Page 7 | Do you feel that gender identity exists and is innate?

FairHippopotama · 2026-04-07T19:21:38+00:00

In progressive circles, there's the concept of 'gender identity' where everyone has a gender (not necessarily corresponding to their sex) that is unchangeable and inherent to them as a person. Do you agree with this? Why or why not?

Scout2016 · 09/04/2026 16:43

How do we know who has genuine dysphoria?
The elderly with dementia who thought they had it and now don't understand their bodies can't do CBT now, can they? Do we only know when we treat with transition and find out of it worked or not? If so that's one hell of a gamble.

SilenceInside · 09/04/2026 16:43

"'Males are on average taller than females' -> 'men are taller than women'.

Firstly, this is just obvious nonsense though. The second does not follow from the first, and it is a mistake to suggest that it does.

If you see someone who's tall, you're more likely to determine that person to be male than female."

Secondly, if I see someone who is tall, I see someone who is tall. I may think that makes them very slightly more likely to be male, but at the same time I will also be seeing many other things about them which will be indicators of their sex, like their hand and feet size, their gait, their build, etc etc. All of which go towards my guess as to whether they are male or female.

Thirdly, none of that is relevant to what sex they actually are. Otherwise, someone's sex depends on other people's perceptions, which is logically a non-starter.

Original poster

FairHippopotama · 09/04/2026 16:43

SilenceInside · 09/04/2026 16:12

"There are trans-identifying women who have felt severe disgust and hatred of their bodies - their sex - from an incredibly young age, who have felt disassociation with the gender - that they are women - placed upon them, for no reason but e.g. prenatal hormonal exposure (a brain-body mismatch)."

It's this kind of casual sexism that absolutely infuriates me, as a woman who as a teenage girl found that I had a deep dislike of the changes to my body and a massive disassociation from the ideas of gender imposed on me. The idea that because of some purported "prenatal hormone exposure" or whatever similar suggestion that girls and women who feel this way have a "brain-body mismatch".... well, that can fuck right off. I am not some kind of defective mismatched woman because I don't conform to society's ideas about gender.

The issue is with society, not with my brain or the brains of other women who feel similarly.

I didn't say teenage girls. I said 'incredibly young' - infants, primary school or below, definitely pre-pubescence.

You're right that many teenage girls experience something which seems like gender dysphoria, but this is not what I was talking about. Literally just before the part which you quote, I said: 'The young women you mention, those with mental health difficulties, those with certain fetishes, the elderly who transition and don't seem to have a gender identity - they are not genuinely dysphoric and should be treated with therapy (e.g. CBT).'

What I'm talking about has been proven - the ideas of prenatal hormonal exposure resulting in brain-body mismatch have been investigated and do exist, resulting in true gender dysphoria. (For illustration, another example of something prenatal hormonal exposure affects is sexual orientation.)

Young women who experience body dysmorphia or dislike the confines of their gender are not 'defective' or 'mismatched' (calling people with gender dysphoria 'defective' is quite the statement, by the by). I've already acknowledged what you're saying.

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Shedmistress · 09/04/2026 16:39

my argument is that if a male 'passes' as female, then he is a woman

What do you mean 'passes'?

If a man isn't trying to pass but does, does he need to be offered a prostate exam or a smear? Which does he have the rights to?

SilenceInside · 09/04/2026 16:39

@FairHippopotama can I just say, you keep on saying "we" when you mean "I" or you mean, "I am asserting that people".... Your assertions are frequently worded as a matter of agreed fact, when they are not. It is a very irritating argument style.

RapidOnsetGenderCritic · 09/04/2026 16:38

FairHippopotama · 09/04/2026 13:47

Given solely that information and asked to determine your gender, most people would assume that you are a man. But when I was referring to reading, I was talking about subconscious assumptions, the assumptions that even the most diehard of gender abolitionists and feminists make. That doesn't make them sexist though; it reflects society.

