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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

Brighton primary school admissions - gender identity

166 replies

SisterMoonshine · 20/04/2016 17:38

I just caught the end of something on the radio about parents receiving letters this week to say which school their child has a place at. And that they should put which gender their child identifies with.
Big question!
I think I'd have to give an essay for an answer if this was our area. As far as DD is concerned, at 3, she is simply DD.

OP posts:
almondpudding · 21/04/2016 21:58

Okay, you seem to be getting very philosophical here Sunburnt. Four year olds are supposed to be able to answer this question.

What is gender? How do I know which one I am?

I feel able to say I'm an atheist through self determination and self identitification. I still think atheist can be categorised and described objectively. Knowing you are something and being able to describe how that thing is categorised are not mutually exclusive.

femfortheday · 21/04/2016 21:58

Because without an actual definition of what woman/man means, we're in a situation where two men are Sat chatting about and being spokespeople for their experiences of 'being a woman'. While the women are in the back, making the tea and doing all the work, completely deprived of any language to describe their oppression.

You'll probably dismiss this as 'biological essential' but I know I am a woman because I have a human female body. That's it. I have no inner sense of 'womanhood' beyond my biological reality. Bits of my personality fit into the gendered woman box, bits don't. I don't have a gendered identity.

HairyLittlePoet · 21/04/2016 21:58

Sunburnt

I'm posting in good faith here and want to understand what YOU mean by this, so let me ask, when you say I definitely have a gender identity, and also that gender is a spectrum, to me that means possibly infinite, like colours of the rainbow. And you're saying I can be anywhere on it. But how do I place myself? I don't understand this part.
For the purposes of understanding gender I'm setting aside my understanding of body sex.

I promise I am not baiting or provoking. But I do not understand how I should describe myself or what is my frame of reference. If you are willing, can you take me through your understanding of gender please?

femfortheday · 21/04/2016 22:01

RadFem Brigade sounds good, shall we make badges?

And yes there are whole political parties lobbying for this. Hence this form.

Sunburntfactor50 · 21/04/2016 22:04

Ophelia Reductionist cop out

HermioneWeasley · 21/04/2016 22:11

sunburnt if you're sure there's such a thing as gender identity, where does it reside? Because the latest meta analysis has shown no sex based brain differences.

So if trans people are biologically the sex they are, and brains don't have a sex, where does this "wrong body" experience come from?

By the way, saw an article this week by an American guy who was telling us his son is trans and is his daughter. His evidence - likes dressing up and playing soccer (which is mostly played by women in the states). He had tried everything apparently including painting his room blue and buying him t-Rex pyjamas, but to no avail. So must actually be a girl.

I have yet to hear anything from any trans person about "feeling like" a man or woman which isn't gender stereotype bullshit.

And I utterly disagree that children of 4 have the cognitive ability to have any concept of "gender identity". Many of them (as in the stories shared by MNetters) don't realise that biological sex is fixed at that age.

Sunburntfactor50 · 21/04/2016 22:15

HairyLittle Poet Asking if colours are infinite is really a physics question. Colour relies on light and the eye and there are boundaries of wavelength for the spectrum of visible light.
There might be a quantum limit on wavelength difference, but for colour it doesn't matter. Colours are a product of the human eye and colour resolution relies on that process.
Colours are perceived by the human eye. But we digress.
If a four year old kid is telling everyone around them over and over and over, day in and day out, for months and then years, that they feel like a boy or feel like a girl and that is not the same as their biological sex what should we do?

merrymouse · 21/04/2016 22:16

John Money may have thought gender was a social construct, but he attempted to show this by making somebody who had suffered a traumatic accident undergo further invasive surgery and 'live like a girl' without their consent. Its difficult to see how anybody could draw wider conclusions about gender from this case.

HairyLittlePoet · 21/04/2016 22:17

I'm happy to answer that, but would you mind answering my question first?

femfortheday · 21/04/2016 22:20

Ask them what feeling like a girl feels like. Ask them what they could do as a girl, that they can't do as a boy? Let them express themselves however they choose. Tell them that they can do anything they want, regardless of society's arbitrary gendered roles.

You know, that stuff RadFems have been arguing for for decades.

Sunburntfactor50 · 21/04/2016 22:21

HermioneWeasley "Because the latest meta analysis has shown no sex based brain differences." Lol! Back to school for you then. Or you could just google some shit.

Sunburntfactor50 · 21/04/2016 22:23

femfortheday "Ask them what feeling like a girl feels like. Ask them what they could do as a girl, that they can't do as a boy? Let them express themselves however they choose. Tell them that they can do anything they want, regardless of society's arbitrary gendered roles."
Why aren't parents, teachers and the health professionals working with trans kids asking any of these questions? Oh wait a second...they are!!

CoteDAzur · 21/04/2016 22:25

Why Sunburnt? Because only trans people can decide they are something they want to be feel like?

People who feel like they are cats are not operated on to make them look feline. Nobody sticks tails on them and scratches behind their ears.

