What's your opinion? Vote now: 0–Completely aligned with opposite gender, 1, 2, 3–Equally unaligned with both binary genders, 4, 5, 6–Completely aligned with assigned gender...
Think about the first time you heard your voice recorded. It probably felt wrong and you probably felt some sort of discomfort. There was nothing wrong with your voice. It’s how everyone else heard you all the time. But you heard it and you expected to hear yourself and you heard something that was just… off.
That experience, the experience of misaligned identity, isn’t something that can be recognized by analyzing the formants or resonance of your voice. It’s not a property of the voice. You might be able to pull apart the frequencies between a bone mic recording and a room mic recording of you saying the same thing and see what makes the resonance different. But the experience exists subjectively. You couldn’t look at a frequency and say, “that’s the one that made me anxious”
Actually I've never had that recording discomfort. My voice sounds different from inside than from outside just like everyone else's, but it has never sounded 'wrong' to me. Though I get that's a very common experience and understand where you're coming from.
That doesn't really get me any closer to understanding what a man is supposed to be.
I'm trying to understand though. Do you mean that being a man is kinda just vibes like the unclear qualities which make someone happy or unhappy with the sound of their voice? That to be a man is to be content with the idea of being seen as a man?
Because though I can't speak from experience, I feel like I could equally easily accept being seen as a man or woman. Like if I grew up being told I was a man and that some men just happen to have my body parts and that I'm expected to be boyish/manly and take an interest in masculine things, I don't think that would ever have made me uncomfortable. I'd have the same mix of traditionally masculine and traditionally feminine interests that I have now and probably have eventually settled on presenting my appearance basically the same way I do now. But I'd go by different pronouns.
That to be a man is to be content with the idea of being seen as a man?
I think that’s pretty spot on. Anything more specific is both culturally and personally contextual. I’ve said elsewhere in the thread that, as an AMAB person, I got a lot out of reading the writings of trans men. Just put my conception of masculinity into perspective.
I also personally wasted a lot of time early on in my gender exploration intellectualizing the concept of gender. Some of it was useful. A lot of it wasn’t. Gender exploration is both easiest and hardest when you’re just trying stuff out.
Ok but then my mind still loops back around to the question, what is a man? I guess me. By this logic I'm a man. Because I don't feel like I would have any discomfort being seen as a man.
But if that is true, then I don't think men are real. If I'm a man then man is a meaningless concept.
Yeah, it kinda is. There's nothing about your biology that assigns you pronouns or clothing styles or behaviour and so on. The division between "man" and "woman" is completely arbitrary.
"Man", "masculinity", "gender", these are just weird social labels. There's nothing real about them
Ok so if men and women aren't real and have no definition and no meaning then what is a trans person and why aren't we just advocating doing away with the concept of gender entirely
Like, currency is arbitrary and "not real" too but if you ask me what a dollar is its not hard to explain: a dollar is an arbitrary numerical unit often represented by a government-regulated piece of paper which I can trade with other people to acquire things.
Admittedly I'm not an expert, but my understanding of gender is that it is a class hierarchy (possibly the first) that divides a population based on reproductive labor. Patriarchy--through all the usual suspects colonialism, capitalism, etc.--has become the dominant form of gendered relations. So a man is the the gendered class which--in Patriarchy--controls & benefits from reproductive labor while women are subjugated and perform the majority of reproductive labor (child-rearing and such). A queer person is an individual who does not fit this binary.
I've been meaning to read more about gender in particular lately, but this is a good resource for getting a breakdown of it imo. https://libcom.org/article/gender-accelerationist-manifesto
So a man is the the gendered class which–in Patriarchy–controls & benefits from reproductive labor
So trans men... aren't men? Because they dont control or benefit from any partucular structure of this society?
For transparency, I'm trying to find any definition of man which cannot apply to some women and does not exclude some men, or any definition of woman which cannot apply to some men and does not exclude some women. So far, this one doesn't seem satisfactory.
