Our sex should obviously not be a major part of our lives outside of, like, medical things. But our society forces gender on us as a set of roles, expectations etc. to follow based on our sex. So, ideally, there would be no gender, right?
But trans people throughout history have wanted to present as the opposite gender. This is in addition to cis people who oppose their own gender’s roles and do the opposite things. But trans people, obviously, go much further than any cis person does.
Is this because trans people want to actually be the opposite sex and for a long time being the opposite gender was the only possible thing? But now thanks to medical advancements they can get closer to that goal than any other time?
Why is this? Is it something in the brain, like with gay people? So, can you do a brain scan to see if people are actually gay or trans? Would that even help? Actually, I can imagine it helping in an ideal world, but in our fascist reality that will probably just end up genociding people. So, uh, scrap that.
Any essential books for reading up on all this stuff? Thanks
The problem is attachments to categories that no longer serve the practice and purpose of science. It's a social process, and so it has similar pitfalls of social dynamics. The reactionary nature of defending established understandings is what I think needs to be guarded against. A binary is a shorthand way to describe a spectrum for instance, but if only the binary understanding is what is taught as established knowledge, it is all to easy to deride the reality of the spectrum as an affront to established science. This pattern has played out numerous times over the short history. This is why study of science as a social practice is really invaluable.