> But people wanting me to call them with another pronoun where I can no longer use biological cues is just cementing gender roles
I believe there's more to this. IIUC, for some (most?) trans people, there's actually something, probably related to their biology, that makes them feel as the gender they were not assigned at birth. They have may look like one gender, but feel like the other one: gender dysphoria [1].
These people might be fighting more for solving this issue than for getting rid of the gender roles. Some would actually transition to the other sex for this, though I would expect trans people to also be more familiar (and sensitive?) to these gender identity questions, since they had to think about them.
Would gender dysphoria be less of an issue in a society that would not have such gender-assigned roles? Open question for me.
Now, it would be best if a trans people could directly speak about this, because this stuff is mostly theoretical for me, I haven't experienced it first-hand.
Your understanding is largely right, though I'd expand "look like one gender" to "be perceived and treated as one gender". I regularly confuse the hell out of people with my obviously feminine name and appearance and very deep voice.
> Would gender dysphoria be less of an issue in a society that would not have such gender-assigned roles? Open question for me.
Depends on the person, I think. Many trans people still would. I probably would've just shaved a bunch of body hair off and started wearing skirts and been done with it.
As for pronouns, "he" is just another sound people use to refer to other people. It has no inherent meaning beyond what we ascribe to it. I don't use it because society does ascribe a lot of meaning to it that doesn't apply to me - the same sort of feeling a man would get from being called "she". If genders weren't so much of a thing in society, I can't imagine myself caring nearly as much, though maybe in that world we'd all use the same pronoun anyway.
But there's a whole spectrum of trans people - in the same way you don't really grok dysphoria, I don't really grok e.g. genital dysphoria, so I can't and don't intend to speak for anyone else here.
I have a random question and I really mean no offence by it, I just want to get the opinion of a transexual person on something I have wondered. I know this question is out of left field. My apologies for asking but you are the only trans identifying person in the thread and are answering questions. Please feel very much in your rights to ignore me, I really do mean no offence with the question. I will not take your answer as representative of trans people as a whole.
Do you think people can be trans racial? Should society be accepting of it? For example a white person identify as black and shade their skin to pass? Why or why not?
Again feel free to ignore me, I'm not going to argue with your response I'm just curious about your perspective as you have a very different life experience than me. I am not trans anything its just a random thing I have pondered occasionally and wanted to get a trans persons opinion. I know its a loaded question so again feel free to ignore me.
I take no offense to respectfully asked questions, just as a general principle.
I have no idea, though. I've never considered that before, or even heard of it. It's hard for me to comprehend why anyone would care what race they are, but also holds up the hands of a very obviously white person
I see no reason to not let people do whatever makes them happy, though, even if I don't understand it. That's all I ask of other people for gender, no reason I shouldn't extend that courtesy to other people.
> But people wanting me to call them with another pronoun where I can no longer use biological cues is just cementing gender roles
I believe there's more to this. IIUC, for some (most?) trans people, there's actually something, probably related to their biology, that makes them feel as the gender they were not assigned at birth. They have may look like one gender, but feel like the other one: gender dysphoria [1].
These people might be fighting more for solving this issue than for getting rid of the gender roles. Some would actually transition to the other sex for this, though I would expect trans people to also be more familiar (and sensitive?) to these gender identity questions, since they had to think about them.
Would gender dysphoria be less of an issue in a society that would not have such gender-assigned roles? Open question for me.
Now, it would be best if a trans people could directly speak about this, because this stuff is mostly theoretical for me, I haven't experienced it first-hand.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_dysphoria