Cisgender Privilege Checklist

[Inhibition]

I'm genderless. I believe gender is a social construct and tool of social control, used to dominate and oppress so I don't identify with it.

As an anti authoritarian, I'd be in favor of the abolition of gender, except people are so emotionally invested in their labels it creates a quandary.

From my perspective gender is a cage to be boxed into. Our society rewards those who stay within their gender cages and punishes those who leave their gender cages.

What it looks like to me as someone who hates cages, is some want to live in the cages marked for others because they seem more habitable. They look longingly at the other cages and think 'I would be accepted and appreciated in that cage but not the cage I am was put in!'

For me, I would probably be accepted more readily into a female gender cage if I was born with biologically female anatomy, based on some of my behavioral traits which are more tolerated in women: lack of dominance, emotional, timid, sensitive, non competitive, nurturing, etc.

But I don't look longingly at any existing cage or the idea of creating new cages I could be appreciated for fitting into. My angle is to eradicate cages themselves. The problem is, it becomes increasingly difficult to free people from their cages the more attached they become. When people gain esteem, happiness, and adulation by having a label and 'fitting into the cage' the harder they will cling to the constructs for the same reasons cis gender people do.

I have sympathy for those feel they must exist within a socially constructed label and fit within it. But my activism and philosophical standpoint is that cages, even the ones with fluffy pillows and heaps of approval from society, are still bad. Rewarding people or punishing people based on how they fit into the cages is the crux of the problem.

I don't think creating more cages so everyone has an equally celebrated cage is a viable solution to inequality. I think in the long term it's more viable to attack the idea of gender as a cage itself, and push for the idea that people of any anatomical structure, appearance, and brain structure, should have precisely the same freedoms and same rewards/punishments. That there should be no reward for being in a cage at all.

We're not there yet, but I will continue to advocate for this scenario.

 

[Matt Derrick]

As an anti authoritarian, I'd be in favor of the abolition of gender, except people are so emotionally invested in their labels it creates a quandary.

that's your opinion, but some people might enjoy their gender while not using it to lord over others. it would be far more anti-authoritarian to respect all genders (or lack thereof) equally, instead of banishing the ones you don't like.

 

[Inhibition]

that's your opinion, but some people might enjoy their gender while not using it to lord over others. it would be far more anti-authoritarian to respect all genders (or lack thereof) equally, instead of banishing the ones you don't like.

That's not going to happen. Just like respecting all classes equally will never happen in a class based based society, respecting all genders equally will never happen in a gender based society.

The construct is enforced upon people from birth to create rank and hierarchy according to how well someone submits. In a gender based society, you will never have equality as certain segments will always be treated superior because it's based on gender divisions and submission and dominance behavior.

Transgender identity happens after people have cis gender identity forced upon them from birth. If someone grew up feral (food, water, shelter), with no concept of gender without any forceful indoctrination techniques from societies, the need for categorization would decrease significantly and the choice would be more free.

It's similar to religion and all other cultural indoctrination of information. Supporting all beliefs equally is valid, so long as there isn't authority and privilege in belief. If people are equally privileged to believe the Lord of the Rings is true as they are the Bible, then sure, pursuing information and forming conclusions independently of authority is fine. So long as one is culturally superior, forming identities based upon such beliefs leads to hierarchy. Christians will always be superior to Gandalfians.

You need to attack the roots of the indoctrination processes to remove the authority involved. Then people regain the ability to make those decisions free from oppressive influence that they would have if they were feral and truly free coercion. So long as indoctrination exists to create X divided societies, that must be criticized and attacked. Gender is one of society's primary forms of indoctrination. One of the freedoms involved in a non authoritarian structure is the freedom to not believe in the Lord of the Rings or the Bible. You can respect someone's right to belief, while still believing something is not based in the same reality you perceive and still believe that certain beliefs result in oppression. People need the right to not believe culturally concocted narratives.

The idea that human beings must be stratified. That we must have stratification based societies and this must be indoctrinated and everyone must agree about the stratifications. That's a core problem. A way to reduce stratification is to advocate for universal humanity. That there is no justifiable stratification and to oppose attempts to divide the species into categories which result in social approval, privilege, and authority. That means challenging the very essence of what divides the species, rather than creating more stratification.

The idea that if we create more classes, class based attitudes will go away. The idea that if we create more races, racial attitudes will go away. If we create more genders, gendered attitudes will go away. I respect the right for people to believe those concepts but I don't think they are concepts that are reflective of reality.

There is only one level of stratification and hierarchy necessary: human. When that isn't respected, people are dehumanized. I perceive indoctrinating further stratification as necessary is authoritarian. Allow everyone to be equally human and advocate for the freedom. If humans are dehumanized or deprived of freedom. Challenge that.

I do challenge the validity of further stratifying humanity as the ideal for achieving equal respect and freedom from oppressive forces.

 

[Inhibition]

Creating trans-racial identities for people who don't fit into racial stereotyping and racial roles would be similarly counterproductive.

Say an Asian doesn't behave as a model minority or a black person doesn't behave as an athletic talented rapping thug and encounters social resistance to expected roles. At root, you either think race is a feature worthy of stereotyping and a valuable tool of stratification in the species or it isn't. Advocating trans-White, or trans-Asian, or trans-Black is backwards as it further stratifies, justifies, and reinforces the concept.

Similar frameworks occur with gender. So long as people have roles beyond being human, and those roles are perceived as valuable, they will never be free nor make real movements towards equality. If you define freedom as the ability to create a label of transgression of normative stereotyping such as transgender, trans-race, trans-class, you're not free and you're not equal. It's fully within normative framework, supporting the existing gender, race, and class systems rather than overthrowing them.

If you define freedom and equality as behaving as if everyone is equally human and any social framework that creates a subhuman should be dismantled, that's only way I see forward. Within that structure there is no room for racial expectations, gendered expectations, or class expectations. All that exists is a blank human slate for every human, with no other expectations to dehumanize, dominate, and oppress.