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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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So what exactly is gender?

184 replies

XChrome · 08/10/2024 21:14

I'm still waiting for [redacted], to explain in depth what gender is. According to many people, it's a feeling, a self-perception, which they are labelling as gender. My question would be; how do the people who are using this label for a feeling know that the label they are giving it is accurate? How do they know it's not just the result of being socialized into believing certain feelings or interests signify that one is the gender that society has deemed corresponds to those feelings and interests?
I genuinely want to know, because I have never had this feeling in my life. I can perceive only my biological sex. I have always regarded my self-perception as the result of my individual personality and experiences, not about either gender or biological sex. However, many of those experiences are sex specific, so biological sex does play into it in that sense.

Can anybody answer this question about what gender is? Can you describe the feeling and explain how you know what it signifies? Please note that this is not a goading post. I'm not looking for an argument, just an explanation.
Thanks.

[Post edited by MNHQ to remove tag]

OP posts:
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RapidOnsetGenderCritic · 09/10/2024 17:17

Snowypeaks · 09/10/2024 10:37

I agree. Extra testosterone makes anyone more aggressive - see rates and patterns of offending of women who have taken testosterone. Undeniable. But it's also important to stress that everyone remains responsible for their own actions. The hormone might give you a greater propensity for violence but it does not cause you to act violently.

Yes, I agree with this. Men with good intentions work to control their aggressive instincts and sex drive. I think feminists have correctly identified the innate tendencies for bad male behaviour, but without direct experience of being a man, they are bound to make assumptions, based on their own experiences as women.

Their assumptions are valid expressions of their experiences, but it will always be difficult for a woman to fully understand the pressures on men, both biological and societal. I regret some of my behaviour as a young man, though from my perspective it was understandable. From a woman's perspective it was probably typical "man being insensitive".

When well directed, a man's hormonally influenced tendencies can be a positive, but if uncontrolled (either by societal pressures or a desire to behave well) they are likely to be destructive.

Snowypeaks · 09/10/2024 17:08

XChrome · 09/10/2024 16:47

There is a female aggression promoting hormone as well- estradiol.
So it really isn't just down to testosterone itself.
Interestingly, estradiol has both feminizing and defeminizing effects on the developing brain.

I take estradiol as part of HRT. It has many important benefits, but too much of it can certainly lead to anger and irritability.

I did not know that! MN living up to its educational brief again! 😀

Namechangetotalkaboutmysleepingpillsproblem · 09/10/2024 17:01

XChrome · 09/10/2024 16:47

There is a female aggression promoting hormone as well- estradiol.
So it really isn't just down to testosterone itself.
Interestingly, estradiol has both feminizing and defeminizing effects on the developing brain.

I take estradiol as part of HRT. It has many important benefits, but too much of it can certainly lead to anger and irritability.

Very interesting

XChrome · 09/10/2024 16:47

Circumferences · 09/10/2024 10:23

...whether differences are innate or a result of socialisation. There are certainly feminists who have stated, here and on Twitter, that all behavioral differences between men and women are caused by the latter.

Yes the nature/nurture dichotomy is interesting.

I think feminists who believe all differences between men and women are mistaken, because surely human behaviour is a slight mix of both. (Mostly socialised on my opinion).

The propensity for violence and paraphilia certainly travels down the Y chromosome. That's pretty much why women-only public toilets were first built, campaigned for by feminists, nearly 150 years ago. (They were predictably burned down.... By men). They were campaigning on safety grounds, because of all the male aggression. I'm not sure anyone can say male aggression is purely socialised, it seems to be the testosterone. Men are "too hormonal" 😂

I mean, hormones do actually play a part in behaviour, but testosterone is a big one.

There is a female aggression promoting hormone as well- estradiol.
So it really isn't just down to testosterone itself.
Interestingly, estradiol has both feminizing and defeminizing effects on the developing brain.

I take estradiol as part of HRT. It has many important benefits, but too much of it can certainly lead to anger and irritability.

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OldCrone · 09/10/2024 16:45

MonkeyToHeaven · 09/10/2024 15:44

I think you've both missed the point.

Since we've all missed your point, perhaps you could explain more clearly what your point is. If everyone is missing it, it's more likely that you didn't explain it clearly than that we're all too stupid to understand.

