Please help me untangle why gender is such an issue

[nomorecrumbs]

I see myself as an old-school feminist, I believe that people should have equal opportunities regardless of their sex, and if people do not want to conform to gender stereotypes then more power to them. In fact I reject a lot of gender stereotyping as it’s socially, not biologically, prescriptive to me and I don’t think gender scripting should be pandered to.

Where I get muddled is trying to understand why trans people seemingly want to change their gender. In doing so, aren’t they conforming to societal notions of what it means to be a “woman” or a “man”? Why isn’t this just biologically based rather than socially, as to me the social aspect can be a load of bollocks?

E.g. I would love to ask a M2F trans why they “feel like they are more female”. Is it because they prefer pink, long hair, feminine clothes, traditional womanly traits? If so, why not stay a biological man and do these social things anyway? Is it fear of peer rejection? I don’t see why they have to just conform to gender stereotyping, basically, and wish any sex could just wear and do what they want without being pigeonholed into “genders”.

I’m concerned all this talk over gender is just reinforcing potentially damaging social stereotypes of what it means to appear male or female.

@Elsiebear90

I suppose if I woke up tomorrow in a man’s body would I be happy with that and feel that body fits who I am as a person? Absolutely not. That is often the way trans people describe how they feel, that they just know that they are a woman/man, but they’re in the wrong body. They often describe being children and being certain that they’re the opposite sex, despite being told repeatedly they’re not.

I often wonder if I was born with a male body whether I would adapt to it and accept myself as a more stereotypically feminine man or whether I would feel I “should” be a woman and be very distressed about not having a female body, I think it’s hard to say if you’ve not experienced it.

Jan Morris in "Conundrum" wrote about this and that's pretty much how she described it.

The problem has been the shift from "I know this isn't really comprehensible but it's real and it does help if people treat me as if I'm the opposite sex" to "I actually am a woman/man and you're a transphobe if you don't accept that as reality".

What we might call "old school transsexuals" don't generally demand that we discard reality - they usually seem quite open in saying who they are.

@Babdoc

How can any man claim to “feel” like a woman, or have a “female gender identity”? Firstly, being a woman is NOT a feeling, it’s XX chromosomes and a female body, neither of which a man can ever have. Secondly, women themselves do not have some mysterious “feeling” of being women - we do not identify as women, and we have nothing in common with each other except our physical bodies and our oppression by men. We simply ARE women by virtue of being born as one. So in what possible way does a trans person claim a female identity, when such a thing does not exist?

That's your experience. However, lots of women who aren't trans are very clear on their gender identity. Many of them are happy to speak out about it.

If you don;t have a clear gender identity, there's nothing wrong with that, but not everyone is like you.

If one can feel like the opposite sex and therefore they ‘are’ it, because of the social
construct of gender identity, despite not having that biological trait, can they also decide to be other things that they biologically aren’t, because of other social constructs? Race is the best example because there are certainly existing social norms associated with different racial identities, so theoretically it should be possible to identify with those and therefore feel that is your racial identity.
And if not, why is it different?
Something that you innately feel and believe, that is subject to changes in what you feel and believe, should not be anyone else’s business but your own.
It shouldn’t be enforced upon anyone else and I don’t understand why it should be enshrined in law and various other structures of our society.

I don't think there's any harm at all whatsoever in people having their own beliefs about their gender identity or identity status.

The problems come when they refuse to accept that, for example, for most other people, in biology and in UK law, sex is the valid and truthful experience/descriptor.

Or when woolly notions about gender identity are used to inform the framework and practice of a medical service ie GIDs where, by neglecting children's psychological development, much harm has been done.

Positrans - just for clarity's sake, when you talk about gender identity do you mean gender dysphoria or do you see that as something different? Just want to make sure we're not talking at cross-purposes as from what I understand, gender dysphoria is something separate from the concept of a gender identity but I know there is a lot of varying opinions.

For your last 2 questions - if you are not aware of your gender identity, it probably means you are agender. There's nothing wrong with that at all. Something like a third of people are in some sense vague about their gender identity.

So it's pointless trying to divide the human species into 'feminine' and 'masculine' gender identities, then.

