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.

It most certainly does, but gender is the social roles and practises enforced due to sex class, therefore it cannot affect the identity of a person of the opposite sec class, if it does, it ceases (by definition) to be gender.

I think I agree with this. If I've understood this correctly, this means that gender is imposed on us from the day we're born. We can choose to accept or reject this, but what we can't do is to step into the shoes of someone from the opposite sex and claim that we have been conditioned into their gender. Because gender is the conditioning, not the 'identity'.

If I have got this right, then it is very much like a white person claiming to be black, when they haven't had all the life experience of being treated like a black person.

old crone

Quite. A person can say they identify out or into their own gender but cannot say their identity is based in someone else’s as those social scriptings are not relevant to them and, if they were, would cease to be gender by definition

Does anyone know if there is any research happening, to look at why there is such a large increase in people saying they are trans-appreciate social contagion/internet plays a huge part. But what about the effect of many women taking the contraceptive pill-can this end up in the water supply & somehow change the biological make up of people? Is there a genuine hormone imbalance? Seems such a complicated area and if one asks questions people are too quick to shout you down as being transphobic...

Ah, straightsplaining what is and isn't appropriate at LGBT events, wonderful.

There was a poster on here for a while, HughE I think it was, who has written quite a lot about a similar thing. Talked a lot about the effect of hormonal-type chemicals being administered to pregnant women and the potential for the outcome to be some kind of intersexual-ness of the baby that is not the kind of "intersex" we currently recognise (i.e. differing chromosomes or androgen sensitivity issues). I thought it was quite interesting.

Ah, fuck, accidentally quoted something from another thread. THIS is what I meant to respond to:

But what about the effect of many women taking the contraceptive pill-can this end up in the water supply & somehow change the biological make up of people?

Oh I remember Hugh! His grasp of biology was I’m afraid a little off though. Rather a lot off in fact.

You do find metabolites of all sorts of stuff in the water supply - from drilling chemicals whose breakdown products are oestrogenic to cardiac drugs.

The levels of them in the water are very low though. In our local tap water we find arsenic, all sorts of shit. You do in most tap waters, but at very very low levels.
Being able to detect stuff with a mass spec is great, but it doesn’t mean it’s concentrated enough to cause an effect. It’s the dose that makes the poison. Below the point of biological effectiveness for any drug tested where I lived at the time I engaged —told Hugh he was entirely wrong— with Hugh on this matter. There were a couple of good scientists on that thread...

You can feminise fish this way if you’re extreme about it but even if you do soak humans in the run off from urine containing hormonal contraceptives it doesn’t make people transgender. Again, people aren’t fish. We seemed to have to point that out to Hugh quite a bit.

flowers

OK, I'm probably going to be shot down for this, but I think everything we do which is not imposed on us or involuntary is a choice. Homosexuality is not a choice - it is attraction, which is involuntary - we do not control who we are attracted to. Having a homosexual relationship (or a heterosexual relationship) is a choice. Whatever your sexuality you can choose who you have a relationship with, or whether not to have any sexual relationships at all.

I think it is a choice whether you comply with gender stereotypes or not. You may choose to comply with them because you fear being criticised for not doing so, or because you feel they 'fit'. You may choose not to comply with them because they don't fit, or just to show the world that you're a rebel. Whether or not the stereotypes fit your personality is not a choice - this is the involuntary part. What you do about it is a choice.

But none of these things make you anything other than a gender-conforming or gender-non-conforming person. The fact that so many people feel the stereotypes don't fit just shows the stereotypes up as the bullshit they are.

CantankerousCamel

Thanks. I think I've finally understood why I couldn't make any sense of the term 'gender identity'.

Again, people aren’t fish. We seemed to have to point that out to Hugh quite a bit.

Lol!

You can feminise fish this way if you’re extreme about it but even if you do soak humans in the run off from urine containing hormonal contraceptives it doesn’t make people transgender.

I wonder though (Hugh wasn't talking about contraceptives specifically), wasn't he kind of implying that we might in some way be feminising/masculinising people in subtle ways that may only be observable in virtue of our complex conscious identities and behaviours? Suggesting that that may well be possible if something like the contraceptive pill can demonstrably feminise a fish?

