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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Gender Identity - what is it?

147 replies

Wakame · 20/06/2018 16:07

Gender identity, simply put, is a person's innate sense of their own sex. Now, if you are one of the minority who either don't have, or are not aware of their gender identity, then this can be a difficult thing to understand. You're like a person who was born blind trying to understand what red looks like.

However, don't let that put you off - we can't see electrons either but we know they exist because they are suggested by science. So what science is there to suggest that gender identity exists? Well here's one for you:

There is a birth deformity called "cloacal exstrophy" which involves severe malformations of the lower abdomen. In the past boys born with this condition were often given a "sex change" shortly after birth and were raised as girls with no knowledge of their male past. Despite this, a large percentage go on to express a male gender identity.

That innate knowledge of their own sex is gender identity.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1421517/

One thought experiment you could try is to imagine what it would be like if an ingenious neurologist transplanted your brain into a man's body. Would you now feel like a man, or would you feel like a woman inside a man's body? There's no right or wrong answer and if you are genuinely "agender" (without a gender identity) then the experiment is not going to tell you anything. However, for some people, it's an experiment through which they start to understand.

It's a thought experiment so it's not about current medical science, however, the boys with cloacal exstrophy kind of did have their brains transplanted into apparently female bodies, so it's a good analogy. And as you can see, many of them felt like boys in female bodies.

Most of you will of course, dismiss this. That's OK - doctors and scientists don't doubt the existence of gender identity, and you'll make little progress until you acknowledge it.

OP posts:
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Wakame · 20/06/2018 20:57

"Great. Now I'm even more terrified about the future for girls and women than I already was."

For reassurance, see how women who do accept trans women as women are coping. You'll find they are fine - life goes on as normal, you just have 0.6% more women in your world.

OP posts:
BettyDuMonde · 20/06/2018 20:59

I wonder if this kind of ‘XX can easily recognise XY’ logic is hard to accept because it is injurious to the idea of ‘passing’?

AssassinatedBeauty · 20/06/2018 21:00

What patronising nonsense @Wakame. You have no idea about any of the future implications of this rigid adherence to genderism, if it continues to dominate and override women's rights.

DietCoke87 · 20/06/2018 21:01

How do I go about finding out what my own innate gender identity is?

thebewilderness · 20/06/2018 21:02

For reassurance, see how women who do accept trans women as women are coping. You'll find they are fine - life goes on as normal, you just have 0.6% more women in your world.

The evidence easily available to women does not support your assertions.

NotTerfNorCis · 20/06/2018 21:03

life goes on as normal, you just have 0.6% more women in your world.

Presumably the number of women going the other way cancels them out?

Most women don't meet many transwomen. They might change their minds if they did, for example if they ended up competing against them in sport.

SPOFS · 20/06/2018 21:05

Okay @Wakame , let's say for a moment that you're right...

  1. What is the purpose of segregating safe spaces based on gender?
  1. Why is this reason more practical than segregating via sex?
smithsinarazz · 20/06/2018 21:10

The real me looks like Halle Berry rather than a shortarse fortysomething with wonky teeth

BettyDuMonde · 20/06/2018 21:11

Something being mentioned doesn’t necessarily make it any more than hypothesis - the paper could go on to disprove it’s existence, or be inconclusive. Even if ‘proved’ the study would have be replicated.

Ultimately it makes no odds because women only spaces are permitted to descriminate using the protected characteristic of ‘sex’.

Gender related protections allow for people with the protected characteristic of gender ‘insert identity/presentation/reassignment here’ to discriminate against those without the protected characteristic of gender (insert etc etc) from trans only spaces.

Thundersky · 20/06/2018 21:11

I can accept transwomen as transwomen just fine thanks OP.

DietCoke87 · 20/06/2018 21:19

Not even sure why the OP started talking about transwomen since they were originally talking cloacal exstrophy as proof of innate gender identity... not sure many trans woman have that condition... if any. Anyway, I really hope the OP answers SPOFS questions.

AssassinatedBeauty · 20/06/2018 21:19

There is research into religious belief and evidence of that in brain scans and so on. I'm sure there's probably plenty psychologists have to say about people who have a religious belief and how that affects their psychology.

thebewilderness · 20/06/2018 21:21

Gender Identity is kinda like Shimmer, don't you think?

pombear · 20/06/2018 21:24

I'm always a bit baffled at the moment on this board right now. Where so many of these debates have been had over, and over again, and helped crystalise the issues in many gender critical people's thinking, and helped us refine our arguments.

