Labels such as transgender is really to help us more than them. Like transgenders know they identify as the opposite gender but by calling themselves transgender it signals to us that they have different experiences to cis people and are coming from a different place. For example, cis women and trans women have pretty different experiences, so transgender women just calling themselves women would create confusion and problems. (not to say that transgender women arent women cuz they are, the label just helps explains things)
It also helps different transgenders find each other, build a community together and form an identity. It also helps these people know which communities, forums, media and content apply to them. “Transgender” is basically a shortened form of “I was born with this biological sex, but i feel like the opposite gender is who i really am”. Like all labels, it helps to communicate who they are and smooth social interactions
Because it’s not a construct. Gender roles are, like…the colour pink, and working on engines, and ballet, and whisky, and whatever else is usually taken to be a manly or girly thing. But gender itself is the sex your brain thinks you are. That’s what transgender people have wrong with them; their brain thinks their sex is different than what they physically are, so it causes a lot of mental problems like depression and dysphoria.
I was just thinking something very similar. If men and women were truely equal (from their looks to their actions) and people only considered the difference between them to be their organs and healthcare needs would transgender/gender fluid/ non binary people/etc. still exist?
I think they would but it wouldn’t be an issue like it’s perceived to be today.
Even as a social construct, it’s important to a lot of people to want to be perceived as the gender they identify with and are on the inside, whether or not that matches up with how they look. So for a transgender man, his inner self wouldn’t line up with how others and himself see him, so he might want to start hormones and have surgery to get his outer self to line up with his inner self.
Just because something is a construct doesn’t mean people don’t believe in it and take it seriously. Outside and beyond the context of gender though, sex reassignment surgery might still be undergone just due to preference. “Well, gee I’d just prefer a vagina I guess. Seems more up my alley.”