Simone de Beauvoir, French existentialist philosopher's
1949 book called The Second Sex
defined numerous fundamental feminist terms for the first time
and later on helped establishing gender theory.
Her book's significance and effect stemmed from not only summarizing the history of women,
but from examining their subordinate position and oppression,
the effects of history and economics
and the lived experiences of women.
Her antifeminist critics consider her ideas
to have lead to societal catastrophe to the 21st century.
(Wikipédia)
Social gender from biological sex was first differentiated
by psychiatrist Rober Stoller in his 1968 book titled Sex and Gender.
His work was the starting point in western scientific community
of replacing the binary gender model with multi-component models.
Meanwhile during the 60s and 70s
the Women's Liberation Movement was taking place in the academy and beyond,
and in the 80s and 90s the question of lesbian and gay rights became increasingly mainstream in the west,
which led to the lasting partition of sex and gender in science.
Our changing world answered to this with the "antigender" movement,
which saw for example Russia lobbying since 2010 before the UN Human Rights Council
to recognize the promotion and protection of "traditional values" as a human right,
and the government of Hungary banning gender studies from universities in 2018,
stating that people are born either male or female and
they don't consider it acceptable to talk about socially constructed genders instead of biological sexes.
Ambitious statement, in any case they don't believe
that one can talk about both, that these are exclusive concepts.
Aforetime (Régen) Reagan (hah!)
said that,
"My criticism is that [the gay movement] isn’t just asking for civil rights;
it’s asking for recognition and acceptance of an alternative lifestyle
which I do not believe society can condone, nor can I."
By now, 40 years later, things have changed in legal and societal terms.
In the west gay marriage is mostly legal or will be legal in the near future,
in the east the legal homophobia of the soviet bloc has given its place
to a mostly shrinking societal homophobia
that is, mostly, decreasingly supported by governments and laws.
However, it's worth to take a look at the word "mostly".
The progress of these changes to their supporters is slow,
to their opponents it could not be slow enough
and to the people directly affected by them they could not be fast enough,
because without equal status before the law they can only ever be second-class citizens,
lesser humans not only before bigots, with whom they don't have to interact if they are lucky,
but before the law as well, which may constrain their rights and lives,
discriminate against them even in harsh ways.
And even in these progressive countries the ones with the biggest profile are gay men,
one letter of the LGBTQ community.
With the least platform are the queer, trans
and asexual or non-binary communities, whose gender identity is not one of two dots.
Human sexuality and identity expression is not a simple, black and white thing.
Even in the animal world homo- and bisexuality occurs naturally
but humans are more complicated in orders of magnitude.
There is gender identity, how much you identify yourself with man-ness or woman-ness
or a combination of them.
There is gender expression in femininity and masculinity,
which shows in your preferred attire and appearance.
Biological sex isn't a simply binary either,
there are intersex persons, who have both male and female characteristics.
The X/Y chromosomes don't give a black and white solution either,
there are instances of different chromosome variations and, either way,
chromosomes won't change back the organism to their assigned-at-birth sex
after their hormone therapy or surgery.
Some examples of more than to genders around the world:
The Hijra or Kinnar gender has a millenia long history in India.
Eunuchs, intersex and transgender persons who are neither male or female,
their roles in society are spiritual with dances, songs and blessings.
They gave numerous heroes of Indian epics and they also serve a role in Muslim syncretism.
Since 2014 they are an officially recognized third gender in Nepal, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The Köçek, accepted in the Ottoman Empire until 1837,
were handsome young male dancers who cross-dressed in feminine attire,
who, as a third gender, combined their masculine and feminine characteristics
North America's native two-spirited people, who have both a male and a female spirit.
With the spread of Christianity homophobia made them less respected,
but in recent decades they are coming into prominence.
In Mexico's Oaxaca state the Muxes (don't know how to pronounce Spanish words)
- I have to learn Spanish some time -
are a third gender who are assigned male as birth, then choose a feminine look,
and their origins go back to pre-Columbian times to cross-dresser Aztec priests
and androgynous Mayan gods.
They also have an annual festival.
