Gender is a social construct?

[RedPanda901]

I'm so impressed by the women on this board and their knowledge of how the fight for women's rights has changed in recent years. I too struggle with this cancel culture of people with differing opinions. What ever happened to listening and respecting each other's outlook? What I'm trying to get clarification on is gender fluidity. So if someone says there's no such thing as gender; it's a social construct why do they then sometimes dress in a traditional gendered way? Is part of being gender fluid saying that the lived experience of someone born female (or male) is irrelevant? Genuinely interested in your views.

@Linguini

I'm a person who says "gender is a social construct (but sex isn't)".

I wear stereotypically feminine clothes sometimes, and stereotypically "manly" clothes other times.
I'm not "gender fluid". I'm not "trans".

So if someone says there's no such thing as gender; it's a social construct why do they then sometimes dress in a traditional gendered way?

Because it's just clothes. Clothes and appearance are pretty much meaningless untill a socially constructed meaning is applied to them. Many people wear clothes or have a style usually associated with people of the opposite sex, it doesn't mean anything.

Is part of being gender fluid saying that the lived experience of someone born female (or male) is irrelevant?

You're either a male "gender fluid" person or a female "gender fluid" person, but I do think that in the current climate gender ideologists of both sexes do indeed write off the lived experience of females as irrelevant.

Gender ideologists place more importance on sex stereotypes and "gender based expression" as though what you want to look like and forcing pronouns on people is something really really significant, and your sex is irrelevant.

this^

And its interesting isnt it that the most vocal group are trans women or at least their supporters, is it coincidence that mens fashion and behaviour is the most policed by other men?.

women have been able to wear trousers and go with no make up for decades (and when we couldnt it was because men didnt allow us), now we have trans women wanting access to our safe spaces because they would be litterally beat up in their own spaces for wearing a dress.

the whole gender divider rubbish has been pushed hard in the last 20 years, its no surprise children have grown up like this, when they have spent their childhoods being told to stick to their colour coded toys to indicate what is acceptable for them to enjoy.

what used to be fashion mixed with individuality (that normally indicated what your fave music style was, your sexuality, your cultural heritage etc) has now become pinning your feelings to the wall as to which side of the gender stereotype swing-o-meter you think you are closest too, it strikes me as one massive anxiety trip.
like the children who stood in the Nerf aisle 15 years ago wrestling in their head with the ideas of what they want (the nerf gun in its blue packaging covered in boys pictures) and what they think society wants them to have (something from the pink shelves), the "I want it but its not for me" mentality has never left them and they are still acting it out.

I wish ‘gender’ would stop being used at all as a word. There is confusion over it with a lot of people simply using it as a euphemism for sex -as Americans would- while GC mean it differently.

Why not refer to sex stereotypes, or sex nonconforming?

As for internal feelings of identity, they are and always have been myriad, whatever a person’s sex.

Yeah! Used to be known as having a personality