Gender Identity is an oxymoron

[CantankerousCamel]

Maybe someone here can explain this to me.

Gender is the name given to the social roles and practises enforced due to sex class

That’s what the word has always meant, it was first coined by some dude called John in the middle of the last century and has always meant this.

Identity is an innate sense of self, personality if you will.

So the two cannot go together, you cannot adjust the social scripting enforced due to your sex class with personality, that’s why it’s enforced. Otherwise it’s not gender.

Obviously feminism has always promoted identity over gender, because how we see ourselves and how we project ourselves should be more important than how society scripts us due to sex class, but that is abolition of gender.

I don’t understand the term ‘gender identity’ I don’t understand why, when people use it, they’re unable to give this alternative definition of either gender or identity that makes those words go together.

An arbitrary understanding of sociology shows that the words are opposite. One is how you see yourself, the other how society scripts you.

I believe Gender Identity is double speak, like Male woman or girl penis.

I hate tea. Especially with milk. Shudder

But yes, externally imposed and personally performed feedback loop works for me. I think.

How can where I was born be innate - isn't it just luck?

Okay, imagine you were born here but adopted at birth in Germany with no idea of your place of birth. You would still have been born in Britain, but have no sense of your British identity.

(I give this example not to say that "identity" is only ever the product of things which can be externally confirmed, but to show how the fact and the knowing are two different things.)

The performative/imposed nature of gender is a feedback loop.

So not innate - I'm British so I drink tea/I drink tea because I'm British.

The British/tea loop is one loop. There are many loops; Americans/soda, Italians/coffee, Japanese/green tea.

I might drink green tea but I know that makes me a non-conforming British person, not a conforming Japanese one. I know I'm not playing into the Japanese loop.

The bit which is innate is knowing which loop you're playing into.

The fact that you know you are British is innate. You know it, it is a part of who you are, you know that the stereotypes of Britishness apply to you; that knowing is your identity. It is an innate part of you.

I think this is exactly wrong. You know you are British because you are told you are British, you are brought up as British. There is nothing innate about Britishness, there is no non socially constructed aspect to Britishness, it is an identity that would not exist if it was not externally validated

I may be misunderstanding- I think I must be.

PS I appreciate this is all a tad bit metaphysical, but I'm afraid if we're scrutinising the very nature and existence of the concept of "identity" I can't see how it won't be!

Gender = social
Identity = personal

I would agree OP, but call 'gender', 'gender roles', because that is the social expectation, to perform that role.

This is a really interesting discussion actually!

Let me have a crack at explaining why I think it’s not innate:

Yes I do know I’m british. I lived in Sweden and NZ for several years and a lot of that rubbed off on me too - the externally imposed cultural identity (which good god is strong in Sweden, it’s very conformist in many ways) definitely made its mark.
...so while I was still very much British there are parts of me that are a bit Swedish too - and also a few NZ cultural things that have rubbed off from my time there too. When you live in a different culture I think you do see first hand how blurred a lot of this gets. There’s a definite ‘thing’ expats have where you have the realisation that you’re no longer truly your native culture - and you can’t really go back. It’s probably got a name, but it’s like an existential crisis and I’d say at least half of us go through it.

Anyway, it makes you realise how fragile all that cultural stuff is. My husband is foreign and yet he now has many mannerisms and habits that have caused some to think he’s British - all ‘imposed’ (totally voluntarily ofc!) by his living with me. And vice versa.

I absolutely get that point you’re making about waking up in a coffee culture rat - I suppose my rejoinder would be that what persists is an internal sense but it was externally imposed to begin with.

I agree about the feedback loop - cultural identity needs reinforcement from the external culture or it declines. I’ve felt that first hand as an expat (and it’s actually rather distressing)

What I don’t agree with is that I’ve internalised the sex stereotypes enough to have them form any core part of my personality.

Now, this is likely paywalled but this article lends some credence to that. Basically feminism is a form of inoculation to stereotypes www.newscientist.com/article/2171748-being-a-feminist-may-subconsciously-protect-you-from-stereotypes/

So here’s a question: are people who have strong gender identities simply didn’t those who have internalised externally imposed stereotypes far more than other people?

This by the way is the kind of discussion I love on here! :)

The bit which is innate is knowing which loop you're playing into.

I can't see how it is at all innate. I think it's just training and strength of like/dislike.

I can see that it's an identity - a British identity (like that US bloke who wore a flat cap and commentated the wedding in a 'British' accent) - but it's entirely disconnected from the reality of being British, except through cultural, ie. artifically imposed and accepted habits. It's not innate, it's learned.

Oscarino there are two broad schools of thought around this; both seem reasonable to me, but neither can claim to be the only reasonable one.

