I work with middle schoolers and I see more and more young biologically female people identifying as male or non-binary. Your essay about the relentless nature of the male gaze puts it into perspective. If I was told that gender is a social construct at that age then I might want no part of the oppressed side of it.

It is also why trans people are so triggering for so-called conservatives because oppressive gender roles are part of what keeps the current system in place. If you can say f-you to being pretty and pleasing men then what else are you going to say f-you to?

A friend made the observation that movement spaces are over-represented by leaders who are either Jewish people or queer folks because they both have a perspective outside the system and they both have been targeted for elimination enough that they are willing to fight.

Alternately I think about how my beloved agricultural peasants (may have?) had stricter gender roles because of the dual necessity of raising children and crops/animals. I say may have because that assumes the nuclear family was the norm which many are saying is a relatively recent thing.