To ask if you have personally ever doubted the sex you were born into

[Chantelli]

Just that
Yabu - of course my gender and sex have always been aligned
Yanbu - I've often felt as though I do not identify with my biological sex assigned at birth

I can't really vote because I don't think your choices are the only two. Like many others I have never doubted my biological sex but have felt very angry at the expectations put on women - how we behave, how we should look, who should do the housework, the child care etc etc.

It's the stereotypical gender roles that have grated for me my whole life.

Gender is a nebulous, shifting social construct. The definition of a feminine identity now is not the same as it would have been in, say, the interwar period. Its narrow stereotypes and the social expectation attached to them has been a site of feminist contestation since the year dot.

Sex is inescapable, because it's bound up within our own bodies (just as abjection is bound up within the border of our bodies). And that's a condition that's applicable to everyone. As for gender, I can understand why it causes such a lot of angst. It's very unstable ground on which to build an entire identity.

I didn't vote either, for reasons already outlined by PPs- gender is a social construct and expectations of gender have changed over time and depend on culture, so to even expect 'alignment' doesn't make sense.

I have never doubted my sex: I am female and have never wanted to be a biological male. I really feel for those who experience body dysmorphia. I had a dream once as a teenager that I was a detective trapped in a male body and remember it felt so awful and wrong- the being male, not the detective part .

But I have never agreed with the gender restrictions placed upon me.

I was lucky enough to have grown up in the 70s and 80s where being a tomboy was more acceptable and girls' clothes weren't sexualised the way they are now. Makes me feel sorry for younger generations. I hardly every wear make up, don't 'do' high heels or handbags and don't dye my hair, but then several of my female friends are similar to me.

Apart from unequal pay and the devaluing of 'traditionally female' work, it has always angered me that as women public space is not ours the way it is for men. We can't go out, or go travelling on our own in the same way men can.

None of this has made me want to be a man- I just want a fairer world.

My sex is female and a biological fact that I have never doubted for a second. As for gender - biggest load of stereotypical bullshit that I try to ignore as much as possible.

I've always known I was female, a fact that was confirmed when I went through female puberty.
I don't 'identify' as anything. I simply accept reality.

Contrary to pp I think this is an excellent place to ask the question.

What you're not likely to get here is plenty of people talking about how our gender identities match our sex. 'Gender identity' is not a widely accepted concept amongst women who intuitively understand that gender is the mechanism by which we are oppressed. It's not a thing we innately have, not a thing we were born with, it's something that's done to us, and we are frequently keenly aware of it.

Just because our answers are at odds with those who internalise societal problems as personal failings or deficiencies, is no reason not to ask, or to discount our answers.

Thanks @TyroSaysMeow very interesting point.

I feel oppressed by a gender constructiondone unto me in which i am not an active, consensual agent, but coerced.
While enjoying who and what I am, I confirm to an accepted gender stereotype.

To address my problem with this I can only think asking my pronoun to be 'they' is my only real, feminist option.

I'm 51. When I was a teenager I used to pretend I was a boy because I couldn't cope with having boobs and getting make attention. Felt really proud if people seemed to think I was a boy. I have never been 'feminine', don't wear make up, not very good at small talk (bit of a cliche but women are supposed to be more chatty), never cooed over babies, like maths and getting muddy. Nothing good or bad with any of these. Am happy to be a woman as it's who I am, and have learned to accept and like my body and mind over the years. Would be so much happier if we did away with gender roles.

To address my problem with this I can only think asking my pronoun to be 'they' is my only real, feminist option.

Nah. The real feminist option is accepting you are a woman. The good, the bad and the ugly. And seeking to actively fight against the bad and the ugly, at least for yourself if not for other women and girls too.

You'd only be opting out in your head, which is rather pointless.

Gender is not only how we prefer to dress and present ourselves to the outside world; it is also how we behave and how we respond to power structures.

I have seen it explained in terms of 'manspreading'. When a man gets on the train and sits next to us with his legs spread, he is taking up our space and usually women's response is to move our legs away and take up a smaller space. If we choose not to react to this we risk continuing the journey with the leg of a male stranger in our space and rubbing against ours and also inadvertently signalling that it is welcome. The man will either be oblivious that he is causing discomfort, or think his ship has come in or possibly know exactly how the woman is feeling and enjoy the discomfort he is causing.