One side says, "my identity is known to me purely as a result of the material reality". So I know I am British because I know I was born in Britain.

The other says, "sometimes my identity is known to me regardless of whether or not I know the reality. So I'm born in Britain, raised in Germany with no knowledge of my birth country, but somehow I feel I know that I'm British.

And that may not be as crazy as it sounds, given that your genetic heritage would perhaps be British; you may subconsciously realise British faces look a bit like your face... who knows the practical ways in which we may feel this way, but it's the idea that it is in you - in some circumstances - to know your identity as a result of something other than knowing the fact.

I'm not saying it's defo one or the other; I'm not saying they aren't essentially the same thing in some very, very obscure way (as my example even hints at); just that that's the broad two viewpoints. The first being where I believe you stand on the issue.

I feel like I'm getting really obtuse now; apologies!

It’s probably got a name, but it’s like an existential crisis and I’d say at least half of us go through it.

I saw it on the BBC called 'reverse culture shock' - I've never felt normal culture shock, but I've definitely felt weird when I've gone back 'home' - and in fact, what really gave me a weird vertigo was when I realised my kids didn't think of the UK as 'home' (in fact the youngest isn't even sure what language he speaks, let alone where he comes from) - because they'd spent more of their lives living in other places than the UK.

I agree. I’m British but in the deep and distant past I was married to an American (husband number one, now generally referred to as Hn1, I’m up to Hn3 now) and I still perform some Americanisms, as ‘imposed’ upon me by him and his family and the customs and expectations of the people of his region. I don’t mind these leftovers, but I am aware that I am choosing to continue performing them, I’m could ditch them now that the ‘imposed’ external culture is no longer part of my everyday (and thus the feedback loop is broken).

It’s much harder to break out of the gender loop, because the imposing mechanism (patriarchal society) is harder to get away from than ex inlaws are.

Phew, glad it's your bag too Bowl as I was feeling a bit over-indulgent; it's totally mine too!

gave me a weird vertigo was when I realised my kids didn't think of the UK as 'home'

Maybe that's the identity. That feeling of 'home' is strong. I can see that people would have an innate sense of 'home' - albeit that could be anywhere, but the ability to have that sense is probably innate - like the ability to learn language, or sexual orientation.

Perhaps like imprinting - we're primed for the concept of 'home' and wherever that is slots into that waiting spot in our brains. So there's a 'gender identity' slot waiting to be filled, and something ends up there at some point. Except that I just don't feel that. I feel a sense of home - but it's a comfort, a familiarity, and actually I feel that when I go back to other places I've been happy in, so now I'm not sure that it is that.

And I don't feel that about gender. I can perhaps start to understand that other people perhaps have a 'gender' shaped hole in their jigsaw that gets filled in, but I really don't feel it. I don't feel a gender identity even as strongly as I feel a British Identity - and I know the British Identity was trained into me from birth.

So here’s a question: are people who have strong gender identities simply didn’t those who have internalised externally imposed stereotypes far more than other people?

Perhaps. Perhaps they are, but can we say definitively one way or the other? I think we can only say whether or not there is any alternative explanation (which I think there plausibly is), and then wonder how likely each possibility is....

I sometimes wonder if I (pre-puberty) were brought up somehow completely oblivious so my biological sex, and the whole world outside me oblivious to it too, would I have known that I was supposed to like pink?

Would there have been some clues to me that I was one of the girls? Perhaps even with short hair and boys clothes I might have suspected my features were more female, or perhaps been somehow subconsciously aware of my smell - a bit like some animals are. Some would say that would be me knowing my biological sex (in a very roundabout sort of way, and not even consciously knowing that's what I was seeing...), but perhaps there really is something "trans" about trans people. Something in their genes, that they are perceiving but we're not seeing. Perhaps one day we'll work out what it is they're seeing when they describe how they feel; I don't know, but I'm open to the possibility.

Innate to me means inborn

I don’t think any of us are born with a sense of Britishness, or the expectations society has of women. I’m the case of the latter that’s why I spent so many years kicking back against it - no I don’t want a doll. I want lego. I don’t want a skirt, I want trousers. That stuff is the obvious stuff - the easy stuff.
But the realisation that there’s a load of behavioural baggage (being nice, the socialisation etc) takes a lot longer to unpack and isn’t as simple to jettison as the easy stuff.

It’s fairly easy to ask for lego for your birthday but it's much harder and needs more self analysis to really unpack all the societal baggage. I doubt I’m even halfway through that process tbh. So I can see why people think that stuff is innate - because it gets really ground into you (is itvon this thread someone is talking about their reaction to cooking or another? Anyway that’s the process I mean.)

But to me the only innate stuff is awareness of the physical - and where that’s concerned it’s only been when my reproductive system or biology has demanded attention that I’ve had a sense of being female.

