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Comment by cabaalis | Hacker News Reader

Perhaps this is unreasonable as well, but maybe ongoing developments in society have caused you to focus a little too much of your attention on gender.

Gender dysphoria is a recognized medical condition, for which there are suggested plans of treatment--up to and including hormone therapy and reassignment. Just go with the treatment, and be done with it, and accept that people who have done so were trying to make themselves better. I don't know why society is making it such a hot-button political issue.

(Actually I do know why... politicians need to find wedge issues to split and enthuse people, to get votes.)

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I’m not motivated by politicians (I hardly ever listen to them or endorse them).

I’m motivated by the suffering I see in our society experienced by gender nonconforming individuals who feel uncomfortable in a world that believes in the gender binary.

It’s interesting that you mention treatment. I’m not sure if you know any gender nonconforming people, but “just go with the treatment and be done with it” doesn’t really reflect accurately the experience I’ve seen other people have. Hormones and surgery can treat the symptoms of dysphoria but the cause seems to be society and the expectation that all people fit in to a binary. (Please ask if you’d like me to elaborate on that.) So here I am proscribing a treatment for society: stop gendering things unnecessarily and stop supporting a hard gender binary.

There are less gender nonconforming individuals than amputees. Let's tackle the big ticket items first.

51% of the population are women, who suffer from these gender roles. That's a super big-ticket group right there.

That's an entirely different issue from what we're discussing

As a woman, I can tell I don’t suffer at all from gender roles.

I am completely fine with gendered personal assistants, which was the original topic being discussed.

And I don’t buy all this political crap regarding gender.

Stop using all women to support your political agenda. Stop speaking for the 51%. Not all of us support you, don’t speak for all of us.

Believe it or not, the other 49% also suffer from these "gender roles".

Actually it's because gender is a hot-button topic, and not just political. Some of us think that everyone pays too much attention to gender, and those who think they don't are generally male and don't have to think about it because everyone follows the "rules" so it all looks normal and no big deal. But it's ever-present, and I think it's quite reasonable to try to ungender things, particularly things that have no biological sex and are unnecessarily gendered in the first place. Gender is insidious and oppressive for almost everyone and I appreciate that the OP balks at it.

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