If it's just some bodyswap nonsense about gendered brains being born in the wrong sexed body, we haven't missed your point, we just think that it's fanciful nonsense.

Snowypeaks · 09/10/2024 16:39

MonkeyToHeaven · 09/10/2024 16:28

No, is the simple answer. Can you? Thanks, in anticipation of something from chatgpt.

I just thought, since you had brought it up, that you had some idea. Clearly not!

Why would I be able to explain it? I am not the one putting forward the idea of a biological basis for gender/gender identity, and was hoping that a genderist would be able to explain. As I've said, it's not even clear what those terms mean when used by genderists.

And if you knew me, you would find hilarious the mere idea that I would even know how to use Chatgpt.
😁

XChrome · 09/10/2024 16:38

Frankensteinian · 09/10/2024 09:47

Testosterone means that certain behaviour will be more common in males and oestrogen means that other behaviour is more likely in females. This isn’t stereotypical bollocks, this is nature. And gender is the word to describe this general behaviour. For example men are more likely to be competitive and aggressive and women are more likely to be nurturing and seek group cohesion. This is gendered behaviour.

This is incorrect. Actually, there's evidence progesterone inhibits aggression and estrogens (most specifically estradiol) raise it in both sexes. Estrogen is also synthesized from testosterone.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2600909/#:~:text=However%2C%20while%20testosterone%20in%20general,default%20level%20of%20aggressive%20behaviour.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/governing-behavior/202208/don-t-blame-the-testes-all-aggression

www.ucsf.edu/news/2009/10/103292/estrogen-plays-key-role-male-brain-development

Progesterone modulates aggression in sex-role reversed female African black coucals

Testosterone is assumed to be the key hormone related to resource-defence aggression. While this role has been confirmed mostly in the context of reproduction in male vertebrates, the effect of testosterone on the expression of resource-defence aggress...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2600909#:~:text=However%2C%20while%20testosterone%20in%20general,default%20level%20of%20aggressive%20behaviour.

OP posts:
AlisonDonut · 09/10/2024 16:37

MonkeyToHeaven · 09/10/2024 16:28

No, is the simple answer. Can you? Thanks, in anticipation of something from chatgpt.

What point is it that you stated I missed?

OldCrone · 09/10/2024 16:35

MonkeyToHeaven · 09/10/2024 14:13

That depends on what you consider a woman's brain to be. We were talking about gender not sex anyway. Brain development starts with neurulation from the ectoderm of the embryo and takes on average, 20 to 25 years to mature. That's a lot of complex biochemistry at work, a lot of it variable, a lot environmental.

Why is it inconceivable that some brains will develop differently given different paths of development, before and after birth?

Of course brains will develop differently.

But you seem to have completely missed my point. A woman's brain is a brain in a woman's body. A man's brain is a brain in a man's body. It's not possible to have a woman's brain in a man's body or vice versa.

Both men and women have all sorts of different personalities. There are some traits more commonly found in males, and some more commonly found in females. This doesn't mean that a woman who shows personality traits more commonly found in males has a man's brain. She has a woman's brain no matter what her personality, because she has a female body and therefore a female brain (which is part of the body).

MonkeyToHeaven · 09/10/2024 16:28

Snowypeaks · 09/10/2024 15:49

Would you mind explaining how it all works, MonkeyToHeaven?

What gender is, (is it the same as gender identity), what the biological basis is, how development pathways are involved, what sex means and the relationship between sex and gender - since you were clear upthread that you were talking about gender, not sex. Also would you please use language consistently and clearly -eg if you are talking about what we would call sex, say bio sex.

Thanks in advance.

No, is the simple answer. Can you? Thanks, in anticipation of something from chatgpt.

XChrome · 09/10/2024 16:20

Colinfromaccounts · 09/10/2024 09:23

In my view, gender is the social signifier of your biological sex. Obviously it’s all balls and if a man wants to wear makeup or a woman wants to wear overalls and be a mechanic, great. But male homophobia is so strong that being seen as feminine is seen as “gay” for men and so we’ve ended up in this position where loads of men can’t accept their own feminine side.

Or they can't accept gayness itself, because in an insane paradox, being gay seems to be seen as more repulsively feminine by trans activists than being transgender is. Now, instead of being accepted as gay, young men are being told by genderists that they are actually women, and sadly, some confused gay teens are believing it.

