Is this "gender identity"?

[Kaiserin]

What does it mean to "feel like a woman"?
For a long time this made no sense to me, and sounded it was all about embracing gender stereotypes. However there seems to be (according to some) a distinction between gender identity (in your head) and gender expression (the way you dress and act).
So what's that womanly feeling? Do I (a female) even feel womanly?

Then it clicked: when a man is mean to me, I feel threatened, but that feeling is only as deep as how much I fear that man may be able to hurt me (otherwise? shrug, whatever). When a woman is mean to me, I doubt my self a lot more ("what's wrong with me?"). The man is "other" (still human, but distinct). The woman is a mirror, another self, and her rejection hurts my own sense of identity and adequacy.
I'm not saying that feeling is right or wrong, or that everyone has it, but (I've just realised), for me, it's real (and a bit shameful, as I thought I had stronger "mental boundaries". I guess deep down I'm still a little girl trying to please my mum...)

So, assuming that feeling is "gender identity"... trans women see men and feel they are "other", they see women and feel "that's another me!"... And if a woman says "sorry, but I don't see you as another me", the trans woman's feelings get hurt... But is that any different from anyone being rejected by the "peer group(s)" they identify with?

I'm a female with not very feminine interests. I identify with females based on our shared lived experience, due to being the same sex. I also identify with people (often male) who share my interests. I have experienced rejection from both groups due to my otherness. But surely I can't force people who don't identify with me, to identify with me? I can expect kindness based on our shared humanity, but surely I can't demand control on their own feelings, or request that they lie about such feelings?

So... unrequited feelings of identity are real ("I identify with you, but you don't identify with me, and it hurts"), but they are not any more a hate crime than, say, unrequited love.
... Does this idea I just got make sense to anyone else?

You, see , I'd say that many transwomen don't really identify with, or have much empathy for women at all. Not as women, anyway.

Just because I feel that way doesn't mean that I can't acknowledge that other people do.

Oh Im sure that people do, but what is it that they are identifying with exactly? If you are a man, you can only identify with stereotypes about women that you are seeing from an external point of view. You can't truly 'identify as a woman' if you are not one, because you don't know what it is to be female, you are only identifying with what you see from the outside.

There is nothing wrong with a man living his life according to stereotypes about women if that's what makes him truly happy, but if he insists that living in that way actually makes him a woman then that is sexist shite that I am going to give a firm 'no' to.

• But surely I can't force people who don't identify with me, to identify with me? I can expect kindness based on our shared humanity, but surely I can't demand control on their own feelings, or request that they lie about such feelings?

So... unrequited feelings of identity are real ("I identify with you, but you don't identify with me, and it hurts"), but they are not any more a hate crime than, say, unrequited love.*

Yes to this part. And in this analogy, someone suffering unrequited love who doesn't accept that it's entirely their problem is likely to put themselves on the Incel/stalker/rapist track.

@ThatsHowWeRowl

Just because I feel that way doesn't mean that I can't acknowledge that other people do.

Oh Im sure that people do, but what is it that they are identifying with exactly? If you are a man, you can only identify with stereotypes about women that you are seeing from an external point of view. You can't truly 'identify as a woman' if you are not one, because you don't know what it is to be female, you are only identifying with what you see from the outside.

There is nothing wrong with a man living his life according to stereotypes about women if that's what makes him truly happy, but if he insists that living in that way actually makes him a woman then that is sexist shite that I am going to give a firm 'no' to.

Spot on. How do I know what the other sex experiences? All I can base it on is observation and listening to first hand accounts. Those observations are then interpreted by my own brain, and understood based on my own experiences. The whole thing is therefore biased by default and deeply subjective.

@ThatsHowWeRowl

Just because I feel that way doesn't mean that I can't acknowledge that other people do.

