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.

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?**

Well does non binary negate this idea or reinforce it? What about agender? Does the whole concept of gender identity not really rely on the idea of a masculine or feminine stereotype?

Women organising to defend our rights, such as being entitled to safe, fair and competitive sport for female bodies through organisations such as FPFW aren’t “anti trans”. They’re pro women.

Unless you believe that it’s inevitable that a pro woman organisation must be trans-exclusive, which is a bit transphobic, because organising around the requirements of female bodies certainly includes trans men and non binary female people. Or is that bit not important somehow?

I wonder why the magic two years keeps coming up?
Could that be when crime figures started being recorded by gender not sex and so screwed the figures.
Women's rights are transphobic then. How very telling.
Incidentally most rapes and sexual assaults are never successfully prosecuted so any data is the tip of the iceberg.

Is JJ talking about this recent case. How comforting for the victim that it only happened to her.

www.google.com/amp/s/metro.co.uk/2021/01/18/trans-woman-jailed-for-15-years-for-raping-another-woman-13921362/amp/

wonder why the magic two years keeps coming up?

Given the vanishingly few rape convictions and the fact that only proper transwomen are allowed to be counted because we have to ignore all the ones who self identify as women after the fact . Also the insistence on rape within a restricted timescale allows you to forget all the transwomen convicted for having images of children being raped, other sex offences and violent attacks on women , offences all committed within that time frame

@PrawnPower

Are you really off this time *@jj1968* ?

off this thread.

@jj1968

@PrawnPower
Are you really off this time @jj1968

off this thread

😂

I don't identify with the instrument of my oppression (the actual basis of that oppression being my sex). I've spent almost my whole adult life fighting the misconception that my so-called gender has any relevance whatsoever to the way I do my job. Incidentally, and I suspect like many other women, I have also been bullied, sexually harassed (both in and out of the workplace) and stalked. Because of my sex.

I use the title 'Dr' because it's agender. I will not, ever, announce 'my' pronouns (in any case these are me/mine. I have no control over others' language). This is a hill I will die on. It's triggering (I hate that word, but it is) and I will not sacrifice my own personal comfort and dignity on the altar of what some perceive to be right-think.

There's enough of a pushback against this move to create legitimate issues for employers who insist on these discriminatory practices. At the very least there will be some blanks against the boxes on their system. I spent a wasted 20 minutes filling in a document for our union, which I then abandoned unsaved when the ignored sex and asked respondents for their 'gender identity'. I'm not playing a game whose rules defy reality and are skewed against me as a woman.

Will not comply.

Anti-trans website is anti-trans shocker.

No, just pro-women and women's rights. I realise that's a hard concept for you to get your head around.

Just one trans women who identifies as trans and did so at the time of the offence

Why is this relevant? Trans women are women and always have been, I thought?

Just one trans women who identifies as trans and did so at the time of the offence

As opposed to those who suddenly realise they are a lady as soon as they get put in prison . Regardless of when they declared their trans status they are still male. Male crimes. Males who chose their victims by their sex.

The good thing about jj's illogical, sexist, nonsensical posts, is that they perfectly illustrate to all the lurkers and newcomers, exactly the shit we have been fighting against and the damage it's doing to females as a sex class.

I get very tired of the 'sigh Mumsnet is so transphobic I won't even bother to respond to your perfectly valid question'.

It kind of implies all mums are naturally transphobic, which screams misogyny to me.

I also resent the implication that you have a right to encrouch upon my freedoms, my privacy even my thoughts and if I complain I'm a bigot.

Not doing.

Bonobos use socio-sexual behaviours against infants, adult males particularly. I know people like to portray then as the hippies humans should be because of their socio-sexual behaviours, but actually they are a very aggressive species including what we would consider sexual violence against the weak, physically and socially. They aren't really a good example of the exceptions in strong not dominating the weak even with males being bigger & they are definitely not a good case for banning social sex roles (gender) as they have pretty rigid sex roles compared to most humans cultures.

Yes, there are always exceptions among animals, nature can be very weird sometimes, but we can through other social animals see that structural sexism does not require capitalism (we can also tell that through human history as it predates capitalism by a long margin). Capitalism supports any power imbalance and there are many great analyses of this, but power imbalances don't require capitalism to exist.

It's odd this of everything I said got pointed out, it seemed the least relevant at the time.

As far as I can see, jj's response to me seems to be equating gender with capitalist structural sexism. I'm pretty sure socialist societies aren't all blissfully free of structural sexism and gender stereotypes. Or theocracies, or pretty much any social system yet devised by, and for, man. Well sure, feminists want rid but it just isn't that easy - I'm not sure if jj is trying to imply women are all complicit in this oppression or what. But anyway, that little essay does indeed describe how concepts of gender are used to control women because of their reproductive role ie sex, so wtf does that leave 'gender identity'?