Hard wired behaviour is stuff that occurs in the absence of external influence. So birds will sing, but not achieve the mastery of it. They get that from listening to, internalising in and riffing on, the songs of other birds.

In a nutshell, gender identity is double speak. Like lady dick or male woman. However it would seem some people ‘identify more’ with a certain gender.....hence some men wishing they were female & vice versa.
The more confusing the language the harder it is for women to discuss proposed changes to GRA etc, guess that’s why it’s so important we can use correct terminology. (Not be told we’re using hate speech when stating truth)

Rat
The first is definitely where I stand.

The only thing British people have in common is that they were born in Britain and they identify themselves as British because they know that British is the word that applies to people who were born in Britain.

The genetic makeup of British people varies widely and there are many British people who do not drink tea, or fulfill any of the stereotypes that those who are not British think define Britishness.

What is it that I “know” if I know I am British but do not know I was born in Britain?

But to me the only innate stuff is awareness of the physical

But that's the thing; if someone is trans and believes it is innate, it can only be innate to their physical being; the very cells that make them up.

It is possible in your mind that there might be some emergent quality of that physical person that right now we can't externally measure, but that they are internally aware of?

Perhaps one day they'll identify the "gay gene" or the "trans gene", and we'll all be sitting here saying, "oh right, that's what made them feel that way then". We won't be saying "oh, that's what made them suffer the congenital illness of gayness/trans" will we, because that's not the kind of society we are IMO. We'll be saying, "they are who they are and it's innate".

Maybe. Or maybe there won't be any trans people at all in our stereotype-free world because they were indeed just the people who had over-internalised the whole chibang, I honestly don't know.

What is it that I “know” if I know I am British but do not know I was born in Britain?

I don't think the example of Britishness is sufficiently analogous with gender for me to be able to answer that question

I keep reading these threads in the hope that I will finally grasp exactly what a 'gender identity' is.

This concept seems to be so difficult to understand that we end up having thread after thread on here discussing what it is, yet Mermaids et al are going into schools and supposedly 'explaining' it to very young children, and encouraging them to question their own 'gender identity'.

So those of you who think you know what 'gender identity' is, can you explain it in terms that a five-year-old could understand? Maybe then I will finally be able to understand what it is.

I think mermaids are trying to raise awareness in kids that not everyone grows up in the traditional way, ie boy to man, girl to woman, but some people like to switch, or be somewhere in between. But personally I think this is too confusing for young children to grasp-adults have the information, children should be free to just be.

‘What is it that I “know” if I know I am British but do not know I was born in Britain?‘

British means a person with citizenship of the UK. If you don’t know you have citizenship, you don’t know you are British.

And nation states are a recent invention, so it is impossible for someone to feel innately that they are a citizen of any nation state.

So those of you who think you know what 'gender identity' is, can you explain it in terms that a five-year-old could understand?

I don't really know what Mermaids are going around telling 5 year olds, and I'm certainly not confident that I'd agree with it.

I think all a 5 year old needs to know about gender identity is that just because you're a girl or a boy doesn't mean you have to do things that are "girly" or "boyish", and that that's completely okay.

...not even sure "gender identity" means the same thing in that context as what we're talking about here!

Doesn't help that there are so many different uses of the same words/phrases in this debate. That't not unique to trans issues though. Words mean different things in different contexts all the time; even "identity" means something different in psychology and in sociology. Undoubtedly it means something different in common parlance too. That's all just par for the course in any discussion though I think.

personally I think this is too confusing for young children to grasp

It's confusing enough for adults tbh, myself included!

And nation states are a recent invention, so it is impossible for someone to feel innately that they are a citizen of any nation state.

Precisely one of the reasons why this analogy has ceased to be useful.

It was useful for establishing the notion of a feedback loop; not so much for more in depth discussion about whether or not there can be some innate sense of one's identity.

t is possible in your mind that there might be some emergent quality of that physical person that right now we can't externally measure, but that they are internally aware of?

Consciousness. We’ve been debating what the fuck it is since time began I still don’t think there’s consensus.

entire theses have been written on what it is. You’ve got a reductionist approach, an emergent network approach and a religious approach and probably many others (this is totally not my field but it’s an interesting one...)

There is no single gay gene - there is probably a strong genetic component but it's not one or even a few genes. Being gay appears to have a biological origin AND an adaptive advantage (siblings of gay males seem to have increased reproductive success and homosexual behaviour is seen across the animal kingdom.) whatever being gay is, it’s far more likely to be innate.

I don’t think being trans is - predisposition to the group of dysphorias? Maybe. But the manifestation as wanting to be the opposite sex is societally driven. Because if no one cared about the roles each gender played it couldnt happen.