Is there any such thing as gender identity?

Pain is also perceptible.

We don’t make laws that divide people up into “pain sufferers” and “non pain sufferers”, then assign people to one or the other of these categories whether they think they’re in pain or not, though, do we?

And while we don’t know the cause of many diseases, we can measure signs and symptoms. If your blood sugar is normal, you don’t have diabetes.

Your position on medicalising flies in the face of self-ID, by the way. Is this an issue, do you think?

"It is subjective. It isn't a thing, an entity, an object, it is a psychological process, an experience a way of relating to self. "

You mean it's like pain.

as has been pointed out before (it was a few pages ago, you may have forgotten), pain is measurable and observable. There are specific physiological reactions to pain that can be detected and measured. A person's subjective reaction to pain is only part of it.

Pain is measurable

Even in carrots apparently

But not necessarily in every case. No one knows the cause of type 1 diabetes for example. If they find the cause in 90% of cases, they won't assume the other 10% don't have it - they will just start looking for additional causes.

we are not talking about identifying a cause, we are talking about diagnosis. If the brain studies you mentioned showed what you claim they show, it should be possible to use them to contribute to a diagnosis.

Why would a condition that is treated medically using hormones and surgery not have a measurable, observable means of medical diagnosis other than self-declaration?

You mean it's like pain.

So you would find it equally bonkers to tell people who do have a gender identity that they don't by, for example, claiming that gender identity doesn't exist?

Again, this is another 'all or nothing' statement that actually reflects YOUR position and not many people posting on this board.

Sure, gender identity may exist.

It can be neither defined even adequately so that everyone can work out if they have one or not, nor can it be proven.

The point is, why is someone's gender identity (that may or may not exist) taking priority over the rights legislated for the protection of women and girls against sexist discrimination due to their sexed bodies. (and for good measure: their bodies that are formed around the production of large gametes, whether those organs have functioned, are functioning or will in the future.)**

If there were no conflicts at all in those provisions, including safe single sex spaces, sports, education and employment opportunities and health requirements, we would not be having these conversations at all.

[**ridiculous that we need to qualify our sex with this definition in 2021, but here we are because there are some people who feel they can use the word female in ways that make the word absolutely meaningless - which, from what I have read, seems to be the aim]

But not necessarily in every case. No one knows the cause of type 1 diabetes for example. If they find the cause in 90% of cases, they won't assume the other 10% don't have it - they will just start looking for additional causes.

Brains are plastic in many ways, but there is no evidence that they are plastic with regards to gender identity:

www.endocrine.org/advocacy/position-statements/transgender-health

"Considerable scientific evidence has emerged demonstrating a durable biological element underlying gender identity.1, 2 Individuals may make choices due to other factors in their lives, but there do not seem to be external forces that genuinely cause individuals to change gender identity."

Yes I agree entirely Ad.

It is subjective. It isn't a thing, an entity, an object, it is a psychological process, an experience a way of relating to self.

We don't dispute that it is an experience some people have, just that it is something not everyone experiences, not a way everyone relates to themselves.

Not a tangiable thing.

Not a thing to base laws and legislation on.

An inperceptable experience isn't an experience at all.

It is subjective. It isn't a thing, an entity, an object, it is a psychological process, an experience a way of relating to self.

We don't dispute that it is an experience some people have, just that it is something not everyone experiences, not a way everyone relates to themselves.

Not a tangiable thing.

Not a thing to base laws and legislation on.

An inperceptable experience isn't an experience at all.

If my position is wrong, and gender identity is more than a belief, and your position is correct, and it is a biologically evidenced fact, then what should we do with this knowledge? What should the next area of research be?

This is butchery of logic and I can't bear it

It really is.

I’m sure that logic is, like, totally a tactic of the alt-right by now.

Dad joke

Asks the question am I a woman, then that's my identity

Unfortunately The answer for me depends on what woman is

If it's "am I class baby grower " then yes

If it's anything else , I am not sure. I would suggest not, as I am no different in any other way to any other man

The analogy I have heard is this.

We all have multiple personalities; it is just for most of us, our multiple personalities are all exactly the same, so we don’t notice them.

Well that’s unprovable, isn’t it?

The same with a gender identity that you don’t notice because it matches your sex. If it is imperceptible, how can you prove it is the norm to have one?

