In a liberal social geography class I took last year at uni, two principles about gender were universally embraced:
A) Gender is a societally constructed concept. The gender roles we take are artificial constraints, and we should not limit people by them.
B) Transgender people were born in the wrong one and have every right to change genders.
I see these views as very contradictory. If we assume A to be true, the different roles and traits of one gender are being arbitrarily grouped together, and as a society we should not compel people to constrain themselves to the characteristics of one gender. For example, instead of saying women should be the ones to do sewing and cooking, we should say that gender should not be what determines who does sewing and cooking.
If we assume B to be ideal, we're saying that someone should be able to choose which grouping of characteristics belonging to one gender they would rather follow. This attitude implies that there is a reason to change gender: that there is something fundamentally different between genders that is innate to a person.
I think both of these are reasonable propositions. But I don't see them as reconcilable. A states that gender characteristics are not innate, while B implies that they are. A suggests that we should not treat people differently based on their gender, while B assumes that we do. B almost seems to be an affront to A. I know this site is generally quite liberal, so I was wondering if anyone here can explain to me the rationale for holding these views simultaneously.
A) Gender is a societally constructed concept. The gender roles we take are artificial constraints, and we should not limit people by them.
B) Transgender people were born in the wrong one and have every right to change genders.
I see these views as very contradictory. If we assume A to be true, the different roles and traits of one gender are being arbitrarily grouped together, and as a society we should not compel people to constrain themselves to the characteristics of one gender. For example, instead of saying women should be the ones to do sewing and cooking, we should say that gender should not be what determines who does sewing and cooking.
If we assume B to be ideal, we're saying that someone should be able to choose which grouping of characteristics belonging to one gender they would rather follow. This attitude implies that there is a reason to change gender: that there is something fundamentally different between genders that is innate to a person.
I think both of these are reasonable propositions. But I don't see them as reconcilable. A states that gender characteristics are not innate, while B implies that they are. A suggests that we should not treat people differently based on their gender, while B assumes that we do. B almost seems to be an affront to A. I know this site is generally quite liberal, so I was wondering if anyone here can explain to me the rationale for holding these views simultaneously.
