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.

[Ereshkigalangcleg]

I so often ignore these threads but I think it can give posters a disproportionate idea that most MNers are gender critical and I don’t think that’s true.

Maybe not actively gender critical, because they don't even give it that much thought. If you think most MNers are believers in gender identity ideology you're out of touch.

[Whatsnewpussyhat]

I so often ignore these threads but I think it can give posters a disproportionate idea that most MNers are gender critical and I don’t think that’s true

Not just MN but the general population. Most people don't believe in gender ideology.
So why should laws be changed to be based on an internal feeling some people have over our sex?

[Ereshkigalangcleg]

I think even Vashta knows it's not true that people have gendered souls. Hence the #bekind proclamation, because there isn't anything else to back it up.

[Quaagars]

@VashtaNerada

I have a sense of gender identity. I feel female (& am female bodied) and the thought of having a male body makes me shudder. I agree that our gender identity is shaped by societal influences and gender stereotypes but I don’t agree that it doesn’t exist at all. I think I’m lucky that my gender identity matches my biological sex and have empathy with those who don’t. Perhaps in a perfect world without sexism people wouldn’t feel that mismatch but as we don’t live in that world trans people do exist and I support those who identify in that way.
I don’t particularly want to answer a million posters saying “what is a woman?” to me off the back of my post and it’s fine if you disagree with what I said above. I so often ignore these threads but I think it can give posters a disproportionate idea that most MNers are gender critical and I don’t think that’s true.

I agree with you, and yes I think people stay silent on these threads as it's hard to take feeling in the minority and "shouted down."
(Love your username by the way!) Fellow Whovian lol

[jj1968]

I wonder how many of our grand parents, assuming they were straight, would have insisted they don't have a sexuality. I wonder how many of their grandparents, presuming they were white, would have insisted they didn't have a race. If you don't feel discomfort with the sexed aspects of your body, or cringe a bit inside if someone refers to you using pronouns and language which places you in a gendered role you don't feel fits you, then congratulations, your gender identity probably matches your physical sex so you have probably never really thought much about gender identity and don't think you have one.

[Whatsnewpussyhat]

jj no one says some people don't feel discomfort in themselves or with their sense of self but sex exists and a few people's feeling should not override that in law.

People will be polite and use whatever name you want to call yourself but we won't be forced to pretend anyone has changed sex.

[douliket]

It is possibly the most ridiculous thing us humans have come up with, You are a woman or a man or a trans woman or a trans man. That is it. There is nothing else that you can be. There is no in between. You are not a table,you are not a dog,you're just not. You may be a woman who hates dresses and plays football,perfectly fine,but you are still a woman. You may be a man who dresses up in women's clothes and wishes to be called a female name,all perfectly fine, but you are not a woman, you are a trans woman. It's as ridiculous as saying you only have one eye,when everyone can clearly see you have two,you can say what you want but at the end of the day, you have two eyes and there's nothing you can do to change that 🙄honestly is there even anyone who has time for this identity nonsense, just be whoever you want to be without making ridiculous claims such as "I was born a woman but I identify as a table"🥴

[DickKerrLadies]

Thanks to those who have tried to explain what they mean by gender identity.

No, I don't have one. I dont recognise any 'feeling' of gender at all. I do not have a gender identity. If anything, I more strongy align with masculine gender and I have often felt a disconnect between how I feel and what others expect of me due to my sex. And I do cringe when people put me in a gender role that doesn't fit - that's one of the reasons I've been critical of gender since before I even had heard of the word for it.

Maybe some people have a very strong alignment with a particular gender role, but I don't.

[cinammonbuns]

Gender = women or man
Sex = Female or Male

Argue with all governmental bodies who use this definition not me.

[CrayonInThreeBits]

I'm autistic. I find lying very uncomfortable (and suspect I have more difficulty coping with being lied to than average, too).

If I have to refer to a man as a woman and call him "she", or refer to a woman as a man and call her "he", or refer to a person whose sex I know as "they", my brain treats this as me telling a lie, which I find cognitively taxing and deeply uncomfortable. Why am I required to do something which, because of my disability, is unusually difficult for me and makes me feel uncomfortable?

[Galvantulang]

@DickKerrLadies yes especially when I was younger I felt I didn't fit in with a lot of what was expected of a girl.

Luckily my parents let me do and wear mostly what I wanted and have my hair short if I liked too. I felt completely uncomfortable with make up/fashion chat and still do to be fair. I give a lot fewer fucks now in my 40s though I guess. I did wish I was a boy for quite a while as a child as I preferred the expectations on them I suppose!

