Does the Transgender community have a problem with well evidenced science? Does the community only ever accept favourable reports, AKA confirmation bias, or is it something deeper?

Hang on all this o called science is psychology/social studies which is not actual science.

I'm conscious the focus of my post above is GID (gender identity disorder) but do think that the focus on the literature on this may also actually support the perspective that any claim that "gender identity" is a unanimously settled and innate default human experience may be driven more by sociological influences than supported by unambiguous consensus science and agreed definitions.

But am very much out of my depth now.

And tired.

Just interested, too! Clearly, there's a Thing. Of course trans people "exist", as the infuriatingly obvious saying goes. But I'm wary of reductive categories outside those founded in solid science - and especially wary when such categories are used rather aggressively to deny my own experience (and in the name of validating someone else's).

I feel really uncomfortable around any questioning of the views of a ‘community’. I’m not sure all trans people think the same way about issues, any more than we’d assume all women have the same view on any topic.

Sure there are some loud Trans campaigners, and some of them are nutcases, but logic would dictate there are probably plenty of trans people who just quietly want to get on with their lives without everything being a political debate.

These kind of angry shout-outs to the ‘community’ are just so unnecessary. Imagine asking the Muslim ‘community’ to comment on Hamas or the White ‘community’ to comment on the actions of the US republican party. It makes no sense.

This is number 8 on that list.

https://philarchive.org/archive/BYRTOO-7

He mentions Stoller and Greenson's original (1964) definition of gender identity, which is the one described by Katie Alcock in the article I posted a link to earlier in the thread:

Gender identity is the sense of knowing to which sex one belongs, that is, the awareness ‘I am a male’ or ‘I am a female’

He goes on to discuss how that meaning has now been lost, and replaced with the near-circular WPATH definition: “a person’s deeply felt, internal, intrinsic
sense of their own gender”, where “gender may reference gender identity, gender expression, and/or social gender role, including understandings and expectations culturally tied to people who were assigned male or female at birth”, which completes the circularity.

He concludes: “Gender identity” has gone from being well-defined to
being ill-defined.

I thought the name Alex Byrne sounded familiar. He wrote this article which I remember from a few years ago.
https://medium.com/arc-digital/what-is-gender-identity-10ce0da71999

He's also written a book.
http://www.alexbyrne.org/trouble-with-gender.html

Which of those are demonstrating the 'basic science' that proves that everyone has a gender identity? That's your claim.. And that's not what you've provided evidence for here.

Just one more. This is fascinating. I'd say the dominant impression these articles give is that gender identity is far from settled in the scientific community. When we consider that, in addition to the scientific literature being undecided, the term is being used by laypeople in relation to an infinity of different demographics, contexts & scenarios, often with political underpinnings... well, my impression is, that Dadjoke's link to articles using the term rather supports the perspective that this is a fluid, complex sociological phenomenon with innate elements we don't fully understand and are positively struggling to conceptualise, let alone to label in a meaningful way.

People who express a sense of discomfort with their anatomical sex and related roles have been reported in the medical literature since the middle of the 19th century. However, homosexual, fetishism, gender identity disorder, and associated conditions were mixed together and regarded as types of sexual perversion that were considered ethically objectionable until the 1950s. The first performance of sex-reassignment surgery in 1952 attracted considerable attention, and the sexologist Harry Benjamin reported a case of 'a woman kept in the body of a man', which was called transsexualism. John William Money studied the sexual consciousness about disorders of sex development and advocated the concept of gender in 1957. Thereafter the disparity between anatomical sex and gender identity was referred to as the psychopathological condition of gender identity disorder, and this was used for its diagnostic name when it was introduced into DSM-III in 1980. However, gender identity disorder encompasses a spectrum of conditions, and DSM-III -R categorized it into three types: transsexualism, nontranssexualism, and not otherwise specified. The first two types were subsequently combined and standardized into the official diagnostic name of 'gender identity disorder' in DSM-IV. In contrast, gender identity disorder was categorized into four groups (including transsexualism and dual-role transvestism) in ICD-10. A draft proposal of DSM-5 has been submitted, in which the diagnostic name of gender identity disorder has been changed to gender dysphoria. Also, it refers to 'assigned gender' rather than to 'sex', and includes disorders of sexual development. Moreover, the subclassifications regarding sexual orientation have been deleted. The proposed DSM-5 reflects an attempt to include only a medical designation of people who have suffered due to the gender disparity, thereby respecting the concept of transgender in accepting the diversity of the role of gender. This indicates that transgender issues are now at a turning point.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22844818/

I'm a Procrastinator Extraordinaire today.

