It just seems like such a minor factor in life.

Like I've been homeless and inevitably I eventually looked it. People looked at me like I was a piece of human garbage. Shave, haircut, some clean clothes, and a few weeks in your own place to shake the sense of desperation? Completely different. The same people who'd damn near spit on you when you asked them for a quarter will give you a cigar and a decent tip if you drive them to the airport. Hell, I once got kicked out of a bagel shop at 5am in subzero temperatures that I ended up being the baker at a few years later working for the same woman who'd kicked me out. Total sweetheart once I stopped being some faceless asshole who couldn't be bothered to freeze to death quietly.

I'm not trying to downplay sexism against women or anything, I think it's a problem, but I don't see such a huge difference in gender that it ought to be the primary identifying feature of an individual. There are too many other crazy things in life. Like I'd say the differences between quality of life in any given area tend to be much more along lines of economic class than gender.

Then again I'm probably not the best example of identification with my assigned gender to begin with. I don't exactly conform to the general standards of masculinity. If I think about other men it seems like a lot of them see their masculinity as pretty defining, though, so maybe gender is a bigger identifier for most people than I'd considered. Men may also just be less encouraged to talk about and think about themselves in relation to their gender.

Personally, though, I find that it's my life experiences that have colored my perception of things. Some of those as a man particularly but most of them just as a human being.