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.

@Floridaflipflops

I feel like a female when I’ve washed my hair, put my face on and off out fir a night out.

Every other time I just feel like a slug.

I still feel female without feeling like I have to do my hair and put my make up on (I never wear make up and run a brush through my hair and that's it.) Why would you feel like a slug if you don't do yourself up? How does that make you any less female?

Gender relies on regressive stereotypes. The rest of us know our sex and the advantages and disadvantages that brings and just get on with it.

Although if pushed I would like my pronouns to be mer, merself in honour of my mermaid fin diving skills in covid free times.

Mostly in reality my pronouns are mummy, mama.

@Whitecup4

Im a women, but I don’t act like one I guess?? I don’t do make up and bitching and get scared to get dirty or muddy, but I’m not like a bloke either, I don’t fight, burp or fart aloud, play football or like sport. I just feel like myself, neither like a man or a women but just me.

However i am a women, happy with that, but I identify as me I guess? I don’t identify as a women, I am a women.

@Whitecup4

Ah yes, because bitching isn’t something men do at all and deep fear of mud is a common female characteristic 🙄/🤣/WTAF

@AnyOldPrion
Who cares about being called Sir or Mr? I’d correct it and move on... or not bother because it’s unimportant in most contexts.

Really? So what happens if you correct, they either eye roll or don't listen and just carry on as they were calling you Mr as that's what they want to do and think you should be called?

@dingoesatemybaby

I don't particularly understand the concept of gender identity. I am a biological female, I wouldn't know if I identified as a male because I'm not one so how would I know?

Sooooo much this

I've always been fairly "gender non conforming", I didn't really care when I was a teenager with short hair walking with my brother (in our shell suits ) and people said "hello boys".

I do get annoyed at people assuming I can't do things because I'm a (fairly short) woman.

Several children came out of my body, but my preferred attire is still jeans and t-shirt and I wear make up maybe once every year or 2 if that, in an attempt to disguise how tired I look.

I'm interested in science, books, music and whatever other shit catches my attention.

Companies don't worry about employing women in their 20s and 30s because of an identity, it's because of the fact they can get pregnant and this costs the company money.

Why would anyone woman care about being called mr instead of Mrs?

I expect people to call me by name. I. Squeak will suffice if it’s a formal setting. I don’t need mrs to be mentioned at all.

Being called by my name has fuck all to do with my sex or with sex role stereotypes though.

The great thing for companies is they can employ female gendered people and they don’t have to give them maternity pay
Win win

dingoesatemybaby This is right. If you are a woman you have no idea what it is to be a man. If you are a man you have no conception of being a woman. If you feel you are different inside from others, that is personality. Not a gender identity.

No one I know has a gender. It's a silly idea that woke people role play with each other.

[quote Quaagars]**@AnyOldPrion
Who cares about being called Sir or Mr? I’d correct it and move on... or not bother because it’s unimportant in most contexts.

Really? So what happens if you correct, they either eye roll or don't listen and just carry on as they were calling you Mr as that's what they want to do and think you should be called?[/quote]
I think that’s rude and unacceptable, but a separate issue from people being asked to announce their pronouns when they may not want to.
I really don’t care if someone thinks I’m male. At work I have to speak to people in various non-English speaking countries, and I don’t have a common name. I know some of them have thought I’m male, I don’t care. If they were standing in front of me and still thought it and said “mr” then I’d correct them because that is not my title.
That doesn’t mean I have a sense of a gender identity, as per OP’s title question.

@VPNine

dingoesatemybaby This is right. If you are a woman you have no idea what it is to be a man. If you are a man you have no conception of being a woman. If you feel you are different inside from others, that is personality. Not a gender identity.

If you feel you are different inside from others, that is personality. Not a gender identity

This is the perfect summation

If you feel differently from others that’s personality.

A level psychology texts quote research that says 95% of us feel we are less conforming than our peers.

Everyone feels we are different. That’s human. It has fuck all to do with the sex of our bodies though.

How have we gone from the teen trends of goths or emos and so on being the way the 95% of us who think we are different express that to that difference now being focused on our sexed bodies? Thinking we are different from others shouldn’t mean we jump to chop off our breasts to show how different we are.

I think that’s rude and unacceptable, but a separate issue from people being asked to announce their pronouns when they may not want to

OK, yes I agree that it's a separate issue to people being asked to announce their pronouns, you shouldn't have to if you don't want to.
People constantly calling someone "he" instead of she or vice versa as they think they are right and the other is being ridiculous, not the same though and does happen a lot if MN is anything to go by.

Honestly I think in this constant (and exhausting) trans debate people have got themselves confused. If you refer to yourself as a women ever then clearly you believe in gender. I do not know anyone who refers to themselves only as a female not a woman but if you do then you can say you don’t believe in gender.

