5 hours sleep
I don't track my sleep, but it seems 5 hours is a typical amount for me if I don't take sleeping pills. Sometimes I also take afternoon naps, sometimes I go back to sleep before the day begins. I feel better than I did last night -- was happy to speak with K before I fell asleep :-)
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Reading posts on the agender and nonbinary subreddits has helped me to refine my views about sex and gender. I don't always agree with what people post, but no community of people who share identities always agrees with each other.
Some of my disagreements with some agender/nonbinary/trans folks are longstanding. For example, I don't believe in making a fuss over pronouns, mainly because of what pronouns were traditionally designed for -- a shortcut way of referring to people, including strangers who you do not know. If I see somebody walking down the street, and I want to refer to them in my journal, not knowing either their name or their pronouns, how am I to refer to them? See, I just used "them", when "they" may specify their prounouns differently when asked. Is using "they" misgendering if a person specifies "he/him"? But what if their appearance closely matched one of our widely accepted gender stereotypes? Am I allowed to decide on my own, in casual speech, that they are a "he" or "she"? If they're a stranger, why should anybody care which pronoun I use in my journal or talking with friends? How am I harming anybody in referring to the dude who was powerwashing the sidewalk as "he"? I could refer to the dude as "she", but nearly every person I see downtown powerwashing sidewalks has looked like a "he". Seems to be a "man's job" to powerwash sidewalks LOL.
Going a bit further, I tend not to have much sympathy for irate people who feel somebody misgendered them. Gender stereotypes are strong and popular, so if you're going to pick a different gender from how most people perceive you, then you've got an uphill battle to convince everybody you're a different gender (who uses different pronouns). We can wish we lived in a different world, but becoming irate all the time at being misgendered only makes life harder for you, the irate person. Chill!
More recently, I've decided I do not like the terms AMAB and AFAB -- "assigned male at birth" or "assigned female at birth". I feel these terms are not useful, are imprecise, and blur the distinction between sex and gender. At birth, when I was given a birth certificate, it was obvious to all that I was a member of the male sex. Now, at age 55, I'm still a member of the male sex. I have male DNA, and have had male DNA since before birth -- from the time I was conceived I had male DNA and always will have male DNA. I wasn't "assigned" male DNA at birth, and this "assignment" hasn't changed since. I've always had male DNA. Now, I may choose to identify with a particular gender, or no gender at all, but I will still have male DNA. I could modify my body via surgery, taking hormones, wearing makeup, changing my hair or clothing style, but I will still have male DNA. My "sex" is "male". Period. So, I'm not assigned male at birth, I'm not AMAB. My sex is male. I do not have a gender -- I'm agender. I'm not transgender, in that I haven't changed from one gender to another, I simply do not have a gender. My sex is male, but I do not have a gender.
I find that a lot of people -- whether they are inclusive of transgender people or exclude transgender people -- confuse the differences between sex and gender. Sex is your DNA, your innate biology, your innate biochemistry. Gender is the social construct in which we stereotype people based on sex. When talking about my sex, you can talk about my penis, testicles, and other secondary sex characteristics. I create sperm, I have a prostate, I do not create eggs, I do not have a uterus. My body produces an amount of testosterone and an amount of estrogen that are compatible with the male sex. My body has a hair pattern that is common for the male sex and uncommon for the female sex. My breasts do not produce milk.
Gender is the way we set up different clothing styles for men and women, different hair styles, different makeup styles. Gender is the way we describe certain non-sex characteristics as masculine or feminine. Gender is the way we have different education and career expectations for men and women. Gender is about culture, not DNA.
If you do not like all of these cultural assumptions that people make about you, and you push to liberate yourself from them, you could be viewed as transgender, you could identify as transgender. But there are other options -- there's a large and growing list of gender identities as well as agender identities. And you can still identify your gender as a man or a woman consistent with your sex, while violating some of the cultural assumptions made about your gender. A man can enjoy knitting, for example. A woman can enjoy the sport of wrestling.
So, I'm not somebody who denies sex differences. Some on the Right would parody me -- and the entire transgender movement -- as people who deny sex differences. But I also think that gender is completely made up or even fake. Some on the Left would say I'm trying to "erase" transgender people because I view gender as 100% culturally constructed, while I view sex as 100% genetically determined. My sex is male, but I'm agender. This doesn't mean I view another person's transition from the male gender to a female gender as "fake" -- your transition is as real and as comprehensive as you want it to be. But as you learn how to pass as a woman, you have to -- have to -- adopt looks and mannerisms that our culture stereotypes as those of a woman. These stereotypes are completely arbitrary, even if you choose to adopt a version of them for yourself.
Over 55 years I've adopted looks and styles that everybody I bump into assumes are male. My sex is male, and my apparent gender is male. But I do not identify with the male gender. But my sex is male and I look like people's stereotypes of a man. I could try to fight how people stereotype me, by changing my outward appearance and other behavioral characteristics. I could find a way to get people to raise internal questions about my gender. But I have zero interest in changing my appearance or my behavior or fighting over the pronouns people use to describe me, in order to change how people think of me.