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If man and woman are gender terms, would you have to come to the conclusion that spannasaurus is a man? But what about the long hair, and the information that spannasuarus mostly wears trousers? Could be a woman, or a Scotsman who hasn't had a haircut in ages, or a transwoman, no? Gender indeterminate on the evidence, so perhaps spannasaurus is non-binary?

My guess is that spannasaurus is a woman, as the majority of people posting on Mumsnet are women, and the user name has connotations of 'gender critical' feminism. The point is that none of the information given proves which sex, and all of the information given is ambiguous as to gender, because gender is such a nebulous slippery concept. Most (I would say all) of us are a mixture of 'feminine' and 'masculine' characteristics, and those characteristics can only be labelled 'masculine' or 'feminine' by reference to stereotypes or frequency of occurrence in men and women.

Given how difficult it is to determine whether spannasaurus is a man or a woman, is gender a useful way of categorising? For practical purposes, isn't sex far more useful, not least because it can be empirically determined when it matters, such as in women's sport or in who a lesbian couple need in order to obtain sperm? The same applies in law, when it comes to ensuring that women's spaces are for women. Law based on gender, as Stonewall tried to make the Equality Act, means that a transman who became pregnant would have no maternity rights. Fortunately for them, the Supreme Court recognised that gender-based women's rights would be nonsensical, and applied the legal principle that law must be interpreted in a coherent way, so the Equality Act must be based on men and women being sex-based terms.

RedToothBrush · 09/04/2026 16:35

SilenceInside · 09/04/2026 16:12

"There are trans-identifying women who have felt severe disgust and hatred of their bodies - their sex - from an incredibly young age, who have felt disassociation with the gender - that they are women - placed upon them, for no reason but e.g. prenatal hormonal exposure (a brain-body mismatch)."

It's this kind of casual sexism that absolutely infuriates me, as a woman who as a teenage girl found that I had a deep dislike of the changes to my body and a massive disassociation from the ideas of gender imposed on me. The idea that because of some purported "prenatal hormone exposure" or whatever similar suggestion that girls and women who feel this way have a "brain-body mismatch".... well, that can fuck right off. I am not some kind of defective mismatched woman because I don't conform to society's ideas about gender.

The issue is with society, not with my brain or the brains of other women who feel similarly.

There is so much on this thread - not least males mansplaining why pronouns don't matter - that upsets me.

I've had lots of conversations with very middle liberal class men who think women now have equality. It's bullshit and it's patronising.

Original poster

FairHippopotama · 09/04/2026 16:35

OttersOnAPlane · 09/04/2026 15:56

I'm not saying no one knows what sex is anymore; I'm saying that to determine sex, we use gender.

And you'd be wrong. Those are some of the signifiers but by no means the only ones we use.

We use that as very young children - there are plenty of experiments that show if you put a doll in a dress or in traditionally boys clothes a three year old will thing they have gone from a girl to a boy.

But as we get a little older, women in particular are very good at identifying a person's sex in real life when that person moves and speaks. Online, filters can make many "pass" but not in real life. Look at Lavern Cox and Ellen Page (can't remember her new name, sorry). Cox is obviously male with plastic surgery, Page is obviously female with plastic surgery.

Men are actually rubbish at distinguishing. It's something evolutionary, but they see boobs and go WOMAN, even when to 90% of women it's obviously a cross-dressing man. There are plenty on studies on that too.

My point there was that anything we use to determine sex forms part of gender. 'Males are on average taller than females' -> 'men are taller than women'. If you see someone who's tall, you're more likely to determine that person to be male than female.

Other people on this post have frequently requested data from me; do you have any data on women identifying people's sexes and men being 'rubbish' at telling the difference? I don't dispute that men are likely slightly worse, but I doubt the difference is as large as you claim.

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OttersOnAPlane · 09/04/2026 16:33

my argument is that if a male 'passes' as female, then he is a woman

If you make statement like this I'm more likely to accuse you of being hard of thinking.

A male person is not, cannot and will never be a woman. At all.

