What does the David Reimer case have to say about the concept of gender identity?

[Namechange4thispost]

So much in this tragic case to discuss.
articles.latimes.com/2004/may/13/local/me-reimer13

chaotic I agree it’s bad form, imprecise language and I don’t believe in an ‘inate sense of bio sex’. I was mirroring the language of gender identity (prompted by a quote from the OP).

It’s not clear at all that many people reject the concept of ‘gender identity’, as describes the feelings/compulsion a person may have regarding their own gender identity.

I don’t reject the concept. That would be akin to denying that many people have feelings/compulsion regarding their religious identity.

My position is:

1. Some people believing something (gender, religion, homeopathy) does not mean I must believe it.
2. Some people believing something does not make it real.
3. Some people believing something does not mean they were born like it.

I don’t doubt people feel it though.

Gender identity is measurable and identifiable in many situations.

Nope. Until you can adequately explain gender identity, there's no way an empty concept can be measured.

there are many intersex conditions that give rise to an immutable gender identity opposite to chromosomal and physical identifiers.
Identical twins are more likely to both be trans than non-identical.

Intersex has nothing to do with any of this. Oh and citation please on twin studies.

It seems the only people that refuse to accept this are the same people campaigning to limit trans rights

There is no such thing as gender identity. There is only recognition of biological sex.

Which is why fighting natural diversity is doomed to fail.

LOLWUT? Nobody is fighting against diversity. We know there are only two sexes and the rest are outliers. We know that people wear all kinds of clothing and behave all sorts of ways but they never, EVER, change their sex. Males remain males. Females remain females.

When I read people and sometimes posts on here that say there is no evidence for gender identity or trans people are the result of disordered behaviours

Define gender identity then and be prepared for a rational counterargument and YES we know through SCIENCE that gender dysphoria IS a mental disorder classified in the DSM V and we KNOW that it's accompanied by OTHER comorbid psychological disorders. Source
www.psychiatryadvisor.com/childadolescent-psychiatry/transgender-gender-nonconforming-children-adolescents-mental-health-depression-psychoses/article/762887/

it sometimes amuses me just how uninformed it requires someone to be to follow this transphobic mindset

I have a psych degree and can read research papers. Labeling me as having a phobia reflects more on you than it does me.

And why more and more people see you

I'm a woman who will never stop. See all you want. Every day, more and more women are fed up to death with transgenderism and its effects on women and girls and especially children.

mancheese
Until you can adequately explain gender identity, there's no way an empty concept can be measured.
It's been explained, many, many times. If you don't know what it is, then go and look it up. I am not going to waste my time explaining it all over again. Nor should you expect anyone else to make up for your self-inflicted ignorance
Intersex has nothing to do with any of this. Oh and citation please on twin studies.
Good Scholar

There is no such thing as gender identity.
Again, try Google Scholar. Plenty of information there, such as:-
www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01511/full#h1

Unfortunately this one journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1359104502007003002. Is behind a paywall, but here's part of the abstract:-
This article attempts to enhance understanding and communication about different sexual issues. It starts by offering definitions to common terms such as sex, gender, gender identity and sexual identity.

Define gender identity then and be prepared for a rational counterargument
You won't believe anything that anyone tells you, so there is no point. You can easily check for yourself on Google Scholar -- plenty of solid academic papers there.
www.psychiatryadvisor.com/childadolescent-psychiatry/transgender-gender-nonconforming-children-adolescents-mental-health-depression-psychoses/article/762887/^
^we known through SCIENCE that gender dysphoria IS a mental disorder classified in the DSM V and we KNOW that it's accompanied by OTHER comorbid psychological disorders. Source
Any particular reason for choosing an obsolete American document rather than the current international version. (ICD-11)?
HA60 is the section you need

I have a psych degree and can read research papers. Labeling me as having a phobia reflects more on you than it does me. Really? Oh well at least you didn't try to tell us that had actually read any research papers.... that would have been much harder to believe, given your clear ignorance of the subject, and the fact that the paper you have chosen to cite says: ^
suggesting an urgent need for improved measures of social and clinical support.^

I'm a woman who will never stop. See all you want. Every day, more and more women are fed up to death with transgenderism and its effects on women and girls and especially children Read the article you referenced. Trans kids need support, not hatred. Constantly accusing someone of being delusional, a sinner, an aberration, a pervert, a rapist or any of the other accusations that you hurl at us is highly likely to cause depression and possibly suicide. To go on doing it when you are sufficiently well-educated to know that these are likely effects of your action goes far beyond callous or unprofessional.

Damnthatonestakentryanother

This is a from the article that you suggested we read in order to understand what "gender identity" means. I'm afraid it hasn't helped.

