Why can't you *feel* like a woman?

Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference
by Cordelia Fine

Here is a book that would be good for people to read.

SarahCarer

What struck me about your comment upthread was that you quite obviously projected your thoughts and beliefs about your thoughts on all the women you know.
I sometimes say that sort of thing too and I now realize that it is a tell for projection. So thanks for that.

As I've said up thread I did really think most people had a sense of internal gender identity. I know I used to and if you had asked me to articulate it I would have struggled but only because I was trying to resist stereotypes. Of course it was made up of stereotypes. Not pink fluffy ones. What I really meant was that I was not masculine, and that was based upon a stereotype of masculinity.

"I still feel like a woman. I just do."

And of course this is all fine and good.

What is a bit of an issue though is that this new quality - "gender identity" has come along and statements like one at work from stonewall are made (which I can't find on google at the mo) - stating that the vast majority of people have a "strongly held" internal sense of gender ID and that not to have this is rare.

Who have they asked though? This quality has been cited and described by trans people to describe their experience - by definition they will have this quality, this feeling. It's extrapolating this to assume that most people do that is a bit of an issue. Who have they asked? Plus of course when women say, hold on, loads of us don't have this feeling, the explanation is not that OK maybe it does exist but isn't as universal as we thought, but that women are too stupid to know their own minds. Apparently we are all so comfortable with our internal gender ID that we don't even notice it. Well that's not misogynistic at all.

It could be this is something that is relevant mainly to trans people (others don't have it) or sometihng that is predominant among men - that is also possible.

For me it is like spirituality. I understand and accept that some people have an inner feeling (spritiuality)that there must be "more" - and have that can manifest in various belief systems whether organsied religion or something personal. However, I have no feeling like this. It's not a denial or a repudiation, it's just not there. And that is fine. Saem with gender ID. Not there, no idea what that feeling is. Accept that others have it. But, what of it? It's irrelevant really isn't it, and if internal ID is nothing to do with biology, personality, norms of dress, norms of behaviour etc then what difference does it make to anything?

in 1982 when sending out my first business letter as a lawyer I put my signature as A N Other (or my real initials of course) and the partner said I had to add my first name and Mrs so that scuppered in week 1 of work my plan not to let my gender be known!

On my voice most of my work is by email - sometimes I don't speak to clients for even as much as a year or two! I also can sing tenor, alto and soprano with a massive range and have always regarded my voice as one of my most useful tools in all kinds of ways although I very much doubt I could easily be taken as a man on calls even if when I was singing the bass line to a 4 part choral thing the other day for fun!

I still feel like a woman. I just do.

That is great. How do you know you are one though?

Polka, I wish I had found this thread earlier because I haven't had time to read all 7 pages, but my sex is female and yes, I do feel like a woman. I can't explain it or what it means, or even what it feels like.
But I still feel like a woman. I don't think I am particularly feminine, dress like shit most of the time, have an annual haircut, and so on, but I definitely feel female. I heard a transwoman say that she was called on publicly in her younger life to answer 'what does it feel like to be a woman' and she replied, 'well, i can't say. It feels like me' . I get that, I really do.

I agree with A Woman's Place and I agree that women suffer disadvantage and discrimination and abuse because of their sex and not their personal gender identity. And that is why we need to preserve sex based rights and protections.
I still feel like a woman. I just do.

Most of the time I feel like a 15 year old but when I look in the mirror I see someone who looks more like a 50 year old - neither the feeling or the look change the biological fact that I am 45.
I feel like giving up work every day but that does not change the fact that I need to work to pay the mortgage, bills etc etc
I feel like eating pizzas and nachos every day but the fact is I can't because I would feel pretty unhealthy and the fact is that in the long term I would become unhealthy.
Luckily my parents taught me that most of the time how I feel really isn't relevant, it's fine to feel like something but the reality of life is that feelings don't magically become facts.

I think if people stopped defining women by pink/sparkly/high heels/dresses/make up and started defining us by the things that actually make us women, then a lot of the confusion will stop.
How many posts on this thread start ‘I don’t like make up or wear pink’. That’s not what ‘woman’ is.

I watch a lot of YouTube vloggers and the amount of transwomen (all late teens/early 20s) that seem to think that all being a woman is, is wearing a pretty dress, having an Essex blow dry and contouring your face is ridiculous. And don’t get me started on ‘lady penis’ (wfaf?!?)

I feel angry on behalf of actual diagnosed transsexuals that they are now lumped in with this new wave gender fluid trend. There IS a difference and we should be able to say there is without being labelled as transphobic.

Xenia - how would you deal with the voice thing for calls though?

I do wonder sometimes about changing my name to Chris or Alex. A neutral name.

What a surprise!

Random on pay cuts I read an article in the FT or Times in the last week or so where an academic at a US university changed sex male to female and another female to male. The article was about how they were then treated. The one who moved to female found their research taken less seriously and it was harder to show they were good. the one who became male suddenly got a lot of pay rises.

They exchanged information on how they were treated. It was fascinating and of course shows the advantages given to men. Perhaps I should now I am post menopause change to male for financial reasons alone.

So it is perfectly possible for someone who has repeated messages imposed upon them about what masculinity is and what femininity is to internalise another gender, other than the one people expect of them for a variety of different reasons and think they were born that way. He or she is no more mistaken than the person who thinks they are born cis. It just reflects a misunderstanding of what gender is and how it develops

But it all develops socially, through external, followed by related internal narratives.

