Bloody hell BBC

[WorkingItOutAsIGo]

Reading the BBC news online this morning and there is not one, but two stories about transgender people. One promoting the transition of a small child, and the other promoting sport for transgender athletes. The latter in particular looks like a direct attempt to counter the news discussion over the last few days in sport.

This isn’t news, it’s wartime propaganda.

If a male transsexual who presents as female but knows that they are male asks themselves the question "Am I man?" and they say yes, does that mean their gender identity is male? Because it's about the 'knowing'?

why are we waiting?

whhhhyyy are waiiiiting?

what are the characteristics of a person with a female gender ID DadJoke?

this is a very easy question

pancaketosser

If a male transsexual who presents as female but knows that they are male asks themselves the question "Am I man?" and they say yes, does that mean their gender identity is male? Because it's about the 'knowing'?"

Gender expression and gender identity are independent. If they identify as a man, they are man.

BernardBlacksWineIcelolly

^why are we waiting?

whhhhyyy are waiiiiting?

what are the characteristics of a person with a female gender ID DadJoke?

this is a very easy question^

It might be, but I don't understand it. What do you mean by characteristics? Behaviour? Something else?

Gender expression and gender identity are independent. If they identify as a man, they are man.

This is totally circular then isn't it? 'I am whatever I say I am'. So I could be a woman one minute, a man the next, and then switch back and forth every minute. How can this be a meaningful way to categorise people?

As you said earlier, DadJoke, dictionaries follow common usage. So it would be useful to examine where the term 'gender identity' originated, wouldn't it?

As far as I am aware, one of the first people to use the term 'gender identity' was John Money. Think about that for a moment.

Here's an article about John Money for anyone who doesn't know about his experiments on children.

www.theguardian.com/books/2004/may/12/scienceandnature.gender

It might be, but I don't understand it. What do you mean by characteristics? Behaviour? Something else?

let's start with an easy one

what are the main differences between a female gender ID and a male gender ID?

How do i know I'm not a man?

I've been basing that fact that I'm a woman on checking what's between my legs, but you say that's not it - so how do I know if I'm a man or a woman?

and please don't give me that 'of you think you're a woman you are one' thing

I spent quite a lot of my teenaged years thinking there was something wrong with me because I didn't think I was a woman, or feel like a woman inside, so I have a very low tolerance for that

In my view "gender identity" is a political statement that people go along with because in the current climate to discuss it critically is harmful to one's career.

That however doesn't bring it into actual material existence.

I wonder at what point it became safe for scientists to say "God doesn't exist" without it posing a risk to their career.

It might be, but I don't understand it. What do you mean by characteristics? Behaviour? Something else?

It would be helpful if you could suggest any characteristics at all. So far you don't seem to have explained what characteristics a male person with a female 'gender identity' might have compared to a male person with a male 'gender identity'.

You've said it's not about gender expression, but you haven't said what it is, apart from some woolly stuff about an internal essence. Can you not see why it appears to be more like a spirit or a soul than an actual, scientific reality?

I spent quite a lot of my teenaged years thinking there was something wrong with me because I didn't think I was a woman, or feel like a woman inside, so I have a very low tolerance for that

YY me too. If I'd asked myself the question "Am I woman"? as a teenager, the answer would have been no.

This is totally circular then isn't it? 'I am whatever I say I am'. So I could be a woman one minute, a man the next, and then switch back and forth every minute. How can this be a meaningful way to categorise people?

Ask the same question about sexuality. Does it make sexuality redundant if people can lie about their sexuality, or even change it? No.

People are conflating the way of discovering what someone's gender identity is, with finding out what their gender identity is.

You can't know what someone's favourite colour is without asking them, but the fact the only way you can find out about it is to ask (or make a guess based on other factors) does not make the concept redundant.

I'll try again. I am not the arbiter of what gender identity means, I've reported how it is defined and used in practice.

So, I've quoted the position of reputable medical and psychiatric bodies. They might all be wrong, they might have been nobbled or I might be wrong about the consensus.

Which is it?

Because you could, in theory, lie about thing, does not mean that thing is badly defined. You could lie about your ability to speak German, whether you are a mother or not, what your sexuality or religious belief is. That does not reflect whether those concepts are valid. That is not to say that people lying about their gender identity could not be dangerous.

Of course you can lie about anything. But the difference with your construct of who is a woman or a man, and the examples you give above about lying, is that for these others you have some form of actual definition against which to verify a statement. If I said I can speak German, you can test my claim by speaking German to me. Similarly, if I am claiming to have a religious belief, you can ask me about the religion or check membership with a church. If I am claiming something about my sexuality, you can judge it by my history of sexual partners, etc.

