According to an FtM friend, it's normal for transitioning or non-binary folks to, at least for a time, have the opinion that gender as a social construct is a dumb idea. He eventually got to a place where he felt more at home as one of the guys than otherwise, and learned how to use the social construct of gender and all of its relevant social cues to get into the guys' circle.
I have never been, nor do I ever want to be, one of the girls or one of the guys. I just don't fit with either circle, and I know it, and I don't want to change me just to fit in. So, at least for right now, I am of the opinion that gender is a dumb idea.
In the human culture, gender roles once played a part in things, and it started based on sex. Since before homo sapiens, those of female anatomy were sometimes pregnant or breastfeeding, and therefore were to be protected (since the offspring were being protected). Our ancestors moved in packs, males and females and children all together, scavenging and foraging. Mothers who were still carrying infants around would stay back in the protected bush, protecting the child they were with, while the left over bits of an animal were investigated. Once it was found to be safe, the mothers and children came out.
Eventually, we settled a bit more, and had stationary places we frequently came back to. Here, the mothers could stay to protect the children (since the children needed them anyway) while everyone else - males and females - went to get food. Over the millenia, we've retained this idea that females as mothers need to stay at home to take care of the kids while everyone else (namely, the male partner) can go to work. Certainly when a mother is pregnant and bedridden, or breastfeeding, this makes sense.
But human females aren't always needed by infants any more; between day care and public school, children can be taken care of while both parents work. Sometimes, the father even decides to stay at home while the mother works. One way or anther, many women today work jobs, even with children still at home. Many women never even have kids, or choose to adopt.
We should be more like other animals. Among dogs, for example, there's no real expected behavior for how a male dog or female dog behaves. Both sexes hunt, and how well they hunt has a lot more to do with the individual dog than that dog's sex. Both male and female dogs love to run and swim and play and do whatever dogs do. Female dogs can dominate male dogs by mounting them; dominance even has more to do with the individual dog. Humans frequently use male pronouns for female dogs (or vice versa) because they act so much the same. The only time sex or gender matters is, well, when they have sex. Who can physically take which role? The end.
Many of the things "governed" by gender roles in human society are no longer clear cut. Men do things previously belonging to the female gender role, and vice versa. Women and men do the same jobs. Men and women wear the same clothes, and both wear clothing of the opposite gender. The transgender, non-binary, and homosexual communities are growing, changing what gender even means, and how it relates to our roles in relationships. We're more like other animals now, who don't care what gender anyone is until it comes time to mate. It really seems to me that the only definitive reasons for gender, or as it were sex, is when it comes to sexual relationships. And with sexual reassignment surgery, even that gets blurry.
Gender no longer matters to determine who should stay home and who should work, what type of job a person should have, even what a person should like (or dislike) and how a person should act or dress. All these things are parts of gender identity and gender role. It's become less and less okay to expect that a woman always wear dresses or like the color pink or carry a purse; and less and less okay to expect that men should always be macho, be the breadwinner, or like sports. Gender roles are degrading. So where does gender matter?
Gender and sex only seem to make sense, to me, in romantic and sexual relationships. What are you attracted to? What is the other person attracted to? Who has what equipment, and, almost more importantly, who is comfortable using what equipment? Is there concern for who will get pregnant? If there is the potential for children, who wants to carry the child (if either are able to), and who wants to "father" the child (again, if either are able)?
Beyond this bedroom talk, who cares what genitalia you have, what hormones course through you, or what secondary sex characteristics you have? Sex doesn't matter outside of reproduction. And in a world where gender is more and more blurred, gender doesn't matter either. You have the right to identify however you want to, and no one should say shit about it, regardless of how you act or look, what you like or dislike, and what sex you are. And in that light, gender identity is going to be a thing for a long time. There are plenty of people who are just not comfortable identifying as their at-birth anatomical sex, whether they want to physically change it or not, for gender identity to just stop existing. And I'm not asking it to.
At the same time, what importance does gender identity have? It's a social cue, a way for people to identify with each other, know how to act around each other, and form relationships. Men know how to relate to men, being men themselves. Women know how to relate to women, being women themselves. Women and men have varying expectations of how to act around each other. Transgender and transsexual folk instinctively act male or female, and take social cues from the group they identify with in order to learn how to be more that. Also, because they want to be accepted by that social group, they learn to be like them as much as they can. And the rest of the gender social groups are still forming, few of us far enough between... and still figuring out what it means to be gender neutral, neutrois, agender, third gender, non-gendered, non-binary. We're still building these other gender roles, so to speak.
I guess I've answered my own question: gender doesn't matter in most aspects of society any more, but it does still matter in one important aspect. Gender matters in how we relate to each other, and not just in picking romantic or sexual partners, partly because it's been part of how we identify ourselves and each other for so long. Sex might only pertain to sex, but gender is a part of how we relate.
