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.

I have a sex identity, as far as I am aware of my female body and it's specifics that play a big part in my life (periods, sex, pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding). I'm aware I am treated and perceived as female socially and choose to mostly socialise with other women as that's where I feel safe and comfortable (but not all women do). I don't know if that's a gender identity. I've tried to get trans relatives to explain it to me and I am not sure I get it. In the same way I don't understand the phrase 'to live as a wo/man' when one isn't one, unless it just means what you wear and the name you're called.

I do wonder if there are any languages in which there is only one word for sex and gender, and would that would be easier or worse?

Speaking of the fear of a male voice... we rescued a puppy that had been mistreated. She didn't trust men, it took her a long time to trust my father and brother. New men in the house, made her anxious. A loud man- a shout of laughter, for example- and she'd wet herself.

It matters.
Women know.
No.

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.

This. I won't be guilt tripped out of my boundaries in favour of the feelings of people others, who centre males, think are more important than me. They aren't and I'm largely uninterested in their personal stories. The end.

What utter nonsense, gender identity has nothing at all to do with stereotypes.

It's ENTIRELY based on stereotypes.

So if gender identity is a deeply personal, indescribable, unexplainable feeling why does it require external validation from all individuals and institutions in society backed up by the force of the law?

And why are children being encouraged to interrogate themselves for their own confusing, deeply personal, unexplainable feelings in school and in organisations such as Girl Guides?

Why are we changing the meaning of words, disregarding our understanding of biology, overturning the principles of free speech and dismantling safeguarding standards and women’s rights for the sake of the deeply personal feelings of a very small number of people?

@Ereshkigalangcleg

What utter nonsense, gender identity has nothing at all to do with stereotypes.

It's ENTIRELY based on stereotypes.

I know, right!

Because a male born individual wants to be butch while they are identifying as a woman, it means it's not based on stereotypes!

How about the stereotype that says that same male born individual can say they are the sex they want, they can do what they like, present how they want, and you have to just shut up!!

I don't give a shit if the male born individual is butch or feminine. They are not a woman.

Honestly, to think it's a gotcha that a male born individual acts like a stereotypical male, but insists they are female, and that very contrariness means women are wrong!!!

It's almost funny 🤣

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

Now this is a rare definition that does make sense, although it’s seems to describe “being transgender” rather than “gender identity”: a desire for the physical characteristics of the opposite sex, and a desire to be socially treated as the opposite sex.

This is where I end up whenever I try to get my head around it.

It doesn’t mean that you are or become the opposite sex though. And it offers no justification, other than your desire, for why other people should go along with it.

I think the other thing is when you have someone who is rejecting the gender enforced on them we need to get away from the idea that this means they should have any body issues, that there is anything wrong with their body

So body and gender issues play off each other and reinforce each other , but body disconnect independent of gender issues is extraordinarily rare . Most people today identifying as trans develop the body problems in their teens, when gender negatives become much more obvious and the link between them and distressing body changes is clear

If you don't feel like you have a gender, you might be non-binary op

@HipTightOnions

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

Now this is a rare definition that does make sense, although it’s seems to describe “being transgender” rather than “gender identity”: a desire for the physical characteristics of the opposite sex, and a desire to be socially treated as the opposite sex.

This is where I end up whenever I try to get my head around it.

It doesn’t mean that you are or become the opposite sex though. And it offers no justification, other than your desire, for why other people should go along with it.

Exactly. That's gender dysphoria. A real illness.

And if maintaining a fiction is beneficial to the person who has it, then absolutely.

It doesn't mean that, in culture, law, language, biology and politics that someone is the opposite sex.

Sorry, and I meant to add, that it is detrimental, on a grand scale, to women, to pretend it is real.

Just because some people have boxes, and like to sort everyone into their own personal boxes, does not mean everyone has to get in a box.

I don't have a gender. I'm a biological female. I don't need any other interesting words than that, and I don't worry about gender stereotypes. I spend a lot of time however trying to stand up for my legal rights as a female against male people who would like to insist I enact a stereotypical role for them.

@Charley1984

If you don't feel like you have a gender, you might be non-binary op

The doctrine of gender identity is a quasi-religious belief system. People who do not share that belief, don't slot into a different branch of that belief system. They're simply atheists.

I find part of this discussion strange.

There is an accusation against women here not to know any trans people even though many of them have talked about trans children, husbands who are trans and friends who are trans. These women have been told they don’t know what they are talking about when they talk about how women should view trans women. When they talk about their own perspective.

On the other hand, trans women claim to understand and know biological women to the extent that they want to convince us that they are women. Based on some gender identity? Without ever acknowledging women’s traumas from rape, childbirth and domestic violence and sexual assault. I have been lucky enough not to have experienced rape or sexual assault, but I have no problem understanding the trauma that can bring. It is almost as if biological sex means something for the understanding of this.

@CoffeeTeaChocolate

I find part of this discussion strange.

There is an accusation against women here not to know any trans people even though many of them have talked about trans children, husbands who are trans and friends who are trans. These women have been told they don’t know what they are talking about when they talk about how women should view trans women. When they talk about their own perspective.

