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.

Knowing you're female when you are actually female is one thing. Knowing you're female when you're actually male is called something else entirely.

Right yep, but there are people on here who are suggesting no one has ingrained gender identity. @Datun

Ok well I feel like a person inside

That's why I was a feminist before I knew the word

I have always felt very very strongly that I'm a person.

This new thing puts that as a minority feeling.

When no one has actually checked. I have things that, I suppose form my identity. None of them have anything to do with. What I take gender id to be about.

What about all the people who are having to grapple with a concept that is alien to them? Who have fought to be seen as a person all their life? Rather than. Oh you're pretty and you have all that lovely hair and blah fuck off.

What about all those people? All the world over who want to be seen as PEOPLE.

That's all I wanted. It never came. And now I'm having a label applied to me which says yes. I love all that shit.

The impact on women and girls to either. Conform or 'come out' as what. Someone who says fuck you to gender stereotypes. A big ask for children.

I am so sick of this. I grew up in the seventies eighties. We were getting somewhere. This retrograde pigeonholing is just. Retrograde.

What is this female internal feeling?

I mean what the fuck does that even mean?

If I was transported into DH body suddenly. Well I'd probably go mad instantly because that's quite weird.

Otherwise. Why would i freak? As long as I still have my marbles. I'd need to do what he does around checking the sports pages in case anyone says did you see the match. I know to keep my eyes averted at the urinal. People would get out of my way on the street. I couldn't do his job because I don't know how to do his job...?

I don't know what the feeling is but it's there. I feel like a woman, I know other people don't experience that but if I were to be referred to as "he" for example it would make me very uncomfortable. I'm attached to my female body and to a certain extent being perceived as female. It's not my sole identity by any means but I do have an internal feeling of being a woman, I don't know how to explain it for those who don't experience it also.

I guess that's what the fuck it means @NiceGerbil

But why does that feeling supercede physical sex?

I haven't suggested it should. I'm just sharing my experiences for those who believe gender identity only exists within the realm of transgender people

This is exactly how I feel and what really confuses me!

Since gender identity only exists in the minds of some people, and can't be described or defined, it's obviously not something which should be used to make laws or even mentioned in legislation.

Nobody should be teaching children that they should have a gender identity, and definitely shouldn't be telling them that their bodies are wrong and need medicating because they have the wrong gender identity for their body.

Gender identity is like religion. If you believe you have a gender identity, that's fine. If you believe in God, that's fine. But some of us don't believe, and we have the right to not believe.

@OldCrone

Since gender identity only exists in the minds of some people, and can't be described or defined, it's obviously not something which should be used to make laws or even mentioned in legislation.

Nobody should be teaching children that they should have a gender identity, and definitely shouldn't be telling them that their bodies are wrong and need medicating because they have the wrong gender identity for their body.

Gender identity is like religion. If you believe you have a gender identity, that's fine. If you believe in God, that's fine. But some of us don't believe, and we have the right to not believe.

THIS 100%

*Ok well I feel like a person inside

That's why I was a feminist before I knew the word*

I have always felt very very strongly that I'm a person.

I'm with you on this NiceGerbil my whole life I've been trying to be seen as more than the gendered stereotype of my sex. To be taken more seriously, to be listened to rather than spoken over, to be acknowledged rather than have my ideas appropriated by others. This idea that I need to 'identify' with my gender would see me shackled to regressive stereotypes which position me as a suoport human. I'm still yet to see or hear an explanation of what is is to feel 'female' that is anything other than a list of restrictive stereotypical views of women and girls. Gender ideology is fundamentally sexist and regressive.

This idea that I need to 'identify' with my gender would see me shackled to regressive stereotypes which position me as a suoport human
This new wave of gender ideology is very upsetting for a lot of women. Our upset, our unease at being labelled in this way doesn't count though. It infuriates me when some women say it costs nothing to go along with it - if that's what you think I would suggest you really haven't thought about it at any length.

I'm with you on this NiceGerbil my whole life I've been trying to be seen as more than the gendered stereotype of my sex. To be taken more seriously, to be listened to rather than spoken over, to be acknowledged rather than have my ideas appropriated by others. This idea that I need to 'identify' with my gender would see me shackled to regressive stereotypes which position me as a suoport human

So much this.

@berrygirlie

I don't know what the feeling is but it's there. I feel like a woman, I know other people don't experience that but if I were to be referred to as "he" for example it would make me very uncomfortable. I'm attached to my female body and to a certain extent being perceived as female. It's not my sole identity by any means but I do have an internal feeling of being a woman, I don't know how to explain it for those who don't experience it also.

