Rex Kerr
2 min readDec 22, 2023

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I was interpreting the tingle of joy as a statement about the decoupling of social roles and physical sex (let's leave out intersex cases here), because that would entail liberation, unburdening, and healing. (Presumably only that, and nothing negative.)

You've listed a variety of extreme and inhumane responses to someone not taking on an expected role: "shaming, name calling, sexual abuse, abandonment by families and friends, assault and murder". But do we really think that if some social roles are expected, those things are appropriate to do to those who violate them? We generally frown on people picking their noses in public, but we don't sexually abuse and abandon them. Parents might expect their kid to become a lawyer, and it might in context be a fairly reasonable expectation (right personality traits, good opportunities, etc.), but it's abusive for the parents to call their kid names and assault them if they decide to do something else. If someone's tall and athletic we might expect them to play basketball, but we shouldn't shame or murder them if they don't.

How about we just don't shame, name-call, sexually abuse, abandon, assault, and murder people even if they don't fit into whatever boxes we think they ought to?

So there are really at least two questions here:

(1) What, if anything, is an appropriate way to maintain the boundaries of social boxes?

(2) Should there be presumptive sex=gender boxes (whether or not the boundaries are strictly maintained)?

Just to be clear, this isn't about me at all. This is a question about human nature and human society.

I'm personally okay with whatever the case may be, but I'm not okay with causing distress on the basis of bad assumptions inadequately examined.

In particular, it isn't obvious to me that "I'm kinda lost, I don't know what I want, I'm not sure what feels right" is overwhelmingly rare, or that an effective answer for many people isn't "Oh, because you're built like this, try that! It's great! We have a place for you where you'd belong; lots of people love it!" Role models "who look like me" are a thing, right?

And that kind of role-positivity is something that both you and probably the original commenter would reject, if we're to take your words literally as the actual aspirational goal and not merely as pointing in a direction that seems would at least reduce abandonment and murder.

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Rex Kerr
Rex Kerr

Written by Rex Kerr

One who rejoices when everything is made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Sayer of things that may be wrong, but not so bad that they're not even wrong.

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