How About We Just Get Rid of Gender Labels?
Removing the masks, we can see the individual people who the labels obscure.
My article from three years ago “The Problem with the Transgender Label” asked a question some people don’t want asked: does that label cause more problems than it solves? It remains one of my most-read articles with mostly positive responses. Unfortunately, the larger world is still fighting over the label and forgetting about individual people.
If anything, the problem of labels has worsened over the past three years as the last years of the Trump regime dragged social discourse to ever lower levels. In our Memeocene epoch, simplistic condemnations are to the go-to for nearly everyone. People are less interested in listening and more interested in judging people by labels and unfollowing and blocking others who use the wrongs ones.
How do we decrease and eventually end gender-based oppression and ensure rights for all people? That’s the issue I explored in my previous article and want to explore in greater depth here.