the problem of post-modern identity
this is my first time writing something in neovim. it's just markdown, but it somehow does feel nice.
there is an identity crisis in modern society. i could go into why this is but that's a bit of a tedious topic. if you disagree, then you reject the premise of my opinion.
gender is one of the pillars of identity today, even though it is falling apart. unlike some rightists, i do not think it is the action of an organized left that is destroying it, but rather it has come time for gender to fall apart naturally if there is such a thing.
the reason that the binary conception of gender is being questioned, that new gender identities are being formed, is because the framework of gender is no longer working for many people.
to an extent, i have experienced this firsthand. growing up, i had no strong conception of being male, and it was simply not something i identified strongly with. my parents also did not enforce masculinity as a certain way of appearing which is in contrast to traditional ideas in the west. the reason for this is not that there is no strong conception of binary gender in east asia, but that it is understood a bit differently that here.
in any case, i would say that i was rather alienated by masculinity as a concept. perhaps, it is possible for such a person to simply live a life not defined by gender, but it is impossible to not run into gender living in society. eventually, even those who are ambivalent are forced to identify themselves, and ironically, this is especially true in western liberal circles.
there are some that make a point that the concept of "toxic masculinity" and the term being so widespread alienates people from masculinity altogether. i think this is true, but i don't necessarily see it as a problem. however, i do think this idea is partially what distanced me from masculinity. on the other hand, i simply did not fit into the western conception of what it means to be masculine, which meant being athletic. i was not very athletic growing up so i did not fit into this conception of masculinity.
it is only recently that i have begun to understand myself through the lens of gender identity, and now i understand why it is important to people. this idea of "gender affirming" which is a term used mainly in LGBT circles is as much of a phenomenon for so-called cisgender people. and i would argue that the root cause of this feeling has little to do with gender at all. it is rather a feeling of satisfaction of being able to truly fit into a social framework and be recognized by others in that social system for it.
if you do not identify strongly in terms of gender, or do not identify in accepted forms of it, you can never truly feel as part of a community. being strongly identified with a gender is much like strongly identifying as a member of an aesthetic or community, but in a more universal way.
there are self-proclaimed gender abolitionists who think that gender itself is inherently oppressive or restrictive. my response to that is that living in a society is restrictive. to belong in a society means giving up complete freedom from identity labels and choosing some to find a place in the system. gender just happens to be the most prominent and universal form of this in my opinion. it is less that i think that gender should be enforced, but rather that i do not think an abolition of gender is possible. i think it is very necessary.
there is an interesting question of whether transgender people would exist in a society without gender, and my thought on that is that they would not. so in a sense, the fact that trans people exist today points to the significance of having your gender affirmed.
i am opposed to an essentialist idea of gender because i have firsthand experienced that it is not true (the idea that gender is biological is also an essentiallist idea).
there was a point in the past that i identified very weakly with being male and i could have ended up identifying differently had the circumstances allowed it.
i disagree with people who think gender is biological, as well as people who transition but use essentialist language such as implying that they were always meant to be the gender they transitioned into. i am aware of the fact that using certain language does not signifying belief in the ideology that's implied, but it is communicating using the language of that ideology.