In Indonesia's Sulawesi (formerly Celebes) island there are five genders,
male, female, calalai, who are manly women who wear manly clothes and do manly work,
calabai, who are womanly men who fulfill unique roles in their communities,
such as organizing spectacular weddings,
and bissu, who are the meta-gender,
the combination of the four other genders,
their attire neither manly or womanly,
usually fulfill the role of shaman or priest
and connect the community with the spirit world.
The Mahus of Hawaii stand between the genders of male and female,
healers, teachers, caretakers,
who teach hula, songs and wisdoms to the young.
An European example are the sworn virgins of Albania,
who have been around since the 15th century
and include Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim people among them to this day.
They are celibate women who wore men's clothes, fulfill men's roles
following the Kanun law as sworn virgins to be legally men
and so be able to have property, become the heads of their families,
work jobs only men are permitted to, use male names
and avoid to be forced to marry a man and become his property.
(Under Kanun they would be legally his property.)
The Socialist People's Republic of Albania
almost eradicated this practice by expanding the rights of women,
but nowadays it is having a resurgence.
None of our sensory organs detect chromosomes, we assume another's gender by their looks.
Just like adoption, medical history is only relevant in a medical context,
the adopting parents are parents in everyday situations.
The reactionaries, right-wing snowflakes, moralists and essentialists bring up chromosomes
because that's not an artificially changeable part of us yet.
But if it becomes, might the body be as clay in our hands,
the reactionaries, if they are still around,
will search for something else unchangeable that would determine one's gender, practically magic and spirit.
Conservatism is the eternal moving of goalposts.
What's the lesson then?
What is the reason, that, from decade to decade,
the marginalized groups and minorities of the free world organize into movements?
While there are societies around the world where
women are equal or superior to men in the social hierarchy
and there are those where the concept of three or more genders
are millenia-long parts of tradition and accept non-heterosexuality and man-rule is not the default,
"western civilization" means, in our case,
dominantly white, with an imperialistic past (and present),
colonialist outside Europe,
when the reactionaries and conservatives wish to bring up morality against oppressed groups,
then traditionally Christian,
in the past two thousand years patriarchal,
in the last thousand increasingly homophobic and heteronormative tradition and social hierarchy.
(Though heteronormativity changes by the century.)
That was some agitation, but what does it mean?
Patriarchy means that in European societies and many others,
ruling positions such as the head of family, tribe, city and country
were filled by men and their underlings were very, very usually men too in every position of power.
Basically, 50% of the adult population decided for the 100%
without the other 50% having any say in the matter.
This goes back to ancient Greco-Roman times, with less homophobia,
but man-ruled society viewed women as weak and unworthy for autonomy.
This nice tradition was continued by Christian feudalism,
then by the enlightened capitalism that sprouted from it,
adding homophobia and the criminalization of any deviancy
from the heteronormative binary and hierarchy to the mix.
Thus we arrive in Our Lord's 20th century,
when feminism rears its head as consequence that most western countries supposedly became free,
but still only men have the right to vote and other rights,
then for two world wars women work in the factories,
then stay in the factories when their owners figure out how profiting that is.
But still they have to be housekeepers too, raise families, but by their rights they are less than men.
When they got the rights, in practice it did not materialize representatively
and gender norms still insisted that girls and women
should fulfill their traditional roles that is theirs under patriarchy.
Fighting against this by now is the third wave of feminism
and these waves gave impetus to smaller,
in some cases more marginalized groups than women,
in many places ethnic groups too beside the LGBTQA+ communities.
But why the struggle, why aren't they granted all the rights
that white heterosexual men did not have to do anything for?
(We will talk about the oppression of the working class another time.)
Today's leaders are certainly wiser, more enlightened than of olden times
and their task is the help their compatriots using their powers benevolently.
That's why they were elected.
. But for all history the oppressed had to tear every shred of human decency
and equity from the teeth of their usurpers and tyrants.
Those on top of the pyramid will give nothing to their subjects without them profiting.
Not long ago Australia held a referendum about legalizing gay marriage
even though it was obvious that the majority were in support and it was a waste of money,
they should just legalize it.
The government did it anyway, because it bought support for the neoliberal coalition
and for its duration the commercial news channels did not have to talk about
the tax cuts for the coal lobby while cutting the social safety net,
which was established by the post-war social democratic consensus in the free world
to halt the spread of communism,
and with the decline of the red menace Reagan, Thatcher and the neoliberal consensus
started to eliminate it so the rich could get richer from the value of the workers' labor.
We went off-rail.
In today's Hungary same-sex couples can't marry, they may have civil union,
but artificial insemination and joint adoption is forbidden by law to them.
Only one of them may be the adoptive parent,
the law of course prefers married couples to adopt children,
putting same-sex couples in a disadvantage, who can't get married.
About transgender people, the Hungarian government's stance is,
if you won't see them, they don't exist.
It has been researched for decades (in the west), how upbringing by same-sex couples affects children.
The result has been that it has no significant effect,
what matters are the relationships and interactions between family members
and their financial situation - are they well-off and do they provide a loving home to their children.
I got this from the American Academy of Pediatrics' report from 2002,
there are dozens of lengthier articles and books about the topic,
this one references some too, it's easy to start looking into it if one wants to.
Still the struggle for legal and de facto progress, the extension of human rights to every human is necessary,
because those with power are humans with their own prejudices,
upbringing, socialization, views and morals.
There are those like Reagan, whose reactionary and discriminative views
motivate them to keep minorities in second-class citizen status,
like any prejudiced person without empathy,
with the significant difference that Reagan had the power to work for change
or conserve the preexisting order for his time.
Others might be more profit-orientated, pragmatic,
who would only do anything for social equality and progress of equity if they stand to gain from it.
Not only the high-profile politicians affect the situation,
but anyone who has enough influence through money or other means,
may they be a billionaire, lobbyist, religious leader who wants to implement
the Abrahamic teachings is practice in the west or beyond that,
or even a grifter, who, in the age of information, bestride the views of their audience,
maybe playing at it, to use reactionary feels to boost their book sales and Patreon income.
And why is there demand for this?
People usually aren't hostile to other people who are no threat to them,
it's more important for them to live their own lives
and if they become informed about disadvantaged minorities, communities,
they tend to support them passively or actively (read the bread book).
Those however, who 'need' hateful, discriminative rhetoric or jurisdiction,
believe that these minorities threaten them by their existence or their demands for equal rights.
For them the first impression of sexually or ethnically others is phobia or disgust,
which may come from their socialization, upbringing, religious teaching
or their isolation from different lifestyles from theirs.
Usually a combination of these leads to it, that a superficial encounter with another group
triggers in them disgust and hostility, and that they are less open to new information
because they feel they already know enough (Dunning-Krueger-effect),
'cause their lifestyle is the one that's proper, so anything different will be inferior, sinful, sick, degenerate
(self-exaltation).
But they are more than open to information
that confirms their beliefs, prejudices, validates their views (confirmation bias).
This divide is beneficial to those on top of empire's hierarchy,
because people feel less powerless, dispossessed if there are people lower in the hierarchy
who they can look down at, feel superior to,
even if this is just an emotional 'solution', not material or rational.
The group of the 'others', who are weaker and have no power are perfect scapegoats
and those on top of the hierarchy may support their subjects openly or subtly,
that the others are the cause of the problems because they are different, don't share their views, practices,
they are deviants and that is what causes their problems.
If the scapegoats would be equal to the majority of the subjects legally and practically,
then the malcontents would have noone to look down or outward at,
only up, as a united front they could only blame those with real power for causing their problems,
and this would be uncomfortable for our glorious overlords.
The validation, confirmation of prejudices, unscientific views toward members of the LGBTQA+ communities
and other minorities, the members of 'The Other'
may come from good-looking, sophisticated, educated persons,
grifters, spiritual guides, politicians,
but the result is the same, the confirmation of prejudices from authority figures.
Our leaders are not wiser than us, not more than us, not kinder than anyone else.
All people deserve equal rights, equity and life worthy for human beings,
wherever they may live, however they live, whomever they love.
Trans rights are human rights. Trans lives are human lives.
To reach the masses uninformed or ignorant of the lives of minorities activism is necessary
to raise awareness that, despite their differences, they are people too, they exist and they are worthy
to be counted as human, legally and practically, not later but now,
whatever those might say who would view them as lesser because of their queerness.
