I was thinking... As I´m a feminist and 'into' structural thinking, I´ve been thinking why it seems so important for society to maintain the binary gender system. What if it actually was possible not having to choose your gender: What would happen then?
I believe that so much of the power in our society is based in the binary gender system. You have to keep one or two genders down in order to maintain the male power structure.
So also if women got equal rights. Things would be quite different then. Things would be a lot more diverse than it is now.
The patriarchal system wouldn´t be able to keep its strong position any more. I believe that this would actually cause some really revolutionary, radical disturbances to the system and also in peoples minds.
Those who are afraid of intersex is afraid of what they don´t know, fear of the unknown, of something that so radically challenge our concept of ourselves and the society that we live in. The people in power does not give us the rights of being transgenderists as they´re afraid that the structure would lose its benefits from it. They don´t know how to deal with it, because its scaring them. Reading Michel Foucault, there has always been an urge to control things that are deviant from the Norm(al).
People who are considered as "disturbances" to the norm, who don´t fit in, are exposed to all kind of violent and horrible things in order to control and/or change them to fit in. It was really interesting to put IS in context to Foucaults theories...

Sure he wrote Herculine Barbin as well, that glamourize "hermaphroditism" a great deal, but anyway...

Or am I far out here? :-)

It´s sick that you have to change your body to fit into the system, instead of changing the system itself...but that will take time. It´s hard to create a space for you to live in this world when you don´t want to choose your gender.
I think the worst thing though, is to try and squeeze yourself into behaving like a female or male if you don´t feel like one.

Thinking is what has made the rules and laws of the worlds society.
So if there is no Gender in the world we live in then the rules and laws as we know would have to change . To acknowlege all individuals and not discriminate.
There would be no labels to our bodies and we could live as we chose without laws telling us what we have to be, this would be so cool.
I think I would vote for this .

Muhoe

I've found myself wondering a lot of similar things recently.

I can't help but wonder whether a lot of the needless tension in the world is due to the completely artificial boundaries assigned to male and female.
There must be an anthropology dissertation in here somewhere.

Who has benefited from gender separation? Judaism is matrilineal, but Christianity (and hence most of Western culture) is patrilineal. Those systems have been around a long time! Why were they created that way? Many Native tribal cultures have clear gender roles, but some recognize people who don't fit into either role (or both).

Would civilization collapse if there were no Men's bathroom vs. Women's? Would, for example, the incidence of rape go down if everyone was routinely in each others' presence? Would it be easier for IS people to be just another part of society if gender weren't A Big Deal?

Why can't we just be people?

Glenn