I do not believe in gender identity.

[SernieBanders]

There are two sexes: male and female. Occasionally, that matters.

There is no such thing as an innate gender identity—no internal essence that makes someone more inclined to wear dresses and sip wine, or football boots and down pints. Those are cultural stereotypes, not proof of some mystical gendered soul.

The idea of gender identity is sexist, misogynistic, and regressive. It reinforces outdated norms instead of challenging them. Women do not need an inner feeling of womanhood to be women. Men do not need a gender identity to be men. Sex is real. Stereotypes are not.

I hope with the flurry of cultural changes, legal challenges, scientific findings and executive orders in the last ~12 months, more people feel able to stand up and be counted, and say - No More.

Not sure this study is saying what you think it is saying?

Its conclusion:
‘Prenatal and pubertal sex hormones seem to permanently affect human behaviour and, in addition, heritability studies have demonstrated a role of genetic components. However, a convincing candidate gene has not been identified. Future studies (i.e., genome wide studies) are needed to better clarify the complex interaction between genes, anatomy and hormonal influences on psychosexual development.’

Yes, it is confirming that in-utero development and the presence of hormones produced during puberty [by the biologically sex body] impact brain development and subsequent behaviour…. Er, yeah? This we know. It also states that a ‘convincing gene candidate has not been identified’ ie that there is no evidence that there is a genetic component to gender expression. Ie. It confirms that the body is formed and sexed in utero and continues to develop along a sexually dimorphic pathway at puberty (ie biologically male babies grow into adult human males) and their behaviours follow from that.

Yep agree

This actually made me laugh outloud! Its so illustrates transactivism to a tee!

"I am not going to make any arguments to support my case. I am just going to tell you that you are wrong and not very nice and then refuse to engage with you. So there."

Really, the fact this is a "modern" thing should have alerted those of us who were awake years ago that were are dealing with something cultural and invented, rather than something innate and emergent.

Gender is like money. An invented concept overlaid onto physical reality. Cultures overlay gender over sex in the same way they overlay money over resources. It didn't exist when we were hunter gatherers. And it's emergence and development has always been within a social setting.

We need to remember - or learn - that throughout history, different cultures have had some very different ideas about the human condition. And if they can't all be right, they could all - including our own - be wrong.

No, it doesn't. I was just expressing my experience of being female and how deeply I feel female, for no reason that I can pin down, so that indicates to me that perhaps gender identity IS a real thing.

I know many men like ballet, but many more don't, or don't mind if their partner books it, but wouldn't seek it out by themselves. There are clearly masculine and feminine interests, which is not to say that they're exclusive to one sex, but is to say that they are clearly favoured more by one sex than the other. More men like football than women, and more women like ballet than men. But perhaps these preferences are down to social conditioning.

Gender Identity = a convicted rapist wearing pink leggings
Biological sex = the rapist's cock and balls visible through the pink leggings

I prefer our society to be based around biological reality.

Not really. It's just that you happen to have a personality that aligns with gender stereotypes, and there;'s nothing wrong with that. It doesn't mean gender is a thing though.

The whole basis of sex-segregation is “tarring everyone [in a given category] with the same brush”. The vast majority of violent actions/predatory actions against female people are carried out by male people. So excluding all male people massively reduces the risk of harm to female people. Most male people, trans or not, are not predators. But they are nevertheless all excluded because they are in the same sex category as most of the predators. So they are all treated as if they might be predators because it reduces risk.
It can’t work otherwise. For instance, my father is a kind and gentle man but doesn’t waltz into female changing rooms saying “don’t worry ladies, I’m one of the good ones”. He (and most other male people) accept that “being tarred with the same brush” as the small number of predatory male people is needed for maximising safety of female people.

edited to add: sorry meant to quote PP who objected to “tarring everyone with the same brush” in connection with trans women prisoners being in a female prison.

Yeah, maybe it's a personality thing. Perhaps that's the key, rather than social conditioning or "gender."

He (and most other male people) accept that “being tarred with the same brush” as the small number of predatory male people is needed for maximising safety of female people.

Yes, it's the lesser of two evils. The risk of some feelings of men being hurt vs the risk of women being harassed, physically hurt and raped. It's not hard to see which one should take priority.

Which ties into @Chersfrozenface's statement above: I don't have a gender identity, I have a biological sex and a personality.

Why can't people just have a personality rather than an identity?

This is it. We all have a personality, and some personalities will skewer more masculine or feminine, but that doesn't mean we have to make it into a big thing, 'switch genders" and expect other people to treat us as the opposite sex!

It also doesn't mean we should bully or belittle people if their personality does not align with outdated gender stereotypes either, of course.

