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.

@Northofsomewhere

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. Obviously this is a simplistic view of gender and gendered pronoun's but it gets the point across as to why they matter.

I don't understand any of this, unless one has a name that is used for both male and female like Morgan or Cameron or Mackenzie, etc.

My name is very feminine (think Elizabeth or Caroline) so I am clearly a woman and a she/hers right? Or are people really expecting me to spell out for them something that obvious?

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.

The difficulty is that under the mis guidance of Stonewall and its fellow promoters of the ideology, companies are being encouraged to replace Sex with gender in their policies.

As gender is legally undefined and there are apparently infinite genders (one estimate, another website thought 371 including Tetrisgender and the (ideologically captured) BBC has been telling kids that it is 100+

Gender is a self defined and self identified category so when organisations like schools and hospitals are using gender as the important factor it means that you end up with male people self identifying into female single sex spaces.

Replacing sex with gender in any policy situation is dangerous and an j studious undermining of women’s rights to single sex spaces. This is the aim of the ideology.

Please also see the thread on Stonewall in schools it has much more detail.

Gender identity is a belief system rather than indisputable fact. Some people will believe in it, others won’t. Nobody should be forced to accept it as true. You’re not being unreasonable.

When people who believe in gender insist that if you don’t consider yourself to have a gender identity your gender must be “masculine” or “feminine” in line with your sex, it is like religious people insisting that atheism is a belief system.

No. It is an absence of belief, not something that aligns with the system their beliefs fit into.

I'm pro trans and have non binary friends but I do think there is a truth to this. I think most people just are how they are. I think gender is a complicated social construct so it's understandable people to question it and say they don't feel like a certain gender. I know that mumsnet is gender critical a stance I don't agree with. But I can still say that I do thi k op is right in most people just feel comfortable with the bodies they have and the gender they are.

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.

Okay. Well, what is it?

@nolongersurprised

Maverique is a gender identity that is characterized by autonym towards manhood or womanhood, while having the internal conviction that it is unrelated or not derived from none of the binary genders, while this is not a genderlessness or a gender apathy nor a gender neutrality

You should put down maverique, OP, and put the helpful definition in your email signature. No one will ever ask you about it

What absolute word salad!

I've just done an online quiz and I am Agender! I had to choose my favourite colour and favourite hair length.

@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.

My feelings exactly

My pronouns align with my biological sex, and I genuinely feel like I shouldn't have to state this or ask everyone what their preferred pronouns are. If someone wants to be known as something else, it's on them to say so, not on me to constantly inquire if Violet at the front desk still feels female or if Derek wants to be addressed as Mrs. They're the ones with the different ideas about themselves. They're the ones who feel they're not how they present. So they're the ones who should say so.

The most confusing one for me is a trans woman at my Dsis work who still insists on being called their very masculine birth name and being referred to as he.

If someone wants to be known as something else, it's on them to say so, not on me to constantly inquire if Violet at the front desk still feels female or if Derek wants to be addressed as Mrs.

I agree with this. For most people it’s a total non issue and to make it into a ‘thing’ is very silly.

@AStudyinPink I have properly laughed at your posts (in a good way )
I am a woman. I was born female. I have been socialised to be feminine. I am me. Not particularly thrilled with the body or face I have, but it's mine.

I agree most people don't see being a woman or a man as an 'identity', it's who they are. Identity to most people I suspect is more to do with where they feel culturally, so examples are English, or Black British.

Catnuzzle

Glad to entertain 😂

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

"Tortured from childhood"
Emotional guff. Non of the teen girls I know who now call themselves 'trans' had any issues being female or presenting as female until they hit 12/13.

These poor people are tortured from childhood, a respectful pro noun seems a very small to ask*

The thing is, whether they’ve been tortured from childhood or not, it isn’t actually a small ask. Being asked to lie, to state as fact things I know to be untrue, or be labelled a bigot, isn’t a small act. I don’t tell lies. I might try to avoid using pronouns to describe someone I know to be male who believes themselves to be female, but I am not going to lie, and certainly not if it is demanded of me.

The most confusing one for me is a trans woman at my Dsis work who still insists on being called their very masculine birth name and being referred to as he.

He's probably got the nous to understand that women are still subject to negative bias in most sectors. Which is of course why it's so wrong to make women stick an unnecessary extra 'I'm female' flag on their profiles.

Still laughing at being told I’d be upset at being called Mr or Sir. No. Maybe because I couldn’t be arsed. Gender as it is now being used is bollocks as far as my life. I don’t aim to conform and try to avoid stereotypes.

I keeping laughing at some bearded idiot stating that because they fix their car then go do something ‘womanly’ they are broadening the definition of woman. Fuck off! Did that in my teenaged years. Never once doubted I was a female for fixing my own car. Never once doubted I was a female as a landscaper, wheeling around blue metal. Never once doubted I was female plastering and painting my homes, installing dishwashers etc. (My point is I don’t believe these are gendered tasks like that person would if they believe women don’t fix cars)

It seems that to that person with a beard, maybe women never do these things. I know quite a few women who do, so when they make reference to tasks such as ‘fixing cars’ and the like, it is them who have the issue. because they have such a stereotypical view of what females do. They are not doing anything except pointing out how ridiculous and woeful their own inadequate understanding is. And they are lauded for perpetuating it!

