But Gender Is A Construct

2022-04-17

What does it mean to want to transition, while also being aware gender is a construct? Does transition mean gender is not a construct? Taylor writes in with this excellent question and a few other great insights. Faith brought up the monkeys who wash their sweet potatoes, which is an atypical behavior that nonetheless spread through the troop and was even handed down through generations. They do it today; you can go to Japan and see them. It's an amazing case study of behavior that meets three p...

Faith brought up the monkeys who wash their sweet potatoes, which is an atypical behavior that nonetheless spread through the troop and was even handed down through generations. They do it today; you can go to Japan and see them. It's an amazing case study of behavior that meets three proposed aspects for a cultural behavior: emergence, propagation, and modification.

The "modification" part is most relevant to Taylor's question. Yes, gender is a construct, a cultural behavior. It has a lot of problematic aspects but also a LOT of aspects that feel right to many people. So trans* people and even plenty of cis people modify gender constructs to fit themselves. We live gender in the way we want.

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