Woman simply means adult human female. It's not about "gender". Like a mare is a female horse, and a doe is a female deer or rabbit.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Honestly I think in this constant (and exhausting) trans debate people have got themselves confused. If you refer to yourself as a women ever then clearly you believe in gender. I do not know anyone who refers to themselves only as a female not a woman but if you do then you can say you don’t believe in gender.

Woman simply means adult human female. It's not about "gender". Like a mare is a female horse, and a doe is a female deer or rabbit.

Maybe to some it's just about biology, and what body parts you have. To some it's more though.

For me personally I don’t feel the need to include as it’s no one else’s business and I would refuse to give out this information as why does someone need this level of detail?

Now if someone else wants to, go for it but I prefer not to give out publicly that level of personal information.

My work does however have on their HR system details on my sex as legally we have to report our sex based pay gap and I’m fine with that as it is not public information.

And I don’t give a monkeys if I’m referred to as sir although when I was referred to as a lady I did have to tell them that I ain’t no lady!

Recent FaceBook posts lead me to believe that the trans community would prefer people NOT to use the term 'identify as', nor talk about 'preferred' pronouns. They would like to be called 'men' or 'women' and their pronouns are their pronouns, not their preference. That's fine with me.

@PrawnPower

I'm really confused my the recent backlash against the word "gender". I think people are trying to hit back at the new gender identity trend by saying there is no such thing.

I feel like I've missed a part of what's going on. I think I'm female and therefore I'm a woman. If someone is male they are a man. One is more a biological term, as you can have a female cat who is not a woman or a male fish who is not a man. And the words "man" and "woman" are words that apply to human beings.

I never thought there was a distinction between "sex" and "gender" beyond that.

A transsexual person doesn't have a different sex or a different gender to the one they were born with. They just want to live as though they did as they feel happier like that.

I think everyone is getting tied up in knots in a bid to hold onto the meaning of the word "sex". I'd like to return both meanings. My sex and my gender are female and woman 🤷🏻‍♀️

It isn't recent. Gender as a social construct has been discussed in sociology and feminist theory since the 1970s, that I know of, and probably well before then.

Maybe to some it's just about biology, and what body parts you have. To some it's more though

What's more? A feeling?

I do not belive for one single second that this is a good faith question

In what way @Bluntasduck?

I genuinely think wtf at the company wanting to record info that is not related to protected characteristics.

Women are discriminated against because of their biology, not their identity.

I just feel like me. I don't feel like a woman. I asked dh. He doesn't feel like a man , he feels like himself.

I have boobs and a vagina etc so in that sense I am a woman and can physically feel those parts of me! I just don't have a sense of being female. It's just a fact. And not a very interesting fact. If I feel defined by anything its my role as mum, my job, my other relationships, my religion, my skin colour etc. Even then, for example: I don't feel white. I am white. I don't feel female. I am female.

I guess I don't get it.

Recent FaceBook posts lead me to believe that the trans community would prefer people NOT to use the term 'identify as', nor talk about 'preferred' pronouns. They would like to be called 'men' or 'women' and their pronouns are their pronouns, not their preference. That's fine with me.

Unless they'd like to be called the term that corresponds to their sex, they are free to call themselves the opposite sex but it's not fine with me that I'm expected to play along when I don't believe in their ideology.

I'd quite enjoy the prospect of women all en masse reading the panoply of genders and picking one for themselves.

I've done this. It's super fun.

I would identify as quasi-demiwoman (yes it's a thing, go Google it), but sorry to HR as it means my pronouns are fluid so they would need updating very often, hell sometimes I might identify differently within the course of the day (certain situations do make me feel more like a man, I haven't pinned down why, and I can't predict it which is a nuisance).

My pronouns would be shehe, herhis, herhisself. Sorry to all as it is effing irritating to write things that autocorrect objects to.

For sure there will be days when I'm questioning this whole sorry mess, and on the days when the "quasi" and "demi" of my gender identity kicks in, I will make sure to send HR an email to update my pronouns please. Yes, again, sorry to be a pain but it is important to my comfort within the organisation. I know people are raising eyebrows as I came to work IN A SKIRT AND HEELS today, which you know always brings out the "hey you have legs!" comments which I love so much and my dysphoria does weird wobbles in this situation (i wore a skirt as I'm not doing any manual work today and the weather is fine, so I thought it would make a change). Mainly those legs comments are from the people who currently identify as women, actually (the men have been mostly trained not to comment although it doesn't stop them looking does it). It's sexual harassment but I've never worried about it, because as a woman I just put up with it now I'm in a really discriminated-against minority group it might be worth me asking if Stonewall can come in and please train everyone to please stop complimenting me on my "perfect pins".

If we all pick different pronouns writing emails will be really fun.

Oh, and apologies to anyone who finds the pronoun "shehe" slightly offensive, but this represents the fluidity of my gender with its bias towards 'woman' (some days it might be heshe, but I'll keep you informed).