Oh Im sure that people do, but what is it that they are identifying with exactly? If you are a man, you can only identify with stereotypes about women that you are seeing from an external point of view. You can't truly 'identify as a woman' if you are not one, because you don't know what it is to be female, you are only identifying with what you see from the outside.

There is nothing wrong with a man living his life according to stereotypes about women if that's what makes him truly happy, but if he insists that living in that way actually makes him a woman then that is sexist shite that I am going to give a firm 'no' to.

I think this is intriguing and I have a feeling it may be routed in sexual dimorphism and evolutionary advantages to this. This is a more important mechanism behind reproductive success in some species, and if you look at humans, in those cultures where the sexes tend to exhibit more sexual dimorphism not just bodily but functionally (eg, amongst other things, exaggerated machismo) they also tend to be more reproductively successful. Those cultures where genders present similarly have lower birth rates I believe.

That is not, of course, to say that any of this is appropriate or justifiable - machismo is undoubtedly responsible for countless deaths, violences and aggressions against women. However I think it is important to acknowledge that sexual dimorphism exists and there is an evolutionary advantage to it for some species, which is why it exists. I think the sexual dimorphism can extend beyond physical characteristics to presentation and social behaviours because we are such a social species.

As humans are a social species I think there may be some sort of internal mapping process whereby it has become important to assimilate and reproduce those features, characteristics and even behaviours of the gender that the individual identifies with. The mapping process would generally be specific to the culture the individual grew up in for the most part over history, as it is those characteristics, presentations and social behaviours that they are exposed to. And as I said before, I think it exists because of some throwback evolutionary advantage to it.

Again, I'm not trying to simplify things here, I don't think everyone has this sense of identity or drive for a mapping, identification process. I certainly don't. But I wouldn't be surprised if something like this did exist for some. And of course, I am not making any comment on the 'rightness' of this, or saying there are no problems for this.

I don't think anyone has ever suggested that gender dysphoria doesn't exist at all have they? Of course there are people who are uncomfortable with their sexed body and are more comfortable presenting 'as the opposite sex'. Some males (really not that many mind!) feel so uncomfortable with it that they go the whole hog and get the 'pinnacle of their manhood' removed completely.

None of that means that humans can ever actually change sex, or ever truly know what is it to be the opposite sex.

@Barracker

Identity is an individual thing. A statement of knowledge about one's individuality.

The only way for a group - and gender is literally a group - to possess a communal, shared identity would be for that identity to have a set of defined characteristics common to every individual in it.

Eg, I am an introverted person, my identity is introvert, here are the characteristics of an introvert which I possess...
You are also an introvert and you possess those same characteristics.
Now, we're a common group, with a group identity.

But with 'female gender identity'?

You could put 100 women in a room.
Their sex is female
But they all have different personality traits.
So which of the 100 personalities gets to be the 'female gender identity'?
Perhaps 10 of the 100 women claim their personal identity is THE female gender identity.
But they all have different personalities! What are the shared female characteristics? Do they even differ from male characteristics? In what way are they female? How can this group gender identity 'female' be 10 conflicting things? That's not a group.
And what does that mean for the identities of the other women? Not female?

When women say "I have a female gender identity" they mean, I have a body, the word for it is female so whatever personality I have must be the 'female gender identity'.

But personalities are not gendered. They're human. Female is a reproductive class, not a feeling or personality type, and not an identity separate from one's sex.

Exactly.

You have no right to expect kindness based on shared anything. No one has a right to others being kind to them, we only have a right to others not harming us. We need to step away from this ridiculous idea that we are owed kindness or care or compassion from others, because it’s a very fast slippery slope to being owned love, and then owed sex. The only people who owe us love are our parents and ourselves. No one needs to waste their energy being concerned with being kind to others. We need to behave like decent and reasonable human beings, but we don’t need to be kind or nice or smile or owe anyone the time of day. Turn it round the other way and no women needs a man to owe us kindness-we just need them to respect us and our boundaries. Of course it’s then healthy to choose men in our lives based on being kind among other things, but we don’t need potential rapists to show us kindness, it’s respect and decency that would mean they choose not to abuse their power over us not some fluffy idea of kindness. I feel this shouldn’t need explaining on a feminism board.

