Is there any such thing as gender identity?

"Trans women as a class are not a threat to cis women. By all means point to the evidence from a non-GC feminist source that trans women are as violent as cis men. Cherry-picking examples of individuals is not evidence."

Re evidence..., burden of proof again. Currently toilets are single sex unless you have a GRC, (whether Stonewall thinks they are or not) if you want to change that, the burden of proof is on you to provide evidence that trans women are not a risk.

Having said that, any source that says something you dislike is GC but are MOJ statistics on incarcerated transwomen convicted of violent and sexual offences GC?

Again, though that is assuming that any of them are bonefide transwomen, every single one of them could in fact be just men that say they are trans, that straight predatory men will not pretend to be trans in order to access their erotic target is just naive and if spaces are gender neutral, they don't even have to pretend,

There is also a FOI by the Times that looks at stats on attacks in gender neutral facilities too.

The thing about loos is that I have indeed been sharing facilities with transwomen for decades, by implied consent, without issue. If at any point I had felt uncomfortable or under threat, then I would have had legal protection and societal consent to explicitly withdraw consent, complain, report, cause a fuss. Women can identify a male with great accuracy, they are also pretty good at spotting predators. Most Trans women have a gentleness, a softness, everyone can spot it. No one is arsed, we can all pretend.

If you make it a social expectation and a legal right that anyone can identify into a single sex space, regardless of attitude, and double down on it by making it impossible for women to object, then every entitled aggressive idiot gets to don a bodycon skirt and a glitter beard and walk in unchallenged, and those societal norms are gone.

They form a soft barrier but they are effective.

Rights need to be balanced. Trans gender people as a class are not a threat to non-transgender people as a class, so you can't ban an entire class of people without a very good reason.

More tired old trope.

As people have pointed out, it is MALES that are causing the impacts on the rights for women and girls. ONLY males. FEMALES (regardless of if they want the rights) should always have the protections that are in place. This issue is the conflict of rights with people prioritising their gender identity over the sex based needs of females (due to a millennia of sexist discrimination because of our female sexed bodies).

If a transman or a NB female don't feel they want access to those rights, that is their choice and they may well change their mind in the future, and have probably benefited from them in the past with out ever thinking about them or who fought for them. But they are there.

And enough with the emotive language use. Banning? Really? Like ANY males should ever have had access to these rights in the first place?

[** a reminder that female refers to the body type that has developed around the function of producing large gametes, whether this production has ever happened, is happening, or will happen in the future. A disclaimer that seems to be needed in 2021.]

How would you know, given that if you can't tell, you don't know that you can't tell.
Most TW transition after male puberty so they are not tiny. They are the size of average males. Yes, we can tell, almost always. It seems to me you don't have a lot of real life experience. I have met a lot of TW throughout my career. Most of them described themselves as transsexual and male - and they were all bigger and stronger than me.

that only makes sense if

Given that Shiz can't actually define "male", the chance of getting him to define "trans women" is minimal.

Trans women aren't males, and the evidence suggests they do not offend at rates typical of males.

This should be obvious, but that only makes sense if you can explain who is and isn't included in the group 'trans women'.

What are they transitioning from then?

How would you know, given that if you can't tell, you don't know that you can't tell.

"Even those who do are taller and stronger than women."

I've met Jazz Jennings - she's tiny.

"You really have no idea do you?"

Great argument.

Trans women as a class are not a threat to cis women. By all means point to the evidence from a non-GC feminist source that trans women are as violent as cis men. Cherry-picking examples of individuals is not evidence.

Frankly I don't care about toilets. I care very much about the language I need to protect my access to education, work, participate in government etc. because of my sex.

However, I feel you should be aware that according to Stonewall and others, there is no class of trans women. 'Trans' is a state of mind, not a group of people who need specific rights.

Trans women aren't males, and the evidence suggests they do not offend at rates typical of males:

Here's a study:

journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016885

And here is the scientist who headed the study discussing the results:

www.transadvocate.com/fact-check-study-shows-transition-makes-trans-people-suicidal_n_15483.htm

"Dhejne: The individual in the image who is making claims about trans criminality, specifically rape likelihood, is misrepresenting the study findings. The study as a whole covers the period between 1973 and 2003. If one divides the cohort into two groups, 1973 to 1988 and 1989 to 2003, one observes that for the latter group (1989 – 2003), differences in mortality, suicide attempts, and crime disappear. This means that for the 1989 to 2003 group, we did not find a male pattern of criminality."