On the other hand, trans women claim to understand and know biological women to the extent that they want to convince us that they are women. Based on some gender identity? Without ever acknowledging women’s traumas from rape, childbirth and domestic violence and sexual assault. I have been lucky enough not to have experienced rape or sexual assault, but I have no problem understanding the trauma that can bring. It is almost as if biological sex means something for the understanding of this.

Yeah, funny that innit.

We have to understand and make allowances to our own detriment, but males who are females, don't do the same.

I agree. I used to think I was a “not very girly” girl. Then I would do something girly and would get confused. Then I thought, hmm, maybe I was a man in my previous life .

Then I grew up and realized that I am a female. And the rest is a complex personality of which some is genuine and some still tried to conform to some ideas at some times. I’ve realised that everyone is like this.
I’ve realised how constricting the ideas of gender have become. How the constant, sudden “panic” about trans children and teens, undermines the idea that teenage years are difficult mentally and physically for most people, and we all struggle with identity to some degree at this time.

What utter nonsense, gender identity has nothing at all to do with stereotypes.

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.

You're describing two different things here, and conflating them as well as contradicting yourself (nothing new there, of course).

There are two issues - one is the body hatred you're describing and the other one is the social and cultural one (which is about stereotypes, regardless of your protestations to the contrary). Body hatred might be neurological in origin as I mentioned in an earlier post, and can be very hard to treat other than with physical modifications to the body (although I'd hope that such barbaric treatments might one day be obsolete, once we have a better understanding of the workings of the brain).

Someone who hates their sexed body doesn't have the same condition as someone who has a dislike of the place in society they find themself in due to their sex, unless they happen to suffer from both conditions simultaneously. But we know that many people who identify as transgender make no body modifications nor do they desire them.

You say that gender identity is not about stereotypes, but then say a person with a cross-sex gender identity might want to be 'socially treated as the opposite sex'. What is this about if not stereotypes? If there were no stereotypes it wouldn't be possible to 'socially treat' someone as the opposite sex.

Because a male born individual wants to be butch while they are identifying as a woman, it means it's not based on stereotypes!

How about the stereotype that says that same male born individual can say they are the sex they want, they can do what they like, present how they want, and you have to just shut up!

I don't give a shit if the male born individual is butch or feminine. They are not a woman.

Honestly, to think it's a gotcha that a male born individual acts like a stereotypical male, but insists they are female, and that very contrariness means women are wrong!!!

Yes, exactly this!

What is this about if not stereotypes? If there were no stereotypes it wouldn't be possible to 'socially treat' someone as the opposite sex.

It's pronouns and a different name.

What fuck else is there?

Because you can bet your life that, for example, the 'gender pay gap' does not reflect this thing called gender identity. The gender pay gap knows what sex you are.

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

I'd like it if we just said this, and only this, to jj from now on. I doubt it will be listened to (that phrasing was awkward without a pronoun but I managed) but it really is perfect.

I am reminded of a woman I knew who recounted an incident in which her (very much ex thank God!) husband told her not to scream so loudly when he kicked her in the ribs, because her screaming hurt his ears.

@MichelleofzeResistance

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?

I'm not really sure what this has to do with gender identity but yes I know many women who have been through traumatic events at the hands of men including trans women. My best friend spent half her childhood in women's refuges and finds the idea that the most frightening thing about moving into a refuge might be the possibility of bumping into a trans woman hilarious. But I recognise not every feels like that which is why I support a properly funded refuge system which can accommodate everyone safely, whatever their needs.

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?

Nah you don't get to pull this anymore, not after the thread in FWR where everyone argued in favour of communal nakedness in changing rooms despite the fact that excludes many Muslims.

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.

We've now danced this dance many times jj1968 but I'll do it again:

We are NOT focusing on the tiny percentage of the trans community who transition. We are talking about the vast number of people who make no changes whatsoever to their bodies. People who embody and embrace opposite-sex stereotypes and who declare that to be the basis of their identity as the opposite sex.

We are responding to the materials from countless trans rights organisations that place gender identity very firmly in the framework of gender as socially constructed stereotypes.

And the teaching my children are receiving at school about gender identity, which is all about stereotypes.

Your assumption that having an opposite-sex gender identity means being transsexual and medically transitioning is one I used to share. Until I was educated by member of the trans community and trans rights activists. Have a word with them if you dislike that definition. I didn't come up with it.

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.

I've met plenty of nice people who identify as trans and unfortunately was threatened, in person, IRL, by several males who identify as trans. I attend events organised by members of the trans community to educate myself. I have family members who identify as trans. My children have friends who identify as trans. I shouldn't know this many people who identify as trans, given where I live and the low prevalence of gender dysphoria, but I do.

But I've told you all of this before, too. You know this. Many of us have told you the same.

I am starting to wonder if you really know the new trans community. Because all you ever talk about and focus your need-based arguments on is transsexuals.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

I am reminded of a woman I knew who recounted an incident in which her (very much ex thank God!) husband told her not to scream so loudly when he kicked her in the ribs, because her screaming hurt his ears.

Yes I'm sure your trauma from someone disagreeing with you on the internet is exactly the same as hers. Good analogy.

What a state ...