From a genetic POV we (like any animal species) produce the strongest offspring when we mate with those who have the most different dna, the same way the healthiest breed of horse or dog are highbred vigors (parents from two very different breeds) DNA being ‘as opposite as possible’ (I can’t grasp words today) in no way translates to personality traits of macho men. It may well mean physicality appears to be that of ‘macho’ men and ‘feminine’ women, but the idea that has any bearing on sex role stereotypes is regressive evolutionary psych bs.

Could someone tell me why we women are trying to explain/understand this lunacy to a poster who probably isn't interested?

The belief in gender identity is a religious belief. If you are not a believer in this faith system it's impossible to understand what it is or how it feels to hold this belief. It's like an atheist trying to understand what it feels like to believe in God.

People who are believers can't explain it to us either. They keep telling what it's not - 'it's not about stereotypes', 'it's not about how you express yourself through your appearance' etc, but they can never explain what it is, because it's a religious belief.

And just like with other religions, there are various groups of people who hold this faith, or say that they believe.

1. The people who really, honestly believe.
2. The people who go along with it because that's what the people around them do, or they think it will make them look like better people if they say they believe.
3. The charlatans who are taking advantage of those who are there to take advantage of people in groups 1 and 2. (Religious cult leaders, people who want to subvert the belief of those well-meaning people for their own ends)

Number 3 made no sense. It should have been:

1. The charlatans who are there to take advantage of people in groups 1 and 2. (Religious cult leaders, people who want to subvert the belief of those well-meaning people for their own ends)

According to this study, there a high prevalence of narcissism amongst AGP transwomen (it's much more common in men as a sex, anyway). And for whom the OTT reaction at being denied access/validation could therefore constitute narcissist rage.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4301205/

Results: The frequency of personality disorders was 81.4%. The most frequent personality disorder was narcissistic personality disorder (57.1%) and the least was borderline personality disorder. The average number of diagnoses was 3.00 per patient.

And, as we have seen on here countless times, male entitlement clashes quite heavily with women assertively saying no. It's not surprising that you would get a completely different reaction than a man saying no.

‘Like a woman’ isn’t an emotion. I think what you (and they) mean is to feel an affinity with women.

OP I suspect the feeling you have articulated very eloquently there is something that both men and women feel about rejection from a man vs rejection from a woman - probably men more so than women.

You said "the woman is a mirror." As Virginia Woolf put it - Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size. (I love her ironic use of the word "power" there- it's so true that men who think women have power over them are usually describing this version of power - the power to feed male egos.) It's not about "gender identity" - it's about people who are raised in a patriarchal society not accepting women's right to have boundaries.

I do think you are on to something though. I think the words "gender identity," when used by AGP (autogynephilic) men, describe, precisely, this resentment of women having boundaries and a corresponding desire to break down our boundaries.

For me the problem with 'identity' is that unlike sex it isn't a fixed entity. One's sense of self is subject to external reality checks and experience. For example you may consider your religious beliefs to be central to who you are and yet lose that faith vice versa for atheists.
You may consider yourself a 'good' person but end up collaborating with genocide.
OPs view of the centrality of mummy issues may change one day as she reflects more.
No identity is innate, the is no individual destiny just an interplay between a unique individual and the world and an attempt to make some kind of meaning.
An innate Gender identity is a delusion, it doesn't mean the feelings aren't real, just that they don't mean what they claim they mean.

And as we have seen on here countless times, male entitlement clashes with women assertively saying no. It’s not surprising that you would get a completely different reaction than a man saying no.

This is yet another reason why transwomen expect access to female areas and don’t question men when they are told they don’t belong in men’s areas.