""trans is not real""

Literally no one on these boards has argued that trans is not real?
I'm genuinely so sick of seeing this brought up again and again as if anyone is arguing this.
NO ONE is saying trans people don't exist.

Scientific American cover and part of article. For @HydraDominatus- and anyone else interested.

The most recent edition of Scientific American contains a feature article in the 'Psychology' section entitled "Families Under Attack'. It is written by a 'freelance science writer', Maria Broadfoot, who 'has a PhD in genetics and molecular biology'. My rough calculation makes it around 4,000 words in length. The only analysis that is in any sense 'scientific' is an infographic headed 'The Growing Map of Anti-LGBTQ Discrimination'. (It means, of course, 'Discrimination against LGBTQ people'). This shows which states were considering 510 'anti-LGBTQ bills' in 2023, and which passed 84 of them during that legislative session.

It includes some other statistics: 'about 25 percent of high school students are not heterosexual, according to a 2021 survey' (the survey is not identified); "Nearly half of LGBTQ kids seriously considered suicide... according to a survey ... conducted by a nonprofit group that offers crisis services.'

But most of the article is mainly personal accounts of what individuals have experienced as they seek 'the gender-affirming care they need'. The writer's research involved '20 parents and their kids'. A 'six-year-old transgender girl' is mentioned.

It will take too long to go through the entire article; but what comes across is a mind-set from the writer, and presumably the magazine and its publishers, that the right way forward is to help 'kids embrace their authentic selves'. There is nothing about biological reality or the damage of puberty blockers.

So, to return to @HydraDominatus' original question: yes. But it seems that even so-called 'scientific Americans' have no interest in science in this area.

I cannot link to the article. However, I shall try to post, separately, a photo of the first page of the article. (I tried that earlierand lost the post.)

I don't consider people who vaguely gesticulate in the direction of a particular search term pulling up a few thousand wildly diverse articles with, as ppl have pointed out, very different definitions of the search term, to be seriously engaging on this topic.

I don't consider conflating knowing what sex you are with a man thinking what he feels must be "woman" feelings, begging a million questions, to be a good faith argument.

Just skimmed the links provided. Opened a range at random & read the abstracts. Not a scientist, but found it interesting that of the four I chose, each one had a subtly different interpretation of gender identity, & several highlighted it as hard to define/categorise.

The inclusion of the "gender identity" field in the Brazilian violence surveillance system, although representing a step forward, still has limitations that may compromise epidemiological data validity. Existing response options for victims' identities do not adequately cover the diversity of this analysis category, resulting in classification biases.

However, it remains unclear what aspect of gender the children participating in past studies essentialized. Such studies used labels such as "girl" or "boy" without clarifying how children (or researchers) interpreted them. Are they indicators of the target's biological categorization at birth (sex), the target's sense of their own gender (gender identity), or some third possible interpretation?

Hospices are the last place of medical care for most patients before their death. Female patients who have taken part in palliative therapy have reported feeling that their femininity was 'taken away' from them by their illness, which in turn negatively impacted their mood.

gender, identified as a social source of variance

So what do you think this experiment tells us?

Can anyone find any peer-reviewed articles which suggest that gender identity is a belief or isn't innate?

I thought that view all ended with the very sad Reimer case which undermined the view that gender identity and sexuality was entirely environmental. It also estblished that non-transgender people have a gender identity.

https://www.simplypsychology.org/david-reimer.html

Could you say what the serious issues are, please?

There are 3490 articles on pubmed - knock yourself out.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=gender+identity

Ta, @DadJoke.

PS. Just realised my "rarely indulge in sarcasm" post (ugh, cringe) sounds insufferably smug. Love reading FWR for the arguments first - but then, hot on their heels, the amazing general knowledge & fab (sarcastic!) witty humour! Sometimes, it honestly feels like the only way through this shit. Keep it coming please, people - you do it so much better than I would if I tried.

denying the basic science around gender identity

What is the basic science around gender identity @DadJoke ? Can you post some links?

gender critical people or most scientists

You seem to be assuming that these are two mutually exclusive categories. Why is this?

@Catiette I will get back to you on your main answer I hope, tomorrow- again - I appreciate the nuance of your post, your patience, and you willingness to engage.

Oh gosh, I certainly didn't make those reasons up! I read them in the many interviews with adult trans people published in pro trans ideology media.

It is interesting that this information is so often supplied when, as you are hinting at, it does kind of work against the "gender ID not matching sex" narrative. I can only surmise that it's a story that makes sense to the individual, and that's understandable. It is very very hard to confront past trauma.

The definitions you’re so keen on. What type of scientists do they come from? Who is performing this ‘basic science’?