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

I agree, and that's part of why I think it makes no sense for trans people to say they have the brain of the opposite sex, or the sense of "gender" if it means the internalized stuff. The internalized stuff comes from the way you're treated from the day you're born, and although effeminate boys are most definitely mistreated it's not in the same way that girls are.

Can I just add that while I do believe that many many people have fully internalised a sense of gender identity I do also believe it is made up of stereotypes and personal narratives. I.e. What others tell us and what we tell ourselves.

I read polkadotwellies's post before it was deleted and I agree that it was describing the shaping of our minds through experience in a world where experience cannot be separated from our biology. Then connecting with other humans who were shaped in similar ways by similar experiences by virtue of being born in a sexed body.

Children are treated differently based on their observed sex, subconsciously, as infants. It is literally impossible for an adult male, having the formative brain development within a gendered (social construct) society to feel like a woman or have a 'woman's brain.' They know what it is like to feel like an emotional/effeminate/outsider male, but woman does not equal 'a feeling of being not typically masculine.'

Even some sort of theoretical brain hormone wash in utero doesn't mean they are a brain-woman and doesn't mean they elude gender-socialisation - which is formative in the very elastic brain. Infants brains are fast growing, making connections as they respond to stimuli. Stimuli that is regulated by and tailored to their observed sex.

I cannot believe that with all the exciting research on brain plasticity, that people are buying into gendered brain theory. It is so regressive and limiting, and so depressing.

Before getting into esoteric theories about womanly feelings, we need language to categorise the sexes in our sexually dimorphic reproducing species. Because there are differences between the sexes that have different needs, that is true for every mammalian species. Dress how you like, call yourself whatever you want, but it behooves you to be honest enough to know which list of heart attack symptoms to watch for.

(Just wanted to note that I don't actually feel like a kitten. That would be weird.)

I feel like a LangCleg. I don't have dysphoria so I don't give a special name to the feeling of being a LangCleg.

I am a woman because I am adult female of a sexually dimorphic species.

These things are self evident to me.

a woman's body is reality, feeling like a women is ignoring biological reality. unless there is a definition of what a woman feels like and is supposed to be? its stereotypes. We have our physical bodies and both male and female have to accept that. Our bodies are not wrong, society tells us that our bodies mean we have to 'ACT' a certain way. It is ridiculous.

Fair enough Angryattackkittens.

I don't understand what feeling like a woman is like. I'm a person. I'm an individual. I'm a woman. I feel like me. I am aware that I am a woman, but it is my biology that tells me this. Most of the stuff that society tells me about me being a woman is fucking annoying crap that I try rather hard to reject. I acknowledge my biology. I reject the misogynistic patriarchical controlling crap that is gender.

My family are working class. In-laws not so much.

I would hazard a guess that there is a fair correlation between levels of education and emancipation, and perception of gender.

None of the people I've asked about whether they have some sort of sense of themselves as gendered that's not related to their bodies have said they do. Granted birds of a feather etc and I'd be unlikely to be friends with the sort of people who strongly believe in the stereotypes requires to support that concept, but family and inlaws say the same, and seem confused by the idea that it's being proposed that this is a thing everyone has. The idea that this is a feeling that trans people have that makes them unique precisely because nobody else really has it seems to be far more common.

And if you called that feeling dysphoria and acknowledged that it's an unusual issue that's a defining part of the condition that used to be known as transsexuality then we might be getting somewhere, but no, that makes some trans people feel othered so we end up back at the point of "this is something everyone has and it just doesn't bother you because yours matches".

I don't feel like a woman, but I AM a woman. My entire life experience has involved being treated as a woman, and it will continue to. I don't think that my feelings are the most important thing. I am also not sure that my conscious understanding of my gender is anything other than superficial; I continue to be surprised and amazed by the things that my body can do (conception, birth, breastfeeding, mothering at different stages) and by the hormonal changes that go with it and which affect my emotional and psychological state more than I ha realised they would do.

"I don't get the impression the trans lobby globally are saying to people they must 'feel' a specific gender."

If people are classified as either trans or cis then that is saying that everyone "feels" like a specific gender.

Those of us who say we aren't "cis" women, just women, are told we are erasing transwomen.

Trams narrative? That would be a very niche identity

This is why the trams narrative makes perfect sense to so many people

I actually do think the majority of women I know identify as women in the sense of having an internal sense of gender. I think they do in the same way or at least a similar way trans women do. They think it has come from within. I believe that too is a delusion. But it us a mass delusion. Most people I talk to about gender don't really believe it is a social construct despite all the evidence suggesting it is . I do get frustrated sometimes because most people who come here are gender immune, gender non conforming or gender critical (and I am very GC) we talk as if the world thinks this way and trans people are the exception. Actually it is we who are the exception. Plus those who objectively study gender.

Women are providing an illustration that what the transgender identified males feel a relationship with and to is the idea men have created and promoted of women in various cultures.
The illusion of the thing and not the thing itself.
Women are who these men say they feel like. Women say that is impossible.
Who you gonna believe?

Most mouses and/or laptops do have a scroll button, you know. If you choose not to use it and instead keep reading comments that you find tiring (shrugs).

I'm exploring the issue Angry, that's all. I haven't come down on the fence one side or the other. I'm just getting tired reading post after post with people telling me they don't feel their gender (I don't either) as if that were a reasonable argument for why TG are delusional about their gender feelings. If you want to interpret that as goady, that's your prerogative

Given that devil's advocate could be quite accurately translated as "goady fucker" isn't that technically against Talk guidelines?

Nobody likes a devil's advocate. It's an approach designed to irritate rather than illuminate.

Orchid - it isn't genetic though is it? Welshness is as much a 'fabrication', if you will, as gender feelings. Perhaps, and I'm playing devil's advocate, if you let generations of transgenders be TG in the way the translobby would have, then they would be where the Welsh are wrt legal/social rights. Then what will we say about gender feelings? Would we still say they are a delusion - if so, how relevant would that be?

I don't feel like a woman and I don't understand how that would feel.

If another woman or a male person tells me that they 'feel like a woman' I wouldn't disbelieve them as such, but I would wonder how they can possibly know what that feeling is.

I feel like I could get a sense of gender dysphoria- the whole 'my body doesn't feel right to me'. That's one thing.

But 'feeling like a woman'? That's going to mean something different to every single individual that says it. I certainly don't see why that feeling is valid or important enough to base laws on.

When we have multiple generations of people brought up in trans families to treasure the cultural identity of being trans, with trans parents raising trans children in a way that does the best it can to preserve their native trans language from the foreigners who've colonized their country, maybe that might be a useful analogy. Right now you're just making yourself look a bit silly.

That's a reality shit analogy @FlyTipper. Welsh people have a culture, language and country. It's not just a feeling.

Welshness is a social construct. Nonetheless people assert to feeling Welsh and have relevant social and legal frameworks to protect their cultural identity.