What's it really like for girls when one of their classmates is trans? A short film.

[Shizuku]

So:

“"gender identity" refers to an internal sense people have of who they are that comes from an interaction of biological traits, developmental influences, and environmental conditions.”
and
“ Over time, society has recognized that stereotypes of "masculine" and "feminine" activities and behaviors are inaccurate and limiting to a child's development.”
So why, Shikuzu, does trans ideology not feel that stereotypes like barbies and haircuts might be limiting?

I’m playing chess, aren’t I...?

@MrsWooster

I’m playing chess, aren’t I...?

It’s not a sinister plot, it’s just so clichéd that it’s meaningless.
Biological traits + developmental influences + environmental conditions is how I learnt I was not a fish. It’s the process of becoming self-aware. That gave me the sense of knowing who I was from age 4 which is not a fish.
My own sense of who I am is that I am a human. This means I have a species identity, then.

Tbh, Shizuku, I am supposed to be working and don't have time to trawl through scientific literature. I will later.

However, on a discussion board, please could you just answer my specific question?

Please, explain it to me. What are the objective criteria that make up one's gender identity? For instance, if a child comes to you confused over their gender identity, what would you say to them to help them figure it out?

You keep saying that gendered behaviour is different from gender identity. Fine. Gender identity is not stereotypes. So what is it?

I mean, I could sit down and read the scientific article later and try to piece it together myself, but surely you can provide a fairly clear, succinct response? A sentence or two could suffice.

if a child comes to you confused over their gender identity, what would you say to them to help them figure it out?

I've asked before but I'm not sure you've answered and I'd very much like to know your background, OP, if you're willing to tell us - whether you're a transman or a transwoman or non-binary, or if you're none of those things and just here as a trans ally.

I'll tell you my reasons for posting here. I haven't told this on here before and I hope to goodness I don't regret this.

I have a niece who started identifying as a boy aged 16, who went on to take testosterone and who had top surgery soon after turning 18, funded privately using money saved from part time work and 18th birthday cash from family and friends. We as a family did everything we supposedly should do according to the various transgender organisations, we were supportive, as were friends, the school, the LGBT club and subsequently the university my niece attended.

I'm calling her my niece here now as she no longer considers herself to be a transman. She's a young woman in her twenties who's trapped in a no mans land with a deep voice and facial hair and excessive body hair which she hates, with scarred breasts and no sign of her fertility returning yet, who knows if it ever will?

So please don't berate me, @Shizuku, for (clearly jokingly) suggesting that egg preservation is a walk in the park. Don't talk to me about having 'held the hand of a trans boy crying whilst he ponders the options before him' when my niece, my family, is living through this hell right now. With no help whatsoever from the trans organisations which were so ready to give advice at the start of this journey.

If you're here in good faith, please can you answer our questions or at least acknowledge the genuine concerns many of us have?

I’m playing chess, aren’t I...?

The answer is.....tomboy

From the op's link:

How do children typically express their gender identity?
In addition to their choices of toys, games, and sports, children typically express their gender identity in the following ways:

Clothing or hairstyle

Preferred name or nickname

Social behavior that reflects varying degrees of aggression, dominance, dependency, and gentleness.

Manner and style of behavior and physical gestures and other nonverbal actions identified as masculine or feminine.

Social relationships, including the gender of friends, and the people he or she decides to imitate.

So stereotypes and "masculine" or "feminine" behaviour.

Aggressive girls with short hair have a male gender. Gentle boys with long hair have a female gender. It's very simple.

gender identity" refers to an internal sense people have of who they are that comes from an interaction of biological traits, developmental influences, and environmental conditions

an internal sense people have

Great that we've cleared that up.

Being female is just 'an internal sense'. Anyone can do it!

@TurquoiseBaubles

From the op's link:

How do children typically express their gender identity?
In addition to their choices of toys, games, and sports, children typically express their gender identity in the following ways:

Clothing or hairstyle

Preferred name or nickname

Social behavior that reflects varying degrees of aggression, dominance, dependency, and gentleness.

Manner and style of behavior and physical gestures and other nonverbal actions identified as masculine or feminine.

Social relationships, including the gender of friends, and the people he or she decides to imitate.

So stereotypes and "masculine" or "feminine" behaviour.

Aggressive girls with short hair have a male gender. Gentle boys with long hair have a female gender. It's very simple.

So how does gender identity differ from gendered behaviour?

How can you get a 'tomboy transgirl' from that??

It's that the view you are presenting is that a male child who transitions is always to be prioritised in their needs, their feelings and their choices over those of female children. And that it would be preferable to deny or to ignore that some of those female children will suffer in the requirement to put the male child's needs and feelings before their own, even if their own circumstances make it distressing or even impossible to do so.

Female children matter too. Female children's diversity and feelings and needs are equally important to a male child who chooses to transition. And the sexism in this is strongly apparent.

Brilliantly laid out. I think this bears repeating.

Aaah but how would I be able to tell from looking at another human being what their gender identity is? Assuming they aren't the type who spends every living moment pondering it out loud to the world in which case they likely won't shut up about it.

@mintessa

I've asked before but I'm not sure you've answered and I'd very much like to know your background, OP, if you're willing to tell us - whether you're a transman or a transwoman or non-binary, or if you're none of those things and just here as a trans ally.

I'll tell you my reasons for posting here. I haven't told this on here before and I hope to goodness I don't regret this.

I have a niece who started identifying as a boy aged 16, who went on to take testosterone and who had top surgery soon after turning 18, funded privately using money saved from part time work and 18th birthday cash from family and friends. We as a family did everything we supposedly should do according to the various transgender organisations, we were supportive, as were friends, the school, the LGBT club and subsequently the university my niece attended.

