For all of you special snowflakes out there, let me make this clear; there are only two genders: male and female. All the hubbub surrounding millennials' ways of "standing out" are becoming an absurd inversion of the ideals of individualism. Back in the glory days, people were content with their assigned gender at conception. Now Tumblr has its own list of genders, infusing the metaphysical and physical to incorporate a type of transcendence from true sexual orientation. Well, guess what? Gender is not a social construct. The rejection of this simple biological fact is a complete abandonment of scientific truth. The imposition of this rejection is nothing more than an individual construct which grants no right to foist these gender identities on others.
I think the problem is the perversion of the word gender. Gender is not a social construct, while gender roles are. Yes, some men feel more feminine than others. However, this affinity to femininity does not imply that the person is a female. A man can wear skirts, makeup and pink hair and obviously appear more feminine. This does not mean that he is a different gender. If gender was simply what one identified himself as, there would be no need for gender, and the concept could be rendered pointless. The idea that sex and gender are different is also nonsensical, as your genitalia aren't social constructs. Is what one identifies himself as relevant in any way? Why should others have to accept your identity? If I identified myself as Vishnu, does that mean I am now Vishnu and Vishnu is real? If I identify as Stephen Hawking, will people be obligated to honor me for my scientific analysis? No. So why does this same idea not apply to gender identity?
Transgenderism is also cited as an example of the breaking of the black-white gender dichotomy. However, the very notion of transgenderism is a paradox in that the implication that there are more genders than the traditional male and female, due to there being transgenders, suggests that transgender people are not real men or women. And even if transgender people could become the gender that they have transitioned to, how is the gender binary broken? If your position is that, in fact, gender is a fluid societal construct that one can transcend and select, or is that gender is an unchangeable constant, the end result is that the person is either male or female.
What does all this amount to? Well, it means that just because you deviate from the conventional norms of female and male, it doesn't mean you are a different gender. Rather, you are either a male or a female with a few distinct characteristics that set you apart as a special snowflake. Just because you identify as a cumulonimbus cloud, it doesn't mean you are eldrigender. And just because you feel a burning passion to stare into the flames of the sun, it doesn't mean you are heliogender. Rather, you are a moody person with solar retinopathy.
Stop trying to stand out.
