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Gender’s Troubled: Who's Afraid to Let Go of Gender? Who's Afraid to Acknowledge Sex?
A Series on Male Supremacy & Sex-Based Stereotypes
Search the female.liberation archive to read the other pieces in the Gender’s Troubled series, starting with the intro.
There is this comic I saw some time ago that has always stuck with me, though I sadly can’t find it anymore. A woman who doesn’t fit others’ sex-based stereotypes kept being singled out and asked her pronouns, being called “non-binary”, and other gendered projections. When I saw the artwork, it stopped me in my tracks. Something that had been happening to me, that I kept to myself, that I tried to file away as coincidence, was being precisely articulated by another woman as well. It wasn’t just a me thing. It wasn’t “all in my head.” And my discomfort with this treatment wasn’t unwarranted. That one piece of art opened an entire world of awareness and curiosity in me. I started paying attention to that which I could not name before, and therefore believed I could not see. This artist’s way of speaking through her comic made it so I couldn’t unsee the flaws of ALL liberal gender anymore. The belief that any version of liberal gender was somehow different from conservative gender, revealed itself to be a superficial hypothesis. The dangers were still the same. Both flavors of gender relied on perpetuating sex-based stereotypes; they all contained the rot of “masculine” and “feminine.” Gender is a playbook, a tool of male parasitism, created to enforce male power and control over women and girls. No matter how you slice or dice it, we can’t refashion gender into liberation; it will always be oppression. And the more we slice and dice, the more disembodied we become and the more we are coerced to perpetually rely on gender. Only we can break our reliance on these nonsensical boxes.
“Gender” (and “Race”) were constructed for social control. Weapons of males’ supremacism-parasitism. Men create social rules based on our sex and color, they name these rules “gender” and “race”, and they spread these rules for violent power and control. These social rules–that are based on our embodied phenotypes of sex and color–have real-world detrimental effects on women and girls. Women and girls are coerced to perform according to man’s fictitious rules, making sure all our energy is sucked into the futility of his stereotypical boxes. With time, all men and women become the enforcers of gender (and race), but their choices are rooted in the power and positionality of their sex-class. Unfortunately women and girls lack meaningful choice, because males bar them from equal access to sovereignty. Despite these seemingly insurmountable barriers, we still stand up and fight back against males (and female enablers) in the ways we can.
Both the Conservative and Liberal Gender Believer Polices Through Mis-Sexing & Sex-Based Stereotypes
For years, conservative males have mis-sexed me as a gendered insult. Now liberal males mis-sex me as a gendered compliment. Just another type of repackaged benevolent sexism. This gender proliferation spreads to women as well. Some women who think they have my back, who call themselves my “ally” or “family” are looking me up and down when they meet me, and projecting their gender beliefs onto my sex. Ironically, many of these women are mis-sexing me in the name of fighting conservative males’ gender, because they’re so terrified of “mis-gendering” me according to liberal males’ gender. What a funny sentence to write. My hope is that it illustrates the lack of true differentiation between those who follow conservative or liberal gender. This complex gender game exists within all male culture because it’s the weapon that allows for dehumanization on the basis of being the female sex.
Whether a man or woman questions my womanness out of liberal sentiments or conservative sentiments, makes no material difference. Whether a male is calling me “he-she” as a dig at me having independent thought or a male is calling me “he-they” because he’s “thoughtfully” stereotyping how I look or behave, I’m still facing sexism and misogyny in both scenarios. Regardless of intent, the impact is the same.
