PM on Radio 4: what is gender identity?

Oops. That's going to upset IW

he's confused himself isn't he (ED)

Thanks for highlighting. Tuning in.

should be interesting

I ‘d be interested to know more about how ‘imprinting’ might be a factor in creating a confused sense of identity in humans, in the way it is sometimes known to in the case of other animals. For example, when a duckling sees a boot after being hatched, instead of its mother, then follows the boots everywhere they go thereafter. Or, when a young, rescued wild animal is penned with another infant species in a sanctuary, and then when released tries to join a group of that different species even though it costs them their life.

Socialisation away from the norm is interesting in animals too, for example when a rescued fox befriends a chicken it has been kept with, or a dog doesn’t chase a cat it lives with. In these cases though the fox and dog would revert to chasing different chickens and cats outside.

I can certainly imagine body dysphoria being horrific, when it occurs - if I had a triple row of teeth for example. But even with normal body changes is not very easy to accept the changes of puberty at the best of times, or finding you hate the way you look for some other reason.

It might also be discomforting to accept being a certain sex if your parent of that sex behaves in a nasty way to you, or made you feel ashamed; or if they seem physically repellant ( dirty, lacking in self care, unpleasant habits). Or if the male parent seems misogynistic or vice versa both to their partner and/or to their opposite sex child. Conversely, a positive experience with a family member must make that phenotype attractive.

All in all, whatever a sense of self identity is, it must involve a complex interaction between the mind, the body and experience. Even just what a person does must create identity - dancer, singer, accountant, builder etc. The elements involved must extend so much beyond gender. It seems odd to fix on that. It is very worrying that children and teenagers might do so because of them being given the wrong impression.

I agree with a poster above that the actual sex of a person might well have more effect on behaviour than is currently believed - the expression of sex is not entirely social imo.
Though it is probably not possible to disentangle sex, experience, social conditioning, inborn personality, and the mind from each other.

But as for 3 year olds, I do think that they only consciously ‘know’ they are a girl or a boy in the simplest terms, based on the typical ways boys and girls look, and what they have been told. Their sense of self does seem to be strong enough though not to think they are like their pet, as far as I know. Though if they are brought up with a dog or cat they will play at being them, and might display a bit of ‘sibling rivalry’ with them. Conversely animals may try to act more like a child with their ‘parents’ when they live with a small child.

timeisnotaline

India is clearly an idiot of the highest magnitude and anyone who agrees with India is the from the same school.

I actually think it might not be today sorry, I just saw the screenshot on someone else’s post, I’m off work unwell and didn’t check it. So might be old and even since deleted. I do think it’s what India really thinks though, that cervix comment sounded very genuine!!

timeisnotaline

If that is a recent tweet, I think the media needs to stop giving IWilloughby airtime. They are not progressing the discussion. This focus clearly is taking a toll on them. If they want to just live their life and be happy, they need to walk away from the constant conversations.

The problem is when your belief is based on superficial foundations that lack substantive knowledge and depth, you are having to prop up those beliefs all the time.

I think India must have been being extremely disingenuous on the radio if this is from today… so they can tweet it but say something different on the radio when someone can reply??

She was imagining that sex roles in animals is similar to gender identity in humans.

That's the thing, for me. My objections to "gender identity" are practical and reality-based ones, rather than a philosophical objection.

I do believe that there are statistically very real sex roles, and that to a significant extent there are sexed brains.

Not enough to justify any sort of discrimination or anything, because the overlap's too wide, but the behaviour distributions of males and females are not the same.

But "gender identity" is clearly not this sex role, because the vast majority of males claiming to have "female gender identities" clearly act VERY VERY male. And vice versa. It's just made up self-justifying nonsense.

Gender identity claims do have predictive value, sort of - males claiming "female gender identities" have clear characteristics, when taken in conjunction with their orientation. But it does not correspond to the claim. They don't act in more female-typical ways than other men.

The most clearly sexed brain thing is sexual orientation. To even remotely claim an "opposite-sex sex role" you'd have to be homosexual at a bare minimum. If that isn't included in the "sex role", nothing is.

And you'd have to objectively and logically test - claiming to "feel like a woman" is a very male-typical thing. It's actually part of the male sex role. Doing so should giving "male" points on a sex role score, not "female".

But this isn't a useful way to organise society, even if objectively tested. Behaviour, including any objectively detectable "sex role" is too much of a spectrum. It makes no sense to categorise based on it. Actual sex is the only practical split for things that need to be split, as well as being the important factor - the actual body. The vast majority of things shouldn't be split.

Reading that discussion back, I wonder though about this hard push from trans people that they know better than anyone. Without acknowledging that there are so many motivations for gender identity.

And that so many trans spokespeople have constructed some pretty precarious explanations and yet if they are questioned they fall back on the hyperbolic accusations.

And this ‘trans people are their own experts’ mantra is just as false as others.

It is feeding into the new ‘no debate’ era.

Hey PigeonLittle.

Thank you for the transcript.

