Spreading the idea that everyone has a gender identity

So what am I getting wrong?

This:

"Whether that corresponds to your physical body or social role I have no clue,"

Describe the 'social role' that defines the word woman. Then apply it to a man who identifies as a woman - describe that.

autistic lesbian woman with no gender identity

Sorry I do not understand - you have called yourself a woman. As soon as you say "I am a ..." or "as an ..." isn't that your identity? In my understanding that means you do have a gender identity (a woman) Whether that corresponds to your physical body or social role I have no clue, but you think you're a woman and surely that's all it takes to have a gender identity? If you didn't have a gender identity at all wouldn't you say for example "I have a female body and I operate in scoiety as a woman but I don't think of myself as a either a man or a woman?"

But obviously you don't agree. So what am I getting wrong?

LaSqrrl, I'm not telling anyone off! It was just a thought and one I have voiced here before.

I have no wish to police anyone's language. I just think that the word "gender" has been used to obfuscate and that plain words could be used to help shine a light on exactly what trans ideology represents.

Interestingly when all this first started, transwomen did indeed resort to stereotypes to explain how they felt. But stopped pretty quickly when feminists pointed it out.

It was funny to read at the time though Datun, those stories of "I started on estrogen, then suddenly lost the ability to read maps!"

You couldn't make it up if you tried.

Beachcomber sorry about your comment deletion, I thought the longer one was quite good, and cannot for the life of me remember on what possible grounds it was deleted.

A later comment though (about the word 'gender'):
I think it has become a word that feminists should stop using because most people don't realize that we are using it to describe a system of social order. I prefer to use "sex caste" as coined by Sheila Jeffries because it is a much clearer term

Feminists did not invent it (it was in use before the second wave), however, the second wavers used "gender roles", which at least partially illustrated what was going on. More recent feminist analysis has gone further, stressing that 'gender (stereotypes)/gender roles' are in fact, a hierarchy, with female-born people on the bottom, and is in fact the primary mechanism for our collective oppression within the system of patriarchy.

Sheila Jeffreys is quite spot on coining 'sex caste', because our limitations in life are primarily based upon which sex caste we are born into (the shit one, according to patriarchy).

I am not sure who you are telling off for using the word. In the current political climate, there are many women now GC that would not necessarily be RFs (but some look like they may go there). But more importantly, patriarchy is actually a 'moving target', they keep shifting the goal posts constantly. So there is never any 'one true way'. But at least in this current political climate, the misogyny is quite exposed - it was harder to fight when they (men) pretended to be nice (and 'just not quite getting it'). As we can see by Labour, currently it is men on the left.

Pre 2010 only a transperson with a GRC could use single sex services. But the U.K. needed to acknowledge those who transition but don’t get a certificate

@Elletorro but I couldn’t enter youth clubs or be sent to a youth prison. No one would ever agree with how I ‘identify’ no matter how strong my ‘feelings’ were as it’s biologically incorrect.

Isn’t that what trans rights origionally were, so that men/women could dress in a certain way without being ridiculed for their appearance.

blackdoggotmytongueagain

I had male born trans people explaining to me that they had to give up hobbies they enjoyed because they were stereotypically masculine hobbies,

I genuinely don't understand this. How would anyone know what hobby someone had?

Blackdog, I'm no supporter of gender stereotypes but it seems to me that, if gaining a GRC doesn't refer to the Individual performing stereotypes in some way, how is it possible to establish someone's bona fides?

Because it's not possible for someone to "feel like a woman" if they are male, you can only "present" as a woman. If you don't the whole identity thing falls apart.

Gender identity is utter rot for most people I have spoke to about it. I have yet to come across anyone who has an 'innate' feeling of being a man or a woman, and oddly enough, this goes for transsexual people I know too, who also do not have this sense of woman-ness/man-ness either. It seems to be something that only 'transgender' people have. Which is curious. Even more curious, is that a-gender comes under 'transgender' anyway. So all of these people who do not have a 'gender identity' now join the 'transgender' crew in being trans, and voila, 100% of people are trans. Best get onto GIRES and co to let them know this huge development.

It’s at least understandable that trans dogma relies on innate gender identity as a construct when they have been required to claim it by the govt. chicken/ egg.