The roots of all sex-based stereotypes (gender) are a poison that we must spend the rest of our existence decimating; a feat that could take centuries. This means the decimation of conservative and liberal man’s mysticism in every sense. This means the decimation of all the illogicality from the S, LGB, and TQ+ gender bullshit. You can’t call one form of gender a “spiritual cult” while pretending your version is so very different. Let’s stop pretending “gender ideology” is a special thing only those who call themselves “transgender” participate in. The problem is that feminine, masculine, femme, butch/stud, twink, bear, Madonna, Whore, etc. are all fruit from the poisonous tree of gender. And from where I stand, it seems like almost no one is willing to give up their reliance on gender, conservative, liberal, moderate, or otherwise. It seems so many want to talk shit on That Gender Over There, but not their own flavor. So many have a “but you don’t understand this is different” argument for their supposedly acceptable version of sex-based oppression.
Here are some recent examples in the real world of how I bump up against the projections of different flavors of conservative, moderate, and liberal gender ideologies. They illustrate how everyone is operating through a particular lens of gender ideology, even if they themselves can’t see it.
A male harasser that I told off after he sexualized me, hit back by saying “well you look like a boy, anyway.”
A woman I met who calls herself “butch” projected the term onto me, and when I politely said, “I’m not butch”, she proceeded to box me in, “Oh sorry, are you femme or androgynous?”
A female guest at an event singled me out to let me know her pronouns, but she didn’t do this to anyone else.
Such men and women are not unique in the least, nor are my experiences. I’ve had these same things happen over and over again, until I identified a pattern. These individuals’ behaviors were rooted in sexism and misogyny, but only one of them seemed aware of that fact. The man knew that the weapon of gender means nothing is more insulting than telling a woman she looks like a man. Which is why he chose to attempt to denigrate my looks by questioning my sex, as soon as I called out his sexual harassment. Both women thought they were kindly signaling to me, “When I look at you, I assume you’re sending me a signal to project questions of sex and gender onto you.” Sadly the women were operating off the same sex-based stereotypes (gender) as the sexist man. My short hair, unpainted face, loose, concealing clothing, my unshorn armpits and legs, my personality, my [insert sex-based stereotype projection here] becomes a game of meaning-making or insult for the gender-loving observer. They project onto me all the thoughts in their head, all the shortcuts and stereotypes they’ve created. But all I wish for them is to keep it to themselves. I want to scream, “leave me the FUCK alone, I don’t want to hear what you’re thinking! I’m tired of your assumptions!” This form of sexism has a distinctly familiar aura to another -ism I deal with: projections and assumptions based on my skin color and features aka colorism/racism. “What are you?” has been reworded and spread from my color to my sex. Those folks with their color-related assumptions and projections also think they’re being so very kind, just trying to connect with me, trying to get to know me. But all they remind me is that they see me as a flattened stereotype and need to make that the central focus of interacting with me. They remind me how people don’t want to be present enough to learn about you, they want to guess at it. Just like liberal and conservative gender believers need to box in my sex, liberal and conservative race believers need to box in my color. All any of them have to do is see me as fully human, slowly get to know me if they have curiosities about my personality, my sexual orientation, my demographics, my beliefs. When looking at these two interlinked forms of female oppression–gender and race–the old adage “assuming makes an ass out of you and me” feel quite apt. I’m open to questions about my embodiment, about my geographical ancestry, but never when they feel invasive and dehumanizing. And if it’s the first thing a stranger has to say to me without obvious reason, I see that conversation as a waste of my time. I don’t care to have such uncreative, stereotype-based, small talk. I would rather do small talk about something as benign as the weather than be asked my pronouns, my lesbian category, if I’m Indian, or how I speak such good English.
Now to be clear, asking people to check their assumptions means I must also build resilience when others ignore my requests and stereotype me. I have been mis-sexed for many years and I’ve learned to avoid trying to interpret the meaning. I have empathetically accepted that we all are oppressed under gender and therefore use shortcuts of gender to determine sex. I used to have a running joke that people don’t actually look at you, they simply look for “long hair, boobs, skirt” or “short hair, no boobs, pants” and then determine your sex based on that. For many years when I was mis-sexed, it was genuinely an accident; an honest mistake. The person didn’t look that hard, and made a snap judgement. It was neutral. Some would even apologize profusely while I explained that it was ok for them to make a mistake. Their shame had the underpinnings of that conservative gender belief that nothing is more insulting to a woman than to insinuate she’s a man. But now there’s this liberal version of mis-sexing that is done out of misguided care. Their message is that nothing is more insulting to a woman than to insinuate she’s a woman. These responses are the cruel, irrational outcomes of gender’s oppression.
