Sexed identities

[TyroTerf]

Been mulling this over for a while; thought I'd throw it out there and see if it makes sense.

I'm not keen on the idea of 'woman' being a gender identity, because it's antifeminist to tie the understanding of womanhood (female-bodied personhood) to an adherence to or preference for the culturally-specific shackles of our oppression; it creates dysphoria in women.

Yet I can truthfully say I identify as a woman - because I understand myself to meet the biological terms of that descriptor. (Shoutout to the feminist foremothers who pushed this prophylactic against female dysphoria!)

Woman (adult human female) is my sexed identity.

By definition, this identity can only be shared by others of the female sex.

But what of gendered identities? Who we understand ourselves to be in reference to the gendered world of pink and blue, fucker and fuckee, boss class and service human, skirts and shaved heads, all the sexist gendered crap we're immersed in - all our experiences in that world affect who we are.

I was groomed for the whore caste (csa), but my first conscious gendered identity was: resister. Through my teens I added broken; later I overwrote this with feminist.

I've since learned that the word for female resisters who assert a sexed identity is terf. There's sure as hell a gendered aspect to the label; it's used to silence females who resist patriarchal control of our language, and it's often accompanied by threats of sexual violence. It's a gender identity.

It's my gender identity.

But that's beside the point. The main thing I wanted to raise is the idea of sexed identities. Because we're always on the back foot having to defend ourselves, we're always being dragged into arguments over whether Woman is an identity or not an identity, when the question really is: is it a biological fact or a psychological identity?

Clearly it's both. One word with two related meanings: the having of the female body and the understanding of that having; and the former is both a necessary and sufficient condition within which to develop the latter.

The sexed identity of Woman is only found in females. Other sexed identities may be available, but this one is open to all and only female humans. And it matters. It's just as important, just as valid, just as equally fully human, as all the others. Yet it's consistently viewed as the worst abomination of the twenty first century.

Does this make sense?

Personally I am increasingly of the thought that ‘identifying as’ anything is worthless. You are a thing or you aren’t a thing and there has to be some material, objective way for someone else to look at the evidence and say ‘yes, that checks out’. A society cannot be organised based on everyone’s individualised sense of self. Everyone will end up completely demented and demoralised (borrowing phrasing from Douglas Murray there).

It’s a bit like the campaign to make misogyny a hate crime - like, I agree that if victimisation on the grounds of race/minority sexuality/gender reassignment/religious belief is a hate crime then yes, misogyny should be in there too.
But actually, the entire concept of hate crime needs looking at again, because what began with the best of intent in the wake of Stephen Lawrence’s murder has somehow morphed into investigating youtube interviewers for hate on the basis of something their interviewee said on a live broadcast, or trying to prosecute Linda Bellos (a black, lesbian, feminist, life long left wing activist and senior citizen) and Miranda Yardley (a transsexual and former local level LGBT officer for the Labour Party) for hate crime, despite no evidence of either of them committing any crimes, let alone crimes motivated by hatred).

We need to get back to objective truth and stop fannying about with identity. It’s a dead end for humanity.

If it walks like a man and quacks like a man it’s a man.
Telling the truth is not a hate crime.

Just pulled these quotes out of BettyDu's previous posts as they pretty much sum up my feels on the matter.

You are free to think any way you like about yourself but I'm not interested in how you identify if it's not based in material reality.

It should have no place in official documentation or law that would impact upon gathering of data eg in recording of crimes/ amended birth certificates or on others e.g compelled speech wrt pronouns etc.

Most of the identifying as would be pretty harmless if the categories being identified into were terra nullius but they're not. Woman is a space already taken - by adult human females.

I don't identify as an adult human female, I just happen to be one.

"If we're talking in terms of gender identity then, CrazyPigeon, it sounds like you've got an element of 'definitely not womangender' going on in there. Is that a fair assessment?"

I don't really follow, could you elaborate?

