Is "gender identity" real?

Points taken, thanks.

It does talk about talking therapy for adults near the bottom of the page.

The NHS page you refer to is obviously aimed at patients and for whatever reason, the author has chosen not use the words ‘condition’ or ‘diagnosis’ but you will see those words used elsewhere. For example:

https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/conditions/gender-dysphoria
First sentence:”Gender dysphoria is a condition where a person experiences discomfort or distress because there's a mismatch between their biological sex and gender identity.”

https://slam.nhs.uk/gender-dysphoria

Towards the end of the above page:

“After a detailed assessment to confirm the diagnosis of gender dysphoria and what it means for you, the GDC team will work with you on an agreed treatment plan.”

This is the NHS definition: it defines gender dysphoria as a feeling not a condition.
Gender dysphoria is when you feel distressed or uncomfortable for a long time because the gender you feel you are (your gender identity) is different to your sex registered at birth.

It is not a mental health issue in itself but
These feelings can make it hard to enjoy everyday life and may affect your mental health. For example, you may feel depressed or anxious, or feel like self-harming.
Gender dysphoria and incongruence - NHS

If you look at the rest of that page, the 'Treatment for gender dysphoria and incongruence' goes straight to hormones and surgery, which seems like a very extreme response to someone with distressing or uncomfortable feelings about their sex, but no medical condition.

Except
If you're aged 17 or under, treatment will usually include talking therapy and counselling.

No mention of therapy and counselling about their feelings for anyone over 18.

Indeed. But a diagnosis of what class of conditions? My comment was deleted for mentioning this.

You don't like grapes? What?
They are my favourite, but awful for diabetics so I can't have them often.

I'm catching up on this thread and have just spotted this post - thank you, it sums up my opinion perfectly, and you express it far better than I ever could.
I love the phrase 'preferred personal aesthetic' .

I might accept that I have a 'gender identity' in that I don't conform to 'feminine' gender stereotypes in most ways - dress, appearance, hobbies, sexual orientation, etc.
But I didn't confuse how I dress and who I date etc with not being a woman, I just think that it's something about me, like that I overthink things, and don't like grapes. Even the seedless ones. Especially the seedless ones because they aren't even true to their selves...

I certainly don't want anyone to use different pronouns around me, or national parliaments to vote in laws that say that having a 'gender identity' like mine can also mean that I've changed sex. That's irrational.

So the phrase 'preferred personal aesthetic' is just what I need to say:
'It could be argued that I have a 'gender identity', but it's nothing more my 'preferred personal aesthetic''.

Thanks,QldGCandproud💐

I think it is relevant that societies with more rigid gender roles and stereotypes tend to have higher percentage of people identifying as transgender- meaning the “gender is a social box” aspect of gender cones before the innate feeling of your gender - it’s a driver /cause

Well, it makes it true to you, even if it's objectively untrue? Like a strongly held belief, as others have said. That's all I meant, really.

What are you basing this on? Conformity to cultural stereotypes about men and women?

No, we are absolutely not arguing about semantics here. This is a key point of difference. TRAs have used "gender" to describe a personal experience of thier sex, while feminist thinkers use "gender" to describe a complex set of social rules and expectations imposed on both sexes, which are enforced to varying degrees through social punishments of differing types, and so it follows that most humans align to the gendered expectations associated with their biological sex to get along in life. Feminist theory argues that "gender stereotypes" are held up as ideal representatives of each sex, but feminism argues further that these ideals are restrictive, and that men and women cannot truly be free until these gender stereotypes are seen for the constructed systems they are, and the system that upholds them is abolished. Gender ideology, on the other hand believes that stereotypical gender alignment is a real indicator of maleness and femaleness, and that people who don't wish to align to the constructed stereotypes of the sex they were born with, must be defectively born into the wrong body. This is regressive, not semantic. Feminist thinking is more or less: "stereotypes are diminishing and restrict humans because of their sex, let's abolish them". Gender Ideology is "you don't align to the socially constructed stereotypes for your sexed body, so you should try to align to the other socially constructed and restrictive stereotype instead, and see if you can trick everyone into believing you’ve actually changed sex". It is literally the opposite of breaking down gender stereotypes.

Just because you feel something it doesn't make it real. I feel I am the Empress Theodora III of the Galadian Empire, which exists 40k years in the future. Doesn't make me so.

Thank goodness I’m part of the sane 79% who completed the poll.

Fitting, considering we're discussing something that doesn't exist.

What about gender dysphoria? It’s a widely accepted diagnosis among doctors.

There is practically no evidence for anything on this thread, even though the OP is written in a very black and white manner as if it is the widely researched and evidenced truth. The whole thread is ideology and conjecture but ignores any conjecture that doesn’t fit in with the ideology.

Yes! I’m also autistic and am exactly the same as you in that regard. This whole thread is ideology that is dressed up as truth and logic but is skating on very thin ice.

I don’t honestly care whether gender identity exists or not but I am not going to decide whether it does or doesn’t without any proper robust evidence.

Good point - thank you!

Exactly teh conclusion the Supreme Court came to.

If you start to spell out what those "gendered behaviours" are it's a mixture of crass stereotyping and fashion.

So by lumping men who identify with a cluster of feminine stereotypes and fashions in with women who strongly don't want to be defined by how they relate to stereotypes and fashions - you are creating a category which tries to contain people who are diametrically opposite on both possible metrics of sex and gender.

Such a category is completely incoherent and of no practical use. You may as well just talk about the category of "people".

Some people really want to be the opposite sex, even though that's impossible, and they are willing to go to considerable trouble to that end.

Sometimes there are reasons, even logical reasons, but some reasons – such as AGP – can't be broken down to first principles: they just exist.

On those impossible wishes we built a social and legal edifice which has been reverse-engineered to create concepts like gender identity.

There are people who legitimately can be said to have a gender identity, and that's the very rare people with a DSD which means they must choose. Feminising or virilising treatment, or no treatment? Leave birth registration as is, or apply for its retroactive correction? Their choice is their identity. But there's no overlap at all between their situation and that of a 'transgender' person who has developed normally as, and been raised as, one sex or the other.

Males and females have different feet. Different size, shapes, widths, and so need different shoes. So shoe shops might have some 'gender' impact - colour of the shoes, say. But some aspects of classifying shoes and clothes by sex are necessary.

The need for truth and logic may be behind it if you end up not fitting strongly gendered societal stereotypes

so for me - girls don’t do maths - I love maths and I’m great at maths - I can’t be a girl

simple logic from me as a child

I've never understood this link. I'm autistic and have a very strong need for truth and logic, which is typical of autists, so I could never go along with someone pretending to be the opposite sex, let alone do it myself.

And I would prefer to focus on the genuine issue that gender identity cannot alter your sex than have arguments about semantics.

If there's no such thing as gender identity, then obviously it can't alter one's sex. So it seems like a rather big question to me to ask in the first place if gender identity even exists. If it doesn't, problem solved.

Of course not, because sex is based on the physical and gender is based on sex. Separating the two has meant that people conflate gender with personality traits or character, but even if there's a clear correlation between sex and personality in the population, it's irrelevant because sex is biological.