People who feel like they should be amputees can't find a doctor to amputate the functional limb that causes them distress. Nobody says to them "Oh, you feel that left arm should not be there? No worries, we'll cut that out for you".

So what is so special about males who "feel like" they should be women? Why do you think their bodies should be surgically changed to fit the feeling in their head which contradicts reality, while others receive only psychological treatment to bring the feeling closer to physical reality?

HairyLittlePoet · 21/04/2016 22:29

Sunburnt, you may have missed my question.

How do I place myself on the gender spectrum? What do I need to know to make some kind of decision?

The question at the moment is as alien to me as "where are you on the colour spectrum?"
or
"What sound are you?"

I literally do not know how to understand gender in the way you describe it. What IS it?

WellErrr · 21/04/2016 22:31

Ask them what they could do as a girl, that they can't do as a boy?

Erm, fuck all as a child. Girls and boys should not be treated differently. The trans narrative states that they should be. Hence why it's so fucking horrendous.

Sunburntfactor50 · 21/04/2016 22:33

CoteDAzur The dysphoria versus dysmorphia argument is well old and has been compared and argued out before in plenty of places....yawn...

CoteDAzur · 21/04/2016 22:35

"If a four year old kid is telling everyone around them over and over and over, day in and day out, for months and then years, that they feel like a boy or feel like a girl and that is not the same as their biological sex what should we do?"

Do you have a child, Sunburnt? Have you ever had a 4-year-old son or daughter?

I have. Mine said for about 6 months that he was a girl. Princess-danced and Frozen-sang every waking hour. Should I have started calling him "she" and started him on cross-sex hormones?

These days, he says he is a cat. This has been going on for a good few months. He goes around meoowwwing, crawls, and rubs his head against my legs. Should we surgically sharpen his teeth & slant his eyes? Maybe a tail transplant while we are at it?

HairyLittlePoet · 21/04/2016 22:36

OK. I'm totally knackered tonight, and it seems I'm off to bed without an answer from sunburnt.

I was really open to a decent explanation from someone who believes in gender too. Never mind.

merrymouse · 21/04/2016 22:38

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/04/male-female-brains-same-but-people-all-different

A quick Google suggests that there isn't much difference between male and female brains and that there is far greater variety amongst individuals. Even if you disagree with this article, the point is that there hasn't been conclusive research that clearly differentiates between male and female brains, or that people who are transgender clearly have one kind of brain or the other.

Meanwhile, if you leave biology to one side it also isn't clear what it means to 'feel' male or female. You would have thought that amongst all the recent discussion somebody would have been able to express this.

CoteDAzur · 21/04/2016 22:38

"The dysphoria versus dysmorphia argument is well old and has been compared and argued out before in plenty of places....yawn."

You are clearly not interested in discussing this issue with us, in anything resembling good faith. Why don't you crawl back to Reddit or wherever else you heard of MN and decided to come and condescend to women here? We would hate to bore you any further.

Sunburntfactor50 · 21/04/2016 22:42

HairyLittlePoet How do YOU place yourself on the gender spectrum? If the presence of ovaries define you, so be it. Or "a big, hairy, smelly vagina" as Greer so poetically puts it. If that defines you as a woman and thats all you need, then lucky you! You've probably never had to think about it too much. What makes you a woman is the fact that you're not a man right? You know that.

twelly · 21/04/2016 22:48

Surely the form is asking for the biological gender.

HairyLittlePoet · 21/04/2016 22:50

Blimey NO!

I don't define myself as a non-man! I don't define myself in reference to men at all. That's a rather sexist approach, wouldn't you say?

Ovaries and vaginas are about body sex, and so they have no bearing on this gender identity, do they?

You've explained that sex and gender are entirely different concepts, and I accept that.

Which brings me back to this: I don't even know what gender means? It doesn't mean sex. So what IS it?

You ask where I am on the spectrum and I'm telling you I don't know because I don't know what this spectrum is! Tell me something - ANYTHING - about the gender spectrum so I can place myself on it. What characteristics does it measure?

Sunburntfactor50 · 21/04/2016 22:50

CoteDAzur It's hard to keep up with so many posts. There are a lot in argument to get through to be fair.
And I've been using MumsNet for years actually. And I am a parent. Admittedly this is a new profile I'm posting under as I thought it wise not to reveal my family name here. Good instinct going from your tone. You confuse "gender non conformity" with gender dysphoria. Big difference. The mum who wrote "My Princess Boy" doesn't have a trans kid. She has a gender non-conforming kid. or just a kid. Depending on how you like to regard a boy in a dress. I prefer just a kid.
But you know best.
"Why don't you crawl back to Reddit or wherever else you heard of MN and decided to come and condescend to women here?" Nasty!

SueTrinder · 21/04/2016 22:52

Love the American Dad who thinks his child with a penis is actually a girl because the child plays football. I think the ridiculousness of gender is absolutely encapsulated in that sentence.