I do break gender stereotypes. I'm generally interested in sexual and romantic relationships with other men. This is more acceptable to society now than when I was a kid, but it definitely broke a gender stereotype. I'm also interested in types of sexual activity that break gender stereotypes, such as playing the role of a bottom or sub, locking my cock, avoiding cock-based orgasms, and engaging in ritualistic butt play. For much of my adult life I continued to identify as a man, despite breaking these gender stereotypes.
I don't like wearing suits or shaving my facial hair, these could be viewed as breaking gender stereotypes. But I don't make a point of breaking stereotypes, I simply have my own likes and dislikes. My haircut is stereotypically male, and for the most part I wear clothing that identifies me as a man. But I don't like putting a lot of effort into clothing at all. I have zero desire to wear makeup, and I don't like makeup on other people, whatever their sex or gender. But I think each person should be able to pick the look they prefer, without having to live up to any stereotypes (including my own), whatever gender they may identify as. I don't think people should have to "pass" as their preferred gender, that can be a lot of work and can be very difficult to achieve. Needing to pass seems like internalized stereotyping to me.
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Overall sex and gender are complex topics, and not everybody is going to overthink them like I do, and not everybody is going to agree with how I think of them. And that's OK. But there's a lot of anger and frustration out there, stoked by social media and prejudice, on all sides. A lot of people have had difficult personal journeys with respect to sex and gender, and feel anger at how they've been treated, how they're still treated. Even people who strongly identify with, and pass as, their sex-conforming gender can feel discriminated against on the basis of sex or gender. This is more obvious for women, but sometimes men feel discriminated against also. Whatever your sex or gender, people may make assumptions about you that are not true, or may mistreat you according to their stereotypes. Sex discrimination existed long before the current explosion of gender identities and transitioning between genders.
And I sympathize with women who feel that transgender women are barging in on their turf. A lifetime of being discriminated against as women, by men, and here come a bunch of men who want to appropriate women's traits and women's spaces and declare themselves to be women. I can sympathize. But you cannot justify one form of discrimination -- against transgender women -- in order to remedy a different form of discrimination -- against cisgender women. I may sympathize, but I'm still against discrimination on the basis of sex or gender, all kinds of such discrimination.
But ending discrimination -- that's an impossible goal. We're all biased, we all categorize people, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. We're all racist, sexist, etc. It is a lifelong struggle to try to treat everybody fairly -- fairness is hard work. I try to be forgiving of folks for their prejudices, because I'm prejudiced also, and so are you. Some people will think that some of what I wrote in this entry shows my prejudices, because we can disagree over what prejudice is. But I don't want to spend my entire life angry at injustice. There has always been injustice. I try to help in creating a world with a bit less of it. All I can do is try.
-----
Reading posts on the agender and nonbinary subreddits has helped me to refine my views about sex and gender. I don't always agree with what people post, but no community of people who share identities always agrees with each other.
Some of my disagreements with some agender/nonbinary/trans folks are longstanding. For example, I don't believe in making a fuss over pronouns, mainly because of what pronouns were traditionally designed for -- a shortcut way of referring to people, including strangers who you do not know. If I see somebody walking down the street, and I want to refer to them in my journal, not knowing either their name or their pronouns, how am I to refer to them? See, I just used "them", when "they" may specify their prounouns differently when asked. Is using "they" misgendering if a person specifies "he/him"? But what if their appearance closely matched one of our widely accepted gender stereotypes? Am I allowed to decide on my own, in casual speech, that they are a "he" or "she"? If they're a stranger, why should anybody care which pronoun I use in my journal or talking with friends? How am I harming anybody in referring to the dude who was powerwashing the sidewalk as "he"? I could refer to the dude as "she", but nearly every person I see downtown powerwashing sidewalks has looked like a "he". Seems to be a "man's job" to powerwash sidewalks LOL.
Going a bit further, I tend not to have much sympathy for irate people who feel somebody misgendered them. Gender stereotypes are strong and popular, so if you're going to pick a different gender from how most people perceive you, then you've got an uphill battle to convince everybody you're a different gender (who uses different pronouns). We can wish we lived in a different world, but becoming irate all the time at being misgendered only makes life harder for you, the irate person. Chill!
More recently, I've decided I do not like the terms AMAB and AFAB -- "assigned male at birth" or "assigned female at birth". I feel these terms are not useful, are imprecise, and blur the distinction between sex and gender. At birth, when I was given a birth certificate, it was obvious to all that I was a member of the male sex. Now, at age 55, I'm still a member of the male sex. I have male DNA, and have had male DNA since before birth -- from the time I was conceived I had male DNA and always will have male DNA. I wasn't "assigned" male DNA at birth, and this "assignment" hasn't changed since. I've always had male DNA. Now, I may choose to identify with a particular gender, or no gender at all, but I will still have male DNA. I could modify my body via surgery, taking hormones, wearing makeup, changing my hair or clothing style, but I will still have male DNA. My "sex" is "male". Period. So, I'm not assigned male at birth, I'm not AMAB. My sex is male. I do not have a gender -- I'm agender. I'm not transgender, in that I haven't changed from one gender to another, I simply do not have a gender. My sex is male, but I do not have a gender.
