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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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

999 replies

Galvantulang · 06/02/2021 21:49

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? Confused

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.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
5
YetAnotherSpartacus · 10/02/2021 12:50

Most of us automatically fall into this way of being

No, we don't. We are conditioned from a young age and pulled into line for many elements of non-conformity. For example, men who cry are often mocked and women are called names for non-conformity to beauty norms - i.e not shaving or so on.

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime · 10/02/2021 12:50

@Proudboomer

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9241217/Hospital-tells-midwives-use-terms-like-birthing-parents-human-milk.html#comments

Sorry it is a daily mail link and we all know how much mn hates the daily mail but this is true and happening just down the road from me.

This is an example to women being eroded to comply with gender identification.

Um. That article includes these two paragraphs straight after each other:

"An estimated 1 per cent of the adult population in Britain identifies as transgender or non-binary but the trans population in Brighton and Hove is thought to be larger.
"Although no official figures exist on the trans community, research has shown nearly 10 per cent of the population of Brighton and Hove identify as LGBTQ+, compared to around 2.2 per cent of the general population."

There's quite a difference between the two in actual numbers of people, given a population of 67,000,000 of which say 50,000,000 are adults. The first figure would be 500,000 people deemed to be trans, the second would be 1,474,000.

This clearly and graphically illustrates the difficulty of being accurate when there is no clear definition of what trans actually means, but the "trans umbrella" covers everything from post-operative transexual to sex-questioning fourteen-year-old who wants to be part of the in-crowd at school.

(All fourteen-year-olds ask questions about sex, of themselves if nobody else. It is what adolescents do, unless they are unwell in some way.)

ErrolTheDragon · 10/02/2021 12:52

I also think it is problematic to deny gender exists, while also asserting that sexism does exist.

Gender stereotypes and roles exist, for sure. That doesn't mean that these must form an integral part of our 'identity'. Part of my 'identity' is 'scientist'. I wholly reject the stereotype you mentioned.

Stripesnomore · 10/02/2021 12:57

Did anyone on this thread ever actually define what a gender identity is?

jj1968 · 10/02/2021 12:59

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Even CEDAW has taken note and raised concerns about women's sex-based rights being superseded by self-id policies in its most recent country report on Portugal, published in November 2020.

That's encouraging.

A link would be nice.
Stripesnomore · 10/02/2021 13:01

Can’t you just go to the country reports at CEDAW?

midgedude · 10/02/2021 13:01

Working definition of gender identity

A close affinity or similarity with the norms expected of one particular sex

jj1968 · 10/02/2021 13:09

@gardenbird48

I think it is a male socialisation thing. It is if they are thinking “If I just keep going, sooner or later the women will give in.”

Absolutely, like so many old school romantic movies - the boy asks her out/wants a kiss, she says no, he won’t take no for an answer and keeps asking and demonstrates how she is wrong and she eventually gives in Hmm not rapey at all ...

In just the last few days gender critical 'fact's posted on mumsnet include the claim there had been hundreds of sexual assaults committed by trans women in prison, this was later qualified to several rapes by another poster. Both of these statements are lies, and they are very damaging lies. As is the claim most trans women are quite happy with their penis - a completely spurious assertion for which we have seen there is no evidence.

This isn't the only misinformation posted incidentally, and i note the authorative claims made rarely come with a source. There is an absolute torrent of misinformation, exaggeration and opinion/speculation assumption presented as facts about trans people on mumsnet - the biggest parenting website in the world. It is hugely damaging to trans people and makes mumsnet a pretty much no go area for trans parents and supportive parnts of trans children.

That is why I post here. So at the very least the casual reader will see many of these 'facts' are disputed and some are without any foundation at all.

midgedude · 10/02/2021 13:12

Please post evidence , links to the posts

Although please also remember that if 1 rape is proven there are likely to be 10 to 100 unproven because that's the harsh reality of sexual abuse in the uk

Stripesnomore · 10/02/2021 13:15

Thanks Midgedude.

FannyCann · 10/02/2021 13:15

As is the claim most trans women are quite happy with their penis - a completely spurious assertion for which we have seen there is no evidence.

Ae we talking about happy with the size/shape? Maybe we should see the evidence?

So most trans women have a penis? Even if they think it could be improved in some way?

Lifeaintalwaysempty · 10/02/2021 13:18

@jj1968 I didn’t see the post in question about trans women and their penises (peni?!) but perhaps it was referring to a meta-analysis of 27 studies that estimated a rate of approx 10 per 100,000 of the population (0.01%) have a transgender diagnosis and/or surgical or hormonal treatment. In contrast 355 per 100,000 of the population(0.35%) self-identity as transgender, suggesting that only 2.8% of the transgender community is undergoing any gender-affirming treatment with the vast majority 97.2% simply self-identity with no modifications to their sexed body whatsoever.

