to keep your hair short. Nothing about your genome makes the experience of nail-polish different for any human being. 

All of these are arbitrary traits we decided were allowed or not allowed to a specific group of people based on entirely unrelated physiology. 

Even if we delve deeper, there is MORE variation among individuals of the same ‘sex’ than there are, on average, of members of the ‘opposite sex’ when compared to each other. 

Many people use the excuse ‘women are physically not as strong as men’ to say that this has an evolutionary aspect driving these cultural, historical, socially-constructed gender requirements. 

But if there was a physical reasoning behind the culturally-set gender-limited job expectations, then we actually WOULDN’T need a traditional binary gender system to sort ourselves into categories. It would simply be decided as a meritocracy - stronger individuals, regardless of gender, would be given physically-demanding jobs. (Also we know that many jobs thought to be ‘traditionally male’ are just the result of sexist bullshit, so this reasoning doesn’t fly any further than I can throw it which is, coincidentally, not very far. Politics is one such area. Doctors are another. We can go on but I think you get my drift.)

My own example of this is an anecdote when my grandparents came to visit my partner and I in Japan. While we were driving down to Tokyo, my grandmother - who has a PhD in entomology - began to say that driving is a masculine activity and women shouldn’t be driving as it was ‘un-woman-like’. My partner almost immediately fired back that in Japan, studying insects or having any interest in them whatsoever was considered a heavily masculine-coded activity. In Russia, there is no such assignment, and my grandmother was left silently blinking in confusion, unable to come up with any excuse except ‘well, all cultures are different, I suppose...’

Do either of these things inherently have a gendered aspect? Of course not! But we assign gendered ideals to them anyway.

3) If gender is made up and constructed by society, then does that mean trans people aren’t real?

No.

Even if you agree that gender is a social construct, trans people are still real. TERFs don’t get a pass. Why? 

Because gender - as a social construct - still affects our everyday lives, dictates our social position in our community. Transitioning is still a thing that has to happen. The fact that you are NOT easily able to decide your own gender and are ostracized for wanting to transition, abused for dressing the way you want to be perceived, and bullied for wanting people to refer to you with different pronouns - all those are the effects of a social construct that has very REAL impact on our lives.

This is also why I dislike defining trans-ness by dysphoria. Because transgender people are not only their suffering - the suffering is coming from the outside!! Many trans people remember not being concerned about their gender identity in their childhood, because they did not yet perceive the world as being hostile to their desire to fulfil a specific role in society. The issues and self-hatred and dysphoria begins when they express wanting to be themselves - a life which they are forbidden from pursuing based on physical characteristics they were born with.

Does this mean we should try to remove gender from society? If we constructed it, we can deconstruct it, right?

Realistically, I highly doubt this is possible. Gender is so ingrained in our daily lives that it would be difficult. Nor, I would say, would it be necessary to achieve world peace. 

Having social groups - having gender - isn’t inherently a bad thing. The bad thing is when we limit those social groups to specific basic human rights, like voting, or when we forbid them from transitioning from one to another based on things that are out of their control. 

Also, I’m not saying genitals and secondary sexual characteristics aren’t real. Please don’t bother sending me that angry message, I’ll ignore it, I promise. 

But the concept of gender IS something we thought up and maintain and negotiate with each other to this very day. It’s not granted to us by a higher power, nor is it a constant, unchanging thing. It’s a part of the human experience and like everything, it has the potential to evolve - as a concept in our communal memory, as well as on an individual level, for people who feel they want to be perceived differently. 

Thanks for coming to my TEDtalk!

i need their love story

I just learned about a bird species called Golden Plover. Their chicks have an amazing camouflage: their baby fluff resembles MOSS!

LOOK AT THEM! JUST LOOK AT THEM!

…Oh to be a tiny golden plover lying in the moss safe and sound waiting for your mom to bring you some worms…

“Even amidst the hatred and carnage, life is still worth living. It is possible for wonderful encounters and beautiful things to exist.”

Blue berry

Raspberry

Gooseberry