We clearly do not understand this definition in the same way, Shizuku, that’s why we keep asking you to explain what you understand this to mean. I’ve read every link you posted, including the last one to Dr Rafferty’s article about the development of gender identity in children. I have also read a number of his other articles on the subject. Assuming good faith on all sides, I’ll go first and tell you how I parse the definition you posted. I'm basing this analysis also on some of Dr Rafferty’s other statements as well as the only source he lists in support, the position statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics and its sources.
Your preferred definition:
"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.”
So, here’s how I understand that definition:
Gender identity is
an internal sense – humans have a number of senses helping us process external stimuli (the best known are sight, sound, touch, smell and taste). These can be externally measured, tested and verified. These senses are a universal human trait, and in those where these do not function as intended, we can measure, test and verify how and why this happens. Gender identity cannot be externally measured, tested or verified. It is unquantifiable.
So, I must understand sense here in its second meaning, that of feeling. But unlike other feelings that engage our brain chemistry, elicit muscular reactions or endocrine responses and can thus again be measured and tested, this particular feeling cannot. As it is internal, we cannot ascertain if even just two people experience this feeling in the same way. (Basing law and policy on an unmeasurable, unverifiable internal feeling that may be uniquely different in each of us is a precarious and often dangerous undertaking. As history teaches us.)
people have – this is a claim that all people have this feeling. A universal human trait, one that all members of the species share, even – bizarrely – those of us who categorically state that we do not have this feeling. Could this mean that gender identity is like proprioception? That sense of where our body, our limbs are located within our environment? This is a universal human trait few of us have ever heard of and most don’t know that it exists. But proprioception can be externally measured and verified in a lab, and its function can be ascertained through simple tests. So, this internal feeling is not like proprioception either.
of who they are – this is a feeling that we have about ourselves, but not other people. We cannot ascertain this internal feeling in another person. Not by looking at them, listening to them, touching them or interacting with them. The only way we can know who they feel they are is if they tell us. Logically, this also means no one else can know this about ourselves without us telling them. For others to know who we are then in relation to our gender identity, there is another requirement – faith. It requires faith on the part of the listener that we are neither mistaken nor lying about this feeling.
And yet, to err truly is human and lying is an all too human trait as well. So universally human indeed that it is seen as a sign of cognitive progress in the developing child when they start employing lies in their interaction with others. But we are to treat this unverifiable, solely internal feeling differently from all other feelings we experience. Feelings are something that human beings are frequently mistaken about or lying about, including in self-defence and self-deception. Uniquely though, this one feeling is different. How is neither explored nor explained.
that comes from an interaction – this is a claim that not only does this universal human trait arise from something but is the result of at least two somethings that together create an internal feeling that tells us who we are. Unless both of these somethings are congenital, this suggests that those writing this definition believe nurture plays a role in how our gender identity comes into being.
of biological traits – on first reading this definition, I thought this referred to our sex. There’s a good hundred years’ worth of research into how children come to understand themselves as male or female and how they fit into the binary world of male and female people. Curiously, none of these researchers, not even the greats of child psychology ever spoke of this phenomenon of an internal feeling of being male or female developing independently of the bodies we inhabit. None mention gender identity until John Money published the results of his unethical and cruel experiments on children.
But reading further, I realise that this is not a reference to our sex, but to as yet undiscovered biological causes of this internal feeling that are present in all of us from birth as claimed in the position statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Now it is not unheard of in science that scientists postulate the existence of something that they cannot yet prove exists. However, there is in all of these cases an evidence base for that supposition – an externally observable and measurable phenomenon that can only be explained by the existence of this as yet undiscovered something. Unfortunately then, we cannot accept the existence of this hypothetical congenital cause of gender identity on this basis, because gender identity is neither observable nor measurable. And there is nothing in the available literature referenced in the position statement that allows us to say how, when and where these causes will be discovered. Indeed, the referenced researchers themselves are not sure whether these causes exist at all.
Much more problematic however is the fact that these researchers do not propose congenital biological causes for gender identity as a universal human trait at all – they are researching gender dysphoria in children or the psychosexual development of children diagnosed with a difference in sex development, whose genitals were ambiguous at birth and who were subsequently assigned a sex on the basis of their DSD. Just why research into the psychosexual development of an exceedingly rare number of children with a congenital malformation of their chromosomal, gonadal or anatomical sex is applied across the rest of us is not explained in the position statement. Or indeed just how this could apply to all of us. Or why the same is done with the equally tiny percentage of children with gender dysphoria.
developmental influences – this is a claim that gender identity is the result of both nature and nurture. Which therefore positions gender identity not as something that is present from birth, but something that develops afterwards in reaction to developmental influences. Many of us are no doubt aware of the various factors that influence the development of children, but just in case, here is a list of the most important ones:
Our biology:
Genetics or heredity – this is how my oldest ended up looking like the spitting image of his father. This also causes us to have a higher or lower risks to develop certain medical conditions.
Sex – this governs how fast our bodies and brains mature, how we grow, how our bodies work and what bodily functions we must learn to navigate.
Hormones – in addition to the above, hormones also have an influence on behaviour.
Our environment:
Family – how we are treated, loved and supported influences our emotional and cognitive development. How stable the family unit is, trauma, abuse, bereavement all have an impact.
Socio-economic status – we face different challenges and are afforded different opportunities based on this status. This influences what and how well we may learn – both regarding our education and our life experiences.
Location – where we live, the conditions under which we live, limitations placed by climate or topography or opportunities allowed because of them, the state and government we live under.
Nutrition and exercise – malnourished children deprived of sunlight and fresh air thrive far less than their well-fed counterparts who are regularly active outdoors. This has an effect on physiological and psychological development.
That’s not an exhaustive list by any means, nor do I explain how these factors influence child development (my comment is far too long already). However, as the combination of any number of these factors results in vastly different outcomes for children, I cannot comprehend how this is claimed to result in the same universal feeling in seven billion people. Even a hundred genders isn’t enough to reflect how many different outcomes result from sheer endless combinations of these factors.
and environmental conditions – this is redundant. Environmental conditions are of course factors that influence child development and therefore included above. I suspect this was included only because it lends the definition an air of academic rigour (and it meets the rule of three).
This is a definition that contradicts itself and is contradicted by its proponents. Gender identity is both universal and a result of the unique and limitless combinations of factors influencing any given child’s development. It is innate and merely emerges like a butterfly from a chrysalis during childhood and adolescence and it is fomed in response to external stimulus. It is biological but has nothing to do with our biology. It cannot be changed but develops as a consequence of both nature and nurture, the latter of which suggests that even if it was true that an individual's gender identity cannot be changed after it emerges, it could have emerged differently had nurture differed. It is a natural feeling like any other but differs from all other natural feelings humans experience in every way possible.
So, Shizuku, here is how I understand that definition explained. I hope this is detailed enough to allow you to see whatever flaws there are in my thinking. I'm not expecting you to write the same in return, but even just a an attempt at an explanation of that definition in your own words would be welcome. Or a response as to where I am mistaken.