Forums / Discussion / Serious Debate

Basically just a serious discussion on the morality or social value of having things be "gendered" which basically means catered towards a certain gender optional, or most importantly for this discussion, by force.

DISCLAIMER: Please no discussion about bathrooms that's entirely different. While it is arguably connected to gendering as we all know it's an entirely different hell-hole for discussion which will not be brought up in this thread. So, here I go!

What makes me feel like making a thread for this is that my graduation happened last week. Many schools around the country actually gender the robe colors which I thought sounded preposterous since I'm pretty sensitive to whenever things are gendered for no reason. In my eyes it's not only completely unnecessary and a pain to deal with for trans folk like me but the very idea of having different colors for the sexes is just sexist to me. I honestly see separating the sexes by color and such for no reason as equal to if they started separating races by robe color.

Thankfully, my school did robe color based on academic merit which is how it should be if any separation occurs. However, once the ceremony was over they literally made you exit through different doors based on gender. They were even enforcing it. Like, what? Why? It seems like I'm overreacting to the average person but to me these separations are just awkward and should be abolished in our current society.

Gender itself is an important construct don't get me wrong. Having things that are traditionally masculine or girly and having people who appreciate these aspects of things is entirely healthy. A gender neutral world while safer would be kinda boring. I only think these things should not be used forcefully or without necessity such as in the 2 previously mentioned high school graduation examples.

Also a lot of my experience with these annoying situations comes from public school. I'm guessing things like separate lines for genders and colors for things happens a lot less in the adult world where there aren't teachers and parents trying to stop sex at all costs and kids who have been coddled with these ideas and people kind of get over it. I could also be wrong I'm not in the adult world yet. Probably depends on the situation. Another thing I had to go through I still remember kinda vividly is when my school had a "battle of the sexes" spirit week where they literally separated the audience for an assembly by gender (but I sat in the girl side because it was just StuCo kids yelling and was probably not allowed to be actually enforced. A bunch of my cis dude friends also sat in the girl side and vice versa for cis girls because a lot of people realized as I did it was kinda stupid)

Honestly I don't know what there is to discuss I'm just hoping to stimulate a little discussion on a topic that bothers me personally pretty often. Do you guys think situations such as those are justified because it doesn't really matter or do you think they should be discouraged since it doesn't really matter?

You could also discuss how to raise a child I guess. I'm putting it out there and I'm sure pretty much all of you agree with this sentiment: A parent should be able to raise their kid with whatever gendered stuff they want. I'm not in that extremist sect that says you shouldn't gender your kids at all because "they could be trans" or the other side that says sex should be strictly followed when buying toys or clothes or whatever. I'm for personal freedom when it comes to gender. Doesn't matter what's in your pants or what your identity is you should be able to do what you want and the parents as well.

Well that's stupid.
We don't do that here.
The colors of the robe are representative of the colors of the institution. For example, the colors of the university I attended are red and black, so our robes were red and black.
The only difference between robes are due to academic merits.

I'm going to latch onto one particular example you gave, because I think it may very well demonstrate where a huge portion of this "gendering" comes from.
Okay, so your school had the graduating class exit the ceremony out of two doors. Although I obviously don't know the exact details, my guess is that this involved quite a crowd of people. Thus if just one of those doors had been used, it would have taken a while longer and/or been potentially dangerous with too many people flooding out at once. You might initially think that since there were two, this isn't a problem worth thinking about. Except what if there was something that made one of them more appealing to use? For example, somewhere that all of the graduates needed to go to be given a certificate, pick up their clothes or whatever, and that it was significantly closer to where you ended up exiting one door but not the other. (Again, I don't know if this was actually the case here, just a bit of a thought exercise.) So how do you make sure that this doesn't happen? You could of course assign everyone to groups for that purpose, but that could very well be quite a pain, especially with the million other things that the organizers have to think about. So how do we very simply split this group almost exactly 50/50 in order to… and you see where I'm going with this.
I think that it basically comes down to group management. There are many, many circumstances where it's either necessary or just convenient to divide a number of individuals into two equal parts- most not nearly as obvious as the above- and thanks to genetics we have one and precisely one way to do so in a way that the vast majority won't even have to put a thought to it.

And as an aside, my opinion on "gender-neutral parenting" based on what I've read is that a lot of those who actively attempt it over-correct and end up (often unconsciously) discouraging their kids from partaking in activities and behaviors stereotypically associated with their sex/gender. Basically, they're trying to be neutral, but thanks to their pre-existing biases the end result distinctly isn't.

Different colors doesn't really bother me (they're usually the school's colors as opposed to like blue and pink), the robes all function the same. I get it's more complicated for a trans kid but merely acknowledging that there are different genders isn't what makes something sexist.

Babies, tho. I gained two nieces within the last 4 years (the oldest will be 4 in a month) and we all just buy them whatever they want. The 4 year old is big enough to have opinions, she's really into Bubble Guppies atm and she wanted all the blue boy merch from Toys R Us because her favorite character is one of the boys. I don't think any of us thought anything of it. She has a lot of boy toys and girl toys and nonspecific toys.

