Is "gender identity" real?

Define "feel". I feel female because I am female.

Let's be honest this is a made up quarrel. Nobody would bat an eyelid at women saying they have a gender identity of female or a man saying they have a gender identity of male if the trans lobby had never existed.

We probably wouldn't worry overmuch about a man who said he was male but had a gender identity of female.

The quarrel is with men who insist that their gender identity changes their sex.

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

No. No such thing. There is biological sex and then an infinite number of personalities.

I disagree. As PP said, the shoe shops thing is gender stereotypes, not gender identity.

Gender identity is an idea, not a reality.

It's the idea that your thoughts are more important than the reality of your sexed body.

Unfortunately thoughts are really quite easy to manipulate, to influence, usually for profit (as in this case)

Gender stereotypes are bad enough - rigid ideas that each society forms that limit men and women in their choices, behaviours and presentation.

But to say that thinking that you like pink shoes means that you are thinking 'like a woman' is to say that women are nothing more than gender stereotypes.

If you fail at your gender stereotyping (which I do proudly) then according to gender ideology you must subject yourself to pharmaceutical and surgical 'correction', at vast physical and pyschological cost to yourself and everyone around you.

So gender identity is as real as tinkerbell - it's a created fantasy that some people find very attractive, but wearing a tink costume doesn't mean you can fly.

In which case we all have one,

Huge assumption you're making here. Loads of people on this very forum have testified that no, they don't feel this sensation at all.

This sums it up perfectly.

Alternatively Google AI tells me that

"Gender identity refers to a person's deeply felt, internal sense of being male, female, a blend of both, or neither. It is one's personal, innate concept of self, which may or may not align with the sex they were assigned at birth."

In which case we all have one, though not everyone will even think about it. I'd estimated mine is about 75% female 25% male or maybe a little more skewed towards the male.

Gender identity is a personal, subjective, unverifiable belief that one is a man/woman/other, based on what one believes to be a man/woman/other in the first place, and unrelated to one's sex.

Gender stereotypes are material, objective behaviours and attributes that a society associates with a sex.

Could hardly be any more different.

That's pretty much my view, though you've expressed it better than I could.

I think we're arguing over semantics here.

"cis" is insulting nonsense

one could research whether there's any genetic or chemical influence on who is likely to get stuck in this thought pattern, or whether it's purely environmentally influenced. One could research whether there are therapies that can help the person move on from that thought pattern or whether in some cases the person will never be able to move on, and in that case what the best way is to help them live a successful life as far as possible.

Yes, please! It seems to me such an obvious thing to do before encouraging children to undergo unproven chemical and surgical treatments.

"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"

It is a real thought that some people have. A potentially harmful one where it is urging people to harm their own healthy bodies or transgress other people's boundaries. It can be a thought that becomes deeply lodged and very hard for a person to move on from, like OCD or eating disorders or depression. Like those, one could research whether there's any genetic or chemical influence on who is likely to get stuck in this thought pattern, or whether it's purely environmentally influenced. One could research whether there are therapies that can help the person move on from that thought pattern or whether in some cases the person will never be able to move on, and in that case what the best way is to help them live a successful life as far as possible.

But it's also only a thought and doesn't affect reality from the perspective of other people. Having gender-identity-thoughts doesn't change your sex.

That's my best rationalisation at the moment. Critique welcome.

I think the religion analogy is useful.

I personally do not believe that people have a 'gender identity', and certainly don't have one myself. Scientifically I am female, and that makes me a woman. I also do not believe in God (or any other form of deity).

However, I have good friends with a very strong sense of faith and belief in God. This is a very important part of their life and how they act. They acknowledge that there is no way to scientifically prove that there is a God, or that religious teachings are objectively correct- this is what faith is all about. I think it is important that they are free to openly hold and speak about these beliefs and to practise their religion. But that freedom cannot over-ride the freedoms or rights of other people. So my religious friend should be able to worship etc but not to insist that I follow the same religion or face punishment (eg. loss of employment) and should not be able to use her religion to avoid complying with laws that protect other people (eg. equality legislation). In the context of religion I don't think this is a contentious view- I know religious leaders and atheists that share this approach. I think the same should apply to the belief in gender identity.

I do not have a gender identity but I can complain about girls shoes and boys shoes.

What I'd complain about though is more the design than the sizing. and the lack of robust shoes in girls sizes.

That's not "gender identity", that's gender stereotypes. The exact thing most feminists have been arguing against for the last couple of generations.

If gender identity did not exist then we would be unable to complain about shoe shops with sections marked "girls shoes" and "boys shoes".

Those are gender, not gender identity.

If gender identity did not exist then we would be unable to complain about shoe shops with sections marked "girls shoes" and "boys shoes".

I think you have difficulty pinning down the definition in your head but it's clear in modern life that gender identity exists.

This 100%. There is your sex observed at birth and everything else is preferred personal aesthetic.

Exactly that. In some people it confirms 100%, in some it's the exact opposite and in most of us we're on a sliding scale somewhere on the side which is most identified with the sex we were born as.

The trans problem is not that they claim a gender identity, it's that many claim their gender identity changes their sex.

Because there's no evidence that gender identity is even a thing that exists. You might as well ask if the influence of heavenly guardian angels, or reincarnation, or alien mind control, are not some of the possible explanations.

I don’t believe it exists in the way gender ideologies think it does. There is not a complete man trapped in a woman or vice versa.

It’s also clear that there are many different roots into people expressing gender incongruence/ confusion, autism, abuse, same sex attraction, poor mental health, etc.

However, given as social mammals learn their role by mimicking adults of their sex, my guess is that we each have something inside which tells us what sex we are. And maybe that gets misaligned for some people. Which causes settled gender dysphoria. But is not an indication you are a woman in a man’s body, just thar internal messaging has got it wrong.

I also think that as well as physical
differences between men and women there are other innate differences ( on a population level) evolved due to the different social roles of men and women. Which I realise puts me out of step with many on here.

Also how do you explain very young children believing they are the opposite sex? I’ve heard of a 3 year old who has maintained they’re a boy and is still saying it years later (and the parent is totally in board). I’ve never met them but they’re relatives of my good friend

If the parent is totally on board they could be constantly feeding this belief even if they’re not aware of it. It’s like those children who’ve supposedly visited heaven and have all these details of their relatives who died before they were born. How could they know? It’s likely that the parents are encouraging it and giving info without realising because they want it to be true.

That describes trans gender identity.
PP makes a valid point that there are also people who find the stereotypes attached to their own sex highly attractive, or else have been so strongly socialised to them they have internalised them.
Women who describe themselves as 'girly girls'. Men who display toxic masculinity.
I think if we break it down, 'gender' just means set of stereotypes associated with sex, and 'identity' just means taking them on oneself so they underpin how we behave and relate to others.
This is indeed a real thing that effects us all on a continuum, with at one end the hyper masculine/feminine man/woman, and at the other the actively, consciously, gender non conforming people. Some people don't just want to be GNC, they want to conform to the stereotypes of the opposite sex and have assumed the label trans gender.
Which is not in itself a problem. The problems come when living in accordance with gender stereotypes for the opposite sex become conflated with actually being the opposite sex.
So the argument isn't whether GI is 'real', it's whether having a trans one is in any way relevent to sex based rights. Which it isn't as it has no bearing on one's actual sex.

What does it mean for your gender identity to conform with your sex? There are plenty of transwomen who don’t have an issue with their male sex.