Spreading the idea that everyone has a gender identity

[Macareaux]

Mermaids has quite a reach. Influencing consumer groups.

The ease with which schools, workplaces and other organisations are being brainwashed is quite astounding

Yes, beachcomber.

But it is unscientific to say that gender identity isn't a thing. It is an observable phenomenon

Is it? Just because people believe something doesn't make it true or scientific.
And people mean different things by gender, and often conflate it with sex.
If you ask most people what gender they are, they'll say male or female.
But they're generally thinking of sex.
Once you take away biology and sex, the only thing left for gender is sexual stereotypes and cultural socialisation.
Conversely, if you were to ask most people what sexual stereotype they are, they'd tell you to eff off.
The fact that people feel they have a gender identity different to the one that matches their sex, tells us that putting people in boxes doesn't help.
We need to get rid of gender boxes, not create more complicated boxes.

But it is unscientific to say that gender identity isn't a thing. It is an observable phenomenon

How? It’s observable how people fit themselves into stereotypes in response to societal pressure maybe.

But the idea that it’s innate ... how would you measure that? How would you quantify it?

We are back to souls. Now if you believe in souls that’s OK - I’m not telling you you can’t hold that belief. At the same time it is a belief not an objective, measurable fact.

I had an interesting conversation with someone the other day about ‚‘feminine‘ things

What is being feminine?

Wearing skirts, makeup and high heels, being nurturing and looking after people.

In many cultures skirts are men’s clothing (kikoy in Africa, the kilt, Greek and albanian national dress, and most of Western Europe up until 300 years ago)

Makeup was a male thing in the17th century, and still is in many cultures.

High heels were a high status male thing as a pp says.

The ONLY constant is that emotional shitwork. And I don’t see those who weren’t socialised as female falling over themselves to take that one on.

Yes it’s quite amazing how no one is appropriating the washing up, childcare, elderly care or housework isn’t it?

I don't have a gender identity. I have a sex identity, though.

Pink was considered a boy's colour until the early 20th century.

Also show me a transwoman who, having swapped gender in order that it corresponds with their inner feeling, is anything like an actual woman.

They can't be physically, except superficially.

And all the famous transwomen I know, act, behave, and are treated exactly like men. The gender stereotypes that are applied to them are male ones.

Madigan, who has managed to have enough power as, an apparent lesbian, to oust women from the Labour Party and have the ear of Jeremy Corbyn. How many other 19-year-old lesbians could claim that?

Berkdorf. Not a film producer, not a biological woman, managing to be offered the position of spokesperson when the criteria was a woman who makes films. Plus a spokesperson who was meant to talk about the disadvantage women suffer in filmmaking!

Male privilege is what keeps the gender hierarchy ticking along. When a man transitions, he retains his male privilege. If he didn't, we wouldn't have this situation.

Where is the 'innate female gender' of transwomen? Show it to me. Describe it to me.

SarahCarer
What you seem to be describing is the internalisation of gendered expectations or gender roles. I can see how that might be interpreted as a 'gender identity'.

Certain things are expected of you (or not) from a young age, and you are aware that what is expected varies depending on whether you are male or female.

The way you are treated and expected to behave therefore becomes linked to your sex. How much you accept or reject these expectations and attitudes could then be described as a 'gender identity' rather than just a part of your personality.

The problem with 'gender identity' being celebrated is that these stereotypes become more entrenched.

Any chance someone could tweet this thread link to Healthwatch Stoke? Sorry I'm not in a position to do so.

I’d forgotten that one Terfsup.
I’ve been mentally compiling a list of supposedly feminine things that actually aren’t.

Long hair was male too, some army Regiments actually required long hair, and you couldn’t join till it had grown sufficiently.

Personality in a body here. Although I've been socialised as a female, presumably that has had its effects?

@bespin Every one does have a gender identity

I don't. Your statement makes as much sense as "everyone has a religion", another thing that I don't have.

@furx Cherry Austin did a men's historical fashion write up.

If I "identify" as a woman because I am one, does that mean that I also identify as five foot three? And if I don't like it, can I go round telling everyone I'm five foot ten really and they've all got to pretend to look up to me? Also, as it happens, I've only got one working lung. It doesn't cause me any problems, though, so I wouldn't say I identify as monopulmonary. If self-perception trumps reality, does that mean they both work really?

Also show me a transwoman who, having swapped gender in order that it corresponds with their inner feeling, is anything like an actual woman.

That would depend on agreeing on what an "actual woman" was like, which would soon vanish down a rabbit hole of stereotypes.

all the famous transwomen I know, act, behave, and are treated exactly like men. The gender stereotypes that are applied to them are male ones.