Lifeaintalwaysempty · 10/02/2021 13:21

@jj1968 with reference sexual assault: Transgender prisoners are five times more likely to carry out sex attacks on inmates at women’s jails than other prisoners are, official figures show. Times, May 11th 2020. The number of transgender prisoners is low, so the number of sexual assaults is low overall, but very high in relative terms. Not great is it.

ArcheryAnnie · 10/02/2021 13:22

In the same way, non-trans people don't notice their gender identity, because it matches their sexed body. Just because you take it for granted, it doesn't mean it's not real.

This, DadJoke, makes the staggering assumption that those of us who assert that we don't have a gender identity have a) not interrogated it over years, and (certainly in my case) decades, and b) that we take our sexed bodies for granted. I have not taken a national poll, but for my own set of confidants amongst women, none of us - none of us! - have ever taken our sexed bodies for granted. For some of us that has meant developing eating disorders when we hit puberty, to make our sexed bodies "disappear", for others of us, it was to aspire, hopelessly, to have been born male. For yet others of us, puberty was the beginning of a lifelong and very difficult love-hate relationship with our sexed bodies. For some, their relationship with their sexed bodies was destroyed long before puberty as a result of childhood abuse. None of us have had the staggering privilege that you seem to have, DadJoke, of taking anything about the relationship between ourselves and our sexed bodies for granted.

It doesn't matter if you vote not to have a gender identity, by the definition of the word, you do. It's like voting to not have a spleen

"Behold, I am here, a man, to tell all you women how wrong you are about your own lived experience. It doesn't matter how many years you have spent investigating this, you are wrong. I know better than you about your own bodies."

Datun · 10/02/2021 13:24

This isn't the only misinformation posted incidentally, and i note the authorative claims made rarely come with a source.

Haha! The answer is still no. The source is women. And the authority is that the spaces are theirs. That's theirs.

It's just no.

Your relentless attempts to make it a yes are odd, considering it's having the opposite affect.

ArcheryAnnie · 10/02/2021 13:25

Both of these statements are lies, and they are very damaging lies. As is the claim most trans women are quite happy with their penis - a completely spurious assertion for which we have seen there is no evidence.

I'm sure you just have this nonsense as some sort of macro, jj, as it seems there is no amount of evidence that will satisfy you.

This constant assertion that "women I don't like are liars" is really transparent.

midgedude · 10/02/2021 13:26

If you are going to force everyone to have a gender identity you will have to accept the gender identity people tell you

And you may find a significant proportion of women in particular express that they don't have a strong affinity to the norms of associated with female gender and may therefore be none binary , agender, or male

I'm expecting in the tens of percent

CharlieParley · 10/02/2021 13:28

Disputing that gender identity is a real concept (which is what I think the majority of people here are doing) is perfectly legitimate, though you are standing against the medical and psychological consensus, presumably for ideological reasons, or more likely because you take your gender identity for granted.

A concept is an abstract idea, DadJoke. We are not disputing that people have ideas about gender identity.

We are disputing that everyone has an internal identity based on one's acceptance or rejection of sex stereotypes and sex role stereotypes associated with one or the other sex.

There is no medical consensus of and no evidence for this happening in all human beings. There is some evidence that people who identify as trans and who suffer from gender dysphoria in early childhood experience a disruption in the development of their personality, which influences their understanding of themselves as a sexed member of a sexually dimorphic species. More often than not, this disruption is caused by trauma, abuse, rigid enforcement of sex stereotypes and sex role stereotypes by parents or caregivers and similar issues.

I recommend reading up on the last century of research into childhood development. There is no mention of this phenomenon, that is, after all, claimed to be innate and universal. If it was innate and universal, they would have observed it, even if they didn't have a word for it.

Most people have no idea what proprioception is, and they take for granted that they know where there limbs are. You only understand it when it's not working. In the same way, non-trans people don't notice their gender identity, because it matches their sexed body. Just because you take it for granted, it doesn't mean it's not real.

Okay, I'll make this clearer since you didn't understand my last response to you. I started thinking about and actively, publicly challenging the sex stereotypes and sex role stereotypes associated with my sex before I was ten. I hated them. Like most women on this board, I did not just think about these stereotypes, I thought about the nature of the world I was living in that sought to force me into this straitjacket of femininity. Once puberty hit, I hated my body. I hated the way it changed and the way post-adolescent males reacted to these changes. And how the straitjacket tightened ever further at this time.

I was forced into this straitjacket because of my sex. It was a means to disadvantage me. To discriminate against me. It was oppressive. The designer of this straitjacket is the patriarchal world we live in. It was made by men. I was forced into it by men and women.

