Could you get on board with this definition of gender identity?

[SarahCarer]

If sex = biologically male or female and
Gender = the sex based role society expects us to perform
Gender identity = instinctive complicit performance of a sex based role

Not everyone complies instinctively to any sex based role
Not everyone complies instinctively to the role normally imposed on their own sex
Feminism enlightens us and we can overcome our complicity, and resist.

@Cwenthryth You're describing the agency part; choosing to perform a role (in line with our instinct to be social/co-operative). But now I'm going to bring back in the social conditioning- we did not feel like we had a choice over this part of our characters. We did not feel like we chose it. Hence it seeming immutable, when it isn't.

@Cwenthryth Yes I knew my grammar wasn't good there. I was lazy. But yes I do mean co-operative only the agency that co-operates by imitating is itself driven by instinct to co-operate.

I've got to get a bit of shut eye now. I'll be back tomorrow.

OP I agree. The instinctive desire to belong to immerse yourself in the category that’s been assigned to you.

To copy people in that group by wearing the markers.

I agree with bab it's the linking of different aptitudes, behaviours, clothes etc to gender rather than just recognising as part of the rich variations of humans, male and female. It's the stereotypes we need to get rid of.

I agree that children are given powerful messages about how they should look and behave according to the gender rules society assigns to each sex. As humans are social creatures most children will adapt their behaviour at least to some extent in order to conform to the rules they are given, and this is reinforced by frequent positive messaging from the adults around them, and policed by negative messaging too.

However I don't think that this can be taken too far because if all children have an instinctive desire to behave in the way they are told/ observe their sex should behave then you would never have children who do not conform to their culture's sex stereotypes. No gender non conformity and no transgender individuals. Plus I don't think that performance is static, many people (sadly not as many as during other fairly recent periods) play with gender performance in minor or major ways over time. I for example generally am fairly non conforming, I have short hair, wear androgenous clothing, never wear make up, am often fairly bolshy etc, but at other times I like to dress up in ways that accentuate my female form, and there are times I enjoy being submissive. My identity does not change with my clothes or my behaviour. I'm always my unique self, and I don't 'identify' as female or understand what gender identity means to other people. I'm also not convinced I'm unusual in this, I don't think that gender identity as a term is particularly meaningful to most people. Most people simply know what their sex is and are more or less OK with the gender stereotypes associated with that sex.

because if all children have an instinctive desire to behave in the way they are told/ observe their sex should behave then you would never have children who do not conform to their culture's sex stereotypes.

Well not really because a lot of children wrestle between the desire to fit in with their gender and their personal preferences.

It’s weird because I remember the actual moment when, as a girl, I told myself that I had to stop all my tomboy stuff (climbing trees, being scruffy, using a male name) because I would never get a boyfriend if I continued and I would never be like the other girls.

Gender identity feels more natural to some than others because they don’t mind the stuff that goes along with their assigned group.

And I figure that trans is just a stronger version of what I felt. You feel much more strongly attached to the behaviours and attributes that have been assigned to the other sex (although not being trans I am just speculating I guess).

But I believe that if we get away from such strong gender stereotypes people will be able to let all the aspects of their personalities be free and not feel they have to be or the other.

if all children have an instinctive desire to behave in the way they are told/ observe their sex should behave then you would never have children who do not conform to their culture's sex stereotypes.

The critical thing here is that a) not all children instinctively co-operate. Many but not all. B) Children are exposed to varying levels of conformity and diversity c) some children pick up on the other roles applied to the other sex and metaphorically listen to the social instructions for that sex instead. They co-operate with those instructions.

The more we can de-gender their worlds and reduce categorisation at a young age the better.

I’m on my way to work with a bus full of women taking young children to school. I’m passing by lots of other women walking kids to school. Women of all ethnicities and ages.

And that’s women performing gender. That’s what femininity is and the strongest message young kids get about what it is women and girls are supposed to do.

Whether or not you put a dress on while doing all this unpaid work is a tiny, trivial part of messages about femininity. But the trans debate has centred these minor issues. If ‘gender identity’ was actually about women’s experience of gender roles and why they conform to them, it wouldn’t be pink and lipstick we’d be making central.

I don’t like the word instinctive here either.

Instinctive has a specific meaning. It’s a pattern of activity the organism is born capable of doing rather than learning it. It’s a behaviour that will occur the first time the appropriate stimulus is applied. For example a bird building a nest, a puppy drooling at food, a spider constructing a web.

Instinctive implies innate. Since gender roles have a massive learned component, instinct isn’t an appropriate term.

I do understand what you’re getting at though. I’m just not sure instinct is the right word.

What you mean (I think?) is that children learn by copying - that is a valid point. I’m thinking of how best to express it... it’s almost like the original biological definition of a meme - a culturally infectious transmissible behaviour.