I find that a lot of people -- whether they are inclusive of transgender people or exclude transgender people -- confuse the differences between sex and gender. Sex is your DNA, your innate biology, your innate biochemistry. Gender is the social construct in which we stereotype people based on sex. When talking about my sex, you can talk about my penis, testicles, and other secondary sex characteristics. I create sperm, I have a prostate, I do not create eggs, I do not have a uterus. My body produces an amount of testosterone and an amount of estrogen that are compatible with the male sex. My body has a hair pattern that is common for the male sex and uncommon for the female sex. My breasts do not produce milk.
Gender is the way we set up different clothing styles for men and women, different hair styles, different makeup styles. Gender is the way we describe certain non-sex characteristics as masculine or feminine. Gender is the way we have different education and career expectations for men and women. Gender is about culture, not DNA.
If you do not like all of these cultural assumptions that people make about you, and you push to liberate yourself from them, you could be viewed as transgender, you could identify as transgender. But there are other options -- there's a large and growing list of gender identities as well as agender identities. And you can still identify your gender as a man or a woman consistent with your sex, while violating some of the cultural assumptions made about your gender. A man can enjoy knitting, for example. A woman can enjoy the sport of wrestling.
So, I'm not somebody who denies sex differences. Some on the Right would parody me -- and the entire transgender movement -- as people who deny sex differences. But I also think that gender is completely made up or even fake. Some on the Left would say I'm trying to "erase" transgender people because I view gender as 100% culturally constructed, while I view sex as 100% genetically determined. My sex is male, but I'm agender. This doesn't mean I view another person's transition from the male gender to a female gender as "fake" -- your transition is as real and as comprehensive as you want it to be. But as you learn how to pass as a woman, you have to -- have to -- adopt looks and mannerisms that our culture stereotypes as those of a woman. These stereotypes are completely arbitrary, even if you choose to adopt a version of them for yourself.
Over 55 years I've adopted looks and styles that everybody I bump into assumes are male. My sex is male, and my apparent gender is male. But I do not identify with the male gender. But my sex is male and I look like people's stereotypes of a man. I could try to fight how people stereotype me, by changing my outward appearance and other behavioral characteristics. I could find a way to get people to raise internal questions about my gender. But I have zero interest in changing my appearance or my behavior or fighting over the pronouns people use to describe me, in order to change how people think of me.
I do break gender stereotypes. I'm generally interested in sexual and romantic relationships with other men. This is more acceptable to society now than when I was a kid, but it definitely broke a gender stereotype. I'm also interested in types of sexual activity that break gender stereotypes, such as playing the role of a bottom or sub, locking my cock, avoiding cock-based orgasms, and engaging in ritualistic butt play. For much of my adult life I continued to identify as a man, despite breaking these gender stereotypes.
I don't like wearing suits or shaving my facial hair, these could be viewed as breaking gender stereotypes. But I don't make a point of breaking stereotypes, I simply have my own likes and dislikes. My haircut is stereotypically male, and for the most part I wear clothing that identifies me as a man. But I don't like putting a lot of effort into clothing at all. I have zero desire to wear makeup, and I don't like makeup on other people, whatever their sex or gender. But I think each person should be able to pick the look they prefer, without having to live up to any stereotypes (including my own), whatever gender they may identify as. I don't think people should have to "pass" as their preferred gender, that can be a lot of work and can be very difficult to achieve. Needing to pass seems like internalized stereotyping to me.
-----
Overall sex and gender are complex topics, and not everybody is going to overthink them like I do, and not everybody is going to agree with how I think of them. And that's OK. But there's a lot of anger and frustration out there, stoked by social media and prejudice, on all sides. A lot of people have had difficult personal journeys with respect to sex and gender, and feel anger at how they've been treated, how they're still treated. Even people who strongly identify with, and pass as, their sex-conforming gender can feel discriminated against on the basis of sex or gender. This is more obvious for women, but sometimes men feel discriminated against also. Whatever your sex or gender, people may make assumptions about you that are not true, or may mistreat you according to their stereotypes. Sex discrimination existed long before the current explosion of gender identities and transitioning between genders.
And I sympathize with women who feel that transgender women are barging in on their turf. A lifetime of being discriminated against as women, by men, and here come a bunch of men who want to appropriate women's traits and women's spaces and declare themselves to be women. I can sympathize. But you cannot justify one form of discrimination -- against transgender women -- in order to remedy a different form of discrimination -- against cisgender women. I may sympathize, but I'm still against discrimination on the basis of sex or gender, all kinds of such discrimination.
But ending discrimination -- that's an impossible goal. We're all biased, we all categorize people, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. We're all racist, sexist, etc. It is a lifelong struggle to try to treat everybody fairly -- fairness is hard work. I try to be forgiving of folks for their prejudices, because I'm prejudiced also, and so are you. Some people will think that some of what I wrote in this entry shows my prejudices, because we can disagree over what prejudice is. But I don't want to spend my entire life angry at injustice. There has always been injustice. I try to help in creating a world with a bit less of it. All I can do is try.