"As to the criminality metric itself, we were measuring and comparing the total number of convictions, not conviction type. We were not saying that cisgender males are convicted of crimes associated with marginalization and poverty. We didn’t control for that and we were certainly not saying that we found that trans women were a rape risk. What we were saying was that for the 1973 to 1988 cohort group and the cisgender male group, both experienced similar rates of convictions. As I said, this pattern is not observed in the 1989 to 2003 cohort group."

"The difference we observed between the 1989 to 2003 cohort and the control group is that the trans cohort group accessed more mental health care, which is appropriate given the level of ongoing discrimination the group faces. What the data tells us is that things are getting measurably better and the issues we found affecting the 1973 to 1988 cohort group likely reflects a time when trans health and psychological care was less effective and social stigma was far worse."

"There you have it. To be clear: No, the study does not show that medical transition results in suicide or suicidal ideation. The study explicitly states that such is not the case and those using this study to make that claim are using fallacious logic. No, the study does not prove that trans women are rapists or likely to be rapists. The “male pattern of criminality” found in the 1973 to 1988 cohort group was not a euphemism for rape. No, the study does not prove that trans women exhibit male socialization. The “male pattern of criminality” found in the 1973 to 1988 cohort group was not a claim that trans women were convicted of the same types of crime as cis men."

Now remove the second one's brain, and try the same test.

Ah but what about if you remove their full bottoms?

Seriously, Shiz, I really don't want to imagine what your lab looks like.

Lets take a young transitioner who passes easily, and lets assume you are a fairly average woman
Let's not. You always seem to want to take as an example a young tw who passes easily. Most TW do not pass. Even those who do are taller and stronger than women.

the life of a passable trans woman is so like yours in so many ways that the only notable difference is that the trans woman can't get pregnant
You really have no idea do you?

Even if there were an incontrovertible objective test for gender identity, GC feminists would still not accept that trans women are women or trans men are men, so we can put down objections based on subjectivity as disingenuous. So saying "we can prove that transgender peoples' brains are different," even if it were true, simply won't wash with GC feminists.

Again, and as always, we have to have a common reference before we can agree on anything. If we're disputing whether someone is something or not, we must first determine what that something is and what conditions someone must meet to be that something.

Objective test - easy enough to define:
has right or wrong answers and so can be marked objectively; repeatable - same test done with different tester and testee delivers same outcome with same answers; externally verifiable.

Gender identity - personality based on preference or dislike for sex stereotypes and sex role stereotypes associated with one or the other sex. No agreement currently exists as to how many stereotypes one must embody to meet the threshold for one or the other gender identity; no agreement as to the degree of acceptance required (wholeheartedly embracing; acquiescing; tolerating; objecting; rejecting; loathing); no agreement across time and space as to the actual stereotypes - what is coded one way in this society is coded another way in that one. What was coded that way a hundred years ago is coded the opposite way now. No agreement currently exists that it is a universal human trait. And if all those who lay claim to a gender identity called woman are women, what happens to those women who state they don't have a gender identity?

Which brings us right back to the start - what is the definition of a woman? What is the objective test for membership of the group called women?

So, I reject your assertion that I would not accept a claim that is based on logic, reasoning, material facts and evidence. Because if we had agreed a mutually acceptable basis for the understanding of the terms and the necessary conditions that must be met for someone to qualify that holds up to scientific analysis, I would concede the point.

Now remove the second one's brain, and try the same test.

You have now discovered the difference between who you are and what you have.

On the basis that trans women have been using the loos that match with their gender for years, and that self-ID in other countries has not affected crime stats in bathrooms in the States, it's simply not true.
Two questions for you:

1. Do you believe that males as a sex class commit most of the violence against women?
2. If so, what do you think happens that changes this when a male says "I am a woman"? In any case it's not just about safety. It's about the right to female spaces. I have travelled in female-only sleeper cars on trains and slept in female-only rooms in hostels. I could not have done that if a male had had the right to be there. Obviously that changes nothing for you. It's only women who are being asked to give something up.

Why then does that body part superceed my muff?

That must tickle.

[quote Gerla]@shizuku Could you please tell me what as a woman I have in common with a tw and how does it help either of us to be in the same category? We have completely different needs.[/quote]
Depends on you, depends on the trans woman. Lets take a young transitioner who passes easily, and lets assume you are a fairly average woman.

So you both experience sexism on a daily basis, you are both afraid of being raped, you are both subject to the gender pay gap and limitations on the progress you can make at work.

You both have boobs, and female fat distribution, and a voice in the typical female ranges, and female musculature, and you probably both want to be mothers.

I mean I could go on, but the life of a passable trans woman is so like yours in so many ways that the only notable difference is that the trans woman can't get pregnant. If you are infertile, you share that with her too.

No.

HTH, OP.