Not thinking about the sex stereotypes and sex role stereotypes associated with one's sex is a luxury only the oppressor class can afford. Those of us who are forced into this straitjacket against our will and to our detriment cannot stop thinking about it.

Now I expect you to ignore what I say about this. Again. And continue to promote your ideology to curtail my rights for the benefit of your sex. That, too, is a privilege afforded only to the oppressor class.

Likewise, until relatively recently, heterosexual people took their sexuality for granted - sexuality as it's used today is a relatively recent concept. Now, we understand that sexual attraction comes in many forms and there a few people now who would deny they have a sexuality.

This is revisionist nonsense. Homosexuality and bisexuality have co-existed alongside heterosexuality for eons. If what you say were true, how would you explain the explicit and specific ways in which the monotheist religions of the world have been sanctioning all aspects of our sexuality as sin, putting even heterosexual people in fear of impure thoughts about their own bodies and the bodies of those they are attracted to?

It doesn't matter if you vote not to have a gender identity, by the definition of the word, you do. It's like voting to not have a spleen.

Please enlighten me. If I must have a gender identity, by the definition of the word, let's discuss that definition. Also, the spleen is an organ. Material reality. An object we can dissect with a knife. We can compare several specimens. Weigh them.

Gender identity is an unobservable, entirely subjective feeling. Tell me how I can verify that it a) exists, b) exists in all of us and c) manifests the same way in all past and present members of our species?

jj1968 · 10/02/2021 13:36

[quote Lifeaintalwaysempty]@jj1968 I didn’t see the post in question about trans women and their penises (peni?!) but perhaps it was referring to a meta-analysis of 27 studies that estimated a rate of approx 10 per 100,000 of the population (0.01%) have a transgender diagnosis and/or surgical or hormonal treatment. In contrast 355 per 100,000 of the population(0.35%) self-identity as transgender, suggesting that only 2.8% of the transgender community is undergoing any gender-affirming treatment with the vast majority 97.2% simply self-identity with no modifications to their sexed body whatsoever.[/quote]
Do you have a link? Those figures clearly don't work for the UK as it would mean only 6500 people had had treatment. GIRES said 30,000 several years ago, and that's just presenting to the NHS.

Trans healthcare is difficult to get in the UK with year long waiting lists and unnecessary and often intrusive gate-keeping. In many parts of the world it is near impossible though, aor prohibitively expensive such as the US. Trans people not being able to access healthcare does not equate to the claim that most trans women are quite happy with their penis. Some may well be, many are not.

jj1968 · 10/02/2021 13:40

And without really wanting to get back into this side of the debate for balance against the stream of unsourced 'facts' about intersex people here is a statement which directly confronts the differences and joint struggles of trans and intersex people and which was produced by InterACT the largest organisation for intersex youth in the US: interactadvocates.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/LavLaw-Trans-and-Intersex-Fact-Sheet.pdf

jj1968 · 10/02/2021 13:42

More often than not, this disruption is caused by trauma, abuse, rigid enforcement of sex stereotypes and sex role stereotypes by parents or caregivers and similar issues.

Can you provide some evidence for ths please? Ideally something peer reviewed. It is a somewhat bold claim.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 10/02/2021 13:43

I also don’t think my objections are ideological in any way. This is a reality based issue for women, impacting on our everyday lives. It’s not a philosophical topic to chew over, like what the meaning of free will is or whether ethical capitalism is possible. It’s a lot easier for men to dismiss this as a theoretical situation that can be solved by kindness, because a) you’re not used to limitations being put on you because of your sex and b) all of this has far less impact on men’s daily lives.

Yes, exactly.

ArcheryAnnie · 10/02/2021 13:43

Not thinking about the sex stereotypes and sex role stereotypes associated with one's sex is a luxury only the oppressor class can afford. Those of us who are forced into this straitjacket against our will and to our detriment cannot stop thinking about it

Now I expect you to ignore what I say about this. Again. And continue to promote your ideology to curtail my rights for the benefit of your sex. That, too, is a privilege afforded only to the oppressor class

< wild applause >, CharlieParley.

VanillaAndOrange · 10/02/2021 13:45

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

No, not all of them at all (although I do like wearing lipstick). But I think of myself as female so why shouldn't my gender identity be female? Are you saying my gender identity should be male if I'm not all of those things? What if I don't like stereotypically male things either? Am I non-binary now, even though I like my female-sounding name and being called "she"?

If gender identity means having to conform to outdated stereotypes, then I bet a lot of people who don't identify as the gender corresponding to their original sex would fail to qualify as identifying as the other gender, too.

I'm not saying I should go running around telling everybody that my gender identity is female, even if they haven't asked. But if I had to name a gender identity for some reason, female would be the best fit for me.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 10/02/2021 13:46

A link would be nice.

Maybe ask Charlie who posted about it, rather than me? Or I'm sure you have access to google.

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