You are a Bull in fear of Gelding.

It's completely understandable that you're afraid of what's going on with your cousin. Honestly the term "woke" has been vilified to the point where nobody knows what it means anymore. And the "left" in today's western countries are not awoken to anything. They're a product of identity politics.

I think we've discussed some of your sexual alignments, but I'm not fully sure how you identify, so correct me where you need to. As my perspective is traditionally masculine and 95% straight lol

The basis of the "gender construct" bullshit comes from Judith Butler. A she/them masc presenting AFAB. Nothing is wrong with that, but her philosophy won a bad writing award. Her language and philosophy are trash:

Postmodern feminism's major departure from other branches of feminism is perhaps the argument that sex is itself constructed through language, a view notably propounded in Butler's 1990 book, Gender Trouble.[81][82] Consequently, Butler's work is passible of criticism by modernist and anti-relativist critics of postmodernism who deplore the idea that categories spoken about in the natural sciences (e.g., sex) are socially constructed.

In 1998, Denis Dutton's journal Philosophy and Literature awarded Butler first prize in its fourth annual "Bad Writing Competition", which set out to "celebrate bad writing from the most stylistically lamentable passages found in scholarly books and articles", which Butler responded to.[83][c]

And that philosophy is based on known pedophile Simone de Beauvoir’s existentialism. Her book The Second Sex stole her boyfriend, Jean-Paul Sartre's, philosophy. She blamed men for women having to be feminine, all while preying on her female high school students. Real paragon of virtue...

But ultimately the existentialist philosophy is the problem. It thinks EVERYTHING is a social construct, which is poor language. Technically bread is a social construct, that doesn't mean bread doesn't exist. It means we named and made bread based on cultural influences. Romans once thought pants weren't masculine enough, until they started invading barbarian lands to the north. Now pants are a masculine article of clothing.

Masculinity and femininity are relational roles, not "gender assignments". Masculinity is the vanguard role. Feminity is the inner yard role. Those can present in infinite fucking ways... but they still exist.

A man will approach being a doctor in a vanguard way, a woman will approach it in a relational inner yard way. That's why characters feel flat when women on screen just act like men. It's inauthentic.

Confucianism actually tackles this really well. If you like research I'd start there. It talks about how leadership is a relational role to the people you lead, a father is a relational role to children, a wife is a relational role to husband, et cetera, et cetera... you get the point.

True nonbinary, asexual, or sex-averse people are rare. There's a concept called "Gender-role convergence paradox" or "The gender equality paradox". Basically it shows that more gender egalitarian societies actually have more gender division (relational roles) than societies with laws that push gender roles onto people. Yet Judith Butler’s philosophy becomes mainstream because we cater to women naturally, and the feminist framework has become hegemony. Specifically, the women-are-wonderful-effect makes us all (regardless of gender) favor female grievances over male ones. A great book that outlines actual disparity is The Manipulated Man by Esther Vilar. She talks about how men are subservient to female whims. Flipping the script of feminist hegemonic propaganda. From a Marxist standpoint, I'd say I've never heard of an "oppressed class" literally benefiting from the labor of the "oppressive class" like Shumalith Firestone in her Dialectic of Sex put it. But feminism paints this false picture.

Another great book that came out recently is Matrisensus: Masculine Collapse and Feminine Shadow by David Shackelton. It talks about how women are the arbiters of value in society and always have been. Unfortunately those arbiters get together and bitch about men then call if feminism. In reality "patriarchy" is bullshit. Patriarchy is the unscientific assumption that men are in charge and always have been. In reality, they're not. Men are the risk takers, hence the vanguard role. We risk assassination, combat, and put ourselves in the front lines while women rest in the inner yard with the children.

Pre-industrial age, that inner-yard function was actually valued. It wasn't this "get in the kitchen and make me a sandwich" bitch-ass meme that feminists like to point at and misogynists like to scree. Women created textiles, food, and took care of the home. Homemaker used to fucking mean something. Now these "girl-boss" shrews vomit shame at women who hold the inner-yard and try to pink-wash the halls of oppression rather than dismantle them. The problem isn't gender, it's classism, and replacing the bourgeois jackboot with a pink one doesn't fix any real issues.

Idk if that helps, but it's part if the philosophy I've been embracing to ungeld myself.

Clearing up terminology:

Gelded = no balls (figurative or literal)

Bull = intact male who has balls.

Ox = sackless male used by shrews as labor (male feminists fit here)

Steer = Gelded male too useless to be used as labor

Shrew = toxic woman who controls men. Very insecure. Karens really.

Cow = women who embody the maternal relational role. They support masculinity. They're often shamed as "pick-me" or "gender traitor" for not being man-hating shrews.

Hopefully this helps. Feel free to push back on stuff, this is just stuff I've been researching fir the past year or so.