Personally, for me it’s the idea that just because you don’t experience something (dysphoria, or being a gender other than what society expects of you) that doesn’t mean those experiences aren’t valid.
I get sooo tired of the response “I just don’t understand! I love being my AGAB! Why can’t you just get over it?”
I already commented but more i just thought of
I might be missing out on some Discourse, but as a white queer Belgian, I refute the claim that I am a victim of colonialism lol. Like, there are parallels and intersectionality is great but given both the historical actions of my country in Congo/Rwanda and our participation in the economic oppression of the Global South, I’ll pass on the opportunity to claim that I am being colonized.
Well beauty standards and the whole 2 genders concept is a European concept that was forced on people outside of Europe which would be colonialism and also the standards are forced upon the people with in Europe.
Thing is as much as you have been benefiting from colonialism you have also been hurt by it. As an analogy take men who uphold toxic masculinity, they are hurting others and themselves.
It’s different IMO.
White skinned Western Europeans being seen as more beautiful/superior/whatever (ew) only benefits me.
Toxic masculinity thrusts unrealistic and/or harmful behavior onto me (“real men don’t do X”), but I’m pretty sure the only things my ethnicity holds me back from doing is blackface and going outside without sunscreen. I also don’t think there is a higher expectation for me to succeed than if I was a foreigner, quite the contrary.
Yes western gender roles originated in Europe, but when we do that to ourselves “colonialism” is hardly the right word for once. If anything, Gender Theory/Third Wave feminism is a very North American concept that gets imported here (which is part of the reason why it’s taking longer to take root here than it should, because it is shot down by conservatives as American Wokist Imperialism. Not a joke.).
Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying somehow you or me are not benefiting highly from colonialism but even with that standards while highly beneficial to us it’s not without it’s very harmful ideals. Going back to the beauty thing, taking my experience for example, I’m white, skinny and have light colored eyes and that benefits me highly but I don’t fit the beauty standard that we’ll bc I’m trans, have broad shoulders relatively tall for my area and visible Adam’s apple. Not really the peak “white beauty” for a femm. At the end of the day “colonialism” in this context sets very unrealistic standards for everyone but especially for racial and or gender minorities.
In general I very much agree with you but seems like you are missing a bit more nuance in this particular aspect