PM on Radio 4: what is gender identity?

[nauticant]

Evan Davis said that there will be a "good natured" chat about this in tonight's programme. This will give him a chance to demonstrate again his well-known impartiality on this issue.

It's not yet clear when this segment will be in the programme.

@Clymene

IW has blocked me so I can't see India's tweets.

I found the fact that Evan really didn't want to talk about the practical implications of the ideology he supports really revealing. Basically he articulated his 'lalalala not listening' stance.

Yeah that’s it. If you only talk about the individual and their needs and feelings it seems quite straightforward. The practical application shows the problem immediately.

I am paraphrasing here and trying to remember:

IW said something like we all have a gender identity from when we are about 3 years old.

KS said such small children do not know what that is.

IW said she was wrong, the NHS would say she is wrong too.

I am pretty sure not all 3 years olds really know the differences in sexes clearly apart from that they are a girl or a boy based on clothes - unless they have a sibling of the opposite sex. I am sure they don’t have a gender identity.

My 3 year old grandson, who lives with his mum and goes to nursery with boys and girls , and who is pretty bright, said about the little girl illustrated in his potty training book, who had a roll of lavatory paper in front of her, “Now will she wipe her penis?”

So does anyone know what NHS facts IW was referring to?

Basically the interview gave us a nice trans woman, who felt her gender was misaligned with her body from an early age, who felt fine from the moment she had transitioned. She is very reasonable. She knows there is a biological difference between women and transwomen. All of us have a gender identity as well as a body. Only a minute percentage feel they have bodies misaligned. What is the problem? Implied: only unreasonable people could find this a problem.
The end

Nothing problematical was brought up.

If India wants people to believe she's a woman, then the very first thing she needs to learn to do is to lose the very male habit of aggressively interrupting and talking over women.

KS:

if you lopped off my kit and gave me hormones I'd still feel like a man inside

So was ED basically saying that surgery and hormones don't change anything?

@WarriorN

"if you lopped off my kit and gave me hormones I'd still feel like a man inside"

It's more that

"if you lopped off my kit and gave me hormones I'd still BE a man inside"

And also

"... I'd still have 59 years' worth of memories of being a man".

This stupid "though experiment" infuriates me.

@Sweetpeasaremadeforbees

if you lopped off my kit and gave me hormones I'd still feel like a man inside

So was ED basically saying that surgery and hormones don't change anything?

He was trying to prove the existence of an innate internal gender identity.

KS pointed out she felt more masculine inside. So...

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I said I felt ED was biased so not the person for these discussions.

This just reminded me, I saw Willoughby having a tantrum about this on Twitter. It's quite funny.

Evidently IW threw a tantrum about Stock being on the programme and said they wouldn't appear if Stock was in it, then backtracked when the BBC said "fine then." And then IW went on Twitter to spin it as as the BBC discriminating against trans people.

twitter.com/IndiaWilloughby/status/1463833606967767040

IW said something like we all have a gender identity from when we are about 3 years old.

The problem is that the development of "gender identity" in children used simply to mean that they started to understand there is a difference between males and females, and which category they belong to.

I think at that age they still believe that long hair and dresses => female though. (There is a lovely video somewhere which illustrates this.)

This just reminded me, I saw Willoughby having a tantrum about this on Twitter. It's quite funny.

Now I've read more of the thread I see I should have been more specific. This is a different, earlier tantrum that happened before the programme aired.

So was ED basically saying that surgery and hormones don't change anything?

The implication is that's because he has a blue brain and therefore is comfortable with a penis body. If he had a pink brain, then the lopping off would have him being in a penisless body and that would feel just right. This is the level of debate we're dealing with.

Here's India's science from the NHS:

www.dpt.nhs.uk/our-services/gender-identity/your-questions-answered/when-does-someone-become-aware-of-a-gender-identity

An individual’s awareness of gender identity, and the emergence of a range of gender-typical behaviours, is usually established by the age of two to three years

Boys exhibiting behaviours characteristic of female gender

"gender-typical behaviours", eh?

“SpringCrocus

Evan did say the priceless phrase

"if you lopped off my kit and gave me hormones I'd still feel like a man inside"

Which is progress on his part, I think.“

The thing is, though, Crocus, when he said this, my interpretation was not that he meant you can’t change your sex by lopping off parts. I think he meant, “Ah yes, I see what you mean about identity. I have an inner “man” identity that couldn’t change.”

Havent heard it yet but PM has gone from being one of my favourite radio shows to one of the least.

I tend to listen to World At One now in the evening as I don't catch it during the day.

ED has a Jeremy Corbyn-esque exasperation with people he plainly doesnt like, particularly women.

That just before the 6pm news chat slot is often a bit vacuous and ED seems a bit lost in his line of questioning. It's generally about something less controversial though.

@CatsOperatingInGangs

I am pleased this discussion has happened and that they have pledged to do it again.

I agree. It makes a change from the tiresome and biased echo chambers, especially that Reformers Tree mob.

ED will be wheeling out a collection of barbies and GI joes to illustrate his point next time 🙄

Evan did say the priceless phrase

"if you lopped off my kit and gave me hormones I'd still feel like a man inside"

Ie he agrees with India, we all have a gender inside and in her case it didn't match the outside but in ED case it did/does.How the F does he know that - what bollox

Turns out India Willoughby , with whom I have never interacted, has blocked me on Twitter. Probably because I follow some awesome women. Probably happened ages ago .

Something I find fascinating about this whole debate is that basic terms like “gender identity” are really vague and woolly and make so little sense to me that I end up yelling “yes but what IS it?” And yet all the trans activists around me seem to have absolutely no trouble with the concepts whatsoever. But listening to India made me think. When India says gender identity is “who we are” and “everyone has one” including lions (?) does India (and other TRAs) mean that gender identity is simply one’s self , what we might call the subject of first person subjectivity and consciousness? Have we just been talking past each other? But then that seems to be a major redefinition of “gender”! Why call it gender if what we are talking about is the self ? Or am I just over thinking this as usual and trying to find a way for it to make sense?

I really enjoyed the absurdity of the lions and penguins. They lifted the segment into Brasseye parody. It’s so good to have some new animals join the lonely clownfish in the gender-fluid petting zoo. I hope Kathleen had a bloody good laugh once she’d rung off.

IW interrupts and talks over people. I don't know if it's so others can't talk, but this is what India does.

The fact that this discussion is even happening is a step forward. But I strongly suspect India will pull out of any future discussions, because eventually, you have to get down to the point of what the bloody hell is gender identity then? What are you identifying with? How do we allow this to affect policy?

It's edging closer to the denouement.

The definition of "gender identity" roves around looking for whatever will suit best for the argument currently being advanced.

So sometimes it's personality, sometimes it's a blue or a pink brain, sometimes it's sex, sometimes it's adherence to gender steretypes. I'm sure there are other meanings.

Until it's necessary for it to collapse into one of these meanings, "gender identity" floats about under a big baggy gender umbrella type thing.

But listening to India made me think. When India says gender identity is “who we are” and “everyone has one” including lions (?) does India (and other TRAs) mean that gender identity is simply one’s self , what we might call the subject of first person subjectivity and consciousness?

This is what I can't get past. When Evan Davies says he'd still feel like a man if you chopped his kit off, what he means is he'd feel like himself. Our selves are a whole package of experience and socialisation and the way our caregivers interacted with us and brought us up and the verbal and non-verbal cues we have picked up about our place in the world. There isn't an invisible separate organ within us called gender identity that would wither and die if our sexed bodies were altered, and frankly it's batshit that a supposedly serious programme like R4's Today should be discussing it like that's a possibility.