There are as many ways of being a woman as their are women across the world. The only thing that unites us is our biological sex. It unites wealthy western women with women freezing to death in menstrual huts n Nepal. It unites Noor Inayat Khan with Jade Goody.

Biology. That's what makes us women, nothing else.

mattala · 09/04/2026 16:28

Wearenotborg · 09/04/2026 16:08

So if you get a manicure youre a girl? What if you don’t get a manicure? Are you then a man? Many men get manicures. And guess what…. Some men even wear make up!!

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I know and then we slap a gender label on them like metrosexual or agender or non-binary, wonder why?

Original poster

FairHippopotama · 09/04/2026 16:26

OttersOnAPlane · 09/04/2026 15:41

Johansson's Points of Light experiments in the 1970s and subsequent studies shown that when movement is reduced to a few dots on a screen, people can tell whether it's real biological movement or faked, and they can tell the sex of the person walking. We're actually very good at it as a species.

As for "it shall pass" - it's already on the wane compared to 3 or 4 years ago. The current cohort of high school girls are trans-identifying at notably lower numbers according to my colleagues in schools. As more and more data are available about the harm transitioning girls does, not to mention the catastrophic effect of high testosterone doses on the female body, the medical establishment will cease gender-affirming care.

(For more information on testosterone's effects long term, look at the outcomes of the poor East German female athletes who were doped with it)

Don't say stereotypes if you don't mean stereotypes. You can and should use correct terms when discussing things with us, OP. Dumbing down is not a good look on FWR. There are highly educated and well-researched posters on here who can eat you for breakfast.

Again, this is another instance of simplifying the science. You said: [T]hey can tell the sex of the person walking.' Further motion experiments have found that the mean success rate for these point-light images is 63 per cent. When skeleton images are used, with the point lights interconnected, the success rate is higher at 70 per cent (https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.23.2.11). While this is clearly above random chance, it is definitely not foolproof like you imply. It aligns much more closely with my argument that, for example, there are masculine and feminine gaits. Some males have feminine gaits and some females have masculine gaits. (In this context, 'masculine' and 'feminine' just means ascribed to males or females respectively.)

You might be right about it passing. This could be linked to greater awareness about the dangers of validating any and all feelings that appear like gender dysphoria. I sincerely doubt the medical establishment will ever cease all gender-affirming care, given that some claims of gender dysphoria are 'true', unrelated to societal pressures or mental conditions like autism or ADHD and caused by e.g. prenatal hormonal exposure (a brain-body mismatch). ETA: These genuine cases of gender dysphoria are best treated through transitioning.

I used and use 'stereotypes' if the person I'm replying to calls them stereotypes. I think that's a fair approach. If I did correct someone, I would probably get called pedantic, so it's either you accusing me of not recognising the education and research of other users or other users accusing me of nitpicking.

OP posts:

TheBroonOneAndTheWhiteOne · 09/04/2026 16:20

I don't think I'm sexist either

Don't ye, aye.

TheBroonOneAndTheWhiteOne · 09/04/2026 16:19

...........but my argument is that if a male 'passes' as female, then he is a woman

He absolutely fucking isn't a woman.

Your arrogance astounds me @FairHippopotama

Claiming you're not sexist, then making statements like the one above.

Adopting an attitude of faux innocence about the FWR board on here.

Aarrgghhhh

OttersOnAPlane · 09/04/2026 16:18

TheBroonOneAndTheWhiteOne · 09/04/2026 16:07

You are oversimplifying the science to fit your viewpoint

Oh, the irony.......

I did have a chuckle at that.

Scout2016 · 09/04/2026 16:17

What do you mean "gender dysphoria is a genuine neurological condition"?

No, it isn't. Are you going to talk about girl brains and boy brains and a boy brain in a girl body next? Because if we could sort "genuine" trans from opportunistic fetishist or mental unwell trans by a brain scan than would be handy, but we can't.

Also to be clear I don't think there are women transitioning because of fetishism, only men.

