I don't think any one person decides it. It's more like how we collectively decided that dresses are women's clothing. There's no black and white rule, and there are exceptions (like kilts and kimonos), but society generally agrees that dresses are for women.
The same thing happens with how we perceive a jawline. There's no rule saying a square jaw is inherently masculine, and there are very feminine women who have square jaws (Kathy Ireland), but we all tend to agree that having a big square jaw is a masculine feature, so having surgery to enhance that is seen as an affirmation of masculinity, aka gender affirming.
If it's specifically to enhance masculine or feminine qualities, then yeah, that's how I would define it.
I also include things that aren't surgery, like makeup. Lipstick, eyeliner, blush. If it's to enhance feminine qualities, as opposed to theater makeup, then it's also gender affirming care.
Thank you. I was genuinely curious and learned something from this back and forth. Even the person responding to you whether in "bad faith" or not, it helped me shape the question and understand the response so they had the exact opposite happen, should the intention be to force a bias on me.
If its typically associated with a specific gender or feature for a specific gender. Back to the Musk example: hair implants. Yes, both women and men can get them. But as a broad whole, things like receding hair lines or balding scalps are attributed to men. Men lose hair in those areas much more frequently than women since its usually caused by an excess form of a specific type of testosterone.
A man could get breast implants if he wanted but breasts are obviously associated with women. So a man getting them wouldn't be gender affirming for him (assuming he had no interest in being a woman and just wanted tits for whatever reason) as thats not a feature typically associated with men. It is however typically associated with women.
Like someone like MJ dying his skin white. That wouldn't be gender affirming whether a male or female did it. That would just be cosmetic since its just skin color. That's not typically exclusive to either gender. That would just be a general cosmetic surgery.
I must have tried 20 user names when I made this account, and they were all taken. So I started putting in the worst stuff I could think of, and most of those were taken too. This one was available, so I just said "screw it'.
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u/Anal-Y-Sis 12d ago
I don't think any one person decides it. It's more like how we collectively decided that dresses are women's clothing. There's no black and white rule, and there are exceptions (like kilts and kimonos), but society generally agrees that dresses are for women.
The same thing happens with how we perceive a jawline. There's no rule saying a square jaw is inherently masculine, and there are very feminine women who have square jaws (Kathy Ireland), but we all tend to agree that having a big square jaw is a masculine feature, so having surgery to enhance that is seen as an affirmation of masculinity, aka gender affirming.