If the topic is shifting to gender politics, and some sex/gender confusion, I'd like to share my views on it all, an angle of viewing it all that's really helped me understand nuances in the language, and an angle I haven't seen discussed much.
"Gender" as a word is just too loaded with too many definitions, which causes a lot of confusion.
First off, there is biological sex. Which as far as I'm concerned is literally JUST the reproductive organs. There's male, female, and some in between.
Then there's biological gender, which is controlled by testosterone and estrogen. I'm not a doctor, but as far as I can tell, these two wonder drugs are responsible for basically everything male and female that's not genitalia. Height, muscle growth, breast growth, body hair growth, maybe voice, and possibly mental tendencies (though hard to say how much of that is in how boys and girls are raised differently). Again there's really only male and female and an in-between.
Then there's social gender, which is where "gender is a social construct" comes in. They're right, but its an oversimplification. Nonsense like boys like blue and cars, girls like pink and dolls. Expectations for how they should dress, and act, and even live (with women's expectations usually being far harsher...). This is something that, at least in America, is largely being thrown out, and I'm all for it.
And lastly there's mental gender, and I really can't comment on what it means for your mental gender to not match your body. It isn't something that seems very quantifiable.
For most trans people the goal is for their mental gender to match their biological gender, and it is truly impressive what HRT can do with minimal invasiveness. Some may need sex reassignment surgery to feel right with their body and mind, though the risks involved do not seem worth it at all. And some just abandon these ideas of gender entirely and identify as anything they choose. I respect that but think it's caused increased confusion and harms the progress of trans rights.
One thing I fear is people who are rejecting their born social gender, turning to changing their biological gender because of it. It is completely fine to be a girly man or a tomboy or crossdress or whatever else. There's not a need to modify your body chemistry there, but as transgenderism becomes more and more in the news, I fear people (especially awkward teens) making changes to their body that they may regret. I really believe if this idea of three aspects of gender was expressed more, that kind of regret would lower dramatically. It may also help those that feel that need for sex reassignment surgery; sex itself does absolutely NOTHING for how others see you, at least outside of bed... It's all in that T&E (awesome body, great job).
A major thing contributing to difficulty for trans rights is that you need to convince most of the 99% of non-trans-folk of it, and for a lot of those people, their experiences with trans people are wholly negative. There's a tendency to want to overcontrol people's language, to the point of even making it illegal. I'm not going to defend purposeful abusive misgendering, but, one has to respect that pronoun usage is ingrained deep in us, tied to facial and body recognition. "Passing" is a necessary evil, it's hard-wired in everyone's brains.
There's also rewriting language to do away with male and female assumptions, like, "people who menstruate"... I completely respect any women that are offended by how some are trying to change the language they use in such a way. To not respect those women's desired language, is not a good way to expect then to respect yours. I also respect women's rights to want only biological women in women's spaces (as long as that includes bio gender). And I also respect the mass public's desire to not want biological (sex or gender) men physically competing with biological women in sports. These viewpoints are logical and deserve respect. Yet hardcore trans activists call these viewpoints "transphobic", actively turning people away that may be trying their best to generally accept it all, and turning them into enemies.
Overall I think the biggest thing holding the trans movement back, aside from an innate hate some have, is that trans people are rightfully asking for respect, but many do not in turn respect the masses and their innate hesitancy in some areas.
To be clear, not saying that anyone here is like that, but I grow so tired of seeing it on Twitter, and seeing the harmful stereotypes and legitimate transphobia it breeds. To some, even bringing this up would make me "transphobic" when all I want is success and acceptance. Anyone that flings that word around is actively harming the movement and I just can't stand it.
I don't know if typing any of this is necessary but it sure feels better than thinking about police murdering civilians.
I don't think that genetics is necessarily involved in gender identity, as I consider it more like a psychological or spiritual diversity.
