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.

@jj1968

However I believe the way to approach that is with treatment to resolve the issue.

That's what scientists thought for a long time and plenty of trans people were tortured in psychiatric institutions or put through hours and hours of therapy in an attempt to cure them. Much like attempts to cure homosexuality none of it worked and so a more enlightened approach has developed.

In people with genuine sex dysphoria (in which someone believes their primary and secondary sex characteristics are 'wrong' and their body needs to be modified to remove them), it has been suggested by some scientists that the cause may be neurological rather than psychological. It could have some similarities with another disorder which drives people to desire to amputate their healthy limbs.

www.discovermagazine.com/mind/understanding-the-disorder-that-drives-people-to-amputate-healthy-limbs

This would explain why psychiatric treatments didn't help such people, because there is an actual physical mapping error in the brain.

For those who just don't like the stereotypes, the answer isn't to change the body, but to step outside the stereotypes and try to eliminate them from our culture. This is what feminists strive for, and why women are now allowed to vote, wear trousers, have careers after getting married etc. You could work with us to that end jj, or you could continue to insist that some people are born in the wrong body because they hate the stereotypes.

That's what scientists thought for a long time and plenty of trans people were tortured in psychiatric institutions or put through hours and hours of therapy in an attempt to cure them. Much like attempts to cure homosexuality none of it worked and so a more enlightened approach has developed.

You see this, to me, ^ is attempting to leverage the imposed gender stereotype that says women should care about someone, anyone else, before they care about themselves.

Not having sex segregated places is detrimental to women. That's a gimme. So in order to overcome the 'no', women have to be, in this case, guilt tripped to agree, despite it being a negative for them.

Torture, hours and hours of it to provoke a pity response. (Although you can bet your life it wasn't a woman doing the torturing). The link to homosexuality, despite the fact that the ideology can't define homosexuality and is in opposition to it, being used as a screen. And lastly, you're 'unenlightened' if you don't agree.

You're not allowed to Just. Say. No.

It's non-compliance. Very dangerous!

[quote Galvantulang]@prawnpower Sorry for the crabbit post above.

But gender and sex did not used to mean the same thing. Someone more knowledgeable can maybe pinpoint when it was decided to use it in place of sex, thus contributing to this confusion.[/quote]
Gender is to sex as rooster is to cock: a mealy-mouthed avoidance of a word which can be taken as having to do with sexual intercourse.

It got traction in the UK after the Race Relations Act, intended to mandate equal treatment of the races: it was obviously impossible to work for a Sex Relations Act, intended to mandate equal treatment of the sexes. Because fourth form boys would giggle about it, and adult males who ought to know better would use it as a perpetual har har in the pub.

I think that for those who feel at odds with their own physical reality, belief in a gender identity bring some sense to their feelings. For the rest of us the reality of our physical sex has much more impact on our daily lives and will even cross so called gender identities. For males of all gender identities it is a fact that they are all more at risk of Covid than females, even those females who identify as men. Transmen, along with all other females, will die in car crashes more often than transwomen and other males, simply because car safety checks don't use female shaped dummies. Transwomen with other males will be put at risk if they get blood transfusions from women who have been pregnant. Sex Discrimination in the workplace will affect women, non binary females and transmen alike. Transwomen non binary males and men will outperform in most sports all women, non binary females and transmen.
No matter whether you have a gender identity or not in most instances it will not really matter but your sex will definitely be of the utmost importance.

I don't have a gender identity. I do have a penis.

I never really thought about my gender identity before everybody started talking about it, but I wouldn't have a problem with stating that my gender identity is female. Just because that also happens to be my birth sex doesn't mean I don't see myself as female!

@NovemberR

I don't think I understand the difference between sex and gender if I'm honest.

I'm a woman. Or female. I don't "identify" as anything.

Hoping to clarify here. So your sex is what you are born as for example female.

Whereas your gender is what you identify or se yourself as. For example today I am self identifying as a squirrel and have had a lovely day climbing trees and eating nuts.

