So ... Does this indicate that you CAN be 'born the wrong gender'?

^Gender is not the the fact that your brain/mind/body/self "knows" your biological sex"

I know - that's why I've been saying gender identity.

There is a theory (warning - it's a theory, there a good reasons to think this is the case but a lot of research would is needed).

Theory is the sexualisation of the brain in male mammals is done by androgens (ie testosterone). The same androgens masclinise the sex organs (eg penis).
Problem is these two things happen at slightly different times in the womb. So in theory (remember it's a theory) the brain can fail to the sexualised but later on the sex organs are masculinised normally.

Now this is a vast simplification of the theory. There are also likely to be other factors at play. Such as the activation of certain genes affecting brain development. And immune responses that could affect development.

I do agree with you that your biology is probably not a simple binary (the link I put on for Holly is interesting.

PS: Just realised I should make clearer that I do know a lot of posters here are (rightly in my view) arguing that gender is definitely not 'fixed' biologically, and nor is sexuality - not sure how clearly that came through in my post!

holly that's on my reading list

Regarding looking at sex from a non binary perspective, this article is really interesting.

www.nature.com/news/sex-redefined-1.16943

There are lots of receptors for lots of things in the brain - serotonin, for one, which is linked to happiness/depression.

Suppose there is someday shown to be a biological marker - size of androgen receptor, say, though it's unlikely to be simplistic - for XY people wanting to transition? What would be done with that information? I don't know what the right action would be.

A lot of really good and interesting discussion here. If I may, however, I'd like to add a further problem with the conflation of trans* and sexuality issues in terms of how they're discussed as 'fixed' or otherwise, alongside the earlier point raised that someone having an established 'sexuality' as part of their identity is actually a really modern concept.

(And on that point, Anc. Greek and Roman men did not in any way consider themselves as having a 'fixed' sexuality which was something that they were stuck with, for them it was a case of when it was socially appropriate to be sleeping with men/boys, vs. women, and there was no idea that they would be primarily attracted to one sex or another - certainly most evidence we have suggests the idea that [all] men would be attracted to both. The case for women is more complicated, partly by lack of evidence of sexual agency at all. I am therefore somewhat dubious about the idea that we've only just become modern enough to accept the long-standing truth that everyone has a fixed, natural, biologically caused sexuality which previously (e.g. in Victorian Britain) they just didn't acknowledge - even in much more sexually permissive societies (as regards this aspect, anyway) this hasn't necessarily been the case.)

The point I actually wanted to ask about is what these arguments of 'fixed' sexuality determined before birth, and thus apparently similar to an internal sense of what gender someone is, do about bisexuality, or the reasonably mainstream idea that it may be more appropriate to consider sexuality on a spectrum rather than 2/3 fixed points. There are two problems here which I think would make sexuality a problematic analogy for how 'gender' is 'biologically fixed' - the first being that bisexuality exists at all, so even if you insist that everyone is 'fixed' biologically into one of 3 rigid, determined categories, does that not cause you some concern about the idea that there's apparently no correspondingly middle position in your ideas of being biologically 'fixed' as male/female in gender? (This is far too often ignored as something to be considered, and I wonder how often bi-erasure comes in as a limiting factor here, sadly).

Then, my second problem - if you allow at all for the idea that sexuality can be fluid, and change as someone's life goes on, and they experience different things (and indeed, are socialised differently!), even if it may have a determined trend in one direction or another which doesn't change, does that not also make it a terrible comparison for some sort of 'fixed' internal idea of your gender? Would you not also have to allow for more fluidity in this internal idea of what gender someone is, in order to say that they are both formed similarly by some biological root?

Or do you think that this is also impossible for sexuality, since effectively x amount of hormones (or similar) in the womb results solely in 'a' sexuality, y amount of hormones in 'b' sexuality, and thus the same happens with 'male' vs. 'female' 'biological gendering'?

I am not sure how coherent this is - just some ideas I've been mulling over, really, but I'd be very grateful for anyone who has thoughts. Even if I weren't rather firmly fixed on the radfem approach to gender and gender identity, I still think there's some stumbling blocks to work out on these biological ideas of such complicated things as gender and sexuality, that at the very least should make us wary of lumping them together the way some do!

Delusions of Gender is a good introduction to social theories of gender. It's not on the web, though.

Plenty of XX women have stated they don't have a feeling that they have a gender identity. I would be curious to know if plenty of XY men say the same. Maybe the majority of XY men do feel a strong gender identity (rather than the absence of a gender conflict).

Are we comparing the wrong thing?

The brains sexuality (fancying men or women and feeling like one sex or another) seems to be fixed in the womb

I don't think there is good evidence for either of these things and even if one is true, that wouldn't mean the other is true.

I think one thing it's important to point out is that feminists themselves disagree over this!

The classic formulation would be something like "sex is biological, but gender is social". In other words, sex might be a matter of biological factors like genetics, hormones, but gender is a matter of behaviour/identity that are to a large extent culturally determined.

However, you do also have a feminism (e.g. Judith Butler) that goes a step further to argue that biology itself is a culturally determined thing that is very much 'of the science of our time', that is not constructed outside of social and power relationships, and not necessarily 'transcendentally true'. A lynchpin of a lot of these arguments is that people tend to simplify into a binary something that is much less obviously dichotomous. As you pointed out, when you look at it closely the biological side of sex is complex - Butler, Fausto-Sterling and others would have a field day with the difficulties inherent in determining femininity for the purpose of Olympic sport!

i think the trouble is I'm not very aware of social explanations for gender identity (unless you include the utterly ridiculous Oedipus complex).

