Believing in gender is a bit like believing in God

*thankfully the church

No idea how the word "security" crept in. Crazy phone.

Just to add another thought...

There will always be bad apples who claim to hold a belief just so they can have access to feed their needs. We read about these people all the time... In the gender identity world it's the "it will never happen" threads. In the religious world it's the awful stories about child abuse in the church.

There will be GAP (rearrange letters) men who claim they have a gender identity but in reality they don't believe in it. Just as there will be clergy who claim to believe in God but don't really believe in Him.

Perhaps some of these bad apples do believe, who knows. But I suspect the majority just see an easy way in.

Obviously I'm not saying that all transwomen or all clergy fit this description. Unfortunately, there seem to be some very influential ones in the world of gender identity who are having their voices amplified and enabled
Thankfully the security church has more of a handle on shutting these voices down.

I'm unclear then @BonfireLady why you don't think challenging the foundation of gender identity ideology is a good thing to do? Besides it not being "kind", of course? To which I would say that lying to people isn't always the kindest thing to do.

Ah, but what if people decided that Madrid is now called Paris? It's the modifying of language I find terrifying.

Yes, exactly this. Good analogy.

Yep. I'm with you. I think we're saying the same thing, just expressed slightly differently.

One key change I've made since starting this whole exploration is that I don't use the word gender to describe sex-based expectations or stereotypes. I used to talk about "gender stereotypes" but I've realised that by doing so, I'm implicitly signing up to the idea that I believe in gender as a concept. I don't.

I too challenge sex-based inequalities in expectations, law, sports and so on. It has permeated all of these because gender and gender identity have been presented as fact. Much as the early laws based on religion were in the UK - and still are in Iran, where it is unlawful for a woman to have her hair uncovered.

As I've said many times on this issue, a belief that Paris is the capital of Spain is a belief. And you're free to believe it, but you're wrong.

Ah, but what if people decided that Madrid is now called Paris? It's the modifying of language I find terrifying. It's more than a religion. It's a cult.

And not just a belief, but an industry and a political ideology.

For me, it's b. So it all becomes a circular argument (I don't think she's expressing two alternatives, just the same thing through a different lens), underpinned by the fact that gender, gender identity and being trans are all very real to someone who believes in gender (identity). Just as God is very real to people who believe in God.

It is, but as someone who believes that sex stereotypes are regressive and harmful, I can't support this belief, and I'm allowed to challenge its legitimacy. You are seeing it in the same way Joyce was describing, IMO. A belief that's been constructed to reify sex stereotypes, that you think has legitimacy by the fact that people believe in it.

i think you're right!

No probs, I will try but it's testing the limits of my head for philosophy. The thoughts are very much there in my head but getting them out clearly is the challenge 😁

This is where it gets ambiguous.

Assuming these were Helen Joyce's words, this could mean either:
a) rather than a variation of a reality about the human body e.g. a person has the "wrong body", so is inclined to "correct" it
Or b) rather than a variation of how humans react to their environment e.g. a man who is told that what he does is "feminine" comes to believe he is actually a woman

For me, it's b. So it all becomes a circular argument (I don't think she's expressing two alternatives, just the same thing through a different lens), underpinned by the fact that gender, gender identity and being trans are all very real to someone who believes in gender (identity). Just as God is very real to people who believe in God.

Most people don't actually think. They don't have reasoned, balanced arguments for picking one side over the other. It's clear from some of the responses on this thread, for example, that some people have some very odd conceptions of what mainstream Christian beliefs actually are.

I think it very much is a natural variation of what humans are. Humans who react to their environment.

Could you explain further what you mean by this @BonfireLady? I'm not clear.

I think TRAs would argue that GC people don't understand their position.

What do you think they think we're missing exactly, @NotMyBagButCrackOn? If you know.

I understood was that she thinks that being trans exists because of the society we live in rather than it being something that occurs as part of the natural variation of what humans are.

Interesting, thanks @NotMyBagButCrackOn . I'd still love to hear/read her original words but building on your understanding of what she said, it breaks down in to two parts for me.

Being trans exists because of the society we live in

Having read her book, I can understand this viewpoint. Believing that gender identity is real feels like a very understandable reaction in some ways, considering most societies have sex-based expectations. Also, like all stereotypes, there is a degree of truth that there are female and male stereotype behaviours. However, not everyone has every stereotype, whether that's sex-based or anything else. I'm very tall - not stereotypical for my sex. But I'm still a woman.
Also, many societies reject "feminine" men, having decided as a collective what is considered male and female. Matt Walsh is a great example of such a gatekeeper.

rather than it being something that occurs as part of the natural variation of what humans are

I think it very much is a natural variation of what humans are. Humans who react to their environment.

Not too dissimilar from religion...
From my viewpoint, religion came to exist thousands of years ago to help people make sense of the world (how did I get here? How was the earth formed?) and have a moral compass.

I agree with a PP who says that as a collective, we are predisposed to want to have a core belief that is deep within our soul/psyche. Religion or gender identity both give this. Personally, I spent a very long time feeling religiously agnostic (approx 10 years) because there were some things that logic couldn't explain. There still are but I'm OK with that not being explained by a deity. However, I totally understand why a belief in God does explain the bits that I can't explain through science and fact. Likewise, a belief in gender identity will feel very real to people as an explanation why sex-based stereotypes exist.

