If you can't get your head around WTF "Gender Identity" is about, try this:

[Melroses]

It is by The State Media who made another film last year.

I am trying it out on confused relatives.

I really like how he talks about society in this. TRAs tend to make these arguments very personal, based on sometimes heart breaking experiences of individuals. It is very easy to be swayed by these stories and miss the broader societal implications of replacing sex with gender identity.

This is a great way to keep reframing the argument.

(Puts on wig). It is I, Mademoiselle, Leclerc !

(Takes off wig). It is I, Monsieur Leclerc !

Gender ID is the notion of what a person feels they may be based on societally accepted gender stereotypes.

There, made it easier.

@Member869894

'Gender identity is the unmeasurable and shifting notion of what a person thinks they may feel at any specific moment in time about a fluid and changeable concept that either correlates with or denies their innate biological sex or alternatively corresponds with that persons estimation of their opposite sex predicated on their own personal perception of a stereotypical yet ultimately unknowable and reductive abstraction of an assumption of that sex for which they have no frame of reference to even begin to understand'

This is just ridiculously verbose and badly written

Can you point out which bits could be removed without taking away highly relevant meaning?

Hopefully, ‘member’ is still re-writing in their own words and, once it’s complete, will reveal it with a flourish? Otherwise, they’ve disappeared in best plopper tradition 🤔

As pointed out in the excellent video, you’d think that, if you’d got an important point to make you’d be very clear what that point was, be able to defend it robustly and want to talk about it rather than disappearing from a forum which would give you the perfect, attentive, eager -to -debate audience!

They did make a shorter, more succinct version of the definition of gender identity, but I don't feel in conveys a great deal TBH.

The description is perfect.
A preposterous load of pretentious bollocks!

Melroses, thanks for that video link, it's great. I saw I had already subscribed but they'd got lost somehow, so thanks for pointing me back to them.

@Member869894

'Gender identity is the unmeasurable and shifting notion of what a person thinks they may feel at any specific moment in time about a fluid and changeable concept that either correlates with or denies their innate biological sex or alternatively corresponds with that persons estimation of their opposite sex predicated on their own personal perception of a stereotypical yet ultimately unknowable and reductive abstraction of an assumption of that sex for which they have no frame of reference to even begin to understand'

This is just ridiculously verbose and badly written

If you feel like coming up with a more concise version, please feel free.

We’re still eagerly awaiting your words of wisdom member! Must be more difficult than you thought, eh?

I've been away and have just come back to this. Are you seriously saying that the above is a helpful definition of gender identity?? I've read and reread it and am none the wiser. Happy to summarise it though or attempt to, as follows;
'Gender identity is the gender that a person thinks he or she is'

Do feel free to pour scorn on me and scoff though..

'Gender identity is the gender that a person thinks he or she is'

This raises so many questions!

(1) Do you agree that this is fluid?

(2) When I say - as I am right now - that I am a transwoman, are you obliged to believe me, or do you have a right to challenge whether my words are truly what I believe? If you have the right to challenge then how can you possible determine whether I am being honest? If you don't have a right to challenge me then are you not giving a green light to liars to lie their way in female only spaces?
(3) What is gender other than bigoted, outdated, regressive, sex-based stereotypes?
(4) Why should society treat people based on their gender instead of their biological sex?
(5) Why can white people not identify as black? Or do you think they should be able to?
(6) Can disabled people identify and able-bodied? What about able-bodied as disabled?
(7) Can a person with a penis be a lesbian?

And how are you defining "gender", there, member? What if someone thinks their gender is male because they've been told "gender" is the same as sex or it's been inadequately defined to them?

'Gender identity is the gender that a person thinks he or she is'

And I see you have excluded non-binary people in your definition. I'm not scorning you, just wondering why you'd discriminate against them in this way?

How do we create a functional society based on the changeable, unverifiable, internal feelings of individuals?

Maybe it is better if we stick to unchanging, easily verifiable and externally evident sex rather than gender identity for organising sport, health, intimate spaces, prisons, refuges and so on?

I can’t think of any valid reason to separate anything along the lines of gender identity. Everything becomes mixed sex and women are back to square one and must begin the fight for our sex based rights all over again.

Can anyone come up with a better definition then ? The definition as it is is utterly meaningless to me .

Gender is a set of social expectations and rules that a culture decides is suitable for each sex.
It is not based in biology and cannot be codified.

Thank you Thelnebriati. That is helpful

@Thelnebriati

Gender is a set of social expectations and rules that a culture decides is suitable for each sex. It is not based in biology and cannot be codified.

That's externally-imposed gender. But does that apply to what's commonly referred to as a gender identity? Is a gender identity of male/female just agreeing that those expectations/rules apply to you? What about the other genders?

Can anyone come up with a better definition then ?

We've been trying for years. We've asked people that use the term what they mean by it, particularly people that advocate for having laws and policies based on 'gender'. They don't answer except in a circular fashion that requires further definition ('your gender is whatever you feel your gender to be') etc.
One person did explain it as 'whether you feel 'he' or 'she' refers to you' but I don't find that satisfactory if you've been told throughout your life that 'he' or 'she' refers to, essentially, whether you have a male or female body.

@Member869894

Thank you Thelnebriati. That is helpful

The World Health Organisation says this:

’Gender identity refers to a person’s deeply felt, internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond to the person’s physiology or designated sex at birth.’

And:
’ Gender refers to the characteristics of women, men, girls and boys that are socially constructed.’

Further explanation here:

Gender refers to the characteristics of women, men, girls and boys that are socially constructed.

Sorry, here:

www.who.int/health-topics/gender#tab=tab_1

That starts off well but then descends into the usual mire a few paragraphs in.
Its actually sex which is the socially constructed hierarchy. Gender roles are created to keep one sex in their place. Anything which is 'female' is automatically less than anything which is 'male'.

I've asked this before but don't think I've had a decent response: Is there anything that the word 'gender' means that isn't covered by '[cultural ideas of] masculinity and femininity'?

@Thelnebriati

That starts off well but then descends into the usual mire a few paragraphs in. Its actually sex which is the socially constructed hierarchy. Gender roles are created to keep one sex in their place. Anything which is 'female' is automatically less than anything which is 'male'.

Sex is a biological reality, there's nothing socially constructed about it. I agree that gender roles are created to keep one sex in their place - gender is the constructive tool of the patriarchy, and is the application of socially-constructed roles to sex. Without gender, there's nothing hierarchical about sex (although there is obviously physical advantage).