I guess that's what the fuck it means @NiceGerbil

But how do you know that’s not the feeling of being “you” who happens to be a woman, rather than the feeling of “being a woman”? Unless we can actually experience being other people, whilst still knowing it’s ourselves, we can’t ever know how someone else’s being, compares to our own experience. I would hazard a guess that we’re actually all unique in our experiences

Ok well I feel like a person inside

That's why I was a feminist before I knew the word

YY

e.g. gentler, more passive, liking pink etc I'd really like to know what female attributes your gender identity aligns with?

Again with the stereotypes.

How about breasts, vagina, female facial bone structure? Or alternatively facial hair, broken voice, completely flat chest for trans man?

I don't know what the feeling is but it's there. I feel like a woman

I’m a woman too. Do you feel like I do? How would you know?

Are your feelings of womanhood totally independent of your your knowledge that you are female? Are they separate from your lifetime of experiences and memories of being female? How would you know?

I really try to understand, if I were to accept that sex is a spectrum, what the implications and results of this would be.

If it's all one spectrum then the implications are horribly offensive, because it results in fertile women being considered more female than infertile women.

If it's two spectrums (spectra?) - a male one and a female one - then I'm fine with that. Cos everyone on the female spectrum is as female as all the rest. Transmen included.

if I were to be referred to as "he" for example it would make me very uncomfortable

I find it mildly uncomfortable - because in my experience it's so often intended as an insult and a reminder that 'you're not womanning right'. Nothing to do with "feeling female", everything to do with not liking being insulted or having my appearance shamed and policed.

I'm still yet to see or hear an explanation of what is is to feel 'female' that is anything other than a list of restrictive stereotypical views of women and girls. Gender ideology is fundamentally sexist and regressive.

It's a belief system like a religion. Asking a believer for an explanation of how they 'know' they have a particular gender identity is like asking a religious person how they know their god exists.

It is a sexist and regressive belief system, and people who believe in it should stop trying to pretend that there is anything 'progressive' about an ideology which wants to push women back into a box labelled 'decorative support human'.

I don't object to people being gender believers any more than believers in any other religion, at least on an individual basis. But they shouldn't be trying to force the rest of us to believe and push through laws which affect us all which are based on their beliefs.

Sorry that was addressed to Types:

Yes, I was pointing out that the things you highlight that are associated with women and girls ARE stereotypes. I have been told by a transwomen poster on a previous thread that they identify with women's submissiveness. The very criteria by which children are judged to be trans involve a tick box exercise of gendered toys and clothes. It's not me imposing the stereotypes, I'm asking for a definition of what it feels like to be female that doesn't involve them.

@Typesofcatalogue

e.g. gentler, more passive, liking pink etc I'd really like to know what female attributes your gender identity aligns with?

Again with the stereotypes.

How about breasts, vagina, female facial bone structure? Or alternatively facial hair, broken voice, completely flat chest for trans man?

These aren't feelings. Gender identity relies on feelings. What are the 'feelings', without straying into the territory of stereotypes?

I'm short. It's part of my identity. The clothes I chose, the type of sports I do, my sense of my own body.

If I were to wake up tomorrow in a tall body I'd feel weird and wrong.

That doesn't mean I have a short identity that luckily happens to match the body I happen to have, it means the identity I have is a function of the body I am.

Similarly I would feel very weird if I woke up tomorrow as a man. I don't see that as proof of that gender identity exists separately from the body.

The thought experiment of changing the body of an existing personality only proves that humans know who they were yesterday and will notice if that changes.

I don't object to people being gender believers any more than believers in any other religion, at least on an individual basis. But they shouldn't be trying to force the rest of us to believe and push through laws which affect us all which are based on their beliefs.

Stereotypes affect us all even though they aren't law. If enough people believe in them on an individual level its problematic, especially if there are not laws to actively protect non-believers and these laws where they do exist are not enforced on behalf of the most vulnerable.

We know that fashion models for example had a significant influence back in the 90s over society as a whole in terms of how women were supposed to look. To the point that eventually the industry had to stop using models who were under a certain BMI because of how it was connected to promotion of anorexia.

If we are saying that we don't mind individual transgender beliefs we still may need to manage media representations and enact laws which protect non believers from things like workplace dismissal.

None of this would be 'anti-trans' but it sure as hell would be framed as such. It would be more like a secular thing.