The other thing that marks me as different, is as my username implies I'm married to a trans woman. They started the transition after we got married. I originally made an account on here to defend trans people. My partner is politically active on Twitter and has been since the referendum. They have received piles of abuse and harassment. They've been called a bathroom rapist among other things. It has indeed increased since JKR first started her tweeting on the subject. So, seeing some of the posts on here is like a deliberate attack and invalidation of my partner.

Woman is a space already taken

This.

If dysphoric males had found a word that felt right without colonising ours, we'd be grand.

I don't identify as an adult human female, I just happen to be one.

I don't dispute this at all. What interests me is the way language is being used to describe reality. Because from the perspective of the Other Side, to state "I just happen to be one" is a statement of identity rather than identification, isn't it?

You're highlighting that you're making a comment about the material reality of the body from which your consciousness springs. And you're not disidentifying with your body as you do it. Suggests you define your body as just as 'you' as your mind - contrasting with a group known for mind-body disconnect issues.

They think you're talking about your consciously experienced self, not your body.

What they 'hear' from your words is "I don't use words like female to describe my body, I just happen to describe myself as a person with a female body." Which is obviously nonsensical, and not at all what you mean.

And then there's the complicating factor of identifying as being synonymous with self-describing as.

I'm probably struggling to get this point across succinctly because of default male comparators. Really, you contrast not with tw but with tm - with people who just happen to be adult human females but struggle to use those words to describe themselves to others.

I still think dysphoria is a far more useful concept than identity though.

Tbf - if you are and remain child free there is large chunk of child bearing and rearing female experiences that is not experienced but it is replaced by the female experience of the child free which is equally valid and specific to women. I’m equally uncomfortable with kid talk and female small talk, and I have children possibly because I can empathise with the intersection of woman and autistic. The sensory aspects of periods are unbearable and the hormonal fluctuations are not good.

I don’t identify with a gender. I can’t get to grips with the idea, but I have experience of how my life is because I am female. That’s why I want female sex class to be distinct.

I don't really follow, could you elaborate?

I have a horrible feeling that we may struggle to find mutually acceptable language on this topic, so I'm not sure if I can successfully elaborate for you. Wary of trying because I honestly don't want to inadvertently offend!

What I got from your post was echoes of dysphoria.

A sense that 'this person has a strong negative reaction to being identified as in any way adjacent to the Bad Thing', where your particular Bad Thing is very much akin to mine.

In old-fashioned feminist-speak this would be expressed as your aversion to being the recipient of certain female-specific sex-role stereotypes resonating with me, but in my head it's just an example of the 'don't make me be the bad thing!' panic I get.

I imagine it must be very hard to find space for oneself in the term ‘woman’ when someone you love is using it to describe a completely different life experience to your own.

Sorry tyro I didn't mean you were waffling! I mean the general waffle about gender identity.

I just mean
sex = binary biological sex.
gender only means sex stereotypes. Nebulous social constructs about masculinity and femininity. No gender 'essence'.

I also think the word identity is being given far too much work to do, far too much power. Identity is a label you give to yourself or others give you. If the label bears no resemblance to the contents it is a falsehood. It certainly doesn't change the contents.

@TyroTerf Yeah I do feel dysphoric with myself sometimes, so you're right

@BettyDuKeiraBellisMyShero No its not. I never liked being a 'woman' even whilst they still identified as male. And my partner's life experience isn't too dissimilar from mine.

Ah, I'm totally waffling! We all play to our own skills; 'm determined to out-waffle the waffle.

I wish we could talk in terms of dysphoria rather than identity. It would be a damned sight more productive.

@TyroTerf

Ah, I'm totally waffling! We all play to our own skills; 'm determined to out-waffle the waffle.

I wish we could talk in terms of dysphoria rather than identity. It would be a damned sight more productive.

Yes.

Claiming a woman identity, when one is male, is gaslighting nonsense I have no truck with.