From IW’s words: …all have an awareness of what sex we are, what gender identity we are by the age of 3…

Sleight of hand, interchangeable in IW’s head but in reality not. Wouldn’t it be great if we could pin some definitions down? It would immediately show this smoke and mirrors operation up for its lack of rigour and consistent logic.

BTW I think if IW actually knew anything at all about animals they would realize that it is very common for females to hunt or both parents to care for eggs/chicks. It often relates to how difficult it is to rear those young, whether the young have to grow very fast, or food is difficult to find etc, (think of the Emperor penguin at the South Pole for example, trying to keep a chick alive in sub-zero temperatures) If they are going to give examples at least do some research.

Just saw one of my fellow pandas being mentioned.

Come and see the amazing non-binary panda!

As if pandas didn’t have enough problems already

Within, please note tbe occupation of the politician and the laws around gender parity in party elections (?) not clear on the precise area.

Belgium destroys women's only spaces www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4415855-belgium-destroys-women-s-only-spaces

I remember when IW said on BB "I am a real woman, let that penetrate".

I've just started a thread that demonstrate when this is allowed to penetrate politics at the highest level.

@PigeonLittle
Thank you for doing this big thing.

IW began by talking about gender as an identity, then swopped to speaking of lions and penguins’ gender roles as apparently SAHDs. It is very confused.

Firstly, no human has to stick to any gender role - a woman can go out hunting for banking loot, and a father can stay at home looking after children and cooking - both without feeling ‘unaligned’ or needing gender reassignment.

Secondly, lions never give up their male traits. Incoming lions want to kill the cubs of other males. Established males aggressively defend their pride against intruders. They mate as males. The lionesses give birth and look after cubs in a crèche within their pride.

Pigeon that is very, what is the right word? Enlightening.

Oh yes! Emma Barnett would be IDEAL

For no reason at all, I decided to transcribe this today. I was going to do a word count but I've already spent ages. I can't bear to look at it any more!

Intros

ED: First, I asked India to explain what she sees identity as and what it means for her.

IW: Gender identity as far as I'm concerned is just quite simply who you are. And we all know that, it's recognised that we all have an awareness of what sex we are, what gender identity we are by the age of 3 . And certainly in my own case, I can't remember a single day when it wasn't on my mind. My earliest recollection and for the first effectively half of my life. It was the first thing I thought about in the morning, and the last thing I considered before I went to bed as well. It was constantly nagging away that something wasn't quite right. And gender identity, the feminist side will strongly disagree with this, but we all have a gender identity, all of us. You only really notice it if it's in conflict in some way...

ED: Different from...

IW: Again, from my own experience it was a constant conflict for me and as soon as I transitioned I never think about it any more.

ED: It's all aligned, and so...

IW: It's all aligned, and if you actually look at nature, just very quickly, this thing that gender doesn't exist or it's just a manmade thing and people go to politically correct classes to adopt certain roles, it's just nonsense. If you look at lions or penguins, they have really unusual gender roles where the Dads stay home.

ED: Look, would a way of thinking about it as being in your case, when you were a child you had the body and you had a soul and they were misaligned. Is that a kind of simple way of looking at...

IW: Yeah, I wouldn't use soul as such, whatever seed is in us. It's our head that's our identity.

ED: You were a girl, you were born with a guy's body.

IW: Yeah, well it's that, I can't have a brain transplant so I changed my body.

ED: Right. Kathleen, anything you can or can't subscribe to in what India has said there?

KS: Well, I'm sure we are going to disagree on quite a lot of that to be honest. But I do absolutely subscribe to the idea that some people have a strong psychological identification with an idea of the opposite sex, or with androgony if they're non binary. And a strong dysphoric disgust or distaste for their own sexed body. However where I would differ from India, I think there's no good evidence to suggest that everyone has a gender indentity and that they know what it is by...

IW: There is.

KS: …by the age of three. Now why I am sceptical about that is because actually not all three year olds understand the concept of bioligical sex. They don't even necessary understand, they're slowly at that point acquiring the concepts of men and women and able to recognise them, but they're not able necessarily to apply them
But...

KS: ...consistently. And certainly gender identity is not the same thing as sex.

ED: But Kathleen, do I have a gender identity? I sort of feel that if you lopped off my kit and you gave me hormones to grow breasts I Would still feel like a man inside. And I, I suppose that's sort of in a way gender identity isn't it.

KS: It could be yeah, I don't know Evan (laugh) I think it's a personal matter.

ED: Well, right...

KS: But feeling like a man inside or feeling like a woman inside, you have to unpack that a bit. Like, what does that mean, and in practice when you ask people that it means it quite often means "Well I fit more with the stereotypes around the opposite sex than I do with the stereotypes around my own sex." Well, some people feel that way, and some people feel perfectly fine in their own bodies but that doesn't mean that their strongly identified with the stereoptypes around their own sex. So there's a continuum of positions here, and many of us don't feel we have gender identities. Now since it is defined as a very personal feeling, if you don't have it, you don't have it.