If you could point me in the right direction on the web it would be appreciated.

(I've just realised I've asked you for information that has probably taken decades of work to put together - the response "piss off and do your own research"is completely acceptable)

I agree there is an issue of "what is a woman"

Purely from a biological point of view

• the Olympics has been unable to come up with a clear and defined test / definition of female. And the Olympics doesn't care about what's going on in someone's head only their body.

Obviously the "mind of a woman" is going to be even more complicated.

i disagree that unless you can clearly define the variable there isn't any point reporting it.
Pain is subjective, different people report different levels of pain. And you have to take the persons word for it when they tell you how much pain they are in. (I wish my bloody midwife had listened to me when I was in labour but she insisted that as I was only three cms one hour ago it couldn't hurt that much - I gave birth 15 minutes later (sorry got diverted).

But isn't that the worry? That kids are having treatment for this pre-puberty. If nobody knows how he will feel until he is an adult shouldn't this kind of treatment be delayed? I understand that going through puberty when you feel you ought to be the wrong gender must be hugely distressing, but also this has lifelong consequences. We don't let twelve year olds get tattoos or body piercings, both of which are ultimately removable. How can we allow twelve year olds to make a decision to block puberty?

I have been reading the blog emma linked from the beginning and while I am hugely reassured that the mum in question HAS reassured her child that it's possible to like girly things and still be a boy and appears to have gone through every possibility before settling on the conclusion that her child is indeed transgender, the puberty issue comes up again. She's clearly conflicted about it herself but does also believe that medicating to prevent puberty and steer it in a "girl" direction is the right thing to do.

In fact it has opened up a new angle for me which I admit that I hadn't considered. Most people do want an easy life for their children and will steer them towards an easier path if they can because they don't want to see them struggle. So I accept that it must take an extremely strong reaction against that instinct, and quite a large amount of distress from a child to keep on insisting that they are not a boy, or a girl.

And there was an interesting point made about the hyper-feminine way some transwomen present, in that every time her DD wore trousers people would latch onto it and point out "Oh look, she is a boy really". Which is something I had wondered about that argument (that transwomen perform a caricature of women).

But, again, TBH this is just more proof to me that we need to smash any notion of anything being masculine or feminine when it is causing so much pain and suffering, rather than being proof that gender identity is an innate thing.

It's not the child wanting to wear a mixture of dresses and trousers which is causing the distress here, is it? It's other people's reactions to that, and what they have decided it "means".

Hi buffy

Purely whether or not a person says they feel (identify as) male or female.

Obviously this would need to be a long term thing. The kid in the article is just four bless him. No one knows what he will feel when he is an adult.

I think sexuality can be changed. But that doesn't mean it should be.

Ok so the concept is modern, culturally we do seem comfortable thinking of sexuality as a spectrum. Fair enough.

Not sure what that means in practice, I always thought it was pretty well established that if a man said he was homosexual it wasn't possible to change it.
(And as Bertie said nor would it be right to).

The concept of gay being an identity, is a cultural idea. It is not a universal one across history or cultures.

I think you could argue there is a link between sexuality, gender identity and physical sex.

I think you probably get different numbers of men declaring themselves to be gay at differing point is history - due to societies attitude at the time.
Eg there are probably more openly gay men in the UK now than 100years ago.

Is sexuality relevant to this discussion? Happy to discuss if it is but it seems to be clouding the issue. I'm totally on board with sexuality being a spectrum and not something which is "curable", neither desirable to be "cured", and I do believe that most people with a strong sexual preference are that way from an early age. However this does also seem fluid, if you look at ancient societies such as the Greeks for example, there was far more homosexuality then than there is today. This is more of a vague idea though, I don't want to side track into an argument.

I'm not sure sexuality is relevant to gender, though, anyway.

Slugs I don't think that agreeing with one aspect of radical feminism has to make you a radical feminist. I don't know that there's much point in worrying overly about categories anyway, but sometimes it's useful to put a name to a POV as it prevents having to give a lengthy explanation each time. I think you can be radfem on one issue but libfem on another, for example.

nino humans are really complicated and although hormones clearly do have an affect on humans behaviour and physiology. There will be other factors involved too.

The brains sexuality (fancying men or women and feeling like one sex or another) seems to be fixed in the womb.
Eg you can't "cure" a gay man by giving him more testosterone. I'm all likelihood all you will do is increase his sex drive.

I can get on board with some gender stereotypes oppressing women/girls,

Clearly occupations that have traditionally been male dominated are seen as superior to occupations that are traditionally female.

This needs to change, I'm totally on board with that.

Well, as I said before, I have excess testosterone (for a woman) and I'm still a woman. I don't think it's anywhere near as neat and easy as hormones. I don't believe anyone has ever pointed to a part of a woman's brain and gone 'hey, that's conclusively the bit that makes them like pink/make up/being barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen' ('evidence of difference is not evidence of gendered difference').

We're talking about the radfem concept of gender as a system of oppression, where masculine things are dominant and powerful and feminine things submissive and weak precisely because this benefits men (the dominant gender) and oppresses women, keeping them submissive and (sexually, reproductively) available ('wifework').

Radfems, and Glossy above, say that genitals don't and shouldn't prescribe a gender-based pink or blue box for you, so abolish the boxes. Trans people say that they want or 'feel like' the other box. The two viewpoints can't meet in the middle.

There may or may not be a biological cause of transgenderism, I don't know, I don't think anyone does. I only have my own experience (which includes, by the way, living with a pre-op transperson). I used to think it was hormones/womb stuff too. I don't anymore. Like Bertie, the radfem analysis makes more sense to me.