That’s only the result of our culture limiting doctors to 2 boxes to choose from for sex, which is limited by politics and religion. Other cultures and time periods have had more boxes. But you’ve gone off on a tangent. Your post is about gender identity, not sex, so how many boxes there are for the physical or genetic determination of sex is irrelevant.

That’s only the result of our culture limiting doctors to 2 boxes to choose from for sex, which is limited by politics and religion

I think science came before politics and religion.

Did you know the sun is made of cream cheese ?

I don't believe in god. I don't believe in astrology. I don't believe in gender identity. Other people can believe what they want. They can witter on about what they think is proof of their belief. I don't care. Until you insist I believe in it. Then you can go away. And if you don't go away you can
Get To F*.

you disproved your own point - it's not possible to have gender stereotypes without the existence of gender.

The whole TRA movement is regressive, misogynistic and homophobic

Not sure if it's homophobic. Definitely agree it's regressive and misogynistic. I think that's the best way to fight back. I'm emphasised to my teens that gender ideology is perpetuating old fashioned stereotypes. We need teens to understand that boys can wear dresses if they want, but doesn't make them girls

I've also pointed out that there are fewer transmen than transwomen. Why is this? IMHO, it's cos bio women are expected to "be kind", roll over, not make a fuss about bio men in their changing rooms, prisons, refuges etc. Bio men wouldn't stand for women doing any of that !

Please define 'woman' as it's socially constructed.

Thanks

Wrong. I don't believe people have innate gender identities. of course, the concept of gender and gender stereotypes is something manmade, traditionally to keep women in their place.

I can talk about vampires being afraid of garlic and crosses, doesn't mean they're real.

The homophobia rears its head when lesbians are told they need to accept ‘girl dick’ into their dating pool and to not do so is bigoted and transphobic. Lesbians are banned from all female dating apps for stating they won’t date TW.

The former head of Stonewall said that gay people choosing sexual partners purely by genitals was akin to racism.

well, you're giving it attention so?

Also - because I wanted to see what people really thought. Turn on the BBC and you'd think every third "woman" had a penis.

That depends what you classify as 'gender theory'. Although familiar with Judith Butler's earlier work, I have neither the time nor inclination to read her later (and apparently increasingly eccentric) theorising in detail. As far as I can make out, she's now come around to the idea that there is indeed an innate gender identity of some kind, although I'm more than willing to be corrected on this.

The problem with the Queer Theory that people see as such a dangerous, corrosive influence is that its interpretation by lobbyists is very like the interpretation of the Law According to Stonewall. I.e., the law as Stonewall would like it to be, rather than the law that's actually on the statute books.

Queer theory is the same, especially that espoused by its so-called godfather Michel Foucault. In fact, it had a lot of very liberating and interesting possibilities, especially for women, which is why feminists writing after Foucault in the 80s set such a lot of store by him. And he consistently held with the theory of constructivism: that 'gender' is a set of socially constructed stereotypes only arbitrarily connected with sex. It's gender, not sex, that exists on a spectrum; it's those stereotypes which we internalise as external markers of identity. There are therefore a set number of gendered 'subject positions' which are wholly historically specific - the positions from which a woman might speak in 2024, for instance, don't correspond with those existing in 1924. And we have little or no control over how those stereotypes are constructed.

'Gender' (a set of social diktats and stereotypes), is arbitrary, shifting, ephemeral and changes in accordance with social structures, geographical space and historical time. If gender shifts and changes to this extent then by its very definition it cannot be essentialist: an unchanging, unified, rational inner 'essence' of the human subject or the gendered subject. In which case, the gender critical position is constructivist. It accords with a lot of Foucault's ideas that Gender Ideology has coopted as theirs by right. It doesn't hold with the idea of an innate, core, unified subjectivity, either of the humanist subject or the gendered one. Neither did Foucault.

Conversely, Gender Ideology is essentialist by its very definition. That the GI lobby has reversed this position to fit its own interests is very interesting indeed. Its claims are built on a house of cards and a flimsy one at that - in the hope that it's too complicated for others to understand (and beyond the remit of a 180-word tweet).

That's how this disingenuous movement has gained purchase, IMO.

No it is not. Sex literally means produces large gametes or small gametes

It does not mean who has XX or XY or XXY, or XXX chromosomes

It does not mean who has a penis, or ovaries

Sex is very, very Binary, and very clearly so xxxx

There is no such thing as an innate gender identity—no internal essence that makes someone more inclined to wear dresses and sip wine, or football boots and down pints. Those are cultural stereotypes, not proof of some mystical gendered soul.

No, but I would say what 'gender identity' is is how we each relate to gender stereotypes as individuals. So I'd say it exists in the same way that other preferences and feelings about cultural tropes exist. Whether we feel strongly that we are a Capricorn or a Pisces, for example.

It can be nuanced and complex, and the suggestion that it should take precedence over biological sex is absurd.