Okay, as I understand it mostly no and sort of yes. It's primarily due to the social element; gender is a socially realized phenomena that only 'exists' within each individual. For a Trans man, his identity has been realized to himself at the individual level this is fundamental for gender identity; however, because gender is socially created, they are only socially recognized as a man if the people around them do so. This will put them at odds with not only Patriarchy but capitalism (capitalistic production relies on reproductive labor of women for the purpose of more labor i.e. for capitalists, women exist to birth and raise workers) and, more often than not, bar them from society at large, subject them to violence, etc. Trans men want to and could perform the typically masculine roles in society (thereby becoming men or if we're being overly pedantic then possibly an adjacent masculine gender that is for all intents and purposes a man) you have certain societies that aren't a binary, such as having two masculine and two feminine genders, (see the Bugi people of Indonesia for prime example) that reinforce that the patriarchal binary is certainly bunk. Cis men have a vested interest in maintaining patriarchy so will tear down Trans men (and any queer person) as it disrupts the binary/their position, a portion of women have also sided with patriarchy/reaction for reasons that would take some getting into. As gender is socially realized, it can be pretty nebulous to pin down, but I think approaching it through a class lens as many feminist and queer theorists have is a pretty solid foundation you just have to be wary of terfs (as with many things radically feminist).
That probably didn't provide a satisfying answer for finding a definition, but I personally don't think there is a satisfying answer. It's possible there is one out there, but I just think women are women who say they are women and men the same, society has just barred some of them from performing their preferred set of reproductive labor.
this is the 'me rambling a little bit before I go to sleep' edit: I think it's also important to re-emphasize that the definitions I provided were for Patriarchy, i.e. how men and women are expected to operate under patriarchy and often do but not 100% of the time when living in said system. Such definitions don't operate so cleanly once different class oppressions meet. A bourgeois woman probably doesn't perform significant reproductive labor as they can afford to hire a nanny, tutor, surrogate, etc. but she almost certainly has a different set of gendered expectations that would be socially recognized as typically feminine. So an analysis of gender also requires analysis of race, economic position, disability, and so on to truly understand the 'definition' of one's gender.
That doesn't really seem to fit the majority accepted opinion here though. If someone here said "I am a man" and you relied "no you're not that doesn't exist" I doubt you'd get very much support lol
Think about the first time you heard your voice recorded. It probably felt wrong and you probably felt some sort of discomfort. There was nothing wrong with your voice. It’s how everyone else heard you all the time. But you heard it and you expected to hear yourself and you heard something that was just… off.
That experience, the experience of misaligned identity, isn’t something that can be recognized by analyzing the formants or resonance of your voice. It’s not a property of the voice. You might be able to pull apart the frequencies between a bone mic recording and a room mic recording of you saying the same thing and see what makes the resonance different. But the experience exists subjectively. You couldn’t look at a frequency and say, “that’s the one that made me anxious”
Actually I've never had that recording discomfort. My voice sounds different from inside than from outside just like everyone else's, but it has never sounded 'wrong' to me. Though I get that's a very common experience and understand where you're coming from.
That doesn't really get me any closer to understanding what a man is supposed to be.
Dammit, and that’s the first time I used that analogy too. Sorry I couldn’t be of more help
I'm trying to understand though. Do you mean that being a man is kinda just vibes like the unclear qualities which make someone happy or unhappy with the sound of their voice? That to be a man is to be content with the idea of being seen as a man?
Because though I can't speak from experience, I feel like I could equally easily accept being seen as a man or woman. Like if I grew up being told I was a man and that some men just happen to have my body parts and that I'm expected to be boyish/manly and take an interest in masculine things, I don't think that would ever have made me uncomfortable. I'd have the same mix of traditionally masculine and traditionally feminine interests that I have now and probably have eventually settled on presenting my appearance basically the same way I do now. But I'd go by different pronouns.
I think that’s pretty spot on. Anything more specific is both culturally and personally contextual. I’ve said elsewhere in the thread that, as an AMAB person, I got a lot out of reading the writings of trans men. Just put my conception of masculinity into perspective.
I also personally wasted a lot of time early on in my gender exploration intellectualizing the concept of gender. Some of it was useful. A lot of it wasn’t. Gender exploration is both easiest and hardest when you’re just trying stuff out.