The Problem is Your Perceptions, Not My Reality
Despite the routine mis-sexing, I have found ways to build my self-worth and realize these opinions are not about me, but about the gender believer trying to prop up their worldview. I know that I am female, and at forty-two, I’m content and grateful to be the sex I am. My sex is a neutral fact of my existence. It’s wonderful being a woman, because of the scientific reality of my embodiment, not because it’s some divine, mystical, magical state of being. I don’t imbue fiction onto my sex-based class. It is males and their culture that try to do that. Men can’t control women and girls if sex is a neutral fact. Men must construct and project gender in order to problematize the female sex.
Sex-based stereotypes end up hurting me regardless of the observer’s intent, because gender is a weapon. It is toxic and needs to be disposed of. No matter the gender flavor, the impact ends up being the same. Conservative, Liberal, Moderate - they’re all saying I’m not “woman enough” OR I’m a “type” of woman according to their rigid or loose sex-based stereotypes.
Every cell in me exudes my femaleness. I am a woman, period, full stop. I was observed female at birth, and that observation has been fully confirmed through my female sexual development path. My womanness holds multitudes. I am not “feminine” and I am not “masculine.” I am not whatever gendered stereotype the observer is attempting to project. The only question left is can the conservative and liberal gender believers see my womanness and also see my human individuality?
To ALL my Liberal Sisters: Do You See How You Too, Dehumanize and Objectify Me?
Confused about my sex? Please take your best guess. If you get it wrong, I’ll kindly correct you because I have stability and strength in my sense of self; in my femaleness. When the male mis-sexes me to denigrate me, I put up my shield of protection so that his harsh words can’t absorb into me. But sister, when you started to mis-sex me, I wasn’t prepared or ready. I see that I need to build up a shield of protection against your liberal gendered projections, just like I did for conservative men and women. Sister, don’t stop at burning down conservative gender, burn down liberal gender, and learn to expand your view of the material reality of sex. Learn to see women and girls as human. Learn to see my embodiment as neutral and not up for your interpretation and projection.
Don’t project “boy” onto me by calling me “tomboy”
Don’t project “masculine” onto me by calling me “butch”
Don’t project “stem/androgynous/no-label” onto me when I refute you calling me “masc” or “femme”
Don’t project “man” onto me by questioning my personality and aesthetics
Stop trying to read my clothing as some kind of Akashic Record that will assumptively reveal my sex, sexual orientation, and idiosyncrasies to you, AKA this thing ALL SLGBTQ+ people call “gender” and “gender identity.” Stop trying to create more boxes, to dismantle the conservative’s two-box system of “feminine” and “masculine” or the material sex believer liberals’ three box system of “femme”, “stud/butch”, and “no-label/stem.” Sister, can’t you see, none of these boxes can get ALL of us free? Maybe instead, we stop using stereotypes to project boxes onto individuals?
Accept that the only real binary is that there are two biological sexes, nothing more, nothing less–including any differences in sexual development. Beyond that, nothing else needs to exist in male-manufactured boxes. Masculine and feminine don’t need to be a fiction we continue to spread. We can learn to separate our material sex from our personalities and our aesthetics, both born and adorned. It’s not easy, but it’s possible. I’m living proof of that. Male supremacism-parasitism isn’t inevitable, but males sure do want to convince you of that so you don’t challenge your indoctrination.
