What am I?

Good reminder grannyscobwebs, thanks for that

Basically what the world needs is more women like you saying:
Women can do this, women can wear this, women can think like this, women can behave like this, and if all of those things are stereotypically male then so what? Feminists have been trying to smash this for decades.

The most obvious thing about trans ideology is how male-led it is. Men don't want men wearing skirts and makeup tarnishing the pure-brand "male" so they insist any man doing this is "actually a woman", excludes them from male space to spare them discomfort particularly of a homophobic nature, and obviously any man doing this himself has worked out the perfect way to get into female spaces so the whole thing is win-win for men.
But ask any man if he thinks transmen are men it'll be a firm no. Especially from gay men.

It is worrying and shows how dangerous gender ideology is, that if you (OP) were growing up now you almost certainly would be encouraged to go down the trans path, change your name, insist on male pronouns, have a mastectomy, take testosterone.
All because women like yourself, gender non-conforming, "masculine" are not permitted to exist anymore. If you are like this now you must actually "be a man".

You ask what is gender? Well your situation is an example of what it is, a collection of arbitrary stereotypes (working in STEM/care work, wearing trousers/skirts, makeup/no makeup etc) applied to each sex by society (a patriarchal society let me remind you) and gender theorists say if you subscribe to the arbitrary stereotypes given to each sex then you must definitely be of that sex and if you don't you must actually be of the opposite sex.
Then trans ideology exploded and low and behold suddenly there becomes the perfect way to uphold and reinforce sex-based stereotypes by convincing non-conformists (which includes virtually everyone in one way or another) that if they don't conform it's because they are the opposite gender.

It's a harmful ideology and it is damaging to the feminist cause of widening women's possibilities but benefits the patriarchy by limiting them once more.

You are a gender non-conforming woman with insight into the male dominated nature of your field and it's not surprising you felt for a long time you would fit in more if you "were a man" but the fact is no one can change sex. I admire you but I worry people like you will be erased by trans ideology in the future.

You are a woman.

But do not presume that those of us who present more 'girly/womanly' or choose to wear makeup or have long hair- only talk about makeup or our hair. I like to have conversations that are ever so slightly more interesting

DuggeesWoggle thank you

I don’t hate being a woman, though like all of us I’ve suffered for it, both biologically (eg painful menstruation) and, far more, socially (misogyny and gendered expectations). Despite this I love being a woman, i love my clever body and what it can do even though I’ve never given birth nor expect to. I love female solidarity. I love women. Men don’t get that.

And penises are overrated (mind you, I am a lesbian). The only reason one might come in handy for me would be the ability to pee standing up. I can’t think of any other use for one. I love my clitoris and ability to have multiple orgasms.

Don’t let society tell you to hate your body, that means they’ve won. The second wave feminists had consciousness raising workshops precisely to address this. The most radical thing you can do is love your female body just as it is.

I absolutely agree about the importance of trying to work it out, I just cannot agree that changing one’s body by hormones, binders and surgery is the solution.

You have got a womb, so you are a woman, albeit not a feminine one.

attackkittrns wow that's a really powerful analogy, very helpful. I feel so sad for young people being bombarded with all this. I've certainly been assumed to be a lesbian in my time, and have been very happy to be a puzzle to some people. Never doubted I'm a woman though, very happy being a non conforming one.

I saw a short film with a bunch of butch lesbians talking about the impact genderism has had on them and the interview that really stuck with me was the woman who said, well, it's like feeling fat - you may have previously felt quite happy with yourself but if people are constantly asking you about your diet plans, if you want to lose weight, have you considered losing weight, skip that and directly to "so how is your diet going?", then eventually you're likely to start asking yourself "wait, should I be on a diet?"

Except with "gender" and "are you transitioning?", "what are your pronouns?" and so on. It's social pressure and it wears people down if they get constant indications that other people think something about them is or should be seen as a problem, even if in terms of their own internal sense of self it doesn't feel like a problem at all.

Right now my daughter (4) is putting on make up. Clearly feminine.

Except when she’s finished she’ll look like a cat clown. (She’s just said mouse). Normal 4 year old.

I know, it's weird. I saw a National geographic a few years ago which had people representing several different gender identical on the cover. I think if these 'choices' had been around even I was younger I might have dabbled in a bit of identifying as a bloke. The thing is, it's all so regressive, placing labels on everything, very specific labels and demanding others comply accurately with whatever gender identity is chosen. Gender is fluid, it's a nothing. It's all about how we present ourselves, like dressing up, or acting out a role. Labelling some interests as male and others female is bonkers. Seems so juvenile somehow. Who cares what people wear? It may be interesting to young people, but the older and wiser we get, the less this shit matters. These archaic and restrictive definitions of male and female dress codes and behaviour are not new, they are ancient ingrained systems for keeping women (and men) in their place. The gender binary should be smashed, not reinforced by these old fashioned ideas about what girls and boys can play with or wear. That's nonsense.
What you are doing is smashing the gender binary, in your own low key way, you are being your own woman, and you are definitely a woman because your biological sex is fixed. You are no less a woman because you choose not to wear stereotypical women's clothes, and you work in a job which is traditionally the domain of men. You sound clever and funny and I would love a friend like you. Please stop thinking about what you are. You are you. Definitely a woman, and a really cool one at that!