That's a function of fame and the way they got there. There are transwomen who get on with the scutwork, even the political scutwork, like other women. They're not famous because no-one ever got famous for quietly doing the scutwork. And they don't go round telling the world they're transwomen because they don't want the hassle, they don't want the publicity or the prejudices or indeed to have male gender stereotypes applied to them. Who would?

Where is the 'innate female gender' of transwomen? Show it to me. Describe it to me.

You don't need an "innate gender" (male or female) to have a internal gender identity. Different things really.

None of which means that mermaids are a trustworthy organisation. As far as I know they're not.

When you think about it it is quite incredible how much bother this stupid word "gender" causes. IMO it is blindingly obvious that gender as a concept is 100% social construction because it's a word that doesn't have much of a meaning and it means different things to different people.

For feminists gender is a social order, it is political, it is a binary class system and can be analyzed according to Marxist political theory.

For genderists it is an undefinable (and therefore unchallengeable) individual inner essence.

For some people gender is simply a synonym of sex.

I think it has become a word that feminists should stop using because most people don't realize that we are using it to describe a system of social order. I prefer to use "sex caste" as coined by Sheila Jeffries because it is a much clearer term.

This word gender has got us in a whole load of trouble because when genderists use it they are generally actually talking about reproductive sex but they use gender in order to obfuscate because otherwise it is just too obvious that they are spouting nonsense and that the emperor has no clothes.

If people were to talk about an "inner sex identity" or a "sex spectrum" or being "sex fluid" it is obvious that they are talking claptrap because everyone knows what reproductive sex is and we know where babies come from.

We really should resist the word gender altogether (especially as trans ideologues consistently fail to define what they mean by the word despite it forming the basis of their ideology).

Also, men used to wear wigs. Not toupees, but properly long curly wigs.

I also think we need to become pedantic about talking about "sex" as "reproductive sex" for that is what it is.

"Sex" is such a loaded word in patriarchal society because it is steeped in politics. "Reproductive sex" helps us to clear our minds of socially constructed sexual politics and remind ourselves that sex is a biological material reality that all living things have in order to reproduce.

So questions like "are transwomen women?" to which a genderist would answer "yes" is actually the question "can humans change reproductive sex?“.

If you answer " yes, humans can change reproductive sex" it is clear that you talking bollocks.

It's not a 'function of fame' for women to be treated like men, famous women aren't treated like men. And the trans movement's 'famous people' up front and centre are all men who say they are women. It's men at the forefront, it's male entitlement at the forefront too, cos these are men who have male privilege.

Re gender as a term, i'm actually gonna use sex and stereotypes instead of sex and gender as much as possible. For eg when you point out that talking about gender identity is the same as talking about a 'stereotype identity', the point itself actually might start to hammer home...

famous women aren't treated like men

Saying they're not really women is a common putdown for women who are famous for something other than being pretty - slightly different meaning to "treated like men" I guess.

And the trans movement's 'famous people' up front and centre are all men who say they are women. It's men at the forefront, it's male entitlement at the forefront too, cos these are men who have male privilege.

That's pretty much what I meant by "fame" and "how they got there".

@Beachcomber, I think you're right. It's somewhat analogous to the argument over whether "cyclists don't pay road tax". The statement expresses a belief in a ring-fenced tax on motorists which pays for roads, which hasn't existed since 1937.
It's my belief that rather than going into a long-drawn-out explanation of how roads are funded, we (cyclists) would be better off saying "There's no such thing as road tax." Likewise, we should say, "There's no such thing as gender."
Of course there are other senses of the word. But the existence of Komodo dragons doesn't mean that it is untrue to say "There's no such thing as dragons" if it's likely that both speaker and audience mean "large flying creatures that breathe fire."

But it is unscientific to say that gender identity isn't a thing. It is an observable phenomenon

What? No it isn't.

People talking and writing about it, and claiming it, these things are observable. Gender identity has never been observed.

I'm sorry you can't just talk about something hypothetical, and then say that it has come into existence because you talked about it. That's just silly.

something happens to some people (mixture of biology, genetics, environment, culture) that causes them to develop a 'gender identity' that is not based on their body

No, something happens to some people (that we don't know the causes for yet) that causes them to want to transition.

They still don't have a soul gender identity.

Even the DSM simply describes wanting to transition. It's a list of desires, not medical symptoms or any kind of testable markers:

A marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and primary and/or secondary sex characteristics
A strong desire to be rid of one’s primary and/or secondary sex characteristics
A strong desire for the primary and/or secondary sex characteristics of the other gender
A strong desire to be of the other gender
A strong desire to be treated as the other gender
A strong conviction that one has the typical feelings and reactions of the other gender