Spreading the idea that everyone has a gender identity

I think having a sense of internal gender is widespread but not universal.

Right. A bit like how believing in God is widespread but not universal.

@beachcomber thanks for some excellent insights on this thread.

I think having a sense of internal gender is widespread but not universal. Like language, it would never appear without social interaction. Like language, it will alter according to the influence and input of others and the pre existing structures will influence the way we see the world and ourselves but we will also influence the language of others in tiny imperceptible ways. Our innate tendency towards using language doesn't determine the language we use. That is determined by the culture we are born into. But we can also learn new languages. They will have limited applicability to our immediate social surroundings however.

@supermatchgame . "You have women that have lived as out, gender non conforming lesbians for 30 or 40 years coming to a realisation that they are men - and want to have a deep voice and facial hair. How do you explain the mechanism behind that?" I'm pretty sure I have already done so actually. A lifetime of feeling ill at ease as a result of internalised mysogyny and homophobia, an extreme discomfort with the way others relate to you according to your sexed body, an association of your sexed body with weakness, heterosexual porn, vaccuous glamour and simpering subjugation, and access to a social narrative that says if you are uncomfortable with all of this it's because you have a male brain. Also a desire to have the body you perceive most women desire. Once the idea is accepted the internal narratives confirm and reconfirm it and your identity, developing socially as it does, fully incorporates this narrative and applies it to the sense of self and personality.

I might be more interested if being on boats didn't make me want to puke like an outtake from The Exorcist.

They tried to take me out. Nothing changed my mind.

I knew two sailors who do big sailing, is it called oceanic.

Picasso: wow. That must take nerves of steel.

swear I'm not playing the ditsy helpless female - it's only the sea that does this. I think it's a bit of a bastard! But I get the impression from sailors that it 'bites' you and once bitten you can never leave it.

To answer Lass, my point here would always be that the choices or positions we take are steered by straight society and conventional masculine/feminine divisions, either going along with them, seen or understood as going along with them, or pulling against them. The point I was making is that understanding is based on society and social aspects of gow youcarexseen and understood as a lesbian both by wider society and lesbian society. so social all along, not innate gender. yes, we all have our own personalities and propensities. But these change over time as society changes, the way Radcliffe Hall understood things, the way old style butch/femme worked, and current patterns. And just as believing your sexuality is innate works for some, for same reasons a belief in innate gender can work. Strength or utility of a belief doesn't mean it is true, and i resent others trying yet again to rope butch in as support for their own beliefs. I find social and feminist explanations a more satisying and plausible framework than innate sexual orientation or innate gender.

My salty old sea dog ex-navy missus would be laughing at the 'the idea is keeping it out of the boat' bit!

I am big yacht person Bewilderness, I was spoilt having access to the RN yachts.

If anyone wants a go? Not the scary racing bit breaking masts, just gentle sailing, we do it at weekends in the Solent. Women only.

She Sails

Picassospaintbrush
I love to sail but I like the little deadly boats best.

When the boat heels over the keel below the surface is in balance with the sail above the water, equal pressure. That is the design of a sailboat.

Sometimes it goes a bit wrong and the mast goes in the water, and snaps off and you lose your skipper over the side and have to man over board the silly fucker. All those things happened to me. And I just dealt with it. I may well have got a bit freaked out and wanted to go home but you actually can't as you have a broken boat in the sea, so you figure out how to get it back with the crew still alive. Women can do that. I know because they have, lots of them.

Anyway that was revealing! I'm just impressed and a little jealous I suppose.

But the boat leans over. A lot. And water comes on board. I just couldn't do it. The sea itself gives me a churning feeling. I feel like it's saying 'fuck you'. Plus I nearly drowned once. I like to look at it from land.

All sailors have a very healthy fear of the sea. The idea is to stay in the boat.

I'm impressed by that Picasso. I am afraid of the sea.

what are the worthy aspects of masculinity that females are typically not allowed or encoraged to express?