Hope this helps

I've seen the pronoun sign off on a few emails now. I've noticed it's mostly those with names that might be hard to tell if male/female that are using it. So not using it for its intended purpose I guess just to clear up confusion. I know of two close family members that might choose to use the pronoun signature as they both identify as a different gender to their born sex. But tbh I'm not convinced they would use it, as its personal choice if you want to bring that into your work communications.
It's not really my bag, but if individuals find it helpful, useful or reassuring to use it, why not?

If individuals want to do it themselves fine

but there should be no automatic assumption that it's ok to expect others to do it,

there should be no assumption as to the gender identity of anyone who doesn't add pronouns and

there should be no negative effects if someone uses sex based pronouns as a default , even if the other person prefers something else

Thank you Datun for explaining why that paragraph was so chilling to me when I read it. I felt in my gut that I was being manipulated, and you put it into words.

I have learned a lot from the many thoughtful posts on here.

@VanillaAndOrange

I never really thought about my gender identity before everybody started talking about it, but I wouldn't have a problem with stating that my gender identity is female. Just because that also happens to be my birth sex doesn't mean I don't see myself as female!

So you accept all the stereotypes that go along with the female gender? Docile, weak, subservient? Wearing lipstick and heels?

You've got your sex and you've got your personality and interests.

The latter two don't transform your sex.

I am marking my place because I want to show this to my "non binary" daughter. I consider gender to be external expectations on people from society and others around them. I am female because I have a female body.

@VanillaAndOrange

I never really thought about my gender identity before everybody started talking about it, but I wouldn't have a problem with stating that my gender identity is female. Just because that also happens to be my birth sex doesn't mean I don't see myself as female!

Gender identity refers to how well you feel the sex stereotypes and sex role stereotypes associated with one or the other sex align with your own preferences. Female is our sex. It refers to biology only, not preferences.

So, what you and me have in common with every single female human on this planet is our sex.

And we have many shared experiences arising from our biology with not just each other, but also with our foremothers and their foremothers and so on because of our sex. Such as a first period, which 99.5% of us experience naturally. Which also means that menopause is a nearly universal female experience (its symptoms are not). Or childbirth, which 80% of us do.

The preferences not so much. Especially because sex stereotypes and sex role stereotypes aren't even the same across time and space.

(For instance, a hundred years ago in the UK, a girl who wanted to wear pink would have demonstrated cross-gender behaviour, because pink was a colour for boys. Or 50 years ago a proper woman in East Germany worked full-time. Across the border in West Germany, a proper woman stayed at home.)

What you and me have in common with every female and male person on this planet is that we all belong to the same species.

But what do you and me and every other female person on earth have in common with males who identify as trans that we do not also have in common with all other males?

Can't be this so-called gender identity (in the case of males who identify as trans this signifies a liking for various stereotypes coded feminine), because I rejected those stereotypes while my age was still counted in single digits. Can't be biology, because they're of the sex evolved to produce sperm, and we're of the sex evolved to produce ova.

So what do all females have in common with this one subgroup of males that we can now meaningfully be combined into a new category?

Comment from something on page 2:

Melroses
I expect it is like when they used to ask your religion on forms and everyone used to put CofE because they didn't know what else to answer.
Then Jedi came along

Does anyone else feel a strong urge to answer "Jedi" next time some jobsworth wants to know their gender for no good reason?

========================
Comment from twice now, further down the thread:

My ex used to sweep out (aka flounce) if he was losing an argument. Then he would come back in order to say "And another thing... " when he had thought of another possible gotcha.

It was never really convincing, and it was profoundly tedious.

It's also worth noting that the female gender stereotypes that are frequently adopted by male born individuals aren't those that oppress women. Unsurprisingly. Because why would you?

And since they are imposed from the outside, how could you?

Men who identify as women, unless they pass flawlessly, are still known to be men, by everyone. And treated as such. Which is why women's 'no, this is our space', isn't holding any sway.

So there is no putting everyone else before themselves, keeping quiet and small, complying, taking on the mental load of the domestic sphere, etc. None of that nonsense.

No. What's happening is that gender roles, as a means of control, are getting ever tighter and divisive. Even to the point where women aren't allowed to talk about it.

Hence actual male rapists getting access to incarcerated women as part of their sentence. Whilst simultaneously, women are being housed with male sex offenders, as part of theirs, to validate the sex offender!. (sometimes I can't believe I'm even saying it, it's so, so ludicrous).

