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.

@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.

You’ve written exactly what I think so eloquently!

I bet the majority would be pretty unhappy to be called "sir" or "Mr"

I wouldn’t care tbh. I have a fairly gender neutral name and every now and again people who haven’t seen me think I’m a guy.

One guy wrote me such a nice email, calling me “brother” throughout, appealing to our commonality I couldn’t bring myself to tell him I wasn’t a “brother”.

With home schooling, childcare, full time job and cleaning the bloody house I don't have much time to ponder or care whether my downstairs bits align with my preference to watch bridgerton over football.

@RomeoLikedCapuletGirls

I bet the majority would be pretty unhappy to be called "sir" or "Mr"

I wouldn’t care tbh. I have a fairly gender neutral name and every now and again people who haven’t seen me think I’m a guy.

One guy wrote me such a nice email, calling me “brother” throughout, appealing to our commonality I couldn’t bring myself to tell him I wasn’t a “brother”.

In regularly called Mr by people I teach as they don't meet me until a while after they have all the teaching materials. It doesn't bother me they call me Mr, but it does bother me that they assume someone who is knowledgeable and competent must be a man

I took an online test and came out as 90% masculine so if my work ask me I'll say male and ask for a payrise.

The charity I volunteer with has started asking people for preferred pronouns when they apply.

I don't have a gender identity either.

See, this is where we differ then as I wouldn't like it if someone kept referring to me as male.

I wouldn’t, either, but only because I’d know they were doing it to wind me up. Nobody would mistake me for a man.

@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.

I feel great discomfort with the sexed aspects of my body. I cringe a lot inside if somebody refers to me using language which places me in a gendered role I don't feel fits me.

But this is not because my 'gender' does not match my physical sex. It's due to damage done by the socially constructed idea of gender, which aids the misogyny rife in our society.

This is due to the damage to both sexes done by gender, a social construct

Replacing " what is your sex" with " gender identity" in the workplace does at first glance seem fairly unimportant but it really isn't.
Data disaggregated by sex is vital in ensuring that women are not discriminated against in our still very sexist world.
Women die because we are not included in drug trials, women firefighters in California die from cancers caused by ill fitting breathing apparatus. Women have to give up work because their caring committments are not considered ( especially just now with children being home schooled)
This and countless other discriminations faced by the female sex cross gender identities. Transmen and non binary female people will die in car accidents where men and transwomen will not , simply because they have female bodies and car safety tests ignore women. They will also not get promotions at work because unlike men, transwomen and non binary males , they will be seen to possibly need maternity leave etc.

So collecting gender data instead of sex data will hide this societal and institutional sexism. Just one word makes all the difference.

I just hate the assumption that unless I say I'm trans or non binary that I'm happy with feminine gender stereotypes. It makes me apoplectic with rage.

cinammonbuns

Sex - female or male

Woman - adult human female
Man - adult human male

to distinguish from say

ewe and ram - adult female and adult male sheep
sow and boar - adult female and adult male pig
doe and buck - adult female and adult male deer

And so on.

Gender - to me that is some sort of scale of presentation or expression of stereotypical femininity/masculinity. Individuals' preferences really.

I don't identify as anything. I am a woman, and I have lots of preferences.

Yanbu. I just am female. Typical in many ways (higher proportion of body fat lol and I've used my reproductive organs and breasts for their intended purpose) but not typical according to the trans tropes of not feeling like a woman unless I'm wearing a dress and make up. I also couldn't beat a man the same age and height as me in a 100m race or tennis match, I'd bet my house on it.

This is why I’ll never understand how so many men believe themselves to be women at heart. How come they know so intrinsically what a woman feels like when actual women couldn’t tell you that? I feel like a woman purely because of my sex. The rest is just me.

@senua

Why do you want to know my gender? Do you want to stereotype me, stick me in a labelled box?

