To think that the vast majority of people do not feel they have a gender identity?

[Galvantulang]

My company has recently started suggesting that we can record our gender identity and preferred pronouns (these would be publicly displayed on the intranet) on our HR record system. It's optional for now, but almost everyone I asked at work when the email came out went "eh?".

Apart from the data protection issues of collecting all this extra information, AIBU to think that the majority of people don't consider themselves to have a gender identity, just their sex?

i.e. you don't identify as a man or woman, you just... are one?

Watching laws and amendments to bills being proposed (especially in Scotland) based on recognising gender identity rather than biological sex, seems somewhat unreal.

Um...

Yabu = I feel like I have a gender identity.
Yanbu = I do not feel like I have a gender identity.

Hmmm. It's easy to say you don't have a gender identity, but most of us experience being treated as a certain gender by others. The older you are, the more likely this is.

I'm female and have been treated as a woman for all of my life, regardless of my career (STEM) and inclinations towards 'male' interests. So although I feel uniquely like myself, I also feel like a woman.

If women were vulnerable because of gender, every single woman would be able to stop violence towards her by simply saying, 'wait, I identify as male'. And he would stop immediately and say 'I beg your pardon sir'.

YY, exactly.

I am also very confused about how abolishing gender will get rid of sexism.

Women are likely to be discriminated against in the work place because they get pregnant (sometimes in difficult pregnancies), have babies and nurse those babies. There need to be adequate legislation in place to protect women from this.

A biological woman who wishes to be a parent cannot identity out of this. A biological man who wishes to be a parent cannot identify into getting pregnant and breastfeeding

JJ bonobos are the only matriarchal primate. Human behaviour follows the behaviour of chimps more closely who are patriarchal. I'd suggest you read Sapiens if you are interested in anthropology and how sex plays out in the animal kingdom.

But the feminism of Dworkin and Firestone and many more first, second and third wave feminists called for us to go far beyond that, to recognise that women's oppression is not an inevitable consequence of her sex, it is chosen, by the men who benefit, reinforced by gender roles and can and should be overthrown.

Yes, thanks for the feminism lesson. I imagine 95% of women on FWR would agree with them.

If we abolished gender then it's unlikely refuge's would need to exist because male violence towards women is a function of gender, not an inherent part of being human.

What utter b**cks! Male violence is exactly that - MALE violence. It comes as a product of being physically larger, stronger and more capable of inflicting damage on a smaller (female) bodied person. Testosterone also makes male people angrier. It isn't about whether you 'feel' like a man or a woman! Calling yourself a woman doesn't make you less physically male.

Well that's because identifying with your genetic sex is the norm. Like being straight.
You dont think about when you became straight, you dont feel the need to tell your family you're straight. It's only when you dont identify with "the norm" that you recognise those feelings.

But you do have a gender identity, and it would show if someone mistook you for the opposite gender, if you had to dress in a non-gender compliant way, I.e if I made my husband wear a dress to dinner out then he would feel uncomfortable. If you had to use the wrong toilets for your gender, you would be feeling at odds with your gender identity, like you're wrong, you're in the wrong place, you're dressed wrong. But you dont recognise your gender identity often because it isn't challenged often. Alot of women ARE currently feeling their gender identity because their gender identity is being challenged by trans women.

Whereas people who dont identify with their assigned gender, do feel their gender identity challenged alot, so they recognise their identity more.

I wasn't followed, verbally abused, assaulted and constantly patronised and leered at when I was a teenage girl because I wore feminine clothes or liked kittens and flowers. It was because I was female. If I had been a teen boy wearing feminine clothes I would have undoubtable also suffered street abuse, but it would have also because of my sex, and the fact that my sex didn't match my presentation. If I had always worn jeans, docs and a beanie hat as a girl, I would have equally been patronised, followed, assaulted and all the rest as soon as it became clear that my sex was female.
If I am a 34 year old woman who has just got married I am not going to lose out on that promotion because I use the pronouns She/Her, but because I have female biology. If I am a 34 year old man in a dress it won't affect the promotion for the same reason because I cannot get pregnant, and the assumption would never be that a male would become the primary carer of a baby.The dress wearing might affect my promotion in a smaller company if they feel that a transvestite might put off clients. In most of the public sector organisations though, a man wearing a dress would be positively fawned all over and probably be nominated women's champion..
It ALL about sex. Gender is a veneer, and it pisses a lot of people off when either sex steps outside their gender roles, but the outcome for the sexes will always be different, because we do not live in a utopia where the sexes are considered equal.

Although their is a gender ( by which I mean expected norms associated with a sex ) aspect to male violence and sexual violence as the level of it varies by society

But it won't go if you abolish sex as a concept because you don't need language to identify sex

Unfortunately the use of gender instead of sex is very important to the TRA lobby. Just look how they tried to sneak it in into the Forensic Crimes Bill( Scotland) Only one brave Labour MSPs amendment and a backlash from For Women Scotland amongst others prevented women rape victims only being able to ask for same gender medical examiner's. The use of gender removing the safety of single sex exemptions in the Equality Act and perhaps allow a male who identified as a woman to be a same " gender " HCP. Fortunately the uproar in the press etc forced the woke SNP to very grudgingly vote for the amendment. The Greens and the Lib Dems actually voted against allowing women rape victims to ask for a female medical .examiner

Yes exactly. It's of critical importance to TRAs whether the wording is "gender" or "sex". Sex is a legal term, "gender" is not. It is not a synonym for sex, or many members of the SNP and Scottish Green Party wouldn't have thrown a collective tantrum when the amendment was voted in.

