Let’s start with the obvious that needs to be said. I believe all people can say and do whatever they want as long as they don’t harm anyone. I don’t believe transgenders are abnormal — and it doesn’t really matter if they are, biologically speaking — it doesn’t mean we should do anything with that. If somebody has 6 fingers and it doesn’t bother them, why would you be bothered? Sure, nature didn’t create people for this, but it didn’t create us for glasses either. There are many things we might consider abnormal biological-wise, but it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be accepted.

If people want to live happily and peacefully — I support them. It’s that simple.

This time I want to talk to you about what genders are.

TL:DR; I believe femininity and masculinity are both style and have nothing to do with typical men and women roles.

People care too much

That’s where all the problems start. I can see how one’s sex was considered important back then, but I don’t understand why people care too much about other people preferences. People have created convenient stereotypes out of nowhere. Women are supposed to be housewives, men are supposed to work a lot and make a lot of money. It was the only way not so long time ago. Things have changed since then, but many individuals still seek comfort in following stereotypes. It would be relatively ok if they only apply this to themselves — still questionable, but I can see where it comes from — but some people believe everybody must live in the stereotypes, which is not true. If people cared less about the appearance and roles of others, there would be fewer stereotypes. The world slowly moves in this direction, although the stereotypes are still very common to hear: “you’re crying like a girl”, “boys don’t cry”, etc.

“I feel like a man”

You can hear this common transition reason a lot, but I’ve never understood what it means. You, the reader, think about yourself a bit. Do you have that part of your brain that tells you which gender you are? How do you know that you should be feminine or masculine? I tried to dig and didn’t find anything in my mind. How do I know I’m a certain gender? Well, I don’t.

The “I feel like a man” and “I feel like a woman” phrases imply men and women feel a certain way. But there is no “man” and “woman” feeling. There are feminine and masculine style and behavior. I wish words “femininity” and “masculinity” weren’t connected to biological sex, but they are, and I’m asking you to detach them for the duration of this article. I’m going to use femininity as in soft, tender, fragile, etc; and masculinity as in strong, angular, big, etc. Imagine all those traits were never about women and men.

There is a difference between appearance and role, and they’re often connected just because of traditions and stereotypes. You can be a feminine woman and work as a truck driver, or you can be a masculine man and do the housekeeping.

Some transgenders want both the appearance and the role of another sex, but I believe most of them want just the appearance. It’s hard to realize you don’t look the way you want to. Sometimes it’s enough to change your style to more feminine (which is heavily criticized for men) or to more masculine (which is not criticized for women to the same degree), and sometimes it’s not enough, and your own body won’t allow you to look feminine or masculine enough, hence the transition. Of course, it would be easier to reach the desired level of femininity or masculinity if you were born in a body that’s already more feminine or masculine — I guess that’s why we always hear “I was born in a wrong body” — but in other cases it’s simply unreachable. Sadly you can’t become thin and feminine if you were born huge and chunky.

Femininity ↔ Masculinity

Imagine a scale that goes from “infinite femininity” to “infinite masculinity”. Your body limits the range. Every person picks a point on the scale, even if they don’t want to — you still look feminine to a certain degree and masculine to another degree. The only way to stop being on the scale is to look less human. We don’t see animals, things and fictional monsters as feminine or masculine as long as they don’t resemble a human.

Why does humanity pay that much attention to that scale? Why do many believe women must never go into “masculinity” zone of the scale, and men must never go into “femininity”? What is going to happen? The world won’t stop, and there are more serious problems than that.

The nature argument is questionable, I doubt evolution put femininity and masculinity in us. First, it was probably developed as the most obvious style choice for clothes that would fit. Since women and men look slightly different, and yes, men are usually more masculine, while women are more feminine just because of the body shape; fashion made the difference more noticeable. It doesn’t mean one can’t discover an unusual style they would enjoy anyway, but fashion isn’t nature.

Second, not everything that’s unnatural is inherently bad. After all, we use computers and phones and TVs, plates and forks and spoons, wear eyeglasses and shoes.

Third, a huge portion of femininity and masculinity is just a tradition, often forced. Yes, our bodies look different, but most of behavior and style we consider feminine and masculine have nothing to do with biological bodies; it’s just an idea people have created long time ago. It doesn’t really exist. People should be able to pick any point on the scale they wish, but unfortunately there is still public pressure which some countries have less, some have a ton.

It’s wrong to assume every masculine woman wants to be a man and every feminine man wants to be a woman. Yes, their traits are more common amongst an opposite sex, but how is it related? Maybe they’ve found their perfect point of femininity-masculinity and don’t need to go further. It’s also wrong to assume they want to take a role of another sex. For some reason, many people believe femininity doesn’t exist without housekeeping and masculinity doesn’t exist without working hard.

Conclusion

Gender is no more than an idea of how much feminine-masculine people are. Historically speaking, typical feminine traits have been encouraged in women and typical masculine traits have been encouraged in men. I guess that’s why we think gender has something to do with biological sex, but it doesn’t. It’s just a style of how you would like to be perceived by others and yourself. Nobody has a feeling in their mind of being man or a woman, because there is no such feeling; but people do have a style preference. Genders don’t really exist because they’re in fact styles. And no one should ever get hurt because of a style.