Feminism and the idea of a man or woman trapped in the wrong body are contradictory ideas

Also, Larry are you an academic working in this area. Because if you aren't, I'm not understanding why you're dismissing people who disagree with you as non-academic.

Academia doens't have the last word on what is a woman either. It's a patriarchal institution so it's always going to uphold patriarchal values and look after men's interests.

Larry is there a test for chemicals in the brains of trans that demonstrate that they are in fact trans?

What you've quoted there is pure speculation and demonstrates nothing about the brains of men who are claiming to be women.

Even if it did - why would we decide that what happens in the brain is more important than genitalia, which are the main sex difference.

Indeed bell jar, and post patriarchy it won't matter. However this isn't all about individual definitions and feelings. We live in a patriarchal society that labels us and treats us differently according to our sex. Socially constructed ideas of gender are used to decide who gets to do what, who gets to have power. To fight that we need to name it and challenge it. As much as we want to live in a society where it's all fluid and we get to just be who we are, we don't live in it. Pretending we do and reducing patriarchal power structures to individual feeling and choice doesn't tackle the problem.

Bah, "deny that mine is valid" that should have been... too much typing. :)

The big difference (for me anyway) between biological sex and gender identity, is that one is objectively factual, and one is subjective (and changeable).

Biological sex is a certainty in this day and age (as in it can always be verified if not immediately obvious).

Going by my previous analogy (again not a comparison), its a bit like meningitis being medical fact and verifiable (usually this can be done from visible signs, but if not then medical testing reveals the reality). Just because it can sometimes look ambiguous, does not mean it is ambiguous*

People who are intersex are intersex, and not "something between male and female", which many intersex persons find offensive. They are their own biological sex category (although not one commonly yet accepted).

A person's biological sex may not be relevant to them, and they do not have to identify as such (and don't). But some people want to group themselves by biological sex and identify themselves this way.

I am one that prefers to identify myself biologically because I don't feel male or female, I feel like an individual. Plus, I prefer objective classifications, thats just my preference.

I respect the rights of others to express their own preferences, but not to deny that mine is invalid. I am happy to call a person who is transgendered by their gender preference (man or woman), but not to say that they are the biological sex they are not (because this is simply untrue).

I don't need to know, in general, what somebody's biological sex is. It really isn't my business. By the same token, in general, other people don't need to know what my internal gender identity is (or even if I have one). It really isn't their business.

I don't need people to justify why their internal gender identity feelings are important to them (although I do think if the feelings are that important they could describe what a female internal identity is comprised of).

I don't think other people need me to justify to them why my feelings that my physical female body is an an integral part of who I am is important to me.

Not really your business to doubt me. And it shouldn't really be anybody's right to tell me that I can't self define and belong to a group of other people who feel that our biological sex is important to us and part of our identity.

I'm not asking you to understand my feelings. I'm just asking you to respect my right to a group identity that isn't based on your feelings rather than my own.

Ok, I think that the point I'm getting at is; I don't really think that biological sex (and even that isn't always a certainty as others have pointed out) actually matters that much once you get beyond the medical sphere.

Human culture and society is fluid and changeable, as it should be. There are even socities which have a third gender. It's not a new thing. Denying, questioning or even making relevant a person's biological sex when they choose not to, seems pointless. I'm not sure why we need to do that?

I don't think anybody is defining gender as chromosones or pant contents though, are they?

StuckintheBellJar

Gender identity is subjective, socially influenced/changeable, and largely based on feelings.

Biological sex is objective (usually externally, and certainly chromosomally) and assigned from birth.

Man/woman used to be based on biological sex, which is why some people have difficulty with what is essentially a changing definition, and words are still necessary to describe sex based on biology, rather than gender identity based on preference.

Is gender really simply defined by what you happen to have in your pants, or even your genome though? It's not that simple.

I'm not concerned about demonstrating what gender transgender people are. That is up to them.

I just want people who don't define themselves by internal gender identity and want to identify based on biological sex to be allowed to have an identity of their choosing.

StuckintheBellJar

I completely disagree with your statement for one reason alone. We are not simply what we feel, although we should be allowed to express how we feel however we like.

I posted links earlier about persons who are transablist, transspecies, and otherkin. These are all people whose internal image of themselves and 'sense of self' does not match their external body. Some of them are also transgendered and testify to the similarity of the feelings involved in both cases.

They have every right to express themselves as feeling they are another species, or disabled (when they are actually fully abled). And in the same way, I believe and support people who are transgendered in expressing their preferred gender.

But I cannot agree with 'statements of fact' that are factually untrue. I will agree with any person's right to express what they feel they are. But if they say they are that, then there are real life criteria to be met, not just thoughts/feelings.

I get the impression, some people on this thread are very skilled at dismissing others points and trying to obscure the issue. This isn't a debate, it feels more like opinion bashing.

larrygrylls Forgive me for bumping in your discussion with Seahouses, but as a medical/semi-academic person (albeit not in this area), I found your point interesting and would like to explore it.

"The point is what if there was a male who, for some reason, was born with a "male" brain and female genitalia and chromosomes, possible due to hormones his mother produced or took whilst he was in utero. Should he not have a right to "be" a female should he/she so choose?"

The difficulty with this statement is that if male/female is a biological sexual fact (which many of us believe), then it is not something you can choose to be, or have the right to be. It is something you are from birth.