Watch the 'woman's place' talks on YouTube.
m.youtube.com/results?search_query=A+woman’s+place

In this brave new world, if you say you are a man

• that would be respected, you would be acknowledged as such

• will you be treated differently? People would probably tiptoe around for fear of getting your pronouns wrong, but if push came to shove, I expect in the unfortunate event you came into the path of a rapist, your assumed pronouns would not stop him. And, as you say, menstruation would continue and you would still have given birth to DC and have the past of a woman.

• but I do not think you would have to use the male bathrooms, no. Most women recognise that transmen still have female biological needs. The problem is solved by talking about menstruating people, so men can menstruate too - having periods is no bar to being a man in this brave new world.

You are a woman. Who dresses and acts and lives in a way that suits her.

Your biology is what makes you a woman. The rest is just clothes and personality

KataraJean I appreciate the time taken - you gave a really good explanation of how the gender/sex theories have changed over the years. To someone who is new to the theory side of things that's really clear and helpful thank you.

Should have said

Second wave feminism - late 1960, 1970s and into the 1980s

Third wave feminism - late 1980s and 1990s into early 2000s

Queer theory - 1990s until now.

My post was trying to explain when these different ideas gained currency. Not sure if it makes sense

What is supposed to be the differences in genders then? If it’s not your anatomy or how you Present?

Well from what I can gather the answer is how you feel? Does your innate sense of whether you are a male or female match up with what your body says? Which is a massively subjective thing - surely we can all have times when what we feel inside doesn't match the outer appearance. The disconnect with physical reality now is that many people say that they were never a man or woman, they were really the other (or neither) all along but the silly old doctors 'assigned' the wrong sex at birth. I find that a bit worrying really. If we take away any physical classification of who is man or woman, what are we left with? Subjective and changeable feelings.

And yet women are still and have always been disadvantaged because of their physical characteristics so surely these things need some form of protection in law.

That took me ages to type and the thread has moved on, I had not read it all when I posted.

Yes, what belonger said. If you are questioning this as a mother who has given birth, breastfed and obviously knows the reality of female reproductive organs, what maelstrom must this open up to young women who want to reject feminine stereotypes and wear/dress/present as they like.

There are three things and they should be kept separate.

Sex - sometimes called gender by people too polite to refer to genitals - your sex makes you female (otherwise no babies would have come out). This is a simple biological fact.

Gender - this is the way society expects men and women to act. So going back to the 1950s, the idea that women should aspire to motherhood, be nurturing and caring of the family home and this was the correct way for a woman to be, if she was herself properly brought up (see the psychiatric and psychoanalysis literature of the period for an explanation of this)

Gender - also used by second wave feminists to highlight and challenge that ideas of gender are malleable and change over time and place. Hence, whether you are a woman or man does not affect what you should wear, be paid, be allowed to do etc. (Note: Second Wave feminists made a distinction between gender and sex, in so far as also campaigned for abortion rights, same sex refuges and so on, because women seem to be oppressed on the basis of their sex; the third wave I think argued that gender is performative and cannot be disentangled neatly from sex, nonetheless the idea remained that gender is an external presentation of masculine/feminine)

Gender identity - comes also in the first instance from psychiatry, and is the innate understanding we are said to have from age two about whether we are male or female. But again, a distinction used to be made between sex identity (where dysphoria was an outcome) and gender identity, where the biggest problem (in 1950s psychiatry, specifically psychoanalysis, eyes, not mine) was not behaving in ways becoming to a woman.

My question about this is - the concept of gender identity was born in the late 1950s/early 1960s before the push for greater women’s rights and freedoms of the 1970s. Why has it gained currency again? And why has it gone from niche psychiatry to mainstream? And even in the 1950s, gender identity and sex identity (re dysphoria) were not the same thing. So the other stepping stone is queer theory, which breaks down established categories including sex, gender and sexuality, in the early 1990s which I think is what has led us into the current mess.

But even then, queer theory does not make sense as an explanation, because gender identity and the idea of being trans presupposes rigid categories one can transition from and to.

So in short, one can spend hours trying to work it out, but in reality we know that women, taking sex as the signifier, are the group of people who have historically and culturally been distinguished by virtue of having female reproductive organs and discriminated against by all the baggage that brings. Women can not identify out of greater rates of poverty due to caring responsibilities, they cannot identify out of rape, sexual abuse and sexual objectification, they cannot identify out of the physical damage of menstruation, menopause, endometriosis, prolapse. These are things we know - and can accept without being heteronormative or imposing feminine dress code and working/domestic patterns on women.

In short, one should be able to be a woman (sexed body), present as one wishes (masculine/feminine/why not do away with such concepts altogether) and not be questioned as to whether one IS male or female. What other great things could you being doing if your mind was not taken up by this?

Also this