Ah thanks Rat-I would hope someone somewhere is actually investigating what is going on! I think sometimes people genuinely don't understand trans people so assume they should fear them....also not helped by the wayside of them behave sometimes-but I can't work out if we will look back and think what a mess we made of supporting trans people. OR if we should just help them to accept the physical bodies they were born with...

I think it is a choice whether you comply with gender stereotypes or not.

But knowing which set of stereotypes apply to you is not a choice. Whether you think it's because of your physical sex characteristics alone, or if you think it's because of some internal sense of identity, you can't choose which set you negotiate with. You can only choose to reject or accept the ones you know apply to you. The "knowing" is not a choice.

Well it sounds like a logical premise - if it can happen to a fish it can happen to a human.

But actually it’s not. Don’t forget that fish live their lives constantly in the contaminated medium (water). From egg stage to adult, they are literally swimming in it.
A human foetus isn’t. Everything that hits the foetus is filtered through the mother’s bloodstream and the placental barrier. Oestrogen IS something the mother has naturally in her system. 0.005% or whatever extra oestrogen isn’t going to be significant to a human foetus because it’ll be well within the range of what different women have anyway. Fish don’t get exposed to any human oestrogen normally so to the it’s a new stimulus, and they’re swimming in it constantly, absorbing it all the time.

So while it sounds logical, it’s actually not a premise that stands up.

agender or cis both confirm a belief in gender though, at least the way they are used

for people who have no such feelings, it feels wrong to accept labels that imply a belief in it

if a person has no such feelings then that are not "cis" or "trans" or "bigender" or "agender" or any of the other labels, they are not in that stuff at all

they simply are male or female according to the commonly understood meanings that have served the human race (and most of the animal kingdom) adequately well for millions of years (incluiding pre language)

I believe that trans people have this internal sense but I have no personal experience or understanding of what they are talking about and so it does not make sense for my state of being to be in any way defined in relation to their beliefs.

so how to explain the huge surge in trans people.....is it the pharmaceutical companies pushing this agenda-wanting lots of people on cross hormones & other drugs/having complicated surgeries & becoming medical patients for the rest of their lives?

oh shit didn't refresh the screen and done loads of work, there are about a million posts since where I thought the conversation was!

Will catch up.

I beleive there would be more creedance to the biochemical reaction to environmental stimulus if we were discussing physical alterations due to those things.

That we are just talking about a predisposition to gender stereotypes, means the concept holds little validity for me.

There is nothing innate in women that makes them want to wear high heel. Therefore this is not marked by their hormones, whether naturally created or synthetically administered

happydappy
It is a mixture of social contagion and increase in pharmaceutical answers to problems.

Recently a study was done on paranoia. Years ago a paranoid person would contact their relatives, friends or doctor about their paranoid beliefs; ‘I am being watched’

And obviously put right/medicated effectively

Nowadays they go on Facebook and find thousands of other people who are paranoid. This exacerbates the problem.

The other issue is with the common conception they you can ‘be anything you want to be’ which is clearly not true. A surprising amount of children believe you CAN change sex. Completely.

This is clearly a fabrication

I believe that trans people have this internal sense but I have no personal experience or understanding of what they are talking about and so it does not make sense for my state of being to be in any way defined in relation to their beliefs.

That sounds fair in terms of you stating your own beliefs. A religious person might call me an athiest though, or agnostic. I guess that's fine for them. I probably wouldn't list either as anything to broadcast about myself, but in relation to their beliefs? To them I'm agnostic; I can't not be I suppose.

So whilst no-one is forced to define themselves in relation to anyone else's beliefs, they might define you in terms of them. I agree, "cis" implies you do have a gender identity, but agender? If a trans person said that in relation to gender you were agender would you find that understandable?

Don't worry sardines, your post was an interesting one at any point in the discussion.

so how to explain the huge surge in trans people.....is it the pharmaceutical companies pushing this agenda-wanting lots of people on cross hormones & other drugs/having complicated surgeries & becoming medical patients for the rest of their lives?

I dont buy pharma as being the root cause tbh. Don’t get me wrong, pharma will be ready to make a shitload of cash of it if it happens without a sniff of remorse but I do t think they are the prime mover here.

