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It's going to take some time to get used to

The genderless pronouns and sibling instead of brother or sister for a monk for Sibling Dex in A Psalm for the Wild-Built is going to take some getting used to. In a way the gender construct has some information to the degree that people cling or reject it, and to get a blank feels weird. I mean I want a post-gender world where gender doesn't matter. 

The book uses "they" instead of him or her or she or him. And that makes me think of plural, like there are more people around instead of a monk of some moon in the future where there are gods we don't recognize. 

Sex of course is a biological thing and that marks biological female and male, but that doesn't mandate anything about femininity and masculinity which are social constructs. If men work they can drink and punch walls. Women can be dependent and express feelings. Those are social ideas of being. 

Transgender experience is puzzling, and really might be the last prejudice to overcome. I don't think we're overcoming the other prejudices very much but there's some progress. I have a hard time imagining not wanting my penis and wanting a vagina. Yes, I know non-op male to female trans don't chop off this dick either. That's another strange choice, I mean you're only female to a degree. I almost feel like they're not committed enough, but I would never presume to prescribe or tell people how to feel. I am curious. How do you see it, how do you feel? I have a hard time imaging having a vagina and wanting a penis. Chopping off your breasts. People do it, and it feels right, they don't regret it. I want to hear more experience. I've read memoirs and articles, but I could always read more. In a way it doesn't matter how much I don't get it. What is important is I want to sympathize, and for me I respect people's experience. The notion that I can somehow be righteous and over ride people's experience is offensive to me.

Even more amazing is relationships where people change gender, and stay together. Married to a man, now you're married to a woman. I mean talk about loving one's soul and not outward forms. Not getting hung up on labels. 

I would probably say I'm politically non-binary, I don't think society gets to genderize sex, if someone doesn't want it. But to each his own. Some embrace traditional notions and that works for them. They will be suffering when they meet people who don't find those ideas useful, but at least they have tradition on their side. Maybe they can be open to non-conformity even in their conformity. You could be traditional and tolerant to non-conformity. The freedom from is also the free to. The protectiveness of males can be sweet if there's no price tag attached. The mothering of women is sweet if they're not somehow forced into it, it's obligatory. 

So those are my thoughts reading the genderless pronouns attached to Sibling Dax in A Psalm for the Wild-Built as I start this hope-punk sci-fi novella by Becky Chambers. I wonder what else I will think.


Link:

One Trans person doesn't think Chapel is funny.

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