Comment by HexagonalKitten

> I think the Blaire White across a room scenario suggests that pronouns are more useful in a referential sense if they're used in a way that aligns with gender presentation

I think we should have defined what we think of as gender expression. I think it's stuff like affectations, hair styles, makeup, "gendered" clothing (dresses), etc.

Harry Styles wore a dress recently to much acclaim. He was lauded for expanding the male repertoire.

> I also don't think it's just me, i.e. I don't think most people are much more prone to 'seeing' someone's true biological sex in this kind of scenario than I am.

I saw a man, in a dress. And I think that's what everyone saw.

The difference between Harry and a transwoman is - intent, which is invisible. I only know Harry isn't trans because the article told me.

> I just think that thing lines up with "gender presentation" a lot better than it lines up with "biological sex" in the cases where those differ.

I would have agreed. Ten years ago nobody was going out of their way to queer everything. If a man wore a dress they either lost a bet or wanted to be seen as female. But now, in a world where nothing signifies sex, how can I read your gender expression?

But now a dress isn't part of gender expression anymore and is simply a garment. I guess we're expected to just move the bar and say that because Harry wasn't wearing a dress and lipstick he's a guy not a transwomen but that feels fleeting.

> I don't think one is expected to just recognize [Moon Gender] based on presentation. Hence, the practice of being explicit about preferred pronouns in circles that care about about this.

But that makes a mockery of the entire idea of gender expression. Now it's just people demanding special labels again.

The whole ideology is pushed as a unit and lives and dies as a unit. Either gender expression is a thing, and there are a finite but large set of them, and sex doesn't exist as a binary, and trans babies are real, etc, or it's not.