@ToadsThePeanutButterSnob

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

I know someone very gender-conforming (for a lack of a better term, I am not very well educated in this area) who put opposite sex pronouns on their email when reminded to do so by the company (working the notice period anyway, and, in all fairness, it was probably out of spite, it was not a very friendly departure). They got told off quite sternly by their management. I don't really condone behaviour like this, but was a bit strange too.

But people can be gender conforming whilst at the same time feeling that such behaviour is being forced upon them , that they don't want to fight

Funny how for the entirety of human history humanity has managed to get along just fine without this magical gender identity.

No, I do not have a gender identity, I have a sexed body and I have a personality, and I don’t care to be stereotyped for the purposes of somebody else’s validation.

@Whatisthisfuckery

Funny how for the entirety of human history humanity has managed to get along just fine without this magical gender identity.

No, I do not have a gender identity, I have a sexed body and I have a personality, and I don’t care to be stereotyped for the purposes of somebody else’s validation.

Well there is a history of people being trans and non binary so I'm not sure that's totally true.

We also 'got on fine' for a long time without thinking people of colour or women deserved basic human rights. As in it was fine for a good proportion of people.

I do wonder if this is the root of the conflict between genuine trans rights supporters and those who are gender critical.

(It's so hard to talk about this at all because of the language, I'm not anti trans rights, I don't deny the existence of trans on non binary people, I just believe sex is not irrelevant.)

Anyway, I've spent time thinking about this, reading about it, examining my thoughts and feelings... and nope. I can't find a gender identity. If I was a teenager I'm sure I'd be calling myself non-binary or agender, but I'm 40-something and have largely learned to live with myself and my body. Yet according to the people who insist we must respect who people say they are, I'm wrong, I definitely have one I just don't realise it or I'm lying because transphobia.

I'm not lying though, I genuinely don't understand what people mean when they identify as, say, a woman. I was reading something written by someone who sounded more like an old school transsexual, and they were saying how they understood how it was too be both male and female in our society, and I'm thinking that the first time I faced overt sexism was in nursery where girls weren't allowed to play with certain toys and we're told we couldn't do certain things because we were girls. That was my first experience of really seeing myself as a girl and learning what it meant to be a girl. And it meant restrictions. (Of course boys get their own version of this, but it's not an identical experience).

I could go on, as I'm sure most women can. I was sexually abused, had various inappropriate things happen, first time I was shouted at in the street by an adult male I was about 12. Finding out in mixed games lessons as a teenager just how much stronger the boys were, and how much they were willing to use that strength against us. And it goes on and on.

I have no objection to people having a gender identity
I support changes to make it easier for people with an one conforming to stereotype gender expression to live their lives

I do not support being forced to deprecate sex in favour of gender . I do not support having a gender identity forced upon me. I do not support giving sex based rights to people of the opposite sex on the basis of their gender identity. I do not support the abolishment of woman = adult h7man female, I do not support the gathering of statistics on the basis of gender not sex as I believe that would be to the disadvantage of my sex.

Absolutely fine with respecting other people holding beliefs I don't share.

However I don't force my beliefs on others, I don't expect them to enact and conform to my personal beliefs, and I do expect mutual respect from others in this way. Living alongside and tolerance, and there's room for everyone. If beliefs are forced upon others you cannot blame them for getting annoyed and pointing out to you in words of one syllable what they don't agree with and why, and why they won't be genuflecting at your personal altars.

I am just so confused.

There seem to be gender identity and sex.

Women needs protection (I think) because the get pregnant, have pregnancy related issues and breastfeed babies. In addition, they are at risk of sexual assault as the average woman is much weaker due to male puberty. They may also be subject to prejudice for being women.

A trans woman will not get pregnant and will be stronger than the average woman due to male puberty and a different skeleton. They may still be of prejudice and sexual assault.

It seems that women and trans women need different kinds of legal protection. Due to sex based differences.

Now apparently trans women want to get rid of gender completely (according to jj). Fair enough, sounds good. But if there is no gender, that doesn’t change the fact that women need protection for differences based on sex, or?

And if there are no genders, what is a trans woman? Am I being stupid here?

Not at all, Coffee. You're quite correct that if there is no gender, that doesn’t change the fact that women need protection for differences based on sex.

Some people make arguments very complicated. I sometimes think it's because there is not a logical basis for their arguments.

We can't escape our sex. Women are the ones that menstruate, get pregnant and give birth. It doesn't matter how much 'gender' gets abolished, these facts will always be true.

If we all pretend sex is a 'construct' and it doesn't exist will it stop these things happening?

Rape and sexual assault.
Girls being forced to marry old men
Girls being refused education
the 70% of human trafficking victims who are female (half of all victims of both sexes are children)
Forced prostitution of females
Female babies being killed at birth
Females being controlled by and used for their reproductive capacity
Males using rape as a weapon of war
Females doing the majority of childcare
Females being paid less
Etc etc

No. Of course not. Because the penis owners will always know exactly who to oppress.
It simply means we won't have the words to fight it.
Especially when those like the SNP want to make it a hate crime to even discuss female sex based rights in case it upsets men.