Splitting by sex where necessary remains useful.

@DickKerrLadies

Positrans - just for clarity's sake, when you talk about gender identity do you mean gender dysphoria or do you see that as something different? Just want to make sure we're not talking at cross-purposes as from what I understand, gender dysphoria is something separate from the concept of a gender identity but I know there is a lot of varying opinions.

Gender identity refers to a person's own innate sense of what sex they are.

Gender dysphoria is a state of distress experienced by some people whose gender identity does not match the sex they were assigned at birth.

This is boggling my mind a bit.
'you have a gender identity, you don't have the luxury of not believing in gender identity.

"Agender" means lacking a gender identity - if you don't have one, that's the word for not having one.'

Does this mean everyone must accept the concept of gender identity whether or not it rings true?

The closest analogy I can think of is the scientific study of racial superiority which angela Saini has written about.

I believe the science behind that was conducted from extreme bias.
The same applies to any science written about gender identity.
It just doesn't make sense to me as a feminist nor from my lived experience.

@DodoPatrol

For your last 2 questions - if you are not aware of your gender identity, it probably means you are agender. There's nothing wrong with that at all. Something like a third of people are in some sense vague about their gender identity.

So it's pointless trying to divide the human species into 'feminine' and 'masculine' gender identities, then.

Splitting by sex where necessary remains useful.

It is indeed pointless trying to impose any strict binary on sex or gender identity. The science simply doesn't support it.

I don't mind splitting by sex in some cases at the moment, but I see trans woman as female, so that's not a problem for me.

Gender identity refers to a person's own innate sense of what sex they are.

Gender dysphoria is a state of distress experienced by some people whose gender identity does not match the sex they were assigned at birth.

Thanks.

Am I right in guessing that you are not a proponent of the 100+ genders theory then and that gender identity is firmly linked to sex for you?

I ask this because we've also been told on here before by various people that gender identity is nothing to with sex and even that biological sex doesn't exist! I find it easier to discuss this when we have common definitions.

Sometimes people get it if you ask them to imagine their brain transplanted into the body of the opposite sex, so would you feel like a woman inside a man's body or a man?

This again. It’s a daft argument because it doesn’t go far enough.

I’d have to imagine my brain not only being transplanted into a man’s body, but simultaneously wiped clean of decades of memories of being female. Never had a period, been pregnant, called “Miss”, had my hair in pigtails as a child. Don’t have a name. Never had sex. Can’t remember who gave birth to my children.

Would I know I was “a woman in a man’s body” then? No, I don’t think I would.

@SuperLoudPoppingAction

This is boggling my mind a bit. 'you have a gender identity, you don't have the luxury of not believing in gender identity.

"Agender" means lacking a gender identity - if you don't have one, that's the word for not having one.'

Does this mean everyone must accept the concept of gender identity whether or not it rings true?

The closest analogy I can think of is the scientific study of racial superiority which angela Saini has written about.

I believe the science behind that was conducted from extreme bias.
The same applies to any science written about gender identity.
It just doesn't make sense to me as a feminist nor from my lived experience.

I'm not sure you're going to get very far by claiming that something billions of people experience as a completely normal part of their lives, and that is well recognised in science, are either lying or delusional. It's up to you of course, but I don't think it will lead to any kind of productive dialogue.

I certainly wouldn't dismiss your lack of gender identity. I can't quite imagine what that's like, but I have met agender people, and have a close friend who is agender, and I'm very happy to believe you when you tell me what it is you are experiencing (or not experiencing in this case).

What unites all female people if not biology? What characteristics are shared by all women and transwomen but not shared by men or transmen?

As ever SuperLoudPoppingAction, once you start thinking about gender identity without being a believer, you end up as understanding it as a person's belief about themselves having a gendered soul.

Once you see the gender identity ideology as being akin to a religion you can't unsee it.

How and why is your gender identity 'female' Positrans? What does that feel like to you?

See positrans, when you see transwomen as women, that's when my dysmorphia actually gets much worse.

For me, if being a women is nothing more than sex, that's fine, I can park that to one side and get on with my life. Women is my sex, it's why some people mistreat me, but there is nothing else that I have in common with other women.

