I finally started to figure out why cis ppl are so often panic-stricken (and frequently enraged to the point of violence) by people who don't comply w gender norms. It is because the norms are fragile, but also what they've been taught to measure their identity against.

How I've been pondering it: Babies & kids up to puberty are essentially undifferentiated re: male/female traits in their faces. Even after that, teens can be very neutral. So there's a lot of attention paid to making the labeling clear; haircuts, clothes, makeup.

If you mess with any of those signals, observers are confused. In my childhood (1960s) I recall adults saying 'you can't tell if it's a boy or a girl.'

So? Why would it matter to them?

Well, you're also told verbally & otherwise from birth that 'being a man' or 'being a lady' is pretty much the foundation of your identity. If some other guy can be mistaken for a girl or woman just because their clothing isn't precisely within a narrow range...

...of guy-appropriate clothes, then the difference between men & women might not be as clear as we've been taught all of our lives. Translation: "OMGGGGGG! SOMEONE might mistake ME for a WOMAN! NOoooooo!"

The foundations of your identity are on sand.

Men who dress as women on purpose are really threatening, because it shows the importance of makeup & clothes in making women look like women. There are a LOT of cis women who, with their hair & makeup gone, would look like men. Humans look alike. Shocker.

There are a LOT of cis men who, with their hair grown out & a close shave, would look like women.

Humans look alike. Shocker.

This gets clearer once you're past your youth. Portrait photographers often show this clearly. Photos of elderly people without clothing & makeup signals look undifferentiated to a large degree.

I'm guessing that there are a few people in every population who fit the exact stereotype of 'manly' and 'womanly' for that culture & would have a hard time posing as the other gender, but most people are less distinct.

Anyway, I'm once again rambling along, but as with many things that trigger rage, the root can be traced to fear of losing your identity, of having your identity challenged.

As usual, I'm certain this is bog-standard thinking in colleges everywhere, but I never went to college, so I have to figure this stuff out on my own. Don't yell at me for my freshman understanding of these things, please!

(postmortem shout-out to David Bowie, who tweaked my notions of what 'human' means all of my life... )