I think the idea of 'feeling like a woman' is meaningless but also harmful to all involved. Men who claim this are not just blank sheets of paper who cannot understand what lived womanhood is, they also come in with their own male socialisation and the objectification of women that that entails. I'm skeptical that this can ever be unlearned. Sometimes it seems that by 'feeling like a woman', some of these men really just like, to the point of obsession, the idea of being an object of male sexual desire, or a trophy, or are tired of exercising their adult agency and being responsible for things and think that life would be easier as a fragrant and soft-spoken doll who only cares about shoes, handbags and looking nice for men. I see it as similar to someone who not only feels nostalgic about the carefree days of their childhood but actually wants to be a child again. It's sad. The issue is that those who think they feel like a woman can never experience the true constraints and oppressions of womanhood or girlhood, so it is hard to jolt them into reality.

As for women providing validation -- how exhausting. I want to spend my time with people (men or women) who are self-assured and with whom I can talk about things outside of ourselves. Navel-gazing is boring, and I don't want to be an audience member in someone's eternal performance, having to clap and cheer on cue to make them feel good.

I think in so far as it's a think it's similar to other kinds of identity. Almost everyone has such a thing - they identify as Scottish, or Progressive, or a metalhead, or black, or as a member of a profession, or as a member of a particular family.

That sense of membership or identification is not identical to one's physical relation to these kinds of groups, but it is dependent on it. It's not generally speaking random - you don't usually get a Chinese person with no links to Scotland in any way having an identity tied to Scotland, and we'd all think such a person was a bit bonkers if they did exist. You have a Scottish identity because you live in Scotland, or have Scottish ancestors, or possible live in some sort of Scottish colony.

In a way I think the term "gender identity" is confusing, because what we really have is more like a sexual identity - a way of thinkig about ourselves as a sexed person, a set of experiences associated with it, and perhaps a kind of solidarity with others of the same sex which relates to our embodied experience.

I suppose the things that are "gendered" like, say wearing a dress, are really social markers of that membership or solidarity. Rather like a flag is for a national identity. More complex, of course, but that's the basic relation, in my mind.

Again, I'm not trying to simplify things here, I don't think everyone has this sense of identity or drive for a mapping, identification process. I certainly don't. But I wouldn't be surprised if something like this did exist for some. And of course, I am not making any comment on the 'rightness' of this, or saying there are no problems for this.

I think rreally your whole post is about the purpose of culture. And culture at the level human have it is unique so far as we know, we don't have other examples to compare.

But lots of useful human behaviours are scaffolded by culture, and non-useful ones suppressed. So that happens at the level of community, and also through time. (I mean useful in a very survival of the species way, not any sort of ethical judgement.) Cultures which encourage non-useful behaviours are more likely to struggle, and fail to surive.

@Goosefoot

Again, I'm not trying to simplify things here, I don't think everyone has this sense of identity or drive for a mapping, identification process. I certainly don't. But I wouldn't be surprised if something like this did exist for some. And of course, I am not making any comment on the 'rightness' of this, or saying there are no problems for this.

I think rreally your whole post is about the purpose of culture. And culture at the level human have it is unique so far as we know, we don't have other examples to compare.

But lots of useful human behaviours are scaffolded by culture, and non-useful ones suppressed. So that happens at the level of community, and also through time. (I mean useful in a very survival of the species way, not any sort of ethical judgement.) Cultures which encourage non-useful behaviours are more likely to struggle, and fail to surive.

I think it is certainly cultural in terms of expression, manifestation but I still think there is a biological underpinning to the gender identity drive which is more fundamental than identification processes for nationalities or other cultural groups. I think, evolutionarily speaking, and maybe as a sort on unnecessary throwback now, it's been more integral to reproductive success.

And can basic drives be thwarted because they are culturally non-useful? Could the primitive drive for motherhood (for those that experience it) be thwarted because at some point in the future it was considered culturally problematic?

