What does it mean to ‘identify’ as a woman?

[SmallButFierce]

Sorry if this seems too much like a thread about a thread, it was a point that interested me on a thread I commented on in AIBU (which unfortunately got a bit derailed and filled up too quickly!).

I know that I am a woman but I really can’t say that I identify with any sort of intrinsic feeling of ‘woman-ness’. I see my own ‘gender identity’ as being pretty neutral - I see myself as being a mix of attributes that are typically seen as being male or female (eg strong-willed, logical, protector vs caring, sensitive, teacher).

So I’m interested in the concept of ‘feeling’ like a woman, without reference to the physical aspects of actually being a woman. What is this internal feeling of ‘being a woman’? Can you really explain it without falling back on socially determined gender stereotypes?

From the AIBU thread two things came up - first that you can ‘feel like a woman’ if your mental representation of your body is female and aligns with the physical reality of your (female) body. The second one that came up was that you can feel like a woman if you are mentally aligned with the stereotypical female gender role.

I don’t really feel that explains what it means to feel like a woman - yes I am physically female and my mental representation of myself matches that and, especially now I’m a mother, I probably do fit quite a stereotypically female role socially - that’s not really a free choice though and I do find these type of stereotypes really frustrating. I have two young sons and I feel similarly that the expectations of them as males are really restrictive (and no doubt even worse for young girls).

It was an interesting discussion anyway (and not just as an adjunct to the trans debate). Of course men and women are different, I just don’t think that ‘identifying’ with gender stereotypes encapsulates this at all, instead it just seems incredibly regressive and is not something I really think needs encouraging.

I don't feel like a woman; I am a woman.

It's like saying that I identify as an elephant: I might, but (1) elephants would not recognise me as an elephant, (2) other humans would still recognise me as a human, and (3) I could never have the lived experience of an elephant -- however much I wanted to be an elephant, I could simply never truly experience the world from the perspective of an elephant. Consequently identifying as such is relatively meaningless. I could, however, be a woman who loved elephants and wanted to pretend to be one.

It's like saying that I identify as an elephant: I might, but (1) elephants would not recognise me as an elephant, (2) other humans would still recognise me as a human, and (3) I could never have the lived experience of an elephant -- however much I wanted to be an elephant, I could simply never truly experience the world from the perspective of an elephant. Consequently identifying as such is relatively meaningless. I could, however, be a woman who loved elephants and wanted to pretend to be one.

We're right back to small children claiming they're unicorns, aren't we?

Just now I saw some pages out of a new trans children's book called Jack not Jackie, and in it, the child clearly identifies as "Superbug" and yet the book completely drops it and goes on to another topic. (This is after the child has just rejected the suggestion to play at fairies, and is supposed to be an example of how the child is clearly male or whatever.)

I found it absolutely hilarious that they included that bit. Very superbugphobic.

From the AIBU thread two things came up - first that you can ‘feel like a woman’ if your mental representation of your body is female and aligns with the physical reality of your (female) body.

what? Even that sounds circular. My tits don't have a feeling. Or a gender. Neither does my left elbow. And no matter what kind of shape my lumps take, it's still my job to realize that it's just a body I was born with and the purpose of my body is to be the locomotion which gets me to where I want to go.

I think the transpeople are trying to say anything, which DOESN'T sound exactly the same as the people who "need a perfectly healthy body part amputated in order to feel "content".

They have a body, a perfectly healthy body, and yet to them it doesn't feel right and they need different body parts to feel "content".

Well so what? That may make some of them qualify as a transsexual but it's still a mental illness and it's still not my job to make them feel better about themselves.

PierreBezukov
It is meaningless

You either are or aren't a woman. That's it.

^This^

I'm a woman because I'm an adult human female. Prior to that I was a girl - an immature human female - from birth. There's nothing about those states of being that anyone who doesn't have female biology can "identify" into. And I agree - all these males who supposedly "identify" as women and want to be seen as somehow sharing female biology have absolutely no knowledge of, interest in or concern with the very real socio-economic ways our biology impacts on women's lives.

Currently, "identifying as a woman" seems to be about, in the most part, either performing a stereotypical pornified role (to be attractive to heterosexual men?) or a misogynistic "welcome to your erasure" game plan. (And those few with genuine gender dysphoria are getting totally trampled over in all of this.) Either way, "identifying as a woman" is a crock of shit.

I probably identify more as my career than my sex or gender

This is interesting. I'd identify myself as my career and a couple of my hobbies.

Eg I'm a part time musician and play bass guitar in a couple of bands. If someone asked me to describe myself, I think i'd say "bassist" before I said "woman"...

Woman is 'just' what I am.

female is a noun; whereas performing femininity is a verb.

Transpeople conflate the state of being, with the action of doing. According to trans, only female people are assumed to have a wish to perform the stereotypes of femininity. If a little boy likes pink, then they assume he's really a girl. It's all very homophobic.

If I'm dead and buried and 500 years later they dig me up, they won't know my name, my pronouns or what my interests were. They'll look at my bones and tell you what I was. They might extract DNA and say what my skin colour or eye colour was.
They won't tell you my feelz.