Original poster

FairHippopotama · 09/04/2026 16:14

MrsBennetsPoorNervesAreBack · 09/04/2026 15:50

But my point is that they don't usually "pass" as the opposite sex - we generally know, because "being a woman" is a biological reality that has nothing to do with stereotypes. We instinctively recognise people's sex regardless of how they might choose to try to present themselves. You yourself acknowledge this when you say that we can usually tell from people's faces.

I agree with you that the aim of trans people is to use sex stereotypes to "pass" as the opposite sex. That is exactly right. However, they usually fail in their endeavour because simply adopting some stereotypes doesn't actually make someone a man or a woman and it doesn't make gender real either.

The stereotypes are often wrong, and they never apply to everyone in any case. I was told at school to study biology because I was a girl and girls didn't usually like physics. I stood my ground and insisted on doing physics anyway. I didn't want to conform to that particular stereotype, but that didn't make me a boy, or less of a girl, or anything. I was simply a girl who preferred physics.

We need to move away from these damaging stereotypes, which limit people and make them feel like they're doing something wrong if they don't "fit" the accepted stereotypes for their sex. It's fine for a woman to like things which might be more commonly associated with men. It's fine for a man to like things which might be more commonly associated with women. We are all just people with individual interests, preferences and personalities at the end of the day.

Your argument seems to be somewhat circular. You say that we use stereotypes as the basis for determining someone's gender, but you've also acknowledged that gender itself is nothing more than those stereotypes in any case. So you are effectively saying that we make observations about the stereotypes that people have chosen to adopt in order to determine which stereotypes they have chosen to adopt. What does that tell us about anything?

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They don't usually pass; you're right. But that's the societal change that the gender-affirming movement asks for: that trans people are treated as the gender they see themselves as.

Adopting stereotypes doesn't make someone male or female, but my argument is that if a male 'passes' as female, then he is a woman; if society applies the stereotypes associated with females to you, then you are a woman. Whether you are a transgender woman or not is based on whether you are actually female or not.

You're right that we should move past these stereotypes, but they're here to stay at the moment. Throughout history and across many different cultures, various stereotypes - various roles, expectations, and norms - have been applied to men and women. Although I am a gender abolitionist - I agree with you that we all have 'individual interests, preferences and personalities' - I doubt these gendered stereotypes will just fade away.

Just to clarify, my point is not that we use stereotypes for a determination of gender, but for a determination of sex instead. What set of stereotypes we then apply to people reflects their gender.

For example, we use a woman's short height, feminine face, and dress to determine that she is female. Given we determine her to be female, we apply feminine stereotypes (stereotypes of women) to her. This means she is a woman. However, it could really be that 'society' was wrong, and that this woman is male.

OP posts:

RapidOnsetGenderCritic · 09/04/2026 16:13

FairHippopotama · 09/04/2026 12:58

You raise good points.

I disagree though; stereotypes, norms, expectations etc. are the basis for determining someone's gender. Someone short with long, cared-for hair, breasts, a thin waist, and large hips is going to be seen as a woman much more than as a man. You might say you can always tell their sex; this is only because the face is very revealing about your sex. It's likely you've confused someone's gender from behind before though. If you read of someone with a strong interest in military history and who sounds emotionally detached, you are much more likely to assume that person is a man than someone who describes their fervent environmental activism based on their love and respect for all living things. This is because various elements of either person are gendered - they fall into certain gender stereotypes.

The aim of people who identify as trans is typically to 'pass' as the opposite sex; they use gender to do that.

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I don't determine anyone's gender. I do perceive someone's sex; I can't personally guarantee I have always been right, indeed on a couple of occasions I have been uncertain, but I am sure that I am almost always right in my perception, particularly in real life encounters and if I have seen the person walking. I'm a man, and it may well be that women are better at this than men; they have more reason to have evolved highly accurate sex perception, given the relative dangerousness of men and women and the fact that women can become pregnant. Consider a woman walking late at night, and hearing footsteps behind her. A man in that situation might be nervous; for a woman that nervousness is typically (and reasonably) much greater.