(At least not in the sense the ideologues mean it: that there exists an ineffable essence intrinsic to any person called a gender identity. I accept it as a term to describe a person's faulty beliefs/wishes about themself, but otherwise, no. No such thing.)

"This may surprise you but the brain is a body part."

Reducing me to a body part, grumble, grumble.
Why then does that body part superceed my muff?

On the basis that trans women have been using the loos that match with their gender for years, and that self-ID in other countries has not affected crime stats in bathrooms in the States, it's simply not true.

Likewise, even if you accepted that trans women as a class were no threat to cis women, you would still oppose trans women using women's loos, so again, this argument is disingenuous.

link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13178-018-0335-z

"Even if there were an incontrovertible objective test for gender identity, GC feminists would still not accept that trans women are women or trans men are men, so we can put down objections based on subjectivity as disingenuous. So saying "we can prove that transgender peoples' brains are different," even if it were true, simply won't wash with GC feminists"

That's true. Women = sex class of female, adult human female, so gender identity is irrelevant.
"Similar arguments raged around homosexuality for a while, before we accepted that gay people are gay and that it's not a mental disorder, regardless of any test or biological basis for sexuality"

That was a civil rights movement to gain equality in law, trans people have full civil rights already. If the gay rights movement had tried to remove my existing rights and dissassociate the meaning of the word woman from sex and reattatch it to gender, thus appropriating the words we use to describe ourselves and organise . I would have had something to say about it I can assure you. The gay rights movement was not ideological, it didny try to destroy binaries or warp understanding of biology.
In a similar vein, by no means all trans people are gender ideologues. Many are GC.

I have been reading about cognitive theory and gender schema theory. Very interesting and a possible explanation for why some people have such a concrete sense of their gender and it being so integral to their personhood.

I do not believe gender steroetypes are innate, as discussed earlier I think humans are physically and behaviourally dimorphic with overlap and the stereotypes take no account of the natural overlap. If you fall in the overlap, you would have sterotypically gendered behaviour and I can totally understand that you would feel innately like the opposite sex. Indeed you may well be more X than quite a significant number of people of the opposite sex. Thus gender can never be anything but a stereotype and gender identity a mental affinity with the stereotype in the form of a schema or mental map of what "being a woman" (or man) is.

Masculine women exist get over it. Feminine men exist get over it. What I just can't get my head round is why people can't just accept this and integrate it into their mental maps, rather than making the categories impermeable and rigid and claiming to be the other thing (or neither)

It also chimes with what my F&F who do have a sense of gender identity say. I have had this debate with my partner and a teenage neighbour and when pushed both say ( along the lines of) they don't literally believe that TWAW/TMAM, they know that gender is socially constructed and they know that fixing gender and then allowing people to cross over and opt out seems strange.
They acknowledge that a world free from gendered expectation would be a better solution, but that the world is what it is, and that because people are oppressed by gender, it is not realistic, so gender ideology is a satisfactory compromise or perhaps a consolation prize when the goal of universal acceptance with complete freedom of self expression is not achievable.

I mainly think that women are not oppressed because of their "gender identity or gender" but because of their sex.

y that measure GC folk are extremely idealistic. We expect more of humans and society, we are looking for the utopia of men and women, masculinity and femininity in any combination to be accepted and acceptable. With the only exception being that safeguards and language remain. Gender ideology and the concept of a fixed innate gender identity seperate from sex is also sold as freeing people from the confines of sex expectations, but in reality gender itself is the thing that confines.

Raising a gender-aschematic child in the midst of a gender-schematic society’ (Bem, 1983) talks about trying to remove the influence of gender schemas altogether. This is also bollocks in my opinion since that denies the fact that a slight majority of each sex will conform to steroetypes and have those preferences and behaviours.

Surely the solution is to make sure the schemas are not reinforced or forced on anyone. Seperating the concepts of sex and gender and acknowledging that gender is socially constructed and flexible already does this and we seemed to be moving forward (slowly)

If you then undermine sex and make it about gender (for the sake of a few people with a 10 ton concrete mega schema) i.e. gender identity, we go backwards.

@shizuku Could you please tell me what as a woman I have in common with a tw and how does it help either of us to be in the same category? We have completely different needs.

Rights need to be balanced. Trans gender people as a class are not a threat to non-transgender people as a class, so you can't ban an entire class of people without a very good reason.

Trans gender people aren’t a threat.

An ideology that enforces the concept of gender and campaigns to remove language and policies that others need to protect their rights is very much a threat.

The census is an obvious example of this.

Gender ideologists are not analogous to gay people. They are analogous to the church.

Trans gender people as a class are not a threat to non-transgender people as a class,

No. Males as a class are a threat to females as a class.

No-one here is proposing treating people differently because they're trans at all.