![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Genders are like Genres
Apr. 6th, 2018 01:04 amGenders and Genres have a lot more in common than the shared origins of the words we use for them.
Some people (or books/films/games) fit neatly into one of the existing categories, and that's fine.
Other people(/books/etc) are a combination of two (or more) existing categories, like an urban fantasy romance, and that's fine too.
Then there are people(/etc) who take a bit from each of several existing categories, but in such a way that the combination needs a new name (or no name at all). And you know what? That's OK too.
And sometimes, a person(/etc) is simply something new and different and unique to themselves, and there's nothing wrong with that, either.
A lot of people start out with a fairly solid idea where they fit ("I'm a Horror novel"), and just refine that slightly over time. Others might start out a bit fuzzy, and work out what they are as they learn more about themselves and the world. And some people will start with a clear idea that they belong in one place, and then realise that they were actually something else all along. All of this is fine.
Because the universe is complicated, sometimes people might start off with external signs that don't match what they know about themselves, like a romance novel with exploding spaceships on the cover. And like a book with the wrong cover, it's what's inside that counts. A romance doesn't become horror just because it was put on the wrong shelf, and the solution is to reshelve it under romance, not to demand that the author writes a horror book for you.
(The analogy is imperfect here; no-one else has the right to "change the cover" of someone's gender presentation, or to force that person to do so. If an assigned-male-at-birth trans woman doesn't want gender reassignment surgery, that's her damn business, and doesn't make her any less a woman.)
And, again, all of this is fine.
The only way to be wrong about gender is to insist that someone else is wrong about theirs because they don't fit your pre-conceived notions. (I will allow that, on very rare occasions, people are wrong about themselves, but it's almost always because of societal pressure to conform to expectations. And the correct answer is to encourage self-examination, not to bully them.)
Some people (or books/films/games) fit neatly into one of the existing categories, and that's fine.
Other people(/books/etc) are a combination of two (or more) existing categories, like an urban fantasy romance, and that's fine too.
Then there are people(/etc) who take a bit from each of several existing categories, but in such a way that the combination needs a new name (or no name at all). And you know what? That's OK too.
And sometimes, a person(/etc) is simply something new and different and unique to themselves, and there's nothing wrong with that, either.
A lot of people start out with a fairly solid idea where they fit ("I'm a Horror novel"), and just refine that slightly over time. Others might start out a bit fuzzy, and work out what they are as they learn more about themselves and the world. And some people will start with a clear idea that they belong in one place, and then realise that they were actually something else all along. All of this is fine.
Because the universe is complicated, sometimes people might start off with external signs that don't match what they know about themselves, like a romance novel with exploding spaceships on the cover. And like a book with the wrong cover, it's what's inside that counts. A romance doesn't become horror just because it was put on the wrong shelf, and the solution is to reshelve it under romance, not to demand that the author writes a horror book for you.
(The analogy is imperfect here; no-one else has the right to "change the cover" of someone's gender presentation, or to force that person to do so. If an assigned-male-at-birth trans woman doesn't want gender reassignment surgery, that's her damn business, and doesn't make her any less a woman.)
And, again, all of this is fine.
The only way to be wrong about gender is to insist that someone else is wrong about theirs because they don't fit your pre-conceived notions. (I will allow that, on very rare occasions, people are wrong about themselves, but it's almost always because of societal pressure to conform to expectations. And the correct answer is to encourage self-examination, not to bully them.)