Stereotypes are perhaps relevant to first impressions, but men wearing women's clothing are very often obvious at a second glance if not at first glance; this is also true of nearly all women in male coded clothing.

SilenceInside · 09/04/2026 16:12

"There are trans-identifying women who have felt severe disgust and hatred of their bodies - their sex - from an incredibly young age, who have felt disassociation with the gender - that they are women - placed upon them, for no reason but e.g. prenatal hormonal exposure (a brain-body mismatch)."

It's this kind of casual sexism that absolutely infuriates me, as a woman who as a teenage girl found that I had a deep dislike of the changes to my body and a massive disassociation from the ideas of gender imposed on me. The idea that because of some purported "prenatal hormone exposure" or whatever similar suggestion that girls and women who feel this way have a "brain-body mismatch".... well, that can fuck right off. I am not some kind of defective mismatched woman because I don't conform to society's ideas about gender.

The issue is with society, not with my brain or the brains of other women who feel similarly.

Wearenotborg · 09/04/2026 16:08

mattala · 09/04/2026 16:06

Exactly. And that is still modern uk Britain. Manicures are girly

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So if you get a manicure youre a girl? What if you don’t get a manicure? Are you then a man? Many men get manicures. And guess what…. Some men even wear make up!!

mattala · 09/04/2026 16:08

spannasaurus · 09/04/2026 16:07

Don't be so ridiculous

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Go to a nail salon. 99% of the customers are women. I don’t know many men with huge red extensions but if I got them I’d get complimented and no one would bat an eyelid

TheBroonOneAndTheWhiteOne · 09/04/2026 16:07

You are oversimplifying the science to fit your viewpoint

Oh, the irony.......

spannasaurus · 09/04/2026 16:07

mattala · 09/04/2026 16:06

Exactly. And that is still modern uk Britain. Manicures are girly

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Don't be so ridiculous

TheBroonOneAndTheWhiteOne · 09/04/2026 16:07

There are not frames that are male and frames that are female

Of course there are.
The human anatomical skeleton is invariably recognisably either male or female.

MrsBennetsPoorNervesAreBack · 09/04/2026 16:06

OttersOnAPlane · 09/04/2026 15:56

I'm not saying no one knows what sex is anymore; I'm saying that to determine sex, we use gender.

And you'd be wrong. Those are some of the signifiers but by no means the only ones we use.

We use that as very young children - there are plenty of experiments that show if you put a doll in a dress or in traditionally boys clothes a three year old will thing they have gone from a girl to a boy.

But as we get a little older, women in particular are very good at identifying a person's sex in real life when that person moves and speaks. Online, filters can make many "pass" but not in real life. Look at Lavern Cox and Ellen Page (can't remember her new name, sorry). Cox is obviously male with plastic surgery, Page is obviously female with plastic surgery.

Men are actually rubbish at distinguishing. It's something evolutionary, but they see boobs and go WOMAN, even when to 90% of women it's obviously a cross-dressing man. There are plenty on studies on that too.

I didn't know that women were better at identifying sex than men. That explains quite a lot!

To me, it's usually really obvious, regardless of how people are dressed or presenting. And it was really obvious to my dd as a child as well - I remember her being confused by trans women on a few occasions because she could see that they were in the "wrong" clothes. Obviously, I just explained that some men do like to wear skirts and dresses, and that that was fine. I wouldn't have dreamt of gaslighting her by trying to tell her that they were actually women. She instinctively knew that they were men.

Does anyone really looks at a man in a dress with make up and high heels and conclude that it is a woman? I have always assumed that we all know the truth but are playing along in an Emperor's New Clothes kind of way. But perhaps if men are really bad at distinguishing, they do actually fall for it?

mattala · 09/04/2026 16:06

Wearenotborg · 09/04/2026 16:03

Cos girly things innit.

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Exactly. And that is still modern uk Britain. Manicures are girly