OP posts:
XChrome · 09/10/2024 16:04

All great points, @TheAntiGardener.
Without a consensus on terminology it becomes very difficult to discuss this. Maybe we should establish a set of guidelines just for the Sex and Gender Discussions threads so that regulars all know what we are referring to. A thread about that might be helpful. I've been saying clunky things like "allegedly transgender" or "transgender identifying" and would love a shorthand we can all agree upon. I really don't know what to call people who do not identify as trans. Cisgender is ridiculous, but some other term would be handy to have.

OP posts:
XChrome · 09/10/2024 15:54

LilyMumsnet · 09/10/2024 15:45

Hi OP

We're just letting you know that we've redacted the tagged name in your opening post. It's not really in the spirit of civil debate to start a thread in this way, but we can see that you're asking a question on a wider scale too. That's why we haven't deleted it. If you have any concerns, please email contactus@mumsnet.com.

Thank you. I did not realize that wasn't permitted. I was just hoping the poster in question would join in because s/he had expressed opinions on the nature of gender which I was hoping s/he would elaborate on. No offence was intended to that poster.

OP posts:
XChrome · 09/10/2024 15:52

PriOn1 · 09/10/2024 06:19

The problem with any assessment of behaviour is that it’s impossible to say whether differences are innate or a result of socialisation. There are certainly feminists who have stated, here and on Twitter, that all behavioral differences between men and women are caused by the latter.

The reality is that we don’t know, as socialisation begins the moment we are born, so there is never a “blank state” situation and there is no ethically appropriate way to check. If however, we extrapolate from other mammalian species, it’s apparent that there can be quite significant behavioral differences between males and females, which are probably largely down to hormonal differences and which become more obvious after puberty.

The most obvious behavioural difference in humans, mainly because it’s the only one we tend to measure, which as far as I know has some consistency in various cultures around the world, is in violence and criminal offending. Some of that will be cultural, of course, but I doubt you will find anywhere in the world, where the women are more violent and commit more criminal offences than men, which suggests to me there is some innate difference, even if that is caused or related to physical differences in size and strength.

Regarding the nationality analogy, it works up to a point. I’ve often thought getting a GRA was a bit like me moving to a different country and working through the process to obtain a passport and citizenship. I’m then technically that nationality, but as I wasn’t born and raised there, I’m not really of that country in the same way those born there were. So legally I would be Spanish, for example, and the government would treat me as if I was Spanish. I might even pass as being Spanish, but I would know I wasn’t really, if I was any kind of rational person.

However, the analogy only works up to a point. Unlike sex, there are no consistent physical markers that would mark me out as British rather than Spanish. You might be able to instigate some kind of DNA testing, but even if you found I was ethnically Spanish, descended from families that had lived in Spain for millennia, that wouldn’t make me Spanish necessarily because nationality is effectively only a legal label, defined by where you were born or have lived or where your ancestors were born or lived. Being male or female is physically dictated by genetics and generally very easy to identify. It’s not simply a matter of legal labelling, although that is what gender ideologists are trying to turn it into.

As to what gender or gender identity is, gender ideologists seem to be pushing for some definition of it being “an innate understanding of what sex you are”, but I would argue that “having an innate understanding of what sex you are” ought to be closely linked to your actual sex. If you believe yourself to be the opposite sex to reality, then you probably need psychiatric help because something has gone wrong. Which is why the concept of “gender identity” needs an entire new, invented language to back it up. Without that language and the faith to believe something unproven and unprovable, the entire concept falls apart.

I don't disagree with any of that, only I'm not positive there's always a genuine psychiatric problem involved. I suspect a certain amount of it to be extreme social conformity. If you run in the kind of young, woke circles where gender identity has now become the be all and end all of personal identity, where dissent about gender identity is not tolerated, you might believe that a shaky sense of your own identity must be related to gender and that you are in fact not the gender you were "assigned." As you mature and develop a better sense of who you are as a person, you would become less convinced that it has to do with gender. That could explain de-transitioning, as it never actually was gender dysphoria.

OP posts:
Snowypeaks · 09/10/2024 15:49

Would you mind explaining how it all works, MonkeyToHeaven?

What gender is, (is it the same as gender identity), what the biological basis is, how development pathways are involved, what sex means and the relationship between sex and gender - since you were clear upthread that you were talking about gender, not sex. Also would you please use language consistently and clearly -eg if you are talking about what we would call sex, say bio sex.

Thanks in advance.

LilyMumsnet · 09/10/2024 15:45

Hi OP

We're just letting you know that we've redacted the tagged name in your opening post. It's not really in the spirit of civil debate to start a thread in this way, but we can see that you're asking a question on a wider scale too. That's why we haven't deleted it. If you have any concerns, please email contactus@mumsnet.com.

MonkeyToHeaven · 09/10/2024 15:44

roseyposey · 09/10/2024 15:29

Crazy that this needs to be spelled out but here we are, thanks to gender woo woo.

I think you've both missed the point.

roseyposey · 09/10/2024 15:29

AlisonDonut · 09/10/2024 14:41

A woman's brain is one inside a woman.

Crazy that this needs to be spelled out but here we are, thanks to gender woo woo.

TheAntiGardener · 09/10/2024 15:06

The recent thread about a checkbox for cisgender really brought home to me the consequences of using terms for which there is no consensus and the trouble with shifting definitions. You had people arguing cisgender means the opposite of transgender and someone arguing ‘woman’ is a term for a social construct unlike ‘female’, which represents sex.

How often are we getting into debates where these terms are used and we aren’t even picking up on the vastly different ways people understand them? How do we discuss concepts if there is no common understanding?

And I don’t even think there is a single cause of the confusion. Just off the top of my head, I can think of ideology, ignorance and the fact that trans terminology and concepts change at such a rapid pace as reasons why terms mean different things to different people.

It all feeds into a more fundamental issue, which is that the arguments underpinning this ideology are impenetrable and not accessible to a layperson. I have tried and failed to understand the deeper arguments behind why TWAW (by which I mean beyond emotionally manipulative obfuscation like ‘be kind’), and I’d be amazed if the average person understands it. I’m even surer that the average person hasn’t put much energy into trying to.

Anyway, I’ve seen enough permutations of questions around ‘gender’ that this is not employed in a consistent manner and people advancing the trans cause don’t fully understand/aren’t keeping up with the positions of their own ideology.

Stepping away from the real-world ramifications, there is something fascinating about how much support there is for an idea that turns what most of us previously accepted (and many of us still do) on its head while simultaneously being unbelievably intellectually complex.

Kucinghitam · 09/10/2024 14:57

So... gender is ladybrainz because <sciencey-words>?

Circumferences · 09/10/2024 14:42

As a female can I be born with a man's liver or stomach? Or is it just the brain organ that's subject to this?

AlisonDonut · 09/10/2024 14:41

MonkeyToHeaven · 09/10/2024 14:13

That depends on what you consider a woman's brain to be. We were talking about gender not sex anyway. Brain development starts with neurulation from the ectoderm of the embryo and takes on average, 20 to 25 years to mature. That's a lot of complex biochemistry at work, a lot of it variable, a lot environmental.

Why is it inconceivable that some brains will develop differently given different paths of development, before and after birth?

A woman's brain is one inside a woman.

Snowypeaks · 09/10/2024 14:37

No, it's not inconceivable. The brain of a London black cab driver, a heavy drug user and a polyglot will all develop differently because of the demands they put on it. Everybody's brain is a bit different to everyone else's because of their unique circumstances.

What development pathways before and after birth are you talking about, specifically?

And are you saying you can explain what is meant by gender with reference to those pathways?

MonkeyToHeaven · 09/10/2024 14:13

OldCrone · 09/10/2024 12:19

But none of that means that a man can have a woman's brain or vice versa, which seemed to be what that paper was arguing.

That depends on what you consider a woman's brain to be. We were talking about gender not sex anyway. Brain development starts with neurulation from the ectoderm of the embryo and takes on average, 20 to 25 years to mature. That's a lot of complex biochemistry at work, a lot of it variable, a lot environmental.

Why is it inconceivable that some brains will develop differently given different paths of development, before and after birth?

Snowypeaks · 09/10/2024 13:39

Well, I'm still hoping that one of the genderists on FWS is lurking behind a bush ready to jump out and, with a big "ta-da!", reveal what gender is.
And then tell us what gender identity is.
And if we're really lucky, what sex is, and what the relationship is between sex and gender.

Any minute now...

Funny that they're not all over this, isn't it?