I don't see anything wrong with minor gender segregation as you mentioned, unless it is replacing a better solution. For example, there's nothing wrong (imo) with gender-colored robes, but the robes-based-on-academic-merit idea is far better, because it is a better representation of a student as a student.

I like girls day and boys day. It was a fun event in my youth that allowed everyone to celebrate it together. If that makes me sexist…well, I guess im sexist then. My school never did colored robes, they just made them equally shitty for everyone. If having 2 different styles of robes meant I could get a more comfortable fitting robe, and my classmates could have gotten more comfortable robes, I say go for it. In my opinion if the discrimination isn't punitive, and doesn't really effect anything 1 way or another, then I don't see what the big deal is either way. I don't see it being sexist nor do I see it being the be all and end all. I just don't see wasting the money on it unless it actually benefits anyone, which it wouldn't. Even if you made everyone have to wear the same grey colored tracksuits and outlawed all other forms of clothing, people would still find a way to claim discrimination via the shade of grey and the fit of the outfits hemming, or use it to draw some sense of superiority, comparing everyone within their own newly created group of greyscaled beauty standards.

Lol America. Here you just get a paper, not that fancy suit. At the end of the day, only the actual diploma matters.

Thankfully, my school did robe color based on academic merit which is how it should be if any separation occurs. However, once the ceremony was over they literally made you exit through different doors based on gender. They were even enforcing it. Like, what? Why? It seems like I’m overreacting to the average person but to me these separations are just awkward and should be abolished in our current society.

Although different than the bathroom stuff, also partly the same: Why didn't you just walk through the female door? I doubt there are armed guards checking your pants at the door or teachers forcing you to stand in line?

Seperation by gender doesn't always mean seperation by the gender assigned at birth. In cases like that you can just use the door of the gender you identify as. If you get male color suits, just ask the school for the female one as that's what you identify as. Don't assume society always adapts to your wishes by default, but make a stand where you can.

If you're an inbetween gender or something nongendered, literally walk straight through the fucking wall between the doors.

And a dog flap for otherkin.

I find it weird that people who say to educate children genderless ,never take into account that the percentage of people who later find that their gender does not combine with their body is not very high.

When educating a child you should be very careful when dealing with this , you should let the child choose what he wants sometimes and not assume to be trans just because the child likes to do something that is normally related to the other gender.

Civilisations have and will always acknowledge physical differencea between the sexes. If it is as harmless as "wear red/blue at this event" and virtually nobody minds, there is no problem and it is unreasonable to demand it be eliminated.

I like all of your answers basically. Even the ones against my position because as I said I acknowledge usually these things are a non-problem and as some pointed out it's fun for some. The small minority such as me that is put off by these things shouldn't have too much of an effect.

I particularly liked .9999's response though because I never really thought of a reason for it I assumed it was just some tradition. However it could be something traditional as well. I accept your explanation though it makes sense for my circumstances.

However, I still stand by my personal position that some of these things are kinda dumb. Particularly the graduation robe color thing. Like shouldn't an educational event about adulthood revolve around exactly that and have to do with merit? The rest of the situations I illustrated are indeed kinda pointless and just my issue but I feel stronger about this one. Again, so glad my school didn't do it.

@Randomman

As I said in the post only a little there actually were people standing at the doors waving people away. Obviously I could just walk past anyways but on the girl side there was an angry looking old lady and if I tried to protest it it'd cause too much of a storm. I acknowledge at some point I'll have to stand up for myself and do these things but I feel that can wait. I'm still living with my parents who think I'm making it up and forgot about it and all my old peers around me etc etc it wasn't worth it. Didn't get to me too much though it's not like I spiraled into depression because the door had a different name on it. Thanks for the advice though.

Well yes I did read they were enforcing it, but I had to doubt to what extend as this was still a graduation ceremony (and I recall from other convos we had that your school is pretty open to trans). They also enforce males to use the male bathroom, but I don't think trans is an issue for switching.

If the old lady would catch you is up for debate depending on your looks. If you can make a convincing female, she probably won't bother. I doubt said old fart knows the faces of all trans folks at your school.

Seperation by gender will always remain, simply because there is not 1 gender. Adapt to it.

Fun fact: Just today I read in the newspaper that my country is discussing to make breast implants part of basic health care for trans folks (as ftm get their dick implants funded, but mtf not breasts while hormones commonly stick you with AA to A (DFC tho)).

How is this related to gendering? Born-Women who just got to DFC naturally won't get these funds, only trans-women. Argument is that with trans it's to make the person whole, while normal women would just get bigger jugs.

It's basically related to gendering in that it's related to passing as your desired gender. A flat chest is, and broad shoulders, and a generally less shapely body, etc… add up pretty quick and kinda give the game away. As to why it should be covered for trans women and not cis women, the later will generally have narrower shoulders, being shorter, and are all around more shapely, etc… even if they have smaller breasts and so don't have the same issue as often.

Anyway when I hear "gendering" I usually hear it in relation to marketing. I usually find it a bit silly, price differences aside. Nobody is forcing you to buy something labelled as being for men or women. Just buy whatever you want and to hell with the marketing department.