I can't get whether Wakame et similar think

a) I'll throw (faux) science at them and then they'll understand

b) I'll keep saying stuff until they're tired/bored/worn down of demonstrating rational, scientific, sociological, etc evidence back at me that I'll have 'got' them

c) lots of lurkers will get my points much better than these stupid gender critical posters, so it's worth my while setting out my argument time and time again.

As it must feel like hitting your head against a brick wall. Thing is, that brick wall is populated by a myriad of intelligent, funny, thinking, open, debatable-with, females, who keep going 'nope'.

And I can see from many discussions that many of those 'bricks' would be open to true evidence, but we keep getting thrown crappy shit that just sticks to the wall and slides down.

Norther · 20/06/2018 21:25

Errr. I'm in STEM and errr no to all OP's points.

BettyDuMonde · 20/06/2018 21:26

m.youtube.com/watch?v=xyYQ9MgphQk

From around 29 minutes in Dr Cretella talks through a number of research papers and describes why findings can be interpreted in different ways.

You might like the ladybrain bit - brains of some trans people do bear some resemblance to brains belonging to people of the opposite biological sex. However - those examined are still all in the normal range for brains of either sex, and similarities are just as likely to have been caused by neuroplasticity as they are congenital.

She’s a great speaker and the whole thing is worth watching - I know some people choose to deride her on the basis of her personal Christian faith, but she is an actual qualified paediatrician and the same people accuse us mumsnet posters of being worse than-literal-murderers, so I probably need say no more.

heresyandwitchcraft · 20/06/2018 21:29

Looking at your source hardly provides rock-solid evidence for your claim. Firstly, this was a tiny group of people (16)! And there wasn't even a uniform result within this group.

Sexual identity varied among the subjects assigned to female sex. Five persistently declared unwavering female identity. One other subject refused to discuss sexual identity with anyone. Eight declared unwavering male identity: four of these subjects declared male identity spontaneously, at the ages of 7, 9, 9, and 12 years, although the parents of two persistently rejected these declarations. Four others declared male identity after their parents revealed to them that their birth status was male, at ages 5, 7, 7, and 18 years. Two subjects were reared male and identified themselves as male.

But more importantly. Gender identity does not determine your sex.

Let me put this as clearly as I possibly can.
Classification into reproductive sex is based on reproductive systems.
That's all.
It's got nothing to do with brains. One's brain can identify however it wants, but that identity is irrelevant to how one's reproductive biology will work.
Unless one has an incredibly rare intersex condition, or medical issues like in the case you provided us, one's sex is observed to be unambiguously male or female at birth and remains this way.
If one was noted to have male genitalia and one developed normally (puberty, make sperm, etc), then there is almost no need to do a chromosomal test to check one's sex. It's a waste of time and money. Especially if one has actually impregnated someone.
If one is male, then one is male.
The doctor or midwife did not get it wrong. Even if one thinks one is female, deeply, inside, this does not make one female.
The biology one is born with, that reproductive anatomy, those organs, will always be the only relevant factor in determining sex. Not an internal feeling.
Now, is it possible that some people some kind of potentially neurological condition which causes them to feel alienated from their actual sex? Yes.
Is the concept of "gender identity" potentially useful to describe the predicaments of such people? Yes, but I don't think it's relevant to most people.
Is the current best treatment for intractable gender dysphoria to give cross-sex hormones and possible surgery? Yes, I believe so.
But those procedures do not change your sex!
And even if in the future we started brain-scanning people, and classify them as per some other “gender identity” system we would still have to come up with new words to describe reproductive sex differences! Plus, I would bet that the brain-scan version would have a higher rate of error than the system we have now!

In short:
I will concede that if there is a mismatch between one's experience of one's reproductive sex and one's physical body, then one can transition to make one's body appear more aligned with one's internal experience. One can become transsexual, but not erase one's birth sex entirely. One cannot claim one is exactly the same as the sex one "feels to be inside," if that is not how one was born. And one absolutely cannot "retcon" this and pretend one was "always" one's desired sex.

A better analogy is asking whether gender identity is in any way a similar "disconnection" experience as sufferers of Body Integrity Identity Disorder have. Those individuals also have an internal sense of their own body which doesn't align with their physical selves, and this can be incredibly persistent, with a huge amount of co-morbidity and distress. I've heard stories where sufferers have deliberately injured themselves in order to try and provoke an amputation of the "alien" limb.

When a person’s idea of how they should look does not match their actual physical form, it can be caused by Body Integrity Identity Disorder. This condition affects a small percentage of the population and is commonly manifested by a desire to have an amputation of a specific body part. In most cases, the limb that the person would like to remove is actually in healthy working order and there are no physical problems with it.

