Is there any such thing as gender identity?

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Here is an article by Alex Byrne, Professor of Philosophy at MIT:
What is gender identity?

Byrne concludes, in part, as follows:
' If there is some kind of “gender identity” that is universal in humans, and which causes dysphoria when mismatched with sex, it remains elusive. No one has yet found a way of detecting its presence, and verifying that it is causally responsible for dysphoria .'

In fact, it seems, there just is no such thing as gender identity in the way trans ideologues intend. Some, noticing lack of anything like it in themselves, nevertheless allow that others may nevertheless suffer from its presence. I think this mistaken, factually and strategically.

The existence of gender identity is foundational for much trans ideology. Its importance can be deduced from its inclusion in Humpty Dumpty’s Stonewall's glossary entry on transphobia, 'including denying ... gender identity ', as part of orthodox trans dogma.

The foundations of trans ideology are built on the quicksand of gender identity. Pointing out the shaky nature of these foundations cannot but assist in demolishing the whole edifice of this ideology before it does any more harm to women, children, and wider society in general.

Of course those who believe in gender identity should not be discriminated against or disadvantaged in any way because of such belief, any more than should believers in guardian angels or invisible human auras. It does not follow that such beliefs themselves should be given any credence. Nor, a fortiori , does it follow that social policy or law should be based on any such beliefs.

There is no such thing as gender identity.

Or, perhaps science progresses is there now some way of detecting its presence, contrary to Alex Byrne's assertion?

We already know that trans brains are not the same as cis brains - that's not new information.

Only if you can define what ‘trans’ means. The definition is now very, very inclusive.

an instinct that facilitates social cohesion in social species like humans.

Except it doesn’t facilitate social cohesion. It facilitates sexism and oppression.

Sorry, I have to jump in here for my own peace of mind. Shizuku says, upthread:

We already know that trans brains are not the same as cis brains - that's not new information. The claim isn't that trans women are women because their brain scans are identical to cis women's, the observation is that trans women have a female gender identity and the claim (which you won't agree with of course) is that gender identity is more important than things like gonads when assigning a sex to someone.

Why is it more important? Even a casual look at history and geography shows that women are controlled and discriminated against precisely because of their gonads and ability to grow babies. That is the material point. So why should "gender identity" be more important? What is the elusive reason for this? Why can't it be said?

You can look at the world as a flux of identities floating around in power structures supported by narratives as much as you like, but in reality the world is material. When you stub your toe, it hurts, and not because the stone you tread on has been constructed to marginalise disempowered identities. You can figure stuff out about the world using observation, reason and your brain, and when you do, the stuff you figured out actually works, and you can use it to figure out even more stuff.

But I can't see "gender identity" as being any different from Phlogiston or the luminiferous ether. It's a speculative entity which you only need to support a theory which doesn't actually seem to have much in the way of empirical content.

Sorry about the rant. I'll go now....

the observation is that trans women have a female gender identity and the claim (which you won't agree with of course) is that gender identity is more important than things like gonads when assigning a sex to someone

If gender identity is more important than gonads when "assigning a sex", why are gonads/genitalia used to "assign" sex at birth?

Why don't we wait and "assign" sex when a child is 2 or 3 and (according to Shizuku) their innate gender identity starts to manifest?

Given that "assigning" the wrong sex causes distress for trans individuals, why wouldn't we wait and assign the correct label? There must be a reason that humans have relied for millennia on the gonads/genitals to "assign" sex at birth?

@continuallyconflating, agree that the authors' meaning in those Discussion sections is not at all clear.

@Shizuku

Some people are unable to feel pain (congenital analgesia).

If you told someone with congenital analgesia that you were in pain and they said they would only give you pain killers if you could prove it, how would you prove it?

I'd think you were being unreasonable for demanding I prove it. But I wouldn't insist that you took the painkillers too.

I think this is going to upset some members - a brain study that can literally see the apparently non existent thing we call gender identity, and which also gives a scientific basis for non-binary identities to exist.

Except, it didn't. What the study showed is that the brains of individuals diagnosed with gender dysphoria differ from control groups of their own sex.

Under Materials and Methods: Participants, the authors state: Furthermore, all transgender participants fulfilled diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria, as diagnosed by a board-certified mental-health professional. They also state that these individuals were recruited from self-help groups and a specialist clinic, had socially transitioned and were planning to medically transition which strongly suggests these are individuals who experience more severe cases of gender dysphoria.

Now there are several studies that have already successfully shown that individuals with gender dysphoria have measurable differences in the brain to control groups of their own sex. (One study for instance showed a particularly active brain region related to body image also found in patients with anorexia. As one would expect.)

Previous studies have also found measurable differences between the brains of homosexual and heterosexual individuals, so it's a serious oversight that the study has not accounted for this variable.

To date, how much of the differences in individuals who are both homosexual and gender dysphoric is due to either characteristic has not been quantified. This can only be done by matching participants by sexuality before measuring for neurological differences due to gender dysphoria.

It's an interesting study, but it falls short of proving the existence of gender identity.

(On a sidenote, the sample sizes are small. Matching with 52% accuracy for instance means that the machine correctly identified a mere five or six individuals over and above the result one would expect from pure chance. Statisticians would have quite a bit to say about the glib assurance that in such a small sample size this proves the quality and accuracy of their algorithm.)

@CharlieParley, the sample sizes are actually quite decent for a functional imaging study; not sure whether or not they're adequate for a machine-learning study.

The gender ideology position is that women and transwomen have the same gender identity. Therefore if the neural connectivity (brain activity) measured in this study is related to gender identity, the brain activity patterns in women and transwomen should be the same. But they're not - women and transwomen have different brain activity patterns.

