Quote:
Originally Posted by Aylmer
I don't need anyone to recognize my gay-ness to be gay. But my masculinity loses meaning if people don't agree that I'm a man.
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I see what you mean about there being agreed-upon conventions for referring to people by gender in society. However, I don't think this particular attempt to contrast sexual orientation and identity holds up very well.
Elliott Page could privately identify as male or hold traditionally male-identified internal feelings and preferences, but needs others to be on board when engaging with society as a male. The exact same thing is true with sexual orientation. You can internally be attracted to members of the same sex, but in practice if you want to actually form relationships and so on you need others to be on board with it (at minimum you will need 1 other person to be on board). The old conservative anti-gay view was that being gay was just a preference which may or may not manifest itself in behaviour and so gay people should just shut up about it and live like everybody else.
I'm also a bit skeptical of narratives that assume that gay or trans individuals are exactly the same as anybody else in every way except for attraction or which of the two clearly-defined gender norms they pick. For example gay men are exactly the same as straight men except for the attraction to women vs. men. I think there is often some homophobia embedded in this view. In some cultures, gay or trans people were considered distinct and I don't think that's necessarily less correct or more harmful than the more conventional framing popular in Western society today. Decades ago some early gay activists also lobbied for something like acknowledgement of gays or lesbians as being distinct genders, partly to qualify for protections against sex discrimination. That view has really dropped off the radar but it's interesting from a historical perspective. These days I've noticed that as trans issues have gone more mainstream they've hardened a lot more into a binary and there's more shoehorning into what are sometimes very traditional and rigid gender norms. The "trans vs. cis" stuff is a part of that.