So for eg. I think people going to GIDS are probably asked questions about their gender expression and it is taken into account how that concords with the prevailing expressions of gender in that society...so if males in a particular society all wear red dresses, are prime carers for male infants, engage with hunting activities blah blah, they would be taking into consideration whether that individual had strong drives to present, act and behave similarly for those norms. When the gender norms are different for a different society the presentation would be considered through that lens.

I think it is certainly cultural in terms of expression, manifestation but I still think there is a biological underpinning to the gender identity drive which is more fundamental than identification processes for nationalities or other cultural groups. I think, evolutionarily speaking, and maybe as a sort on unnecessary throwback now, it's been more integral to reproductive success.

And can basic drives be thwarted because they are culturally non-useful? Could the primitive drive for motherhood (for those that experience it) be thwarted because at some point in the future it was considered culturally problematic?

So for eg. I think people going to GIDS are probably asked questions about their gender expression and it is taken into account how that concords with the prevailing expressions of gender in that society...so if males in a particular society all wear red dresses, are prime carers for male infants, engage with hunting activities blah blah, they would be taking into consideration whether that individual had strong drives to present, act and behave similarly for those norms. When the gender norms are different for a different society the presentation would be considered through that lens.

Yeah, I think this is probably true to a large extent. Some things we think of as "gender" I think are probably not really - the tendency for mothers to be more primary caregivers of young children than fathers, for example. That's very biologically rooted, and then of course society has to be built around that, and culture also reflects it.

But I agree, a lot of identification with sexed identity is about reproduction. Human beings are just really, really interested in sexed bodies, and the differences between sexed bodies. So culture reflects that interest in one way or another.

Because that's so, I've always thought the idea of getting rid of what we call gender is a fool's errand. You could only do that by getting rid of sex. (Which maybe is why certain types of feminism have tried to say that sexed differences are very minor in almost every way besides actually bumping uglies.) The important think IMO is to look out for and modify gender expectations that are harmful to people. "Girls wear pink (or girls where blue)" is really pretty irrelevant, no one needs to wear a particular colour to realise their true self. "Women shouldn't be educated", OTOH, is a different thing altogether that needs to be crushed.

That being said, I think other types of identity do have a role that can be biologically based. It's probably the basis of family and tribal group cohesion. It's the we vs not-we, and it defines the group in which other forms of social structure operate.

And can basic drives be thwarted because they are culturally non-useful? Could the primitive drive for motherhood (for those that experience it) be thwarted because at some point in the future it was considered culturally problematic?

I don't think so. It can be shaped somewhat. So for example, if you have a population that has an excess population capacity, you can try and maximise conditions for people to avoid reproduction. Maybe a culture built around a monastic type of life. OTOH if you have a culture where the population is consistently marginal, you want to maximise births and childrearing as much as possible, and discourage those who might be more naturally inclined to avoid family life from doing so.

But truly suppressing basic drives? I think if you try hard enough to make it look like it's working, it will come out in other ways that may be very negative, or explosively uncontrolled.

You don't need monastic culture to reduce birth rates, you reduce birth rates quite well by educating girls and giving them other options. The birth rate in many developed countries is below replace levels , and is falling in other places as women get more opportunities to control their reproduction

I think in so far as it's a think it's similar to other kinds of identity. Almost everyone has such a thing - they identify as Scottish, or Progressive, or a metalhead, or black, or as a member of a profession, or as a member of a particular family.

Many people do have identities like this, but I think it would be wrong to say everyone does. And not everyone has the same type of identity.

Insisting that everyone has a gender identity is like insisting that everyone has an identity connected to their nationality or ancestry. It's like a person who feels a very strong affinity to their Scottish identity insisting that another person with mixed ancestry who was born somewhere unrelated to that ancestry and has lived in various countries must also have a strong identity linked to nationality. Or like someone whose identity is based around their Christian faith insisting that everyone else must have a strong feeling of identity linked to their religion.