So either:
A) the brain activity patterns are related to gender identity, in which case the results show that women and transwomen don't have the same gender identity
or
B) the brain activity patterns aren't related to gender identity, and therefore don't prove its existence.

In the world of machine learning / predictive analytics you would not celebrate that as a successful algorithm. Nobody would buy it off you.

What is gender? It is entirely made up. So how can humans have it? By likening their personality to it.

Brain images are hocus pocus.

But I can't see "gender identity" as being any different from Phlogiston or the luminiferous ether. It's a speculative entity which you only need to support a theory which doesn't actually seem to have much in the way of empirical content.

^ This.

I can see why knowing sex is useful. It helps you make children (which is quite important). It helps medical treatment. It gives 50% of the population a chance to compete fairly with others of the same body type. It's a strong predictor of risk factors for violence. It lets you totally prevent unwanted pregnancy by separating the sexes.

(And all that's true for any animal, not just humans).

But "gender identity"? We don't even know how to identify it, let alone what predictive value it has. Anything it correlates to, sex is a better predictor for. Using gender identity is reducing the male/female difference in crime stats, athletic performance, everything.

If gender identity corresponded to any measurable attribute, you'd be able to find something where the "male/female" difference was higher than if you'd used sex as your differentiator. But you can't.

So this is not a viable replacement for sex.

(Conceivably "trans" could be a thing that has an auxiliary effect, like "gay" - a modifier of the usual sex-based behaviour. That might have some predictive value. And I guess we know it does - trans status correlates with a whole bunch of other conditions, including autism.)

I can see why knowing sex is useful.

I think it’s not just useful, but essential, if half the population isn’t to be disenfranchised.

You don’t need to be actively sexist to exclude women from participation in society. You just need to organise society around the default male SEX.

My body’s insistence on expelling blood every month has nothing to do with my identity. A hysterectomy would end my periods, whether I needed it to combat cancer, endometriosis or gender dysphoria. However, the fact of the surgery would mark me as female and access to medical care cannot be taken for granted.

The same can be said of any group that has different needs - whether they are excluded by steps or strict segregation. You can’t protect rights if you can’t name the people whose rights are threatened.

Insistence on affirmation of identity over protection of rights, is I think, the mark of people who have no concept that their rights could be threatened.

Sorry list a word up there - ‘excluded by strict sex segregation’.

I recognise that sex segregation can exclude trans people. I just also recognise that lack of sex segregation can also exclude women.

‘Lost a word’....

But I can't see "gender identity" as being any different from Phlogiston

I love this, I am definitely stealing this to use.

@justspeculation - I asked the same question. No answer though!

Brain images are hocus pocus.

No, they're not. Brain imaging techniques have provided some extraordinary insights into the way the brain functions and the way brain circuits are organised. But it's like every other scientific technique - if you have a flawed study design, you'll have flawed results that don't prove what you intended them to prove or can't be interpreted properly.

the sample sizes are actually quite decent for a functional imaging study

Or to put it another way, 'sample, sizes in functional imaging studies are typically small' .... that doesn't make any of them more statistically robust.

@ErrolTheDragon, I agree. Imaging research is expensive, and funding bodies are much less likely to award research grants for it than they used to be, so a lot of studies are under-powered.

It might be fairer to say that some of the over interpretation, incorrect analysis and misinterpretation of brain imaging studies can be hocus pocus. Hopefully getting better now, in part thanks to the infamous Ignobel salmon blogs.scientificamerican.com/scicurious-brain/ignobel-prize-in-neuroscience-the-dead-salmon-study/

I recognise that sex segregation can exclude trans people. I just also recognise that lack of sex segregation can also exclude women.

This is the heart of the problem with dismantling all sex segregation.

It comes down to whose exclusion matters more?

Sexism and patriarchy being what they are the default answer is usually that the ones with a penis are ranked higher.

This is why we introduced sex equality laws in the UK. The law has been helpful in giving women a way to challenge male dominance, whether conscious overt sexism or unintentional cultural bias.

You know what though? As interesting as this is on an intellectual level. I really don't care that much whether tw have different brain patterns to women, much as I don't care much whether London cab drivers have different brain patterns (they do). As long as we keep our attention on such matters we forget that actually women aren't discriminated against because of their brain patterns, no woman has managed to talk herself out of a rape by saying "actually, if we could just scan my brain, you would see that it is far more similar to a man's". Women are attacked and disadvantaged because of what we are (female) and in 99.9% of cases our sex is obvious at even a cursory glance. We cannot identify out of it.

@Gerla

You know what though? As interesting as this is on an intellectual level. I really don't care that much whether tw have different brain patterns to women, much as I don't care much whether London cab drivers have different brain patterns (they do). As long as we keep our attention on such matters we forget that actually women aren't discriminated against because of their brain patterns, no woman has managed to talk herself out of a rape by saying "actually, if we could just scan my brain, you would see that it is far more similar to a man's". Women are attacked and disadvantaged because of what we are (female) and in 99.9% of cases our sex is obvious at even a cursory glance. We cannot identify out of it.

I agree. But gender ideologist are trying to use the science to prove that their world view is correct. Debunking the scientific basis for their arguments is one way to demonstrate that the ideology has no rational basis.

Identity is a combination of whatever it is that you align yourself with, and the presentations of the self that act as the interface between you and the world. the way the world reads you, or how you would like to be read.

Identity is not a fixed thing. It is a mental construct around which the rest of the personality coalesces; and identities tend to shift and change with time, experience and circumstance.

So no, gender identity is not a real or measurable thing. And people only have one if they think they do. And furthermore, what you imagine being of male or female gender means will depend on how you read or imagine 'male' or 'female'.

The only measurable quality to being male or female is the biological, bodily one.