Alot of women ARE currently feeling their gender identity because their gender identity is being challenged by trans women.

Not really. I know what sex they are. No "challenge". I am female, a woman. They are male.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Do you see the way certain posters on this thread are using gender as a synonym for sex so they appear to mean exactly the same thing when clearly they do not, where other posters quite clearly mean sex and are using the word sex?

If you're talking about *@jj1968* I'm completely baffled by what they are trying to get across. It just reads as word salad to me. I think I had a clear argument that sex means female or male and gender means boy, girl, woman or man and that's that. You cannot change sex or gender. That's my belief.

I've refined my thoughts on this and I certainly understand now what you and other PPs mean. But as for the likes of @jj1968, I'm at a total loss.

How are trans people fighting to end gender when that's all they seem to go on about. If you end gender then as a trans person you're really fucked because you can't alter your sex. You can have surgeries and wear different clothes. But the sex is the sex you are born with as defined by your chromosomes. Why the fuck this even needs to be discussed is beyond me.

I'm also gobsmacked at the assertion that women wouldn't need separate safe spaces if there was no such thing as gender. I don't know what this poster is going on about.

Well that's because identifying with your genetic sex is the norm. Like being straight.

It’s not like being straight. You can’t “identify” with the other sex in any way other than the imaginary. You have no idea what it means to be male if you are female. You can only desire to be the other sex.

@ToadsThePeanutButterSnob

I don't have a gender identity but I would make sure they know that my pronoun is Your Majesty .

I know this is from the first page but I spat my coffee out laughing

It's funny because I've had this discussion with people before and most people say they don't 'feel' like they are any particular gender.

But I'm female and definitely feel female. It's not about fitting stereotypes or anything, it's just how I feel. I connect with feeling female, not male.

How are trans people fighting to end gender when that's all they seem to go on about. If you end gender then as a trans person you're really fucked because you can't alter your sex. You can have surgeries and wear different clothes. But the sex is the sex you are born with as defined by your chromosomes. Why the fuck this even needs to be discussed is beyond me.

I agree. I disbelieve jj's assertion that a large number of trans people wish to "end gender". Not in any sense I'd recognise.

What's interesting is certain posters claim to want to abolish gender but actually uphold it's structures with their behaviour and beliefs.

I.e a man who wears dresses can't possibly just like to look good, or the healthy breeze around privates they offer, they must be a woman. Boy that likes pink? Girl! Girl that climbs trees -boy. You end up with very strict catagories of behaviour and dress, rather than a true spectrum, which is the natural result of the GC attitude of, 'My son asked for an Elsa dress. I bought it. Crack on.'

They've either not noticed that labelling people upholds stereotypes and therefore gender, or they bloody well have noticed and are being dishonest about their intentions.

Is there any concept of gender that isn't otherwise described by "masculine" or "feminine " or are we essentially talking about the same thing when we use those words?

Can anyone answer this?

But I'm female and definitely feel female. It's not about fitting stereotypes or anything, it's just how I feel. I connect with feeling female, not male.

But you know you are female. You've known you are female since you knew there were two types of human. What else do you feel?

But I'm female and definitely feel female. It's not about fitting stereotypes or anything, it's just how I feel. I connect with feeling female, not male.

Of course you feel female. You are female. It would be like being surprised if I felt 10 stone rather than 8 stone when I was 10 stone.

The nonsense begins when we start imagining those who do feel female when they are male are doing anything other than fantasising about being the other sex.

Yip I only feel that I have a gender identity when people start saying that woman isn't to do with sexual biology . That's when I think I am not a woman.

Significantly I think, I find my hatred of my body increases also when I am surrounded by gender activists . To the extent that I start thinking about surgery.

I think it's because i am aware that such people have expectations of me based on how they interpret my physical appearance, and with boobs the size of mine , it's very clear what sex I am no matter what I wear

@CoffeeTeaChocolate

I am also very confused about how abolishing gender will get rid of sexism.

Women are likely to be discriminated against in the work place because they get pregnant (sometimes in difficult pregnancies), have babies and nurse those babies. There need to be adequate legislation in place to protect women from this.

A biological woman who wishes to be a parent cannot identity out of this. A biological man who wishes to be a parent cannot identify into getting pregnant and breastfeeding

That's because the workplace, under capitalism, is gendered. There is no reason a woman's career should be hampered by gettin prgenant, there is no reason it's assumed women will do the bulk of child care. I think Selma James and Sylvia Federici are both well worth reading on how capitalism acts to produce gender division and why it doesn't have to be that way.

Male violence towards women is a function of their sex, not gender.

Yes. Changing gender does not change the propensity to violence.

'Ending gender' surely means someone like Eddie Izzard going back to saying 'they're not girl clothes, they're my clothes'.
Which would be great.

Many men would feel uncomfortable wearing a dress because of social norms. I would also feel uncomfortable getting dressed up as a clown, an athlete, a chef, a school girl, in the clothes of my 20 year old daughter or my 75 year old mother, because all of those clothing choices would break social norms. It doesn’t mean that I ‘feel’ like a 50 year old shop worker and that is my inner identity. I would love to be a twenty year old on a night out, but I am not.