ED: Do you accept that some people will feel they don't have one India? That Kathleen doesn't feel she has a gender identity, she's a woman, based on biological sex..
IW: Absolutely, it's up to the individual.

ED: Yeah, good

IW: And as I said at the start if there's no conflict going on you're completely unaware, it's like...

ED: Like your bones, you don't... Nothing wrong with them...

IW: You don't. If look at, I've just heard Kathleen say there that there's no evidence, I'd invite all listeners to go on the NHS website or the WHO and look up when we all become aware of whether we're a boy or a girl. We, we... You certainly knew you were a boy.

KS: Even the NHS is fallible, even the NHS.

ED: Kathleen, you ..

IW: But it's interesting we have philosophers disagreeing with doctors and experts in the actual field and trans people who are actually trans.

[….]

ED: Let me…

KS: Philosophers have a strong history of analysing feelings and the thing about feeling is that it's essentially felt. It's not like bones where other people can look in and observe them and say what's happening to you. And many people are unaware of tiny bones in their bodies but they still have them. But feelings are by definition felt, so if you don't feel them, you don't have them. Now...

ED: But you are at the end of the day a philosopher arguing with....

KS: I just wanted to add... I know and philosophers have said...

IW...the NHS and trans people.

IW...You're a philosopher. You’re not trans.

KS: I am. You've got me there India.

ED: Let's just get into this Kathleen. You may not have what you would call a gender identity...

KS: I do, I do actually. I do have an affinity with the masculine actually I just wanted to make that clear.

ED: Ok

KS: I think I do understand something of having a male gender identity and I do feel times at very odds with my own sexed body. So it's not actually something I don't have experience of. But I take it seriously when other people tell me that they don't.

ED: Right. And you take it seriously when people say they do have a gender identity, it's not the same as they're biological sex and that is their lived experience and they want to be respected for that and live by that.

KS: Yes

ED: and as a philosopher you don't have any objection to that...

KS: No, I've got no objection to that. Now, the only objection I have is when claims about gender identity are brought into replace claims about sex. In particularly important contexts.

ED: OK, and that's things like safe spaces for women, should that be based on biological sex or gender identity. And India, can I just be clear - you accept the existence of bioligical sex and it has importance in certain contexts?

IW: Of course, we've all got a biological sex but it's intertwined with your gender identity as well. In Kathleen's view, gender identity is like going into a shop and probably picking a pair of shoes...

KS: ... No it isn't.

IW: It's all very nice and pleasant. But for trans people, it's because their innate internal biological gender is in conflict with their sex so you try and marry it up.

ED: Kathleen, I just don't quite understand why this is such a vicious argument. Because could we not agree that there is such a thing as gender identity, there is such a thing as biological sex. To some people it's the gender identity that's most important, and to some people it's the biological sex that feels most important to them, defining of who they are. Now, who would disagree with that summary? Kathleen, would you disagree with that?
KS: Well, no. My book has got a chapter on gender identity where I argue there is such a thing as gender identity and it's important to take it seriously. However, so, so, speaking for myself the reason I got involved in the politics of it and the reason it gets, it seems to me to get, so vicious is because these institutional claims are being made on behalf of gender identity. So it's no longer just an interpersonal matter of respecting someone's gender identity in conversation or trying to understand who someone is. It's telling us we can't mention biological sex, that we can't track it...

IW: No, you can.

KS: ...that we can't have Woman's spaces... Well, thanks.

ED: At least, at as far as India is concerned, that's not a problem.

KS: Thank you, that's great.

ED: India you agree with my little summary there, that some people will find their biological sex the more important defining notion of who they are?
IW: They will, absolutely. But where I would disagree with the essence of what Kathleen's argument is, at the end of the day Evan, this is a really rare thing. You would be forgiven if you landed from Mars and arrived in Britain for thinking there's a plague of trans people causing chaos and being a threat to society, it's simply not the case. We're 0.5% of the population, so half that again, 0.25%, is trans women which is what all the controversy is about. So you’re looking at how many of those 0.25% of the population would be dangerous or a threat to erasing the word woman. It's tiny.

ED: I don't want to get into the applications, I want to get into the philosophy and the personal experience of this. I think this has been a really helpful discussion and I'm grateful to you both. Would you each be up for having further discussions about this, because it is really difficult to have discussions like this. Maybe we go somewhere and we talk to one or two other people who have views on this. But India would you be up for that?

IW: Yeah

ED: And Kathleen would you?

KS: Definitely.

ED: I'd like us to do that on PM over the next couple of months, I think we want to, I do want to shed light on this debate. We've made a very good start here and I'm grateful to both of you thank you.

I do like Victoria Coren, a lot actually, but she doesn’t always know quite so much about particular subjects as she thinks she does. I’d be pretty sure that both she and David Mitchell think that gender ideology is nonsense, but it’s only their pal Robert Webb who’s said anything publicly about that subject.

Emma Barnett would be a good chair I think.