No. A small subset of males and females feel they have a gender. It is time to acknowledge that the majority don’t and perhaps those who do need to actually work out what their ‘gender’ means. Is it stereotypes? If so, those are well worth fighting against. Never for!

And yes, If we all tick the NB box and /or the agender box where does that leave those set on maintaining’gender’ identities? So far 91% of 934 say they don’t have a gender identity.

Maybe it IS time that if tick boxes ask us to state what our gender identity is, we tick anything but female or male. Or to change the question where possible to sex.

Those organizations pushing this agenda who validly need to know the information will soon change their tick boxes to ask for sex and just hope people answer honestly.

@AStudyinPink

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.

Okay. Well, what is it?

@AStudyinPink

What's what? Gender?

Your gender is the same as your sex. Sex is male or female. But that also applies to other animals. If you're a female human you're a girl or a woman depending on age. If you're a male human you're a boy or a man depending on age.

Sex is biological, gender is just the name for what that means as a human being as opposed to being a female dog.

What's difficult about that?

We have a biological based word and a societal based word. There's no need to get twisted up like the TRAs are. I'm female, I'm a woman. A male is a man.

@gardenbird48

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.

The difficulty is that under the mis guidance of Stonewall and its fellow promoters of the ideology, companies are being encouraged to replace Sex with gender in their policies.

As gender is legally undefined and there are apparently infinite genders (one estimate, another website thought 371 including Tetrisgender and the (ideologically captured) BBC has been telling kids that it is 100+

Gender is a self defined and self identified category so when organisations like schools and hospitals are using gender as the important factor it means that you end up with male people self identifying into female single sex spaces.

Replacing sex with gender in any policy situation is dangerous and an j studious undermining of women’s rights to single sex spaces. This is the aim of the ideology.

Please also see the thread on Stonewall in schools it has much more detail.

Thanks for the response. I'm well aware of all of this and I'm on the side of the "gender critical"

The point I'm making is, instead of pretending there's no such thing as gender, why aren't we fighting back to reclaim gender for what it really means. I.e. males are men and females are women.

Maybe we've missed the chance and it's swung too far the other way now. Maybe the TRAs have claimed the word "gender" to mangle as they please.

But I'm never going to say anything other than a male person is a boy or a man and a female person is a girl or a woman.

Any spectrum of how people feel with in that is, as another PP astutely noted, simply your personality.

I couldn't even tell you what it feels like to be a woman, because I just am one.

I am an adult female, I’m a woman. How I ‘feel’ about that(?) is personality. My feelings about being a woman are based on my lived experiences as a woman.
On learning to cope with cramps; getting on with my life despite the hormonal fluctuations in my cycle- learning to not call my boss a shit in a meeting because I’m premenstrual etc. Learning to be aware of steps I want to take to avoid pregnancy at some life stages and to encourage it at others. Learning how to navigate the working environment while dealing with sexism, unwanted sexual attention and taking time out for maternity leave. Indeed learning how to deal with the fall out of relationships I went into willingly in the work environment which affected me more than them when it ended. In dealing with the grief of the death of a close friend from breast cancer and examining my own monthly (yes men can get breast cancer too, but the risk is much lower).
In navigating pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, motherhood - the physical feelings, the loneliness, the responsibility. Fighting for medical care for conditions that arose as a result of my pregnancy (gestational diabetes, prolapse). All of these things are all part and parcel of my experience of being a woman - an adult female.

Sometimes I wear make up, mostly I wear trousers. I ask my husband if things need sewing, he does most of the cooking and household shopping. I prefer grittier dramas than he does.

Gender stereotypes are regressive and hold women back. Legislation and interactions in the workplace need to be based on sex not gender.
Google ‘pronouns are rohypnol’ to understand why rejecting that step of ‘announcing pronouns’ is important.
If my work place requests our gender or pronouns I will refuse.

@HazeyJaneII

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

Yes, but you're still a woman. Don't mistake having a personality for not having a gender.

What's the problem with saying "I'm a women". It worries me that the word "woman" being erased from medical literature in place of "menstruators" and "birthers" will be made all the more easy if women say "yes I agree I don't actually think of myself in terms of my womanhood". And for what? Sine potshot at the TRAs? Seems to me to be playing right into their hands.

I doubt many men are worrying about this. If you're female you're a woman. If you're male you're a man. We should be fighting to protect these words, regardless of how "masculine" or "feminine" you feel, whatever the fuck that means.

a respectful pro noun seems a very small to ask

It’s not just a word though, is it? It’s really a request/demand that I believe, or pretend to believe, that they are the opposite sex. That’s a much bigger ask.

No one said there's no such thing as gender, just that it comes down to stereotypes which do not do boys, girls men or women any favours.

A gender identity is what we're saying is meaningless to the majority and certainly shouldn't be used in law or company policy.

Gender was mangled into being a polite alternative to sex years ago, that fact is now being used to make wording meaningless or ambiguous where it suits.