Right, and I think this is getting closer to the heart of how my gender framework differs. For me, gender is much closer to a discrete category than anything else; I process the definition of gender as internally decided as inconsistent and nonsensical, like what does it mean?
Conversation
when e.g. an afab nonbinary person tells me they're not a woman, im like... what does that even mean? You look like a woman, obviously. You act like one, people treat you like one. What does it mean to not 'feel like' one? How could you 'feel like' anything?
1
2
Or when someone 'feels like' a woman - what does that mean? Does it mean you want to wear women's clothes? Or have people want to try to have sex with you? Or that you want to have a vagina? All of those are ok - but I want to know exactly which one it is.
1
This Tweet was deleted by the Tweet author. Learn more
but i sort of don't accept this. Like, I'm open to answers! But the problem is here there seem to be zero answers that are core to identity itself and not attached to signalling. If there can't be an answer to what gender identity feels like then I can't accept it as a concept.
2
This Tweet was deleted by the Tweet author. Learn more
I'm down with women having a wide variety of presentations. But I have no idea what 'feel like a woman' means, still. How do they know the thing they feel like is 'woman'? There must be a concept of what a woman is for them to know that they feel like one.
2
This Tweet was deleted by the Tweet author. Learn more
But okay - this still doesn't address my question. If I "feel like a skiier", I have a concrete image of what a skiier is. I can describe it to you. People who feel like a woman have to have an idea of what a woman is otherwise the concept makes zero sense!
3
This Tweet was deleted by the Tweet author. Learn more
I agree they're not the same, but the principle still holds - to feel like a woman, there has to be a sense that matches [you] with [concept]. What is the concept?
I don't feel like a woman. I don't feel like anything. I don't have any inherent sense of gender.
This Tweet was deleted by the Tweet author. Learn more
I can describe love (which also i think is a fundamentally incomplete concept as it's used) and also hunger though.
Maybe if we compare it to sexual orientation, things become clearer. To say I feel "heterosexuality" as a core identity seems meaningless, but adding up indicators (finding women not men attractive), as reductive and stereotypical, as it may appear gets us somewhere.
1