Many psychologists and neurologists have ventured theories into what causes this type of thought. The common leading idea is that Body Integrity Identity Disorder, or BIID, occurs when the brain is not able to provide an accurate plan of the body. In this case, the brain sees the offending limb as being foreign and not actually a part of the person, thus the desire to have it removed.

www.biid.org/

BarrackerBarmer · 20/06/2018 21:30

the boys with cloacal exstrophy kind of did have their brains transplanted into apparently female bodies,

And there's your embarrassing mistake.

Apparently female? We're not just boys with no winkles you know. This isn't a Blackadder sketch. We actually have our OWN ANATOMY!
Imagine! Uteruses and ovaries and fallopian tubes and internal clitorises and all sorts of remarkable physiology that you managed to overlook because, oh well, no more willy = 'apparently female'?!

Could you be more dismissive of the female anatomy that created you and all of us?

The boys' bodies were still unequivocally male.
And as you realised, biology was powerful enough that a penectomy didn't turn a boy into a female despite being 'raised as a girl' by parents who incidentally would have had absolutely no doubt about the real sex of their children.

You are making the gender critical argument for us, so do carry on please. I could do with a night off.

Imnobody4 · 20/06/2018 21:36

Yes heresyandwitchcraft, exactly this!

thebewilderness · 20/06/2018 21:37

Aristotle has a great deal to answer for.
Removing male genitalia does not reveal the hidden female genitalia underneath. This is a myth and a lie and extremely destructive.

Cascade220 · 20/06/2018 21:38

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Voice0fReason · 20/06/2018 21:42

In the past boys born with this condition were often given a "sex change" shortly after birth and were raised as girls with no knowledge of their male past. Despite this, a large percentage go on to express a male gender identity.
So changing their genitals didn't change their sex then.
They were biologically male and developed as men.

They have been brought up as girls, and never told they were boys. There is no physical evidence that they are boys. So what did they recognise?
Male biology! Their hormones, their physique. Their whole body was male. We are more than just our genitals. That is why changing genitals doesn't change a person's sex.

Male gender identity is a harmful stereotype. It's a bit like attributing certain behaviours and characteristics to black people and suggesting that a black person who doesn't fit that stereotype must be born in the wrong body.

If gender is real and scientific - please define what a woman is?

BettyDuMonde · 20/06/2018 21:48

And no, Wakame, we aren’t saying gender identity and god are the same, thus they should both appear in the same list of academic papers. That makes no sense at all.

What I am saying is that you have a right to your beliefs, and I will uphold your right to not be discriminated against on the basis of your beliefs.

This does not mean I agree with your belief, it just means that you holding it does not affect my material reality.

And this is exactly the same as how I feel about religion.

Ireneony · 20/06/2018 21:51

This

The boys in your study were deformed baby boys, raised as girls?

Who grew up to insist they were in fact, boys?

Because that’s not evidence of gender identity, that’s just recognising their material biology, despite the absence of genitalia

This actually supports the GC feminist argument, that male born people are still male, even if their genitalia has been surgically removed

Wakame read it again, your response to this point was incorrect. Regardless that they were raised as girls with no knowledge of what happened to them they were biologically male, regardless of their missing genitalia. So they would have xy chromosomes, they were male. It makes far more sense that they would 'feel' this as they are actually biologically male.

How can you feel like something you're not and have never been? Feeling 'feminine' and having feminine qualities I understand. That's not reserved just for females. 'Feminine' is a social concept of what it is to be female but you're still female if you're not feminine and males can certainly be feminine. Because biology doesn't give a fuck about social concepts.

With regards to your thought experiment, if I woke up with a man's body tomorrow I'd be disoriented and feel alien definitely. Because I've lived all my life as a female. I've been socialised as a woman and my brain (as we know, brains are quite malleable) has become wired a certain way as a combination of my learned and lived experiences and also genetic memory. So it's not a great experiment to illustrate your point.

I don't negate that some people experience a strong sense of gender and being in the wrong body. I think that most of these people should be able to live their lives expressing themselves as they wish without actually having to 'change sex' to do that. I think some of these people are mentally unwell and need help to manage their condition rather than going along with it.

Regardless, males and females have real biological differences that means in some instances sex segregation (not gender segregation) is required to ensure safety and fairness for all.

WeeBisom · 20/06/2018 21:53

Wakame- let’s assume that you are correct and most of us have an innate, inborn gender identity. My question is, so what? Why should we say that males with a “female gender identity” are literally female and members of the female sex? Why don’t we just categorise them as males with an incongruent gender identity? Even if gender identity is real and exists, this doesn’t mean that trans people are literally members of the opposite sex. I don’t see why, if you have a female gender identity this means you get to go into female only places.