My mum taught both me and my brother to cook and sew and stuff, I'd say I did absorb some "be nice and avoid confrontation and worry about what others think" socialisation from somewhere though, compared to him.

So the idea that lots of people are comfortable with the stereotypes of their sex just doesn't ring true.

[RaidersoftheLostAardvark]

I do not have a gender identity. To quite Popeye, I am who I am.
You can't change your chromosomes.

[SophocIestheFox]

I don’t have a gender identity any more than I have a soul, and for the same reasons.

Religious people would say I do have a soul, but I just haven’t accepted it, or choose to ignore it. Their souls are very important to them, they feel they define them and they would be distraught at the proposition that they don’t have one.

People who believe that they have a gender identity feel the same way- they feel that I do have a gender identity but because it “matches” my sex, I’ve just never had to bother noticing it, or I haven’t accepted it. Their gender identity is very important to them, they feel it defines them, and they would be distraught at the proposition that they don’t have one.

I am happy to live in a world where people who hold both of these beliefs are free to hold them and live their lives accordingly, but I won’t accept living in a world where these beliefs are codified in law, enforced by the state, or made a pre requisite of having a job. It’s unacceptable coercion of belief, and we’ve spent hundreds of years building a secular society to avoid having the state mandate belief, so why are we doing it again now?

My second objection is that even if you accept that it’s a legitimate aim, this kind of action isn’t even helpful- imagine you’re a closeted trans person, and everyone is stating their pronouns, and you’re not ready to. What do you do? You’re under pressure to out yourself. Bonkers.

It also impacts badly on women due to stereotype threat.

Woman and female is what I am, not who. It’s not a descriptor of anything but a biological reality.

[ErrolTheDragon]

I agree with you, and yes I think people stay silent on these threads as it's hard to take feeling in the minority and "shouted down."

This thread has a poll, which is anonymous and doesn't require you to post. It was at 90% last night, confirming the OPs proposition as stated in the thread title. It's not 'shouting down', it's just that this feeling of gender identity is a minority view. Posts by people who can express it are interesting- although unfortunately (genuinely) they mostly leave the majority none the wiser.

[HazeyJaneII]

My biology makes me what I am - female
My personality makes me who I am - me

[Galvantulang]

@RaidersoftheLostAardvark I kind of love that you just quoted Popeye. Although I now have the cartoon theme song going round my head...

[AStudyinPink]

I don’t consider myself to have a ‘gender identity’. I derive my sense that I am female from the fact that I’m female, so that’s all anyone needs to know.

It’s also deeply inappropriate to request that people record a potentially incongruent ‘gender identity’ at work. That’s asking people to come out as trans.

[TheKeatingFive]

Not personally no, but I don’t find it very difficult to imagine that others do. It’s probably quite easy to ignore or not notice the distinction if your gender identity lines up with your biological sex.

[TheKeatingFive]

But I’d advise the OP to ignore the email and get on with her life. It seems that a lot of companies are taking this stuff to a bizarre degree of seriousness.

[Galvantulang]

@VashtaNerada there are 140 odd posts and over 700 anonymous votes on this thread. That doesn't indicate to me many people silently disagreeing?

Lots of posters disagreeing with a view or asking for clarification on unclear concepts isn't being shouted down either.

[AStudyinPink]

It’s probably quite easy to ignore or not notice the distinction if your gender identity lines up with your biological sex.

It’s not ‘a distinction’. There is a small sub-set of people who feel something they call a ‘gender identity’. The rest don’t have that feeling.

[Galvantulang]

@TheKeatingFive in terms of this voluntary declaration of identity at work, yes I have ignored it.

In terms of laws being proposed which define men and women by gender identity instead of biological sex, no I can't ignore that.

Even census questions are being targeted. What is the point of determining the demographics of a country if sex isn't recorded. Gender identity doesn't help in planning maternity services, cervical, breast or prostate cancer screening requirements.

[ComDummings]

Yeah I don’t have a gender identity. I have a biological sex I suppose but I don’t ‘feel’ like anything at all. I just feel like ‘me’ if that makes sense?

[ComDummings]

@AStudyinPink

It’s probably quite easy to ignore or not notice the distinction if your gender identity lines up with your biological sex.

It’s not ‘a distinction’. There is a small sub-set of people who feel something they call a ‘gender identity’. The rest don’t have that feeling.

This ^

[AStudyinPink]

Even census questions are being targeted. What is the point of determining the demographics of a country if sex isn't recorded.

I’m pretty sure they’re recording sex this time.