"you’re suggesting that women don’t know our own minds,"

Which is like telling trans people they don't know their own minds by suggesting that gender identity doesn't exist.

No! We are telling trans people that Gender Identity is a personal belief. We know you frickin well believe it.

You don’t even understand what the gender critical position is, do you?

This is butchery of logic and I can't bear it.
Substiture gender identity for "believe in God" in your "logic" statements.

"God doesn't exist and it’s bonkers that you’re telling me that he/she does exist"

So you would find it equally bonkers to tell people who do believe in god that god doesn't exist, for example, claiming that God doesn't exist?

I have never said that gender identity doesn’t exist. People are welcome to believe that they have gender identities, in exactly the same way as they are welcome to believe that they have souls, and they will hear no objection from me.

So you would find it equally bonkers to tell people who do have a gender identity that they don't by, for example, claiming that gender identity doesn't exist?

"you’re suggesting that women don’t know our own minds,"

Which is like telling trans people they don't know their own minds by suggesting that gender identity doesn't exist.

It's similar with other gender identities

And yet we spend aeons debating what it is to be a woman and exactly no time at all debating what it is to be a man.

Weird, that.

Your second paragraph doesn’t make any sense. You’re basically saying that when a person says “I don’t have a soul”, they’re saying religion doesn’t exist. This doesn’t follow at all. I don’t believe I have a soul, but I honestly couldn’t give a marmalade sandwich if everyone else believes they do. They are free to, I won’t stop them. I don’t have a gender identity and it’s bonkers that you’re telling me that I do, when your aim in even engaging with this debate is presumably to defend people’s rights to define and name their own gender identity!

You are in a complete logical tangle. And as a PP said, you’re suggesting that women don’t know our own minds, which typically doesn’t go over well in feminism. Believe you have a gender identity all you want, but you can’t compel me, and you certainly can’t do it using shoddy logic.

@dadjoke What a strange thing to say.

The definition of woman is not human with a feminine gender identity, it is adult human female.
If it were human with a feminine identity, then I am not a woman and at some point in my 40 years on earth someone has changed the definition without my consent.
Woman has always meant female sex to me, not a gender, not feminine, and not female gender identity, not "has to like certain things and behave certain ways". Just descriptive of the cunty group and their shared biological reality.

Perhaps other people have always felt that woman describes the socially constructed aspects of an ideal and stereotypical female and we just never knew, but I doubt it, since woman now includes anyone female, unless they specifically identify across or out and anyone who identifies in. So it includes many who don't identify with gender.

Unless someone is suggesting I am not a woman because I dont identify with gender or should be forced to identify with gender.

Much more likely the definition has been slyly and deliberately queered. Post modern queer theory explicitly states that this is its aim.

Personal Identity comes from a similar root to identify. To identify with. I may be a doctor or a miner, but doctor or miner is not my identity unless I identify with my profession/job. Many people do, they construct themselves value and meaning and sense of self out of that identification. So it is a thing for some people.

Ask the question "Are you a woman?" If the answer is yes, then that's your gender identity, by definition. It's similar with other gender identities.

But this is entirely useless as a definition as it doesn't exist as an external reality at all. What do I, as a woman, have in common with a male who says "I am a woman"? It is not a category that can meaningfully contain us both.

So what’s the word for those of us who have found our life experience and therefore “identity” is profoundly shaped by the material fact of being a female human being?

And who have nothing aside from our species in common with male human beings who “identify as” women?

Since we’re apparently not allowed a word to describe ourselves. I’m going to keep calling myself a woman, to honour my own history and my own body.

That is not a “gender identity”. I know what gender identity is by observing males who assert one. I don’t have that and I deeply resent any implication that I do.

If the answer is yes, then that's your gender identity, by definition. It's similar with other gender identities.

Maybe, but even if that was a "gender identity" a gender-critical person saying they're a "woman" is clearly not the same gender identity as that of a male saying they're a "woman".

It's the same word being used for two totally different definitions. The first person is saying it because they're female. The second person is saying - well, we don't know what they're saying.

Someone who eats meat can call themselves a "vegan" and that might be their "food identity", but it's clearly not the same "food identity" as someone who doesn't eat meat, is it?

And I think vegans could be rightfully irked if told that someone who ate meat and called themselves "vegan" had the same "food identity" as them, and should be treated as the same group. ("Why won't you eat burger - those vegans eat burgers. Burger-exclusive bigotry!")