Thus the woman is in a less powerful position either way. Unfortunately how we present or wish to be addressed has no bearing on this.

An individual trying to escape the cage is not the feminist option. Not only does it leave the rest of us trapped, the method also further reifies the social construct.

In other words: this method of escape tightens the bars for everyone else in the cage.

The feminist option is to dismantle the cage, not to lie to ourselves that individual women can identify out of it.

Others upthread queried the language of "to identify as" and that's worth exploring - we do not identify as women but are identified as women, and therein lies the problem. The world doesn't stop accurately noting your sex and treating you accordingly just because you ask others to suspend their understanding of English grammar for you. Apologies if that sounds a little harsh, but it's the truth.

To address my problem with this I can only think asking my pronoun to be 'they' is my only real, feminist option.

How will this help, though? In practise, when I know someone calls themselves 'they', does it not actually just call attention to their sex? I am doubtful that it will make much difference in terms of how other people respond to you - they will still know you and perceive you as female. Just with an added layer of 'female-but-not-to-be-called-female'. How do you see it making a difference?

I have zero doubts about my gender. I don't like stereotypes though - females shouldn't feel they must love the colour pink and spend their lives shopping at the mall, etc.

Is this the equivalent of "I'm not like the other girls " back in the day?

No, I'm a woman who doesn't actually believe in choosing gender but also don't believe that any clothes/toys/hobbies/careers are gender specific. I suspect that the people who feel that they might not be their gender are just interested in things that culturally are said to be the other gender. Which is crap if you ask me. Women can smith, engineer, wear trousers and still be women. Men can wear make up, skirts, do ballet and nursing and still be men.

It could be, but I suspect in many cases it's much less "I'm special" and more "I'm sad and want to know why"

I am presuming that it's an effort to try and 'opt out' of gender roles being imposed on one. But I doubt very much that it works. I think a more radical and far more effective action (as said above) is to accept and celebrate oneself as female and act as one wishes to act.

The gender role is an imposition we can become aware of and choose to play with, reject entirely. Sex, however, is not something we can opt out of. I find when people use 'they' you can hear the creak of reality straining under the weight of language, really.

I desperately wanted to be a boy when I was very young, because boys seemed to have more fun. I settled into being a girl by the time I was 8 or so, but I was still a tomboy.

Sex is reality. Gender is socially imposed bollocksery
this

Yes, I had a few years in my 30s when all my friends were male, my interests were those generally considered ‘male’. I’m very androgynous looking and had a girlfriend at the time.

I never doubted I was female or felt like I wanted people to consider me male. However I did wonder if my brain was a bit skewed towards being maler than most females and had I been born a man it would have been, for want of a better word, suitable.

I didn't vote either. Sex is not 'assigned' at birth unless you have an extremely rare Difference is Sex Development.

I spent quite a long time wishing and wishing that I was a boy once I hit puberty. I hate the thought of the sexist world I would need to inhabit and periods sucked.

However, I realised that I could happily be 'me', a non-conforming woman, and just get on with it.

I refused to believe in 'gender stereotypes' and so even now, just like many of those answering on this thread, I feel it is completely regressive to 'identify' as anything. My body type is female, I don't have a 'gender'. Live life as you want.

@Chantelli I also have not voted as I do not identify with the premise of the choice on offer. I accept biological facts but reject gender stereotypes and think that identifying as different genders

Oops... I think that the process of identifying as a gender that does not align with your sex thereby making sweeping assumption about those who do not do likewise is hugely damaging to both sexes but the impact is felt most keenly by women.

Not personally, but in the 80's I had friends training as nurses at Gt Ormond Street - they, and I , were surprised at the number of babies referred there whose genitals were 'ambiguous'.

I had friends training as nurses at Gt Ormond Street - they, and I , were surprised at the number of babies referred there whose genitals were 'ambiguous'.
Because they saw pretty much every single one born in the UK
500,000 babies were born every year
one in 10,000 = one a week for GOSH

9,999 in 10,000 = very clearly a boy or a girl