This is not to say you cannot express a different gender identity, and choose to live in a masculine or feminine way as perceived by society.

In your example, if the person was born with female genitalia and chromosomes, they would be female (by most consensus), if they're born with ambiguous genitalia and female chromosomes, they are still female. If they are born with ambiguous genitalia and intersex chromosomes, they are intersex, etc. etc.

Biological sex and gender identity are considered two different things by many people. One is flexible and chooseable, and one is assigned from birth.

Larry, if somebody born with a female body and male mind (by BC's definition) wants to define themselves as a woman, it doesn't really bother me personally.

I have no interest in banding together with a group of people in any situation, be that personal choice (women's groups) or by state control (wards, school facilities, prisons) on the basis of how much somebody has a preference for systems or empathy. I don't really feel a great desire to share a ward with people based on their liking of systems.

If most people do feel that way, then society should be organised in that, perhaps with some kind of test at a young age to determine if people had male or female brains. People like me who felt that the brain thing was not my identity- well special arrangements could presumably be made for me in terms of which showers I was told to use and so on, if I didn't want to go into the empathetic showers.

I really don't understand what the fuss is here.

If a person identifies themself as a woman - they are a woman and entitled to be treated as such if they so desire. Nobody has the right to tell them otherwise.

If feminism starts making an issue of this it will become as unpleasant and discriminatory as the mysoginists it's suposed to be fighting.

Bennifer

Visible ambiguity is not the same as ambiguity.

Not everyone's sex is obvious at first glance, but there is still no ambiguity when it comes to investigating the matter, and its pretty easy to find out.

Biological sex is not ambiguous (though it may be visibly so).

Everybody is born with an ambiguous sexual identity because you can't ask a newborn baby how it feels about gender roles.

That has nothing to do with intersex people whose sex is not ambiguous just because it is different to yours.

I think it's clear enough that this thread isn't about the majority of people for whom their sexual identity is clear cut. The fact that people are born with ambiguous sexual identity is sufficient to demonstrate that sexual identity can be ambiguous.

Mary Wollstonecraft knew nothing about chromosomes, so what was she talking about when she wrote about women? Would she have included Herculine Barbin?

Seahouses,

I have no idea whether what he says is true and it is not my hypothesis but his. I suspect, however that few (if any) others on this thread have the real academic knowledge or ability to dispute it either. They just believe something to be true as a matter of faith. I think the fact that hormones can strongly alter animal brains is at least evidence in the direction of that hypothesis.

The point is what if there was a male who, for some reason, was born with a "male" brain and female genitalia and chromosomes, possible due to hormones his mother produced or took whilst he was in utero. Should he not have a right to "be" a female should he/she so choose?

Larry, while I don't agree with Baron Cohen, I really appreciate you actually coming forward and saying that the male brain is interested in systems and the the female brain is more empathetic.

At least now you have brought forward a definition it means we can have a go at deciding who is female and who isn't. It is certainly an improvement on a non-defined feeling in somebody's head.

This is just an analogy not a comparison

For example, people with meningitis are usually easily diagnosed because they display common signs (stiff neck, avoidance of light, and skin rash).

Some people display only one or two of these signs, and a few display none at all.

The truth of the matter is easily confirmed with a lumbar puncture test.

Thus, it can be said that meningitis is easily defined and identified. It doesn't mean you have to always be able to spot it at first glance.

I don't think you have demonstrated the point at all because I still have no idea what point it is that you are trying to demonstrate.

You seem to be suggesting, again and again, pretty offensively, that intersex people don't have their own biological sex, and that what they are is somehow not 'clear cut.'

It is clear cut.

But you seem to be making it not clear cut by calling intersex people males brought up as females or females brought up as males.

Bennifer

Visible biological sex is simply the easiest and most convenient way of classifying a person as male or female (but not the only way, and not 100% accurate, just mostly accurate.

Biological sex is clear cut in terms of genetic testing (in the very small percentage of people whose external sex is ambiguous). Not being immediately visible does not mean not being clear cut or easily defineable.

"What chemicals in their heads do men who think they are women have, that men who don't think they are women don't have."

Well, how about some of the below?

"Culture and socialisation play a role in determining if you develop a male brain (stronger
interest in systems) or female brain (stronger interest in empathy). But these studies of
infancy strongly suggest that biology also partly determines this.
Some of the most convincing evidence for biological causes comes from studies of the
effects of hormones. There was a time when women were prescribed a synthetic female
hormone (diesthylstibestrol), in an attempt to prevent repeated spontaneous miscarriages.
Boys born to such women are likely to show more female-typical, empathizing
behaviours, such as caring for dolls. And if a female rat is injected at birth with
testosterone, she shows faster, more accurate maze learning, compared to a female rat
who has not been given such an injection. So masculinizing the rat hormonally improves
her spatial systemizing.
Some important lessons have been learnt from studies of clinical conditions. Male babies
born with IHH (idiopathic hypogonadotrophic hypogonadism) have very small testes
(and therefore very low levels of testosterone) and they are worse at spatial aspects of
systemizing, relative to normal males. Other male babies born with Androgen
Insensitivity (AI) Syndrome (testosterone is an androgen) are also worse at systemizing.
Compare these to female babies born with CAH (congenital adrenal hyperplasia), who
have unusually high levels of androgens and who have enhanced spatial systemizing,."

The above article is from Simon Baron Cohen, professor of developmental psychopathology at Cambridge University.