I know I’ve related this anecdote before, so apols. The GRC process as is/ was, relies on gender identity (as in adherence to a set of gender stereotypes) in the form of RLT to approve or deny legal sex status. Gender was translated into law at that point, and any trans person wishing to acquire legal status had to prove adherence to gender stereotypes in order to get legal sex status. I had male born trans people explaining to me that they had to give up hobbies they enjoyed because they were stereotypically masculine hobbies, and continuing to indulge in them would endanger their desire to be legally recognized as a woman.
As someone who rejects any notion of gender stereotypes, this is abhorrent. The law dictates that trans people abide by gender stereotypes in a trade off for status.
(The idea that such status is up for grabs at all is entirely another subject - and one which these days I would fall in the side of ‘abolish the fuck out of that’ - but I do recognize that those people whose body dysphoria was alleviated by transition were/ are obliged to perform stereotypes.
The law is an ass.

It's a tool, a transwoman mechanism.

I don't know where the word 'transwoman' came from! Sorry. It's just 'mechanism'.

I certainly don't think the trans ideology invented gender. Trans people are as much a victim as women. But until they see it that way, they perpetuate it.

SarahCarer

I don't think anyone disputes that people are, or can be, trapped by gender. It's what underpins feminism.

Women calling it a social construct doesn't miss the point. They are merely giving the final conclusion to a whole heap of analysis.

Gender is used and always has been to subjugate women. 'Women are...' - fill in the blank. It's a tool, a transwoman mechanism.

Interestingly when all this first started, transwomen did indeed resort to stereotypes to explain how they felt. But stopped pretty quickly when feminists pointed it out.

You will now never, ever hear an actual explanation or description of what their 'female gender' feels like. Just that they know. No words can be formed around that knowledge though.

Reason? Being a woman isn't a feeling. Therefore it cannot be described as one.

If you read any detransitioning narrative it's pretty obvious that the person has been rejecting society's expectations. Men who reject toxic masculinity and laddish behaviour. Women who reject, and try to escape from, men's objectification of their bodies and behaviour.

The people who remain resolutely unpersuadable generally know full well what you mean, but don't care because they have different skin in the game.

I don't think my ideas on this are fully formed, so I apologize ahead of time. For me, identity is comprised of the things that guide a person, like a kind of basic programming. I think most of this is innate but can be over/under emphasized via socialization. But everything else is essentially running a program. Gender is basically a program that we run/reject. But I don't believe that the gender program, if you will, is ever a thing we are. I will refer to pps' examples of gender programming that was once a mark of the male leisure class. I hope this made sense/ was coherent.

Yes it's nonsense to think you can choose your identity in some kind of vaccuum. And identity doesn't alter biology. Most identity is formed socially. It is as much about who we are not as it is about who we are. It is how we think of ourselves as distinct from the rest of the world. I identified strongly as a girl because I rejected masculinity. Now I reject femininity too and I find that a great relief. But if who I am is the kind of behaviours you can predict that I will exhibit then there is still a great deal of socialised femininity there whether I like it or not.

I agree with all that leyat has posted on this thread. Thank you, SarahCarer. I think I see where you are coming from now. Personally, I don't believe that any one can "identify as" anything. A person either is or is not. I don't "identify as" a vegetarian, I am a vegetarian. I don't eat animal flesh. A person cannot be vegetarian and eat animal bodies, however it seems to me a person could "identify as" a vegetarian while eating a bacon wrapped steak. This is appropriating a word and it's associated conotations without DOING the thing. I am DOING woman because of my body's adult and female development.

Sarahcarer

I agree with you about taking it back to basics. Many of us have 20 years or more of feminist thinking underpinning our positions.

The teenagers in the eye of the storm are still baby feminists contending with gaslighting and “choice” feminism

One can feel like a man or a woman, by accepting stereotypes as part of one's personality. The world has converted the meaning of those words to masculinity and femininity. The biological meanings of the words are being consigned to history.

I feel like the unarmed defensive tactics instructor I was thirty years ago, until I try to get up out of this chair.

I feel as sexy as a sideboard. My identity is therefore furniture based I guess.

Oh god no I don't. Not at all Sarah.

Oh you're on a different tack sorry.