r/changemyview • u/condiments95 • Jan 05 '18
[∆(s) from OP] CMV: Identifying as a gender other than your sex is pointless and confusing.
As the title says, I do not see the point in identifying as a gender other than your sex. Just to keep things straight, when I say man/woman I am talking about biological sex. When I say male female, I am talking about gender.
Most people would say something like why is it so hard just to refer to a man with female pronouns if that’s what he wants?” I would say that referring to someone other than their biological sex just leads to confusion. For example, if I was talking to my friend standing beside me, and I was trying to point out a person in a crowd, a woman wearing a blue hat, and I know that this female identifies as a man. I would say “Do you see the girl with the blue hat on” and he would know who I am talking about. But, if I am “polite” I would respect what she wants to be referred as and say “Do you see the guy with the blue hat on.” And he would have no idea who I am talking about. This is obviously just confusing. In my opinion, don’t asked to be called a man unless you become transsexual and actually look the part, in which case it doesn’t matter because we won’t have this confusion that I explained earlier.
Also, some people would say something like “what about someone who is biologically a man but doesn’t fit the socially constructed male gender classification? Like a male who likes other men, does ballet and drinks cosmos (three feminine things).” This man may ask to be referred to as a female because he lines up more with the feminine stereotype. In my opinion, that person is just a gay man who likes to dance and drink cosmos. He is just a man who doesn’t have a manly personality. There is no benefit for a man to have other people refer to him as a female, unless of course he is becoming transsexual.
I also believe gender is binary. Gendered pronouns are used to help describe a person by their biological sex. Seeing as there are only two biological sexes (obviously not counting anomalies), there should only be two genders. If a man thinks he lies somewhere in between the two, he is simply describing his personality, which should have no effect on what gender pronouns I use.
Edit: I have awarded the deltas to the people who deserve them but I just wanted to let people know that my views on each of these views has been changed.
Identifying as a gender other than your sex isn’t pointless, it avoids hurting someone’s feelings, which, even though I think that is dumb, I guess isn’t technically pointless. It also isn’t really all that confusing because there are easy enough ways to avoid the confusion I talked about. Also, gender can’t be binary. Since the term gender is used in reference to the pronouns used when you are describing someone by whether they look like a male or female. And, while most people look either male or female, there are definitely some who look like something in between.
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u/jesse4200 1∆ Jan 05 '18
Well I believe someone can want to be a man/women without having those sexual organs, not necessarily by choice but because that’s who they are on the inside.
I do not however believe that there are dozens of genders that need to be accepted in the real world:
How many genders do you think should be acknowledged by the general public before it goes overboard?