Sister, you can learn to see me, my short hair, unpainted face, loose, concealing clothing, my unshorn armpits and legs, my personality, my [insert sex-based stereotype projection here] and accept that I am female, that I am woman. Beyond this biological reality, I’m a vast human being that you need to take time to learn. Put aside your shortcuts for adult female human and adult male human.
What you really need to question is why you question my femaleness, my womanness. What is it about your beliefs that teaches you to question me through a lens of sex-based stereotypes and assumptions?
To Sisters Who Deny My Sex in the Name of “Transgenderism”
Sister, in your effort to be aware of “gender dysphoria” or prop up your own gender system, you end up fueling dysmorphia and gaslighting. You’re objectifying me just like man always has. You’re mind reading on who and what I am. You dehumanize all women when you deny our breadth; when you pretend that your brain didn’t instantaneously determine my sex and that almost 95% of the time you know exactly what I am. When you pretend that mis-sexing me is a caring act, realize that’s not how all of us feel. You can do as you please, I don’t get to police your speech. But I do get to respond, dissent, and point out the contradictions of your actions and its impact on society as well as me. I come in peace, I’m not looking for a fight. All I ask is for you to admit you know my sex. And when you don’t know, admit that stereotypes don’t define such things like my humanness. I need you to truly interrogate your convictions to see if they hold water, or are you simply proselytizing?
When In Doubt About My Womaness Sister, Just Remember This:
It’s my material sex that draws my radical feminist lesbian girlfriends to me. When we make love and she holds me close, there is never a moment of her mis-sexing me. My hair, my face, my naked body, my genitalia, my voice, my cells, all exude my womanness.1
When I’m safe in her arms, there’s never a moment of her using the weapon of gender upon me. She doesn’t flatten me to “feminine” or “masculine”, “femme” or “butch”. She simply sees me as wholly woman, just as I see her. No assumptions are needed when you are fully present with a person. There is never any hesitation for her or me, around knowing we are adult female humans.
She lays adoration and kisses upon my feet, my legs, my hips, as her lips travel to the embodiment of our dykeness.
She gives me protection and solace in a world trying in every way to deny that I’m woman enough just as I am.
Know that it’s you, not me, that feels discomfort in my womanness. Your projections are tiring, Sister, please stop mis-sexing me. Please stop painting your labels of “feminine”, “masculine”, “androgynous” onto me.
Please stop perpetuating males’ lies, even if he has convinced you that this version is “not like the other kinds.” Or at the very least, keep your assumptions and your thoughts to yourself.
I love her message of, “Why is it so hard for you to see me as a woman?” Though I don’t subscribe to the butch/femme-masculine/feminine dichotomies, there is profound wisdom in what our sister is saying here that all women can relate to. Like the comic I referenced above, this video was one of those artworks that helped me to feel less isolated as a woman who refuses to submit to sex-based stereotypes. I wish I could have been at that post office to help protect her. To my sisters who call themselves stud, butch, femme, androgynous, etc., we might have many vastly different perspectives, but we’re all united in the goal for women’s liberation. Hopefully our many paths will get us there.
This story of my accepting radical feminist lesbian girlfriends is part embellishment and part visualization. I have never actually dated a single woman who hasn’t routinely projected sex-based stereotypes onto me. All my lovers absolutely knew I’m a woman and were attracted to me because of my femaleness, but they still couldn’t seem to escape gender. Even the ones who were accepting of me still felt a need to point out my supposed differences, both based on my sex and my color. One day I hope to meet the woman I describe here, who can fully accept my womanness and color, and all its neutrality. Here’s a photo of my vision board for 2025 (I make one almost every year). This time I got real specific and created a list of my specific desires. I also had some silly fun with collage, piecing together a photo of the beautiful Lena Waithe and me snuggling LOL. Here’s a reminder that you don’t need some stupid AI art generator to create fun visuals. Making this tapped into the teenage girl part of me who never got to have an open celebrity crush:) It can be healing to create a story to acknowledge what we weren’t allowed to experience as closeted lesbian girls.
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