Ok but then my mind still loops back around to the question, what is a man? I guess me. By this logic I'm a man. Because I don't feel like I would have any discomfort being seen as a man.
But if that is true, then I don't think men are real. If I'm a man then man is a meaningless concept.
Yeah, it kinda is. There's nothing about your biology that assigns you pronouns or clothing styles or behaviour and so on. The division between "man" and "woman" is completely arbitrary.
"Man", "masculinity", "gender", these are just weird social labels. There's nothing real about them
Ok so if men and women aren't real and have no definition and no meaning then what is a trans person and why aren't we just advocating doing away with the concept of gender entirely
Like, currency is arbitrary and "not real" too but if you ask me what a dollar is its not hard to explain: a dollar is an arbitrary numerical unit often represented by a government-regulated piece of paper which I can trade with other people to acquire things.
So what is a man?
Admittedly I'm not an expert, but my understanding of gender is that it is a class hierarchy (possibly the first) that divides a population based on reproductive labor. Patriarchy--through all the usual suspects colonialism, capitalism, etc.--has become the dominant form of gendered relations. So a man is the the gendered class which--in Patriarchy--controls & benefits from reproductive labor while women are subjugated and perform the majority of reproductive labor (child-rearing and such). A queer person is an individual who does not fit this binary.
I've been meaning to read more about gender in particular lately, but this is a good resource for getting a breakdown of it imo. https://libcom.org/article/gender-accelerationist-manifesto
So trans men... aren't men? Because they dont control or benefit from any partucular structure of this society?
For transparency, I'm trying to find any definition of man which cannot apply to some women and does not exclude some men, or any definition of woman which cannot apply to some men and does not exclude some women. So far, this one doesn't seem satisfactory.
Okay, as I understand it mostly no and sort of yes. It's primarily due to the social element; gender is a socially realized phenomena that only 'exists' within each individual. For a Trans man, his identity has been realized to himself at the individual level this is fundamental for gender identity; however, because gender is socially created, they are only socially recognized as a man if the people around them do so. This will put them at odds with not only Patriarchy but capitalism (capitalistic production relies on reproductive labor of women for the purpose of more labor i.e. for capitalists, women exist to birth and raise workers) and, more often than not, bar them from society at large, subject them to violence, etc. Trans men want to and could perform the typically masculine roles in society (thereby becoming men or if we're being overly pedantic then possibly an adjacent masculine gender that is for all intents and purposes a man) you have certain societies that aren't a binary, such as having two masculine and two feminine genders, (see the Bugi people of Indonesia for prime example) that reinforce that the patriarchal binary is certainly bunk. Cis men have a vested interest in maintaining patriarchy so will tear down Trans men (and any queer person) as it disrupts the binary/their position, a portion of women have also sided with patriarchy/reaction for reasons that would take some getting into. As gender is socially realized, it can be pretty nebulous to pin down, but I think approaching it through a class lens as many feminist and queer theorists have is a pretty solid foundation you just have to be wary of terfs (as with many things radically feminist).
That probably didn't provide a satisfying answer for finding a definition, but I personally don't think there is a satisfying answer. It's possible there is one out there, but I just think women are women who say they are women and men the same, society has just barred some of them from performing their preferred set of reproductive labor.
this is the 'me rambling a little bit before I go to sleep' edit: I think it's also important to re-emphasize that the definitions I provided were for Patriarchy, i.e. how men and women are expected to operate under patriarchy and often do but not 100% of the time when living in said system. Such definitions don't operate so cleanly once different class oppressions meet. A bourgeois woman probably doesn't perform significant reproductive labor as they can afford to hire a nanny, tutor, surrogate, etc. but she almost certainly has a different set of gendered expectations that would be socially recognized as typically feminine. So an analysis of gender also requires analysis of race, economic position, disability, and so on to truly understand the 'definition' of one's gender.
:I-was-saying: im advocating for doing away with the concept of gender entirely
That doesn't really seem to fit the majority accepted opinion here though. If someone here said "I am a man" and you relied "no you're not that doesn't exist" I doubt you'd get very much support lol