This is absolutely not the case in what you're saying about what it means to be a woman. If your definition of "woman" is just whoever says "yes" to the question "are you a woman?", how are you going to test that? It literally means absolutely whoever says "yes." So, in fact, it becomes impossible to lie about womanhood with your definition. The mere act of saying "yes," regardless of feeling and motivation, IS womanhood to you because it will always meet your definition satisfactorily. ANYONE who says "yes" must be a woman. How can you say otherwise? This will include those individuals who may be saying "yes" with genuinely ill intent.

Can you really not see the problem with this? Again, how do I know if I am a woman in order to answer your question with a "yes" or "no"?

What is a woman?

In my view "gender identity" is a political statement that people go along with because in the current climate to discuss it critically is harmful to one's career.

That however doesn't bring it into actual material existence.

I wonder at what point it became safe for scientists to say "God doesn't exist" without it posing a risk to their career.

This.

Sorry that should have been "People are conflating the definition of gender identity, with the method of finding out what their gender identity is.

Does it make sexuality redundant if people can lie about their sexuality, or even change it? No.

But we don't change the way we treat people in society because of their sexuality (at least we shouldn't do).

The problem with 'gender identity' is that it has real, physical consequences. Less so for men, which is why it's possibly harder for you to see the problems. If all there was to 'gender identity' was a man, who one morning announced to the world 'I'm a woman today', and we could all just get on with our lives, simply thinking 'why did he need to say that?', as we might if someone had just walked in saying 'I'm gay today', there wouldn't be a problem.

But what actually happens, is a man puts on a dress, a wig and some make-up, announces he's a woman, and walks in to the women's toilets and changing rooms, making the women and girls in there uncomfortable. Why should his 'gender identity', which can change from day to day, be seen as more important than his sex, which stays the same?

A confused teenager, feeling out of step with other children of their sex, decides that it must be because they have an opposite sex gender identity. This is increasingly happening to teenage girls, who in the current climate end up on a conveyor belt of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and irreversible surgery. How is this comparable to a teenager realising that they are attracted to people of the same sex?

So, I've quoted the position of reputable medical and psychiatric bodies. They might all be wrong, they might have been nobbled or I might be wrong about the consensus.

I might have missed it, but I don't think any of them said that 'gender identity' which is an internal essence or feeling, should be treated as more important than sex. Do they?

OldCrone

I might have missed it, but I don't think any of them said that 'gender identity' which is an internal essence or feeling, should be treated as more important than sex. Do they?

First, none of the definitions of gender identity is an "essence" any more than sexuality is. I have no idea if they say it should be treated as more important than sex. If they did, I would disagree with them.

Here's one of the definitions of 'gender identity' from one of the sources on this page

medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/gender+identity

gender identity: a person's concept of himself or herself as being male and masculine or female and feminine, or ambivalent, usually based on physical characteristics, parental attitudes and expectations, and psychological and social pressures. It is the private experience of gender role.

gender role: the public expression of gender; the image projected by a person that identifies their maleness or femaleness, which need not correspond to their gender identity.

These definitions are both from the Miller-Keane Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Medicine.

So this dictionary actually has a circular definition of gender identity and gender role which contradicts itself. According to them, a 'gender identity' is the 'private experience of gender role', which in turn 'need not correspond to their gender identity'.

I have no idea if they say it should be treated as more important than sex. If they did, I would disagree with them.

What use is it to label people with a gender identity, then? What purpose does it serve? Is it any more important or useful than knowing someone's favourite colour?

OldCrone
But we don't change the way we treat people in society because of their sexuality (at least we shouldn't do).

I agree - that is why it's a protected characteristic.

And yes, gender identity categories can conflict with the protected interests of sex interest categories. None of this speaks to whether gender identity is real. Even if you accept it is, none of the concerns radical feminists express over sex segregation are any less valid just because it's a real category.

It's vital that the two are not conflated, which is what TRAs constantly try to do.

That's not circular.

Yes it is. What is the difference between a "man" gender identity and a "woman" one? If you can't define it, it's not a useful concept.

Ereshkigal

Yes it is. What is the difference between a "man" gender identity and a "woman" one? If you can't define it, it's not a useful concept.

It's not circular, but I do feel like we are going round in circles.

Your gender identity is your knowledge of yourself a man, woman or neither. Usually this matches your sex defined at birth. If not, you are transgender. I am really not sure how much clearer I can be. Do you know you are a woman? You are a woman. Do you know you are a man? You are a man. That's the difference.

I am really not sure how much clearer I can be.

You likely can't be clearer... which is to say you remain unclear!