I just don't see this as a stable framework and honestly seems more and more like "Only gender roles I find useful (either directly thought my own use of them or indirectly via my desire to subvert them) exist."
Like at some point we stopped trying to get rid of gender roles and just all broke off into fiefdoms trying to use them in the way most advantages.
It's certainly less
rigid than the other choices, but I see that as a good thing. That's the way the critical thinker should see any topic--non-dogmatically.
I don't see what's unsustainable about this idea. We should recognize that there are differences, even if only statistical differences, between men and women. We should also recognize that we aren't always sure how these differences arise.
None of that implies "I get to arbitrarily pick and choose which aspects of gender apply in any given situation". It means we have the same obligations we always have--to be thoughtful and careful.
Ted is a biological male, penis, produces sperm, XX Chromosome... you get the picture.
I'm assuming you mean XY....
What am I supposed to do, think, conceptualize, say, and in what way am I to treat Ted differently with that new information.
If you have different conceptual categories for men and women, Ted is asking to be thought of as a woman, rather than a man.
If you don't, congrats on being super-enlightened. All you need to do is use a different set of pronouns (in English, anyway).
Personally, the first time I met a transwoman, I discovered I had a whole slew of unspoken gender assumptions. And then again the first time I met a transman.
Ted says that him identifying as a woman means X. Put anything in X you want. If I have to accept that as valid I then get to turn around to Sue and apply X to her or this whole thing collapses as a nonsensical shell game of distinctions without difference.
I don't think this follows.
If Pierre says he's French, he's not asking you to apply your stereotypes about the French. He's just giving you some information about the circumstances of his birth and life, which which you can make some guesses about Pierre. "He speaks French" might be a good one, but it's not guaranteed to be correct.
If it turns out he
doesn't speak French, that doesn't mean you should treat Marie-Claude, also from France, as if she doesn't.
That's just the nature of complex identities. And I don't think this means the whole thing collapses because sometimes our best guesses turn out to be incorrect.
