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Honestly, what I really mean is Hegemon Is A Vector (and Gender is a component thereof, necessary but not sufficient).
(Also I am well aware that I need to actually read de Beauvoir. I have not.)
The thing is - okay this is straight-up de Beauvoir as I understand her but keep in mind that I have not actually fucking read her - that people go on about two genders but culturally speaking there's basically one and nobody has it.
The One Legitimate Gender is Hegemon/Man, and because everyone falls short of that there is a constant opportunity to leverage insecurity due to Insufficient Masculinity on the part of man-categoried people for fun, profit, and disruption, and the categories of people who are Non-Men (de Beauvoir again) are variously sorted depending on what is most convenient for the people who are currently pulling the levers on the Insufficient Masculinity Insecurity Machine.
So there are sort of three broad semi-permeable categories, because certain types of Non-Men can aspire to merely be Insufficiently Masculine if they get their hands on the levers of the Insecurity Machine; any individual trait can be disqualifying on Man but if the power flows shift just so then it might not matter. (Consider the number of mainstream cis gay men who, having attained Man status despite being Insufficiently Masculine (like everyone else), proceed to give the ladder a good yank so none of the effeminate queer men, the divas, the trans people, the kinky queers, etc. can make it into the Insufficiently Masculine Man box.)
The whole damn thing is a hob's game that keeps the people who think they can climb the glass pyramid of masculinity by using Non-Men as stepping stones, including by declaring certain forms of Insufficient Masculinity as qualifying for Non-Men status, busy eating each other and also the rest of us.
Hegemon/Man is an arrow that goes in one direction, a greased pole that nobody can actually climb to the top of. It's built that way. And security is framed in terms of whether or not one can climb the pole, with some people not allowed to even try.
(World made of levers, said Tyl.)
(Also I am well aware that I need to actually read de Beauvoir. I have not.)
The thing is - okay this is straight-up de Beauvoir as I understand her but keep in mind that I have not actually fucking read her - that people go on about two genders but culturally speaking there's basically one and nobody has it.
The One Legitimate Gender is Hegemon/Man, and because everyone falls short of that there is a constant opportunity to leverage insecurity due to Insufficient Masculinity on the part of man-categoried people for fun, profit, and disruption, and the categories of people who are Non-Men (de Beauvoir again) are variously sorted depending on what is most convenient for the people who are currently pulling the levers on the Insufficient Masculinity Insecurity Machine.
So there are sort of three broad semi-permeable categories, because certain types of Non-Men can aspire to merely be Insufficiently Masculine if they get their hands on the levers of the Insecurity Machine; any individual trait can be disqualifying on Man but if the power flows shift just so then it might not matter. (Consider the number of mainstream cis gay men who, having attained Man status despite being Insufficiently Masculine (like everyone else), proceed to give the ladder a good yank so none of the effeminate queer men, the divas, the trans people, the kinky queers, etc. can make it into the Insufficiently Masculine Man box.)
The whole damn thing is a hob's game that keeps the people who think they can climb the glass pyramid of masculinity by using Non-Men as stepping stones, including by declaring certain forms of Insufficient Masculinity as qualifying for Non-Men status, busy eating each other and also the rest of us.
Hegemon/Man is an arrow that goes in one direction, a greased pole that nobody can actually climb to the top of. It's built that way. And security is framed in terms of whether or not one can climb the pole, with some people not allowed to even try.
(World made of levers, said Tyl.)
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The denial of the appeal of the One True Gender confuses people in a way trans men don't.
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(and then confusion twists into "well they're a threat" and coercive violence and and. sigh.
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On the other hand Lovecraft is a good manifestation of "It may be that your purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others"?