Maybe we need to make some space to have conversations about the way that rigid gender expectations can hurt people. I'm not talking about trans people, exclusively (in fact the trans people I know are among the most sophisticated when it comes to processing these kinds of events and emotions)
No, where I see a lot of unprocessed trauma flailing around putting everyone in a bad way is from cis people who have unexamined psychological harm due to their failure to conform to some gender norm. 1/
I'm speaking from some experience. Failing to be feminine correctly used to freak me out.
Just as an example: like most humans I have hairs on my chin, discovering these hairs as a teen filled me with fear and revulsion that had little to do with anything rational. That was because I'd experienced the way that kids could isolate and jeer at someone who didn't do gender correctly.
And I had no idea what might trigger that kind of bullying and ostracization. 2/
I fully expected one of the more extroverted and popular girls to notice these tiny little hairs on my chin, and whip up her followers into a chorus of jeering that would never end.
I assumed that such an event would have no recourse from adults. No, it'd be deserved.
So, I spent hours with tweezers fighting the hairs.
It's almost funny... but really it's not something that should have happened, it was a sign of greater things that are broken.
3/
For one thing: bullying isn't a "normal healthy part of growing up" It's not normal to get bullied, it's not normal to be a bully. It's not something that ought to be common, it's preventable, avoidable nearly always.
And there is no value, nothing learned in kids bullying each other. It's just a failure to teach and support mutual respect.
But when many people feel like they could be ostracized, rejected from the tribe, unpersoned over any random little thing that failure is massive. 4/
And there are a lot of adults with a kind of buried terror of having their gender questioned.
Obviously such fearful people are also vulnerable to being made into bullies themselves.
Without reflection we assume our secret fears are universal. No one cares about the little hairs on your chin. And even if they did? It doesn't really matter. 5/5
For my husband it's ordering drinks. He told me about the sheer terror of:
1. Not being able to tell what gender drinks were.
2. Being attracted to drinks that were "for women"
3. Ordering whisky on ice because that was the one thing he knew wouldn't be "incorrect" and hating it.
Now he drinks boba and laughs about it.
But why did this world have to stress out this kind wonderful man over something so ... pointless? He was afraid to sip my martini. Why do we do this to each other??
@futurebird I don’t care what gender drinks are, but it still gets in the way. I ordered a lavender Prosecco (delicious!). The waiter delivered it to the woman at the table. I didn’t know that drink wasn’t allowed for me.
@bwbeach @futurebird Yeah … I sometimes eat out with a female friend of mine. I sometimes prefer wine, she almost always drinks beer. But inevitable, the beer is put in front of me, the wine in front of her. I always make it a point to swap the glasses right away. That’ll teach that waiter to make assumptions! (Well, OK, it probably won’t.)