I'm calling her my niece here now as she no longer considers herself to be a transman. She's a young woman in her twenties who's trapped in a no mans land with a deep voice and facial hair and excessive body hair which she hates, with scarred breasts and no sign of her fertility returning yet, who knows if it ever will?

So please don't berate me, @Shizuku, for (clearly jokingly) suggesting that egg preservation is a walk in the park. Don't talk to me about having 'held the hand of a trans boy crying whilst he ponders the options before him' when my niece, my family, is living through this hell right now. With no help whatsoever from the trans organisations which were so ready to give advice at the start of this journey.

If you're here in good faith, please can you answer our questions or at least acknowledge the genuine concerns many of us have?

Mintessa

Your poor niece.

Oh Mintessa. That's so sad. I hope your niece will start to be ok soon xx

@TurquoiseBaubles

From the op's link:

How do children typically express their gender identity?
In addition to their choices of toys, games, and sports, children typically express their gender identity in the following ways:

Clothing or hairstyle

Preferred name or nickname

Social behavior that reflects varying degrees of aggression, dominance, dependency, and gentleness.

Manner and style of behavior and physical gestures and other nonverbal actions identified as masculine or feminine.

Social relationships, including the gender of friends, and the people he or she decides to imitate.

So stereotypes and "masculine" or "feminine" behaviour.

Aggressive girls with short hair have a male gender. Gentle boys with long hair have a female gender. It's very simple.

Eh?

So growing up I had a male gender. Did I fuck.

My clothing, my hair, my preferred name (John Boy ), the way I behaved, carried myself, spoke, my interests... all point towards boy. I was a girl! I am now a woman! I have never been anything but female, girl, woman.

What a lot of fucking bollocks. Actually starting to get past the baffled stage and become absolutely incensed at this patent nonsense.

My life could have turned out so badly at the hands of this damn ideology.

@tellmewhentheLangshiplandscoz

Aaah but how would I be able to tell from looking at another human being what their gender identity is? Assuming they aren't the type who spends every living moment pondering it out loud to the world in which case they likely won't shut up about it.

Gender identity subscribers assert that you can’t tell, rom looking, what someone’s gender identity is (unless you’re cis of course, they have no problems telling us this!) But equally, you can have no way of telling whether someone is human, just by looking at them. They could have a sense of they are as a duck, because it’s biological traits + developmental influences + environmental conditions.

@mintessa

💐

I hope your niece's life improves with every passing day and things start to get easier for her. Her story is exactly what I look at and think "that could so easily have been me." She, and the many many other detransitioners who are now speaking out, need to be heard loud and clear.

Had someone asked me aged ten if I'd like to be a boy I'd have said yes. Had they told me there was medical treatment that could make this so I would have begged for it.

TRAs peddle lies.

What a lot of fucking bollocks. Actually starting to get past the baffled stage and become absolutely incensed at this patent nonsense.

That's a well-trodden path. It's happened to lots and lots of us.

mintessa and for your niece too

@MaudTheInvincible

What a lot of fucking bollocks. Actually starting to get past the baffled stage and become absolutely incensed at this patent nonsense.

That's a well-trodden path. It's happened to lots and lots of us.

Except you won't read about them here because they're speedily deleted and banned

Mintessa for your family and your niece

@TurquoiseBaubles

From the op's link:

How do children typically express their gender identity?
In addition to their choices of toys, games, and sports, children typically express their gender identity in the following ways:

Clothing or hairstyle

Preferred name or nickname

Social behavior that reflects varying degrees of aggression, dominance, dependency, and gentleness.

Manner and style of behavior and physical gestures and other nonverbal actions identified as masculine or feminine.

Social relationships, including the gender of friends, and the people he or she decides to imitate.

So stereotypes and "masculine" or "feminine" behaviour.

Aggressive girls with short hair have a male gender. Gentle boys with long hair have a female gender. It's very simple.

HELP I have one agressive(ish) boy with long hair and one gentle boy with short hair..... what to do....??!!

Thanks for the good wishes, everyone. I may well ask for that post to be removed at some stage - it's not really my story to share. I just wanted to explain that many of us are here because we see these things playing out in our own lives, and we're worried. God knows how much we all wanted this to work out for my niece, how much we wanted this decision to be the right one for her. But here we are.

@TurquoiseBaubles

From the op's link:

How do children typically express their gender identity?
In addition to their choices of toys, games, and sports, children typically express their gender identity in the following ways:

Clothing or hairstyle

Preferred name or nickname

Social behavior that reflects varying degrees of aggression, dominance, dependency, and gentleness.

Manner and style of behavior and physical gestures and other nonverbal actions identified as masculine or feminine.

Social relationships, including the gender of friends, and the people he or she decides to imitate.

So stereotypes and "masculine" or "feminine" behaviour.

Aggressive girls with short hair have a male gender. Gentle boys with long hair have a female gender. It's very simple.

Also, count how many times the word 'behavior' is linked to 'gender identity'.

Behaviour appears to be the outward expression of gender identity.

If gender identity is expressed through outward behaviour, how can you then have a female gender identity and male gendered behaviour? How can you have a 'tomboy transgirl' if the transgirl has short hair and exhibits male gendered behaviour? According to the extract above, gender identity manifests itself through behaviour. One can only determine gender identity through reference to behaviour and masculine / feminine traits.

If gender identity is separate from gendered behaviour, how can you only objectively define gender identity through reference to gendered behaviour?

This really is doing nothing to make me think that gender identity is not linked to sexist stereotypes and societal expectations.

OP, if I am drawing the wrong conclusions here, please set me straight.

@EdgeOfACoin

It's circular nonsense. OP couldn't set a clock straight on the wall.