I agree with 'performance'
Not with instinctive.
Beardy Alex believes he is performing 'gender identity:woman', with his tache, beard and male genitalia. Because: skirts +blue eyeshadow.
Nothing instinctive about that.

I would say it is a learned performance of a sex-based stereotype, coupled with a dogmatic belief that behavioural stereotypes should remain firmly connected to biological sex and presented as if innate.

Not catchy, I know.

for example, boy who loves soccer does not think "I love soccer because Dad does and Uncle Jon does and they have penises too...boy thinks "I love soccer because I am a boy"

And girls/women like me who loved (and played) soccer from a very early age and still do, despite knowing I'm very much a woman who knew as a girl she was very much a girl?

Does Beardy Alex really believe he is performing 'gender identity:woman' though? I think a lot of these individuals are just taking the piss. None of us know what they feel inside, just as they have no idea how women feel inside. In the days when to be trans meant that you spent hours and hours on psychiatrists couches maybe there could be some legitimate claims made as to the inner lives of transexuals as a class (although very much through the eyes of the psychiatrist, some of whom very much had their own opinions and prejudices) now the trans umbrella is so broad as to be meaningless.

Gender identity to me remains in the realm of faith. Very important to some, a mystery to others and with a significant potential given to some advocates to manipulate both believers and bystanders.

I actually think there is a lot of value in working hard to understand those with different viewpoints and trying to establish a shared understanding in order to present our case at its strongest. Dismissing the idea of gender identity as, "not even a thing" just tells people, and not just trans people, I think it is reasonable to suggest that many people instinctively cooperate with social conditioning because, as one poster said, we're social animals. And this process is not limited to sex roles either. The same applies to other social norms like those associated with class and race. But the categorisation around sex is the strongest I think and I think language contributes to this. Think of every time small children in nursery or school are referred to as boys and girls and how often they have to decide whether to say "he" or "she" when referring to another child. During all of these minute decisions and the constant repetitive signalling, they are not confronted with different looking bodies. The bodies look the same when clothed. From age 3-4 they are working out each other's sex based upon hair and sometimes clothes, plus the language others use about that child. Yes they know the differences between male and female bodies but at a social and much less conscious level an alternative meaning is being established very early on by the constant categorisation in a context where the actual biological differences are irrelevant.

I think it is worth recognising and accepting that many people do feel comfortable in the sex role assigned to them or in the sex role normally assigned to the other sex and that they were never aware of it being imposed, or of choosing it. Accepting this does not in any way imply that TWAW or that a particular gender is innate or immutable. It reasserts gender as a social construct and explains the "inner" experience of gender. Gender is both socially imposed and unconsciously chosen. But not on all children to the same extent and not by all children to the same extent, or at all in some cases.

*Dismissing the idea of gender identity as, "not even a thing" just tells people, and not just trans people...that you don't want to engage or understand or that you don't believe them. Sorry I accidentally deleted a bit.

And not just trans people. Trans advocates are often keen to assert their "cis" status. Of course they are often all too keen to project their own experience of gender onto others.

I think instinctive works for stuff like breathing or reaching out with your hands in an attempt to break a fall, rather than for socialized stuff like gender roles. Would a child raised by wolves know that she was meant to want to look pretty and do the dishes?

No of course not AAK. Have you rtft? I am not saying performance of a particular sex role is instinctive. I'm saying the copying/co-operating with it is. So how that role will look will depend on the culture around them and the level of categorisation. But not all children are born with the same level of that instinct, which is essentially a social instinct.

I.e. an instinct to be social. As someone else said, using language is instinctive for human beings but the actual language spoken will depend on what the child hears.

I think it would be better if those that believe in gender identity explained it in a way that those of us who find it an alien concept understood. Otherwise we are just flailing in the dark. I find people telling me that I must have a gender identity very similar to religious people telling me that of course I believe in god / god has spoken to me. It puts my back up and makes me want to reject their beliefs far more strongly. Imposing your belief system on other people is wrong. Freedom of thought is important. If something really is true and fundamentally right trust that others will in time come to that realization without being bullied, coerced or brainwashed into doing so.

You need a better word than "instinctive" (and also not get so aggro at people because they don't think your framing works). We've had this conversation on here multiple times, it's not as if you aren't aware that there are many people here who see things differently. I don't think the cooperation is instinctive at all, I think it's enforced.

www.verywellmind.com/what-is-gender-schema-theory-2795205
I think this is in line with your ideas. My problem is that we need to challenge this stereotyping as a society and confirming the concept of gender identity seems to be in danger of reinforcing it.

I mean, I've watched kids being socialized into their gender roles. They're actively punished for non-compliance from an early age, and rewarded when they do comply. That's not instinct, it's conditioning.