Does society need the gender binaries?

The gender binary is sooo outdated, and it feels silly that we have to conform to what's in our pants.

 

Well, I feel as if public restrooms will be marked with "male reproductive organ" and "female reproductive organ" as opposed to "male" and "female" in the future.

 

Some poor intersex people will have no idea where to go.

But by your logic we might as well have unisex bathrooms since that is pretty much what will happen in that case.

And a binary system is outdated.

 

Um...why? You wanna explain that logic there?

 

If the Republicans have their way. :dry:

I think it's outdated, and people should be able to do whatever they want without feeling restricted by stifling concepts of what should be feminine or masculine. People would be able to be much more free and creative if they didn't feel pressure to conform to arbitrary standards of male and female. Besides that, a gender binary completely screws over non binary people.

 

Oh, forgive me if I seemed offensive.

That is merely a potential scenario, assuming that those who are politically conversative prevail in the "bathroom" wars as an attempt to satisfy everyone.

 

I find the concept absurd and potentially harmful, and if humanity were to look to the future it should stay in the past. Merely my thoughts on it.

...I may be stereotypically feminine in most aspects but even I can see that.

 

I do agree that it's outdated. I'm male because I have a penis, but that shouldn't dictate how I act and dress.

 

I like the way my parents raised me, with dolls and trucks and cooking sets and bikes and video games and cute hair clips, and dresses and boy-shorts, and a pixie cut as a small child so that I could be relatively androgenous until, and if, I decided to change it, and pink and blue and white and any other color I could ever want.

And hey, I turned out fine.

 

Nope. It's outdated and... just pointless really. ¯\_(⊙_ʖ⊙)_/¯
We may as well just all have the same pronouns at birth and wear and do what we want...
But, meh. (´-ι_-｀)
Can't do anything about it, i guess.

( ಥ_ಥ) Can only dream......

 

Nope. It's outdated and... just pointless really. ¯\_(⊙_ʖ⊙)_/¯
We may as well just all have the same pronouns at birth and wear and do what we want...
But, meh. (´-ι_-｀)
Can't do anything about it, i guess.

( ಥ_ಥ) We can only dream for now......

 

One thing to keep in mind is that gender expression does have an important purpose in context of a person's gender identity, it serves to reinforce it and as a result helps a person construct a stronger and more stable identity. One of the reasons why it is so hard to be trans is that we often can't construct a stable identity because of the gender dysphoria caused when we try to reinforce our identities. The gender binary is comparable to a species of animals that is harmful in some way but is an important part of the eco system and by destroying that species you do.more hark than good because it unbalances the eco system and suddenly another species that is even more dangerous starts to grow in number because the first species kept the second in check.

If we got rid of the gender binary we would be forced to fill in the gaps in our identities with something else which will likely be even more harmful. Just to help you understand, examples of ways to stabilize our identity are religion and nationalism... is gender expression more harmful to society than fanaticism of religion or extreme nationalism such as that exhibited in germany during WW2? Both of these examples are minor sources of stability compared to gender which is a core part of most people's identities. It is important to point out that one of the reasons why people here have such strong objections to the gender binary is that people continue associating the gender binary with gender expression that is outdated. As far qs I see it, this is actually a mistake as the outdated gender stereotypes are mostly seen in a negative light by society and have as a result stopped being accurate representations of the gender binary. For most of the people who responded here and myself, what it means to be female ahd male has very little to do with the outdated stereotypes that the gender binary evokes. Thus for us the gender binary takes on a different form. The gender binary is also the counterpart to non binary gender identities and they coexist. Without the gender binary, non binary gender idejtities would have no contextual basis and would be lost as a way to define yourself and identity.

I'm not trying to say that I believe the gender binary is something that is completely positive, it is still something that has very serious negative consequences for large segments of the society. However, it exists for a reason and any solution to the problems caused by the binary must take its purpose into consideration as sometimes trying to fix something that you don't fully understand can end really really badly.

This is at least how I perceive things. I hope no one takes my words in a negative or confrontational way. :icon_redf

(&&&)

 

I don't know how or why that last post o' miiine managed to post itself twice... But it did.
So, alrighty then, EC.
Or is that my PC glitching out...? I dunno...

 

Because some people don't want to see the organs of the other sex, regardless of gender. I guess there could be a third for those who just don't care?

To use biological sex instead of gender identity for these things is the only way for the system to make sense in the scenario that we're not completely getting rid of it. Otherwise it might as well not exist, it's pointless then.

 

It's simplistic and a bit outdated. It can be useful, but I wish at the very least we could figure out how to deal with it in speaking English. We're still stuck with "he" and "she" to say nothing of other romance languages which assign a gender to all sorts of words.

It'll be tough, but I think we can get there.

 

To a point it is "outdated," and to another it is not.

Trans people are at the forefront of this issue because in a way they experience being raised as their biological sex but feel a different gender. While I can't understand how someone can be a trans person that feels the opposite gender, yet be non-binary (it almost feels like it should cancel each other out), I do feel that removing the societal expectations one has of a person based on their sex and/or perceived gender would help people evolve naturally and with less pressure to conform; it may also help trans and non-conforming people have more time to explore what they really want to be. On this forum I oftentimes hear that many trans folks get hurt and know they are trans because of bad they feel when they are forced to do something that is against how they feel they should be treated or dressed or whatnot based on society expectations of a given sex/gender. But, by removing such delineation of protocols, maybe it would make more people comfortable in their own skin. And that would be a win for mental hygiene.

That said, I kinda like the gender binaries of society. They provide for structure and order, and I like that. To a point, they make the world go round.

 

I don't see any reason we need to get rid of them.

 

I don't think they're really needed, but they're gonna be there because a lot of society is stubborn.

*awkward nonbinary shrug*