As soon as someone tries to shoehorn transwomen into the definition of woman, it makes me wonder what is a woman? Do I fit ? No. There is no definition of woman that includes transwoman and includes me. I am cast out. Even though I have suffered in so many ways because of my sex, I no longer have a space to talk about that. I am forced to accept women as an identity. That makes me feel sick. Scared. And that's how I ended up trawling the internet and coming across instructions about how to use suicide ideation to convince people I needed help

I've never read anything that has persuaded me that gender identity is any more solid a concept than a soul. It's a matter of belief, and like so many religious people there's a real resistance to anyone who says they don't share the belief.

If someone says to me that it doesn't matter whether I personally believe in a soul/gender identity I have one because they say so? Especially if they claim their theory is a fact but a belief (but fail to provide evidence. I have no time for that Your faith is personal to you, glad it helps you, but I don't want a part of it, and I definer don't want laws written and enforced based on it.

@DickKerrLadies

Gender identity refers to a person's own innate sense of what sex they are.

Gender dysphoria is a state of distress experienced by some people whose gender identity does not match the sex they were assigned at birth.

Thanks.

Am I right in guessing that you are not a proponent of the 100+ genders theory then and that gender identity is firmly linked to sex for you?

I ask this because we've also been told on here before by various people that gender identity is nothing to with sex and even that biological sex doesn't exist! I find it easier to discuss this when we have common definitions.

Gender identity is a continuum - people come up with different names for their own experience of it. There can hundreds, thousands or even one for every person - it's doesn't matter.

Gender identity is linked to biology - science suggests that it has a biological cause.

Sex is real - it exists - very happy to say that as a trans woman and in fact most trans people say the same despite what you might read, but sex is not a simple binary defined merely by gametes - it's highly complex and nuanced.

Gender identity refers to a person's own innate sense of what sex they are.

Sex is a description of biological reproductive potential.

Wanting to be, or thinking you are, the opposite sex is just one's own internal dialogue. Based on visual stereotypes that one would like to perform, or characteristics one perceives as female only. Or male only.

It's not a description of sex. Sex is a description of potential reproductive function. That's all it is.

I woke up tomorrow in the body of a man, I would be a man. I'd be pissed off. But I'd still be a man.

I don't believe that "billions of people" think they have a gender identity. You could run a poll to suggest that but if you expressed the question in terms of the quasi-mystical gendered soul it boils down to then I wouldn't expect it to be a common belief at all.

Gender identity is linked to biology - science suggests that it has a biological cause.

No it doesn't. Science suggests that certain people might be predisposed to gender dysphoria.

There is no consensus that concludes one isn't the sex one was born because of a reason.

@nauticant

I don't believe that "billions of people" think they have a gender identity. You could run a poll to suggest that but if you expressed the question in terms of the quasi-mystical gendered soul it boils down to then I wouldn't expect it to be a common belief at all.

Actually I expect a lot would, but then a lot of people think girls are innately passive and domestic, so I'm not sure asking the general public a question on this would count as scientifically robust proof of everyone having an innate gender identity. It would just tell you that the belief was widespread.

I suspect the belief in ghosts, psychics, deities and fortune telling would be as prevalent tbf.

Gender identity is a continuum - people come up with different names for their own experience of it. There can hundreds, thousands or even one for every person - it's doesn't matter.

But if gender identity is simply a person's own innate sense of what sex they are, how can there be hundreds or thousands? There are two sexes (and genetic variations but I'm not qualified to talk about those, others on here have more expertise than me), in what way is it a continuum?

Plus if you assert that gender identity is linked to biology you assert that women are born to be oppressed by patriarchy. If sex is fixed, but gender identity is a series of stereotypes which act as a means of control then we can change that.

Sex is real - it exists - very happy to say that as a trans woman and in fact most trans people say the same despite what you might read, but sex is not a simple binary defined merely by gametes - it's highly complex and nuanced.

Even if that is true, even if biological sex is more complex than I can possibly understand, it doesn't make the blindest bit of difference to the fact that I don't want my pre-teen daughter being forced to share a tent with a child with a penis on a girl guide camp.