Understanding, otoh, that increasing numbers of young people and children are suffering gender dysphoria, of unknown origin - that opens up reality-based space to ask good questions about causation(s) and best treatments for this form of psychological suffering.

It's far from the only, or the most life-threatening form of psychological suffering, and I've seen in my own home a child grow out of the diagnosis through access to supportive psychotherapy, treatment of co-morbid issues and time.

However, I am supportive in general of better, more individualized and accessible mental healthcare, and do not exclude GD from this support.

If TRA's were genuinely concerned about dysphoric youth, they'd acknowledge there is much shared ground here with feminists, regardless of opposing views on gender (abolish vs reify).

"Claiming a woman identity, when one is male, is gaslighting nonsense I have no truck with."

And here we are, the exact kind of thing I was talking about. Its the same with what @BettyDuKeiraBellisMyShero how it must be hard "when someone you love is using it"

Such assumptions that because my partner is trans, I MUST be a victim. Well I'm not. I spearheaded my partner's treatment. I have never liked masculine men; when I first got together with my partner we were both overjoyed to realise we both preferred no body hair on a guy. Myself because I had always assumed no guy would ever do that for me and my partner because they thought no girl would ever let them. With me, they can just be themselves and explore what that means. I love my partner and since they became trans and started taking hormones, they have become even more affectionate (if that was even possible), douting, supportive (again never thought they could be more) and we now see eye to eye on many things.

If the two of you are happy together, it's nobody's business but yours. Live your best lives.

It's when this impinges upon others then it is a problem. And insisting that a male gets to colonise women's spaces is unacceptable.

This is what I was afraid of when I mentioned we may have problems arising from lack of mutually acceptable language.

Betty's comment was made with compassion and empathy, but the language barrier prevents that from coming across.

I'm glad you two are happy and finding ways to make life work for you both.

Everyone has to figure out their own way of managing dysphoria, though. And some of the shit coming from the political lobby that champions your way is making my way harder. Worse than that: it's framing my way as bigotry.

I feel a sense of kinship with your partner despite our differing sexes, CrazyPigeon. I hope the two of you can understand that my way of dealing with dysphoria is as valid as yours, and that we can all be accommodated going forward.

Because, well, dysphorics shouldn't have to subscribe to a particular analytical framework in order to qualify as valid human beings worthy of tolerance and empathy. It's unethical.

Who on earth is firestone? Never heard of them

Tyro re: your post at 18.06

I'm not sure what you're getting at but I think we'd agree that GC folk talking to genderists is difficult and (often pointless) because we don't speak the genderists' language.

To complicate things though, genderists have many words in common with those who speak the language of material reality and that's where the problems start. Add in ideas and beliefs around mind/body dualism and it seems that folk are " talking past each other" a lot of the time.

Hm. I think I was musing rather than having one specific point. Musing and doing a spot of textual analysis. "We're not speaking the same language as them" was the theme though, yes.

Translation is necessary, if we're to have any chance of resolving the conflict. And I get frustrated because I speak both languages perfectly well, which so often seems to be considered socially inappropriate whichever side I'm talking to. My main intention in starting this thread was checking some of my translations - everyone's been very helpful in that respect.

Just to go back to the question "Who is the arbiter of identity?" There's a thread running at the moment about what class posters are, and reading it with this one in mind, it struck me that class and class-identity really aren't the same thing, and an incongruence between the two becomes uncomfortable due to a current popular bias against the label 'middle class'.

The parallels were really quite striking.

@JellySlice

If the two of you are happy together, it's nobody's business but yours. Live your best lives.

It's when this impinges upon others then it is a problem. And insisting that a male gets to colonise women's spaces is unacceptable.

Totally.

Although I would suggest that if a person is completely happy with their male partner’s transition then visiting Mumsnet (one of the few places on the Internet where women are allowed to speak relatively freely about the issues, personal and political, relating to gender transition and the problems that arise from giving certain human males legal protections that were designed solely for human females) Is an act of self harm.