If it develops socially then it is not binary and it is separate from sex whether the person is cis, trans, gender critical (who are not cis) or GNC. And some people do not have much gender at all in their identity. Others have a lot of it

...It just develops socially

Ok I'm going to try again without mentioning the gender delusion if that is forbidden. (Someone tell Richard Dawkins he is not welcome here.) I have been misunderstood. I do believe that most people have a gender identity and that very many people believe that they were born with it. If gender is a social construct (and a great deal of evidence suggests it is) then they are mistaken . That is not to say it does not exist in the mind.

I don't feel like a woman anymore than I feel like a 30 year old. I just am. Sometimes I am aware of my biology (pregnancy, breastfeeding, periods) but those weren't feelings just things. There are times I'm treated differently because I'm a woman and I am aware of that too but that isn't a feeling either. Really the internal 'me' doesn't have a sex. I'm always surprised to hear my voice on a recording because it is a female voice, my internal voice (the way I hear myself in my head, if that makes sense) doesn't sound that way. It doesn't sound like a man's voice either. Maybe if I was given an objective definition of what it means to feel like a woman, maybe I'd be able to say, oh yes actually I do feel that way, but I can't think of any definition of woman as a feeling that that wouldn't rely on stereotypes.

Oh and I just re-read the OP and realised it says:

"Womanhood is merely biological."

Merely?

Since when is female boilogy "merely".

If there must be a hierarchy, a gauge, a contest, a measuring up, then of the two sexes, the female one is surely the less "mere". Our bodies can go through a hell of a lot in a lifetime, 3 stages of life rather than two, monthly bleeding, and for most there's pregnancy, maybe childbirth, BF. There is nothing "mere" about the female body.

And on top of that, while men get to see their bodies as a simple tool, a method to transport their consciousness around, girls are lumbered with not only the biological reproductive issues, but also a desire in society to judge us, to see us as a selcection of body parts to be leered at, judged, pursued. This leads us to being painfully aware of our bodies (generalisation) and if surveys are to be believed, mostly fundamentally unhappy with and even detached from them, for long periods of time.

But no, it's merely a female body, not important, not nearly as important as someon'es internal feelings, and definitely not important enough to act as a locator of similarity across a group. There is no need to have a name for cunty people as a group - why would there be? The mere cuntiness is irrelevant to anything to do with anything.

"Sarah, you base your accusation of delusion to the fact that gender doesn't exist in the minds of people. (correct me if I've misattributed your words). You may be 100% correct. Or you may be wrong. Not believing in internal gender feelings yourself doesn't preclude others from feeling them. At some basic, philosophical level, we can never know what goes on the mind of any other person. I am straight - I can never get into the mind, feelings or thoughts (other than through empathy) of a lesbian. It is no basis for me to deny what lesbians say they feel."

You could identify as a lesbian though, and the that would be an indisputabel fact, and then you could join lots of lesbian groups and speak "as a lesbian" and so on.

I can identify as a tree if I felt like it, and decide to live as one, it doesn’t mean I actually know what a tree feels like... the chances are though nobody would actually object to me standing in my own garden being a tree - there’s only an issue if I dig up next doors’ tree and take its place.

Yes! Perfect.

I am a women who feels no dysphoria over the thought of myself as a women, in the same way as I have no dysphoria over the fact I have blue eyes.

This means that those two facts don’t cause me an discomfort, but the feeling is not innate, it is a direct consequence of the initial thought. I would posit that your feeling like a women is simply having no dysphoria over that thought - you recognize it as a truth about yourself.

And the argument with TG people is that, because they do not recognize the truth of their body, somehow this means that it is not intact the truth of their body; the discomfort proves that they are the opposite sex.

One of the main reasons I can’t get behind that ideology is that I have, felt fairly extreme dysphoria over my breast size. They are large and since I developed I have always had a feeling that something went wrong, that they didn’t “suit” me, they were physically uncomfortable and I felt that I am innately a small breasted women etc. I caused me a lot of psychological torment over the years. Now I won’t bore you with all the reasons why I felt that way, but they were mostly to do with how I was treated, what I could do and wear (or couldn’t wear) etc.

Once I examined my thinking (which was neither a quick nor easy process) I realised that my body wasn’t wrong; my body just WAS. These are my genetics, this is how I developed - it’s neutral.

Biology is neutral. Society is not. We all have to find a way to live within those parameters (or change them if they are unfair).

I can identify as a tree if I felt like it, and decide to live as one, it doesn’t mean I actually know what a tree feels like... the chances are though nobody would actually object to me standing in my own garden being a tree - there’s only an issue if I dig up next doors’ tree and take its place.

Or my roots undermine the foundations of the house next door

I can identify as a tree if I felt like it, and decide to live as one, it doesn’t mean I actually know what a tree feels like... the chances are though nobody would actually object to me standing in my own garden being a tree - there’s only an issue if I dig up next doors’ tree and take its place.

Love it!

I only feel like a woman when my biology comes into play. Like when I have my period, or being pregnant, or giving birth, or breastfeeding, having a contraceptive coil fitted, having a smear, being paid less than a man, etc... those are things that make me feel like a woman. The rest of the time I just feel like a human being. I don’t even know if my sentience is gendered. That’s a bit of a mind scrambler.

Bit of a tangent this, but one other thing I’ve always wondered is whether male to female transgender people have to take a pay cut at work once they take on a female identity?