@Ereshkigalangcleg absolutely, along with many other things I could list - climate change denying being another one. It’s as if one section of society has rejected religion on the basis of it being at odds with science (I don’t think it is but that’s a whole other thread) but then replaced it with other belief systems popping up everywhere. Like we are a bit lost now with what to believe and what moral code we should be following..

Things like trans ideology step in to fill that gap…just a theory!

It's an interesting theory. Also, as I understand it belief in things like alternative medicine and astrology are going up, not down, so that speaks to it too.

For me, this is where it starts to get tricky. My natural "be kind" instincts kick back in, for which I make no apology, because it's very easy for a trans person to interpret this as literal i.e. denying their existence as a person.

You don't have to apologise for your "be kind instinct". And I don't have to apologise that I see it as misguided, and think it's not always kind to lie to people.

I think TRAs would argue that being GC is like a religion.

This is why it's so polarised. Both sides see themselves as seeing the truth as it is and the other side as being close minded and illogical. I'm not sure there can ever be a resolution unless something changes in the way both sides engage with each other.

Yes, that's what we call a DARVO. Believing in the reality of biological sex rather than someone's imagined "gendered" soul is founded in reality. Any political position is a belief, but only theirs of the two has a metaphysical belief attached.

As I've said many times on this issue, a belief that Paris is the capital of Spain is a belief. And you're free to believe it, but you're wrong.

I tend to see things like what Helen Joyce says as reflecting medical issues. Is there some kind of medical diagnosis that corresponds to a real physiological thing called transgenderism? I take her position to be "no".

The same way we know there are other medical categories that turn out to be misunderstood, or sometimes entirely wrongheaded. And especially with psychologically based illnesses or mental illnesses, there is plenty of disagreement about how many of them operate, what they really represent, how to categorize them, whether they are one thing or sets of unrelated things, or what.

You do see people get quite upset when there are discussions of whether, say, autism, or PTSD, or ADHD, exist in the way they are typically understood. I've seen people react quite strongly to a suggestion that ADHD is largely a condition created by inappropriate school environments for young kids.

but none of that means those discussions are illegitimate, quite the contrary. It does suggest some interesting things though about how people depend on labels.

I agree, for example most genderists seem to dismiss JKR's essay as "wanting to exterminate trans people etc etc" but have never actually read it.
It's infuriating, and is in fact ignorance in action.

This is definitely true. However I wouldn't be surprised if this was also true of some people who claim to agree with her essay.

@BonfireLady I heard an interview with Helen Joyce where she said that and what I understood was that she thinks that being trans exists because of the society we live in rather than it being something that occurs as part of the natural variation of what humans are. I don't agree with her on this point but I think some on here will.

*copy or video
i.e. her exact written words (written by her) or a video of her saying them

That’s really interesting and I often think that as well. For full disclosure I’m religious myself and believe in God. However, I was having a discussion with someone the other day about how we are now in a ‘post Christian’ society ie far far fewer people believe in God and religion now that previously, but humans naturally need a ‘belief’ or some ideology to follow. Things like trans ideology step in to fill that gap…just a theory!

People - like Helen Joyce - who say transwomen don't exist only mean no-one exists who has changed sex or who has a gender identity of the Stonewall kind.

For me, this is where it starts to get tricky. My natural "be kind" instincts kick back in, for which I make no apology, because it's very easy for a trans person to interpret this as literal i.e. denying their existence as a person. Personally, I wouldn't say anything that could be interpreted so ambiguously when it's likely that a vulnerable person (and by vulnerable I mean someone who needs mental health support to understand why they think their body is not "right") will interpret it as denying their right to exist. There was a really interesting discussion thread some time ago where a poster brought up the concept of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. There was a great discussion about why trans people are fearful and the kind of behaviours (and interpretation of what they hear) this leads to. Obviously there could also then be plenty of people amplifying the "trans genocide" message just to stoke things up, as well as those motivated by a genuine fear.

Does anyone have a copy of video of the exact words that Helen Joyce said? I heard her talk recently about how she needs to be careful because she has been misquoted. Is this the kind of thing she is referring to?

I agree, for example most genderists seem to dismiss JKR's essay as "wanting to exterminate trans people etc etc" but have never actually read it.
It's infuriating, and is in fact ignorance in action.

You can't reason with people like this.

Belief in gender identities is just a belief. Like a belief in star signs, or gods.
I wouldn't doggedly insist that St John from page 3587 of the Bible "wanted to exterminate all horses" unless I'd actually read that part of the Bible in curiosity. Genderists don't seem capable of being that inquisitive in understanding what people are actually saying.

I think that's probably right.
Similarly, I don't think there's an English language, peer-reviewed philosophy journal in which you could publish a paper that opened with,
"We take as our starting point the existence of God. God's existence is not to be debated."
Whereas Hypatia and other respected journals are publishing articles by people like Robin Dembroff that open with things like,
"We take as our starting point that trans women are women. The gender identity of trans women is not to be debated."