Potential Positives of Gender Fluidity

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Yeah. I wasn’t referring to all religious groups. I was thinking more about the strict, pesky ones I have so much experience with. Gender roles can be important to secular people for sure. But religions can make it more in terms of “right” and “wrong” and following “God’s Will” - all that boring and obnoxious stuff that makes it difficult for people to change.

Those are not examples of gender fluidity but the opposite. Gender Fluidity is not a personality type, for example, a man with a "feminine side". It is literally what the expression says. A gender fluid person may identify as a male today a female tomorrow and something in between on Saturday. A father who tells his son to stop being a sissy boy does not believe in gender fluidity at all but two strictly defined genders.

I accept that people are born into a body that is not their actual gender. I accept that because of the way they were raised and continual and continuing societal expectations that people may not realize it until well into adulthood. The concept that something so hardwired into us as gender can be fluid is very difficult for me to wrap my head around. But as a very very very late diagnosed autistic, I realize that because something was not known about but has come to recognition seemingly suddenly does not mean it is not real, no matter how trendy or faddish it appears.

The under 30 demographic is driving the sexual and gender identity social revolutions of the last few years. As a late middle-aged cis straight male whatever is going to happen is going to blow by me like a rabbit racing a turtle and there is not a damn thing I should or can do about it. I hope it works out for them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer

A story to ponder for all who think gender is learned and primarily and/or exclusively socially constructed.

I think our concepts of identity are still rather archaic and to that extent assigned social roles are part of what give people structure who'd just about go insane without it.

The more I look around and hear different people speak though I don't think gender identity is really a primary identity. Sure it's big, it influences a lot of choices in our lives and what doors tend to open or close around us but I'm starting to think that right now it's a little overblown. It'll be better I think when we're past the era of combatively asserting 'I can do this!' and more into a socially modest place where we can explore these things on our own merits rather than it revolving around fighting one opposing political group or another.

I think it's a story to ponder for any who wish to force their idea of what they think a person's gender "should" be on them.

Some aspects of gender are social constructs and some are based in the person's biology, which is subject to the same natural variation as all else in the biological realm. Some people are cis gendered...their gender matches their sex socially and biologically. Some people are transgendered...their gender is that of the opposite sex. Some people are gender non conforming...they don't conform to the stereotypes of their gender but probably have a differentiated biological gender. Some people are gender non binary...they don't strongly conform to one gender or the other and may not have a biologically differentiated gender...but this concept of gender fluid...one can be socially gender fluid but I don't think biologically gender fluid because the neurological hardware can't drastically alter from one day to the next.

That being said, I think most men on here have a biological gender and while some studies have found that the brains of males on the spectrum tend to not be as sexually differentiated as NT males, I do think most of the men here are probably male gendered and have needs that are consistent with that.

I feel sorry that he had to experience such a difficult life, but certainly, not everyone’s gender aligns with his or her biological sex.

One case study does not encompass the whole story or spectrum that is gender identity.

The story of David Reimer was a horrible case of child abuse in my opinion. I'm skeptical the botched circumcision was an accident and that psychologist John Money should have been charged with child abuse.

I think it is important to respect and honor someone’s experience.

With that being said, it’s very difficult for many who have a gender identity that does not align with their sex, especially in conservative cultures. Their experience may not be too far of from David Reimer’s.

It is an interesting topic. I'm personally interested most from a biological perspective. Why have gender roles of male and female been more or less a constant over eons of time? I understand there may have been anomalies here and there.

Why have males (the vast majority being hetero) typically found the shapely female figure to be sexually attractive for eons (Venus of Willendorf figurine) rather than depict females with a masculine figure or androgynous figures as attractive? Conversely why have women found an athletic male physique to be sexually attractive for the same amount of time?

Maybe a lot of that had to do with an absence of anything other than rudimentary technology. Strong men may have been attractive mates because perhaps they were more capable protectors from predators and aggressors where now that's not needed.

Maybe females with wide hips were attractive to males back then because they had a better chance of living through childbirth and caring for the offspring than a woman with narrow hips, where now with C-sections, that's not needed.

I think that's well said that the young generation now that seems to have accepted fluid gender will be left to start to change gender concept if that's the consensus.

In the future, most women being sexually attracted to their male partner that say, screams effeminately and jumps on a chair at the site of a mouse or bug begging her to kill it. Or when something goes "bump in the night" whispering to her that he's too scared to go see what it is and begs her to go into the darkness and check. Or watches "chick flicks" with her and cries and sobs more loudly than she does at the emotional parts. Will men with those behaviors be equally sought after and considered attractive by the majority of women as men that would continue to have "traditional" masculine traits would be? Or maybe gender roles reverse and women become the more expendable "hunters" and men stay home and raise the offspring.

Interesting stuff.

I think as a net response, the world is becoming more accepting on average. I mean, major networks airing programmes with emphasis on a global assimilation or more socially oriented taboos, millennials becoming more socially progressive (as I'm sure the next generation will be), near universal acceptance for minorities. These all point to the world being brighter in the future, it's just that the older generations (namely the baby boomers) seem to want to hold progress back.

So gender fluidity will likely become the next rung on the social ladder. Let's hope we reach the top soon.