If women are oppressed and gender is the means by which it's done, it doesn't get more gendered than that.

Quite, Datun. A woman, but not that sort of woman is an attitude becoming increasingly obvious. The sex divide is maintained by those insisting that gender trumps sex, and have the power of their sex to enforce their rules upon the other sex. They even have the power to endlessly scold about kindness and emotional labour/sacrifice not being made by the lesser sex with no shame whatever that they don't offer this in turn.

Gender oppresses females. It is used to oppress females. No matter what language you dress it up in, this is exactly what is happening to females.

Gender identity refers to how well you feel the sex stereotypes and sex role stereotypes associated with one or the other sex align with your own preferences.

What utter nonsense, gender identity has nothing at all to do with stereotypes. There are plenty of butch trans women and feminine trans men who have medically transitioned and quite often when trans people do conform to binary stereotypes it is because of social pressure to do so. Just like people who aren't trans in fact. I think what I find staggering about this debate is how little many gender critical activists know about the trans community. Almost as if they've never really known any actual trans people and all of their information has come from youtube and gender critical blogs.

Gender identity, for binary trans people at least, is much more about your relationship with your body, and a strong desire for the characteristics of the opposite sex to the one you were born as well as often a dislike or even revulsion towards the sex characteristics you were born with. There may also be a desire to be socially treated as the opposite sex to the one you were born. It is a deeply internal and personal feeling which is difficult to explain and seemingly even more difficult for people to understand but which can cause significant discomfort if left unresolved. I have no idea why I so dearly wanted to be a girl growing up, but I had very little interest in traditionally feminine things. I didn't want to be a girl so I could play with dolls and mess about with make up. I did have female role models though and naturally seemed to emulate older girls rather than older boys, even though I fought desperately hard not to. And I don't really know what that means but it had little to do with stereotypes - as a 12 year old I thought Ripley from Aliens was the coolest woman I'd ever seen and if I could have been anyone I'd have been her. Had I been born female I suspect I would have been rather butch.

And another excellent post Datun!

what I find staggering about this debate is how little many gender critical activists know about the trans community.

I think many female people feel that male born people pushing this agenda on them against their consent, deaf to their feelings and needs and lived experience, feel much the same. That male born people know very, very little about female people, don't care to, and definitely feel no kind of responsibility to listen. And don't respect female voices or experiences anyway.

Again, the trope that no one here has trans friends, children, relatives. Which again demonstrates how very little you ever listen to anything any female here ever says to you. I do. We do. It is not that we don't get it. It's not a case of if we just had a trans friend we'd stop wanting sex based rights and get under the bus for male people like good girls.

Please will you stop asking me to cooperate nicely with you oppressing me.

Husbands. I forgot that part.

A number of women here have had husbands transition. Their experiences are not happy ones. It was not unhappy because they haven't had experience and don't get it.

I can't read all your word salad JJ. But this paragraph leapt out?

I think what I find staggering about this debate is how little many gender critical activists know about the trans community. Almost as if they've never really known any actual trans people and all of their information has come from youtube and gender critical blogs.

It's totally unsurprising to me, that you are utterly shocked that women aren't busying themselves in the lives of male born individuals. Because of something those individuals really, really want to do.

Why is it even relevant to women having boundaries?

The answer is no.

And in case it's not clear, that is a complete sentence.

I think jj you are mixing up gender and body

Disconnect with your body, say a feeling that boobs don't belong to you , is different to gender disconnect which is more to do with how people see and treat you as a result of the stereotypes they associate with a particular body type

So they are related but different. They also tend to reinforce each other. I hate my body most when I suffer mistreatment ( being gender stereotyped) as a result of being female

Just to mention jj - do you know female people, personally, friends, colleagues, who have been raped, traumatised and are frightened of male people in enclosed spaces or when they're alone? Any female friend with birth trauma who can't let a male person examine them? A female friend who has been beaten up or strangled by her male partner and did an early morning flit with the kids to a refuge, and spent years picking up the pieces with her and kids petrified of male voices, especially male ones? Any female friends whose religion or culture means there are public toilets or swimming ponds they no longer have access to, even though there's a choice of two or three there?

• raised voices that should say.