In my experience it has been physical stuff, and I am sure that is not uncommon given that physical size is the only difference (IMO)

I yacht race, skilled yacht racers don't need exceptional strength, if you are busting your gut you are wasting your energy, as there are techniques and equipment to manage that. The power of the wind and sea is beyond men and women to handle without kit. And yet women are still struggling 30 years after I tried to race professionally to get represented in the sport because of this fixed view. My stamina was as good as any other humans but that is ignored.

Woman says : no
Response : I disagree with your no
Woman says : why won't you take no for an answer
Response :

Analysis : responder finds consent amusing

They don't Lass. SomeDyke is saying that's the the cliche uncomprehending straight people use to try to understand lesbian couples..

There are many possible explanations for butch, but you have to start from the simple fact that society gives one overwhelming model for couples, one male, one female, one masculine, one feminine. So what do you do as a lesbian couple, or as a lesbian? You reject femininity as being a method of behaviour specific to the female half of a hetrosexual couple. You create a lesbian equivalent of masculinity, as it were, or take the worthy aspects of masculinity that females are typically not allowed or encoraged to express

I am not trying to be goady but why would a lesbian couple feel the need to reject femininity for 1 partner and create a masculine identity for that partner?

You have rejected conventional coupledom so I don't understand why you (general) you would adopt conventional masculinity?

Also genuine question - what are the worthy aspects of masculinity that females are typically not allowed or encoraged to express?

I was laughing at being told I don't take no for answer because I was disagreeing with an opinion.

You weren't disagreeing. You were laughing.

As a biological woman with a feminine gender identity you welcome periods as a rite of passage. You welcome puberty and want to make yourself attractive as a womanly woman. You welcome these things not as biological fact but as progress towards a picture you have of yourself and this includes being attractive to men. This will all be making some readers want to puke of course. Sorry about this

That describes me except I welcomed the biological changes as biological facts and for the other reasons you give. I have never been uncomfortable about the physical aspects of being a girl or a woman or being feminine. I have never experienced the sort of self-loathing which seems so common on here.

I suppose I do have a gender identity as I actively choose feminine trappings. I am not a man and I don't want to be a man or dress or look like a man. I don't wear anything which is considered masculine clothing in our society. The idea of "unisex" or "gender - neutral" is horrible to me ( it conjures up beige dungarees or primary coloured dungarees)

However I don't see my feminity as problematic or negative. I have no difficulty in being assertive or in speaking up for myself or in not taking on "wife-work" or in maintaining my career and my financial and personal independence.

SupermatchGame
That is how trans men report feeling - the need to be seen and recognised as a man, in order to be seen as themselves.

Isn't this completely different from an internal 'gender identity', though? If the aim of the transition is primarily to change how other people see you, rather than to change the way you are?

And isn't it one of those things which is always going to fail? You have no control over other people's perception of you. If that is how you live your life, with the aim of controlling how other people see you, you are going to be permanently disappointed.

"think the butch lesbian is expressing an aspect of her internal gender identity yes."
I think this is the typical lazy, institutionalized heterosexuality, innate gender bollocks thinking being repeated here. There are many possible explanations for butch, but you have to start from the simple fact that society gives one overwhelming model for couples, one male, one female, one masculine, one feminine. So what do you do as a lesbian couple, or as a lesbian? You reject femininity as being a method of behaviour specific to the female half of a hetrosexual couple. You create a lesbian equivalent of masculinity, as it were, or take the worthy aspects of masculinity that females are typically not allowed or encoraged to express. You perhaps seek to create a specifically lesbian mode of expression.........and so on. All of which are social reactions to being a lesbian in a society that has no place for you. And which has fuck all to do with anything innate in terms of gender, especially when society does not present you with any valid way to be lesbian. it's damn insulting to all our lesbian foremothers to claim that what they tried to create was innate in some sense, rather than some reaction to a society which either denied they existed/should exist, or certainly gave them no valid way to exist apart from aping what they were not. Saying it's just innate gender let's society off the hook for their effect on what lesbians created in response to the restrictions placed on us.