I think I’ve posted this quote before, but it’s so good it bears repeating. Fran Lebowitz. She’s was asked about #metoo.

It’s a great thing! I can’t believe this good thing happened! I don’t ordinarily say things like this, ‘cause I don’t really think them: men do not understand this. You cannot explain to men what it is like to be a woman. You simply can’t. Because you’re not just explainingwhat it’s like to be a woman, you’re explainingwhat it’s like to be agirl. You’re explainingwhat it’s like to be a baby girl.

Listen to the way people talk to babies. The tone of voice that people use to a baby girl is different than to a baby boy. So that is from the second you are born. You absolutely cannot convey this to even the most brilliant, well-meaning man on the planet. Some of whom I know. But I have been unable, ever, to explain this to men.*
www.realclearlife.com/books/fran-lebowitz-really-think/

I identify as my career and as a mother. More do as a mother atm as I've put my career on hold to be a SAHM for a while. I imagine lots of women are similar.

Men who say they are women however seem to think that putting on a dress, a wig, some make up and making a lot of noise about pronouns and feelings think that's what a woman is. We can't expect them to actually know what it means on account of them not actually being one. Just like I have no idea how it feels to be a man, or a cat, or a horse, or a tub of potted beef.

This is all recently new to me and I’m old. It’s a question ‘how do I identify as woman’ never had to think about before. Just like I haven’t until recently needed to keep declaring myself as a woman. I just am.

I can only say that I don’t identify as Male, I rely a lot on Male relatives when it comes to things with my son. It’s not that I don’t care it’s just I’m a female and we are completely made up opposite.

i.e I can empathise & understand without need of explanation with daughter when she moody pmt, emotional hormones, way thinks, etc etc.

With my son i can empathise (not as much as obviously I heartless) if he got kicked in bollocks but that’s it.

I don’t understand why he gets pissed orf or moody.

If my son changed physically his sex he will still not have that make up of being a woman that identifies exactly like me and his sister

I’m rambling and now on hit list never mind

I think it means something more than just "I say I am."

It means, "I think YOU should have to perceive me as this."

It means, even moreso, "I think I should be judged according to the norms established for this group."

When you realize this last meaning, all of the transwomen "setting world records" in sport or being "woman of the year" or sent to women's prisons or whatnot, it all makes perfect sense. What they demand is to be judged according to a woman's yardstick.

WombOfOnesOwn - very well put, sadly.

I don't belong to any group that would take 'I identify as..." as proof of membership.

The moment that there are no objective criteria is the moment I cease to be part of it.

I spoke at length to a trans friend about all this as I wanted to know what it meant and if my friend (who is generally very reasonable) honestly felt male, as that is how my friend currently presents.

I was unsurprised to discover that my friend’s subjective experience was that they do not feel male, even though presenting that way helps. My friend described it as more “feeling not female”. I could understand that more as I don’t really have any sense of “feeling female” either, though not to the point where I want to take hormones or transition.

I think any wholly rational person must realise that it is impossible for a man to know what being a woman feels like and vice versa. The mind can do very odd things though and I know not everything that runs through my mind is rational. I have had phobias and occasionally intrusive thoughts.

Perhaps fortunately for me, no doctor (or indeed anyone) has ever thought it was a good idea to affirm any of my irrational thoughts.

When they say they feel like a woman, what they mean is that they want to be a women or that they feel sexy dressed as a woman.

Blardy I also know of someone who is identifying away from their own sex, rather than towards the opposite sex. Surely counselling is whats needed in those cases.

It's always mildly insulting when a member of your own sex claims they are trans because they say "I don't feel female" because the unspoken end of the sentence is possibly something like "unlike you lot, you big Jessies, with your constant female feels that you love and which I obviously disdain but let's both agree that I have observed and judged you to be in possession of something without asking or stopping to think that I might have got this very, very wrong".

Trans people just seem to constantly construct themselves with reference to what they imagine other people are, or aren't. And the other people that are unwitting players in that game don't get a say in whether they've been wrongly judged.

The rest of us just list our characteristics and have done with it, knowing that objectively half of humanity have them too.

I don’t think it means anything. How can it? I can never know what it feels like to be a man, or another woman for that matter.

I have no doubt that dysphoric exsists. However

TBH It looks like for many it means I want to be treated and seen as I imagine / fantasise a woman is treated.

I expect/ demand you validate my identity.
Also it looks like I want to be desired.

Looking at it the other way, what does it feel like not to feel like a man? Or not to feel like a woman?

I don’t know what it feels like to identify as anything.

I remember coming back from living abroad and being offered tea and crumpets and feeling like I had come home, but that’s not about identity, it’s about culture. If I grew up elsewhere I wouldn’t have a secret yearning for crumpets, and plenty of British people hate tea and crumpets.

Gender dysphoria is more about not wanting to be your birth sex than wanting to be the other sex.

What I've gleaned over the last twelve months or more is that it means pretty much whatever you want it to mean. Wearing heels? Woman. Shopping for frocks? Woman? Etc. Unless you think that it means adult human female, in which case you're a bigot and not womaning correctly at all.