"The expression gender identity was coined in the middle 1960s, describing one’s persistent inner sense of belonging to either the male and female gender category (Money, 1994). The concept of gender identity evolved over time to include those people who do not identify either as female or male: a “person’s self concept of their gender (regardless of their biological sex) is called their gender identity” (Lev, 2004, p. 397). The American Psychological Association (2009a, p. 28) described it as: “the person’s basic sense of being male, female, or of indeterminate sex.” For decades, the term ‘transsexual’ was restricted for individuals who had undergone medical procedures, including genital reassignment surgeries. However, nowadays, ‘transsexual’ refers to anyone who has a gender identity that is incongruent with the sex assigned at birth and therefore is currently, or is working toward, living as a member of the sex other than the one they were assigned at birth"

What is "the male and female gender category" that Money refers to? Does he mean male and female sex? What is a “person’s self concept of their gender (regardless of their biological sex)"? I could understand if it simply meant believing yourself to be a different sex than you actually are, but isn't that a delusion? For gender identity to be anything but a delusion, there has to be something called "gender" which is different from sex. If it is, then how can your gender be "incongruent" with your sex? If they are two different things then they don't contradict each other, they can exist side by side, as in a person who is female and masculine, which used to be called tomboy or butch and no-one seemed to have trouble understanding that, or not until recently anyway.

And so we come to this: "living as a member of the sex other than the one they were assigned at birth". What does it mean to live as a member of a sex? I live as female in the sense that I have a female body and that affects my interactions with the world and the way it sees me. If I chose to bind my breasts and wear very masculine clothing etc, that might make some people think I was male and treat me differently than they do now but I would not be living "as male". I'd be a female, doing something that many females have done throughout history for various reasons. I would not be living a male life. A male life would not include doing all the stuff I'd be doing to conceal my femaleness, for one thing!

Very well said ChaoticGood. Living up to your name :)

As ever when it comes to these subjects, some mumsnetters claim to be worldwide experts despite their opinions running the absolute polar opposite of tens of thousands of experts, millions of man-hours of experience and qualifications.

David Reimer rejected his assigned gender so on that basis, the change sex by surgery experiment was a total and utter failure

As ever when it comes to these subjects, some mumsnetters claim to be worldwide experts despite their opinions running the absolute polar opposite of tens of thousands of experts, millions of man-hours of experience and qualifications.

I don't care about gender identity, as it does not determine reproductive sex!
My problem is with the people who think gender identity has any bearing on whether we classify someone as male or female - terminology which specifically refers to sex. How someone feels internally makes absolutely no difference to what reproductive anatomy.
All due respect, but reproductive biology is the result of the entirety of human evolution, and literally the only reason you even exist right now. I think the reality of this is indisputable, even compared to your experts and man-hours (?a bit of an interesting word choice for the feminist board there?)
Especially in complex fields of medicine like psychiatry and neurology, things can go wrong.
In 1949, Egas Moniz won the Nobel Prize for inventing lobotomy, and the operation peaked in popularity around the same time.
At the time, the procedure was seen as a miracle cure. I'm absolutely NOT saying this is exactly the same phenomenon, but I do think we should all be cautious before touting irreversible, permanent changes as some form of panacea to vulnerable members of society.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15629160

I think it's really important in the history of the idea of gender identity - because John Money was highly influential AND he misrepresented the case in his publications. Having provided (false) evidence that gender identity is determined by nurture rather than nature, he allowed his conclusions to be widely accepted by his peers.

By the time David Reimer told his story, the notion of a mutable gender identity had taken hold. The work that scholars were doing in other fields was undertaken - and received - in a context in which Money's conclusions were accepted as reliable. For example, Judith Butler published Gender Trouble before Reimer told his story.

So I don't think we can ignore the case. It's heartbreaking, and a sobering example of what can happen if influential scientists misrepresent their results. Not entirely unrelated is William Masters and his lies falsely reported research into conversion therapy for homosexuality.

To be honest, I've read the Reimer case. It sounds like a person who was subjected to abuse, from the people who ought to have taken care of him. I know Wikipedia isn't a great source but:
"Reimer said that Money forced the twins to rehearse sexual acts involving "thrusting movements", with David playing the bottom role. Reimer said that, as a child, he had to get "down on all fours" with his brother, Brian Reimer, "up behind his butt" with "his crotch against" his "buttocks". Reimer said that Money forced David, in another sexual position, to have his "legs spread" with Brian on top. Reimer said that Money also forced the children to take their "clothes off" and engage in "genital inspections". On at "least one occasion", Reimer said that Money took a photograph of the two children doing these activities. Money's rationale for these various treatments was his belief that "childhood 'sexual rehearsal play'" was important for a "healthy adult gender identity"."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer
Doesn't sound particularly healthy to me.
David was abused from birth, and we ought to support him, recognise his pain, and how try and fight how he was discriminated against. Bless you David. I love you.

I think this case only really shows that some psychiatrists are (to say the least) highly unethical and put their own beliefs, research and personal interests significantly above their patients welfare. We now know that Money was an abusive evil person who exploited a child with a medical injury and his family for his own gratification and gain. He should have been struck off and prosecuted and his research papers redacted, but instead he is still cited and his work praised. To me that says something about the genderist agenda and it's not positive.

Just because something is endorsed by the medical establishment, this does not mean we should accept it without question. Psychiatry is as much art as science and has often been extremely sexist. Angela Saini’s ‘Inferior’ is an excellent account of the ways in which science is much less independent and impartial than we would like to think.

It is highly likely that the people who invented ‘gender identity’ were influenced by cultural norms surrounding sex and gender, which may well have influenced the results of their studies.

And of course these notions continue to influence the medical establishment to this day.