I think it’s a symptom of where we are in society just now. I grew up in the 80s and 90s and the entire climate over this was different. Gay rights were in the news, there was definite optimism, and crucially there weren’t these little narrow gender boxes for men and women. Look at pop stars in that time - Adam ant for example. Kurt cobain. Robert Smith. All dresses and make up and still straight. It was OK to be a man and wear a frock. It was Ok to be a girl and have a shaved head, or short hair, and be a goth/punk/grunge/indie kid. Now I see teen girls who have al the same look and it’s very very feminine - long hair, pouty selfies. It’s a bit porny.

It was a flamboyant time. There was a sense of social solidarity- nowvthete isnt, its all extreme individuality and ID politics.

Then the web - allows meeting of people with more extreme views.

Then the rise of instant gratification and fake news - now instead of facts checked we have a constant stream of info and people’s opinions are seen as valid as facts.

Then porn - argh - again in my day it wasn’t easily accessible. Now it’s instantly there on the phone, and it’s abusive in the main.

There’s a thread about this somewhere if one of our encyclopaedic-memoried posters can find it.

But knowing which set of stereotypes apply to you is not a choice.

No, it's not. People apply them to you from birth depending on your sex. Read some of the OP's posts if you don't understand this.

Wanted to say something about a comment earlier as well - this one:

"But on a Friday night if I wanted to get laid (in my younger days) I accepted that to be easily recognised as a hetero woman it was fairly normal to wear make-up. I wanted people to know I was a member of that group, so I wore make-up.

The "wearing make-up" was not innate. But my desire to signal my hetero-woman identity in an "attracting a mate" scenario - through whatever stereotypes abounded - THAT was innate. "

This is tricky as the wearing of makeup is sold as something women should / need to do to look "nice" - it may be about "attracting a mate" it may be about trying to meet a standard of looks, it may be about copying a latest fashion, it may be to invent a particular "look", it may be about copying mum.

I wear makeup when I go to work, it's a habit and part of the "uniform", as an old school feminist I would also go into stuff about it signalling deference / appeasement in a mascluline dominated world. Same for the heels. I am nto trying to fuck anyone.

When my DD puts makeup on badly, she is also not trying to fuck anyone, as she's pre pubescent.

The idea that makeup indicates sexuality as well as sexual availability is interesting.

In short, the idea that makeup in and of itself signals "up for it" is the sort of idea that gives women and girls a lot of problems the world over every day. The idea that what we wear or how we adorn ourselves indicates (and is intended to indicate) availability to men for sex.

When I went to the pub when I was young I put makeup on as it was the done thing, I was a bit gothy / indie and had big black eyeliner.

There is a question about whether when we wear makeup pretending it is anything other than trying to look hotter for men is a good question - as a group I mean. Clearly not every woman or girl who applies makeup is thinking that though.

Anyway that was an aside.

I know lesbians who wear makeup so there's that too

The people who most frequently read meaning into things like heels and makeup that the woman did not intend are men

Is the bottom line here

Maybe they are right that at a group level that is the reason women are sold this stuff - is to be more appealing (and display submission) to the male gaze.

BUT it is never true that that is the intent of every woman and child who wears X - and that is often what men and male dominated society say. Short skirt = asking for it etc.

When men decide to be women, there seems to be a lot of very feminine clothing going on. Is there a misunderstanding sometimes, due to this disconnect between women dressing however and men reading things into it (usually related to sexual availability).

It's an inetresting topic. But not the one we're talking about, probably.

There is nothing innate in women that makes them want to wear high heel.

No-one, literally no-one on here, is saying there is.

Everyone on here agrees there is not.

What we disagree on is whether or not you'd know you were supposed to wear heels if you and everyone else was completely ignorant of your biology.

But knowing which set of stereotypes apply to you is not a choice.

No, it's not. People apply them to you from birth depending on your sex. Read some of the OP's posts if you don't understand this.

Ugh, I could scream; it is not me who does not understand here. Do we need to go back to the idea that stereotypes are a feedback loop between imposition and embodiment? Or that people will facilitate the creation of stereotypes for their own social purposes?

But in response to your post, you said "No it's not". i.e. a choice.

That is exactly what I said in the post you're responding too; it's not a choice. If there's one thing I don't understand it's whether you actually meant to write "it is", and if you did, quite what you were getting at.