A contradiction in the liberal view of gender

[shadow]

I meant that as in: I don't really think it really makes a difference what gender someone is either way, and I'd try to treat someone the same way regardless of what gender they are or want to be treated as.

Would that include imagining that theres some contradiction between being a male, sexually, and wanting to be treated as a male, as a matter of gender?  Would you treat me the same as you treat a girl?  OFC not.  We incredibly capable of treating people as our traditional gender roles define...but as soon as something deviates we start looking for "contradictions".

I think it's important to consider why we'd treat a guy different from a girl. Gender may not be the best metric for that, because it stereotypes (sort of a judgement shortcut). There's a reason we'd treat genders differently, and that has to do with the characteristics of that gender. For example, scientifically, women are on average naturally less muscular than men, so it reasons that they may be less capable at self defense. We can generalize, and that's where we get our societal gender stereotypes from, and maybe they aren't valueless. But, they don't really address the actual issue in this case, which is strength. So they aren't as accurate a way of judging someone as looking at the actual characteristic that influences how we treat someone.

All this to say... I think we generally treat guys differently from girls for a reason, and that reason at it's core isn't as simple as gender. It's a characteristic that is grouped under gender, that may or may not be accurate for an individual. It's a judgement shortcut that, while easy, isn't as valid. So I wouldn't treat a guy differently from a girl for arbitrary gender reasons, but for the characteristics of that guy that form his gender. That is the extent to which I agree with A. 

The "liberal view" of these gender constructs is that they exist - and that they are arbitrary - further, that regardless of which -if any- of these gender constructs a person chooses to identify as - they have every right to do so and you have an ehtical compulsion to afford them that dignity.  Pretty easy stuff, right?

I have no problem with that. But that's a different thing from changing from one gender extreme to another. It's not that I see it as wrong, just unnecessary if you believe gender constructs aren't valid in the first place.

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I know there's probably some extreme liberals who believe every gender role is imposed by society rather than being a biological tendency, and biological sex doesn't exist which is something I would argue against.

Those people were the entire class I was in, prof included. I don't agree with that extreme of a view (because it seems unscientific), but they pretty much had decided gender was entirely invented by society and sex wasn't related to it at all - that biological sex meant nothing. This is the view I found contradictory to their support of transgender people.