The thing is that on an internal system where you can access the names of members of staff and their emails, you can usually work out their sex from names. Mary, Karen, Shilpa, Anastasia or Olga are going to be female. John, Deepak, Luigi, Pedro and Alistair are going to be men. And if you're emailing does it matter? Emailing a colleague you don't start "Dear Mr Deepak" or refer to him in the third person. "Hi Deepak, just wondered if you'd had the chance to look at those sales figures, get back to me with any questions". So why is Deepak's gender identity of any concern?

This is why I’ll never understand how so many men believe themselves to be women at heart. How come they know so intrinsically what a woman feels like when actual women couldn’t tell you that?

They don’t know. They have a “feeling” that they think is like what being a woman is like. And the rest of us are meant to accept that as immutable fact.

If people want to latch on to some aspect of their personality and call it a gender identity, that’s fair enough. Where it’s not fair enough is when a) they expect everyone they come into contact with to participate in a collective lie about what sex they are and b) when public policy and law starts to be created using something as nebulous, meaningless and impossible to define as “gender identity” as its basis.

In regularly called Mr by people I teach as they don't meet me until a while after they have all the teaching materials. It doesn't bother me they call me Mr, but it does bother me that they assume someone who is knowledgeable and competent must be a man

Yes - when you find women cross at being called Mr it's generally because it's happened because of the sexist 'default male' phenomenon.

Times in my life when I've felt my "womanness" shining through ...

Age 12 when my parents friend tried to assault me when he was drunk,
Age 15 when I was coerced into sex and then assaulted shortly after,
Countless times since when I've experienced unwanted sexual attention, age 10-late twenties. Thankfully I'm now invisible at my age so these sort of things aren't happening. But they happened because of my biology and I can't identify out of that.

Thankfully threads with a FWR theme are "infiltrating" other boards though meaning posters everywhere can be reminded the fight for women's rights is far from over. Women and girls still need protection.

But back to the OP, other than that I believe gender identity is made up bollocks.

tellmewhentheLangshiplandscoz

@Wearywithteens

“Gender might not seem important to most of you judging by the poll but I bet the majority would be pretty unhappy to be called "sir" or "Mr" which is why getting the correct gender pronoun's is important to helping people feel included and respected.”

WRONG. Couldn’t give a shit if someone called me Mr or Sir. Maybe I’m super resilient at coping with such a traumatic event. Although it strangely has never happened in over 30 years of working.

This. Totally.

During Lockdown #1 I was queuing in a shop with no make up, scruffy hair and baseball cap. An elderly gentleman suggested to his wife they let "this young man" queue jump as I only had a few bits.

I found it funny. No hurt feelz here.

Someone said that many of us might be pissed off to be referred to as Mr....

I spent a decade of my life with my most important clients doing just that.

I worked in IT product support in a very nice market. Our mail. Clients were Asian or Indian and most referred to me as MrMyfemalename. They knew I was female, many had met me. But, to them, Mr was the honorific that was used for someone with more knowledge than them.

Utterly misogynistic, but not insulting in context, if you see what I mean.

Then again, the 80/90s where very definitely a different country!

I doubt the vast majority of people would have any cause to even think about their gender identity. However if you were unlucky enough to be born trans then its undoubtedly something that is always in your thoughts in one way or another.
These poor people are tortured from childhood, a respectful pro noun seems a very small to ask.

I think my Genflux Capacitor may be broken because I don't know what gender I feel.

Think I'll take myself off and look up the gender menu to pick today's main Gen-meal. Do I need to choose a different one each day for when I'm feeling more pink or more blue, or does it all depend on how stunning and brave I'm feeling at that particular time?

@Wearywithteens

If it’s optional ignore it. This bullshit is going to roll on until someone important and massively influential declares that, like the emperors new clothes, it’s blindingly batshit nonsensical on every level. That’s my great hope anyway.

Was thinking this recently but who will that be??!! Who is brave enough?!!

Was thinking this recently but who will that be??!! Who is brave enough?!!

Forgive me for thinking this might be the purpose of Mr. Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson!