So what exactly is gender?

Many of these posts suggest that gender is a costume. One worn, or adopted in behaviours or attitudes. Which imply that gender exists. That it is a thing - outside of grammar.

I do not think it exists other than as a concept.

The nationality analogy is just an analogy.

It's for one a completely different thing to whether you're male or female.
It secondly doesn't change the fact that people of all nationalities no matter where they've been born or who there parents are or what passport they've had or what citizenship test they've passed, are all either male or female.
And their sex matters.

I live in France and am a gender non conforming female that went into construction. I have also lived in 3 other countries coming to England in the 1970s. Maybe I can help.

A Brit who moves to France, who wears berets and Breton tops, and constantly has a Gauloise hanging on their bottom lip and shrugging at every question would be viewed as a complete twat and in no way would be 'accepted' by the local French community.

A Brit who moves to France, accepts that they know nothing, gets constantly bemused and confused by the French Bureaucracy, who does their best to learn the language and treats the French culture with respect is much more likely to integrate but will never really be accepted as 'French'. They will always be British. And they will be accepted as British and probably introduced as a Brit forever to their friends.

I don't think any Brit is actively turned on by the idea of being a bit of a Saucie Frenchie when they pop a Beret on in or out of the bedroom. And no French person would want to be part of that sex game, unless it was agreed in advance. They would think you are out of your tiny mind.

And women are not turned on by wearing jeans and t-shirts - unlike men who are turned on by wearing lingerie to work and by invading female spaces.

Which is the part of the analogy you are completely missing.

I have no doubt that it is more complex than a single spectrum. There are many spectrums, such as gentle to aggressive, or fluffy to rugged, or nurturing to ambitious, and where anyone fits into cultural expectations is a mix of all of them. I know of no-one who is at all the "masculine" extremes or all the "feminine" extremes. I also question the validity of many of these spectrums.

@AuntyBumBum

I think I understand what you're trying to say up to a point.

I don't have ginger hair and can't stand Irn-Bru or whisky but that doesn't make me a non-Scot (possibly Scottish non-conforming).

If someone dresses like Russ Abbot's CU Jimmy, lives on haggis and drinks Dewar's and Irn-Bru all day long, does that make them Scottish?

No, it makes them an irritating parody with a dose of xenophobia chucked in, so very similar to a TW in that respect.

I think where your analogy falls down is that I was born female, will always be female. I happened to be born in Scotland to Scottish parents but if I'd been born in say, Germany to a Scottish father and an Irish mother and moved around a lot because of their jobs I possibly would feel more a "citizen of the world" than Scottish, Irish or German.

But I'd still be female.

(Apologies if that is your point, looking over this before I press post I think I've confused myself).

Who are we to know

Who knows really

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.

Yes, I understand what you are saying. My replies are explaining why I think you are wrong.

In your example, the Anglophile does not "become" English to anyone until they have actually moved to the UK. If they did all these things and stayed in the US, they would be seen as an American with a weird obsession about being English (and very likely laughed at by English people who would know that a single human can only ever express a limited aspect of their culture, not a quality that is "Englishness"). This is in contrast to gender identity where it is asserted that ones identification with the social constructs of the sex one is not is seen as an meaningful quality that others should accept and honour as making you objectively aligned in some way to the opposite sex.

Going back to your American Anglophile, if they did move to the UK, you might accept them as "English" due to their legal status but you'd surely also be aware of their Americanness? You'd not suddenly assume they'd had the same cultural touchoints as you, and you'd probably get a bit miffed if they started talking about "our" English childhoods. You mentioned in passing adopting an English accent but clearly that would be critical for people they met, even if they were a bit more nationalist and gatekeepy about it to take them as English. But by the sme token, if it were then to become known to those people that the person had consciously adopted this accent and that their native accent was American, it would not be seen as a natural expression of their English identity, it would be seen as inauthentic and deceptive. Far from being accepted as somehow "English by Angophilliac identity" they would be seen as a fraud. Being an Anglophile is not what makes someone English. It can be a legal status, or it can be a from birth experience, (and they are different things - the from birth experience of Englishness of someone who is not legally English does not confer the right to legal Englishness at a certain level of cultural Englishness), but it is not a self-defined affectation.

So I think you have (perhaps unwittingly) given a great illustration of the genderist linguistic sleight of hand here. Yes, we might well accept them as "English" if they move to England and take English citizenship and we want to be welcoming and inclusive to people who move to our country, but that is done not in recognition of their "Englishness of personality" if you see what I mean, it's an expression of our choice to extend legal Englishness. We'd do the same if they'd legally emigrated from China and had no interest in an "English" personality at all. The two things, their Anglophiliac "English" persona and their acheivement of legal "Englishness", are separate and not dependent on each other. They could have totally different names and nothing would change.

Absolutely spot on 👍

That was just an example, there is increasing evidence that prenatal androgens impact on aspects of gender development. They suggest that "prenatal androgens have facilitative effects on male-typed activity interests and engagement (including child toy preferences and adult careers), and spatial abilities, but relatively minimal effects on gender identity."

You might find the idea uncomfortable, I do too, but there really is a body of work that suggests there is a biological basis for gendered behaviour. How much is socialisation & how much is biological is hard to tease out. But it makes sense that different biochemistry is likely to impact behaviour.

We know testosterone does, for example, at key stages & throughout life. But we also know that certain activities and environments impact the level of it.

I remain open to the idea, your unsupported claims which are entirely without any evidence, methodology or argument aren't going to chance that.

I would accept them, certainly. Not least because everyone is capable of experiencing the culture of another country and gaining an understanding of it. Not to mention that natives do not all experience the culture and history of their country in the same way as each other.

However, men cannot experience being women. So however sympathetic and well-intentioned, they cannot share our specifically female experiences, social or biological. That's the fundamental flaw of that analogy.
They can't become women by virtue of a legal instrument. Being granted a passport is all that is required to make a person a citizen of a country. If the law/government says you are British, you are. Nationality is a legal construct. Sex is material, biological reality. A GRC cannot perform magic.

I think the analogy is that some people are drawn to France or the US for example, in the same way that some people aspire (for want of a better word) to be the opposite sex. They may have no ancestry and never even have visited that country.

An American Anglophile might choose very early in their life to learn, to move to the UK, to immerse themselves in English culture, to speak with an English accent and to stop saying sidewalk.

Personally even if I knew all this I would accept them as English. And most people they met, even if they were a bit more nationalist and gatekeepy about it, probably would not know their history and would take them as English.

😀

Exactly otherwise all men would be raging maniacs.
My Nigel, he's lovely.

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.

Sorry I just noticed
Frankensteinian · Today 09:47
Made a similar point.

Good point!

...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.

Men dressing like they're going to a 90s party as Bet Lynch

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.

I think the believers in gender identity have finally realised that it does sound a bit like a list of sexist stereotypes, so have now invented the concept of gender expression. So men dressing like they're going to a 90s party as Bet Lynch is just their gender expression. Their gender identity as women means they definitely are women though, and it's not sexist. Or something.

This is a sensible definition

Also - excellent username. I ❤️ Colin 😁

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.

Made up stereotype bollox

On gender as an aspect of grammar, that's very interesting to me, and I'm going to think about that. I'm having some clashes to do with a trans relative, how I refer to them. I just can't seem to bring myself to use their preferred pronouns. Not to them, but when I'm talking about them. I want to get this right, it's just so difficult