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.

This debate shouldn't be chaired by a man.

ED needs to butt out and let a real woman handle it.

I'm seven years younger than ED and I was the only out lesbian in my uni initially, two more had come out by the time I left and there were about four gay men in our l&g group. I got a lot of harassment though friends were okay. It was still a pretty hostile world though, and most of us who were out were distant / estranged from our families.

Just listened to the programme. Wow, India really does interrupt a lot... Just one thought - if "we're all aware of what gender or what sex we are by teh age of three" (IW), how would India explain the explosion of teenage girls who suddenly feel the need to transition, having never expressed any gender dysphoria in the past?

I rather like the idea of the gender fluid zoo. It would be like one of those creationist natural history museums that end up having to twist science like a pretzel to get it to fit the narrative.

Come and see the amazing non-binary panda! Hiss and spit at the cis-spiders! All hail the intersex snail!

I thought that for most people listening, they would have heard one side saying very odd things (lions have gender identities, children have a gender identity by three) and one side saying sensible things. The thing about gendered souls was odd. I think (hope) when given airtime, the GC side looks a lot more reasonable.

I also thought IW was much more reluctant for a follow up discussion. KS welcomed it

@WarriorN

This debate shouldn't be chaired by a man.

ED needs to butt out and let a real woman handle it.

One of the female presenters did a very good job on a story (I forget quite what) a couple of years ago - it was unusual to hear a more GC take - so I emailed in support and got a personal response along the lines of “I’m doing what I can”. Telling that I don’t want to name her here…

Re: India Willoughby saying children have sense of gender identity by 3 and the NHS agrees

Here is an article, with videos showing how young children only know they are a girl or boy based on a very simple understanding of the appearance of things - boys have short hair, girls have long hair. (And I am sure too because their parents tell them
what sex they are). This is the same sort of knowledge they have that one animal is a cat or another a dog. It is part of their scheme of naming what they see in the world.

They don’t really understand about how they are a certain immutable sec until they are much older.

www.transgendertrend.com/young-children/

I think what you mean is that

Children learn that adults consider them a girl or boy and treat them differently because of it

@FlyingJo

I thought that for most people listening, they would have heard one side saying very odd things (lions have gender identities, children have a gender identity by three) and one side saying sensible things. The thing about gendered souls was odd. I think (hope) when given airtime, the GC side looks a lot more reasonable.

I also thought IW was much more reluctant for a follow up discussion. KS welcomed it

Quite.

It's a load of old bollocks, and people are beginning to hear it. Bring it on.

“bordermidgebite

I think what you mean is that

Children learn that adults consider them a girl or boy and treat them differently because of it“

I was meaning that very, very young children have an idea they are a boy or a girl because adults tell them that’s what they are when they say things to them such as, “Good boy” or “Good girl” or “Do you think that little boy over there would like one of your crisps?”

Or “You are a boy, like Daddy”, etc

So, although boys and girls may or may not be treated differently by those around, I wasn’t referring to that element of how they learn about themselves- I only meant that children learn they are a girl or boy in the general way they learn the names of other things in their lives. Boy, girl, man, woman, cat, dog, apple, bed.

Ah, violent agreement?

I think the point IW was making about lions and penguins was that all animals (including humans) have different roles for the different sexes. She was imagining that sex roles in animals is similar to gender identity in humans. She said lions and penguins have unusual gender roles - I took that to mean lionesses hunt, and male penguins look after eggs and do some parenting. For her that is 'unusual'. I guess it is in the animal kingdom but I think it was quite telling. She talked about female brain in male body, biological gender, and equated gender id to sex roles in animals. She sees gendered behaviours and cross sex identities in biological and evolutionary terms, not in social and cultural terms.

I wonder if Evan has seen IW's twittering about how she was prevented from saying that stock wants to eliminate trans ppl, and had a horrible experience. Did she raise the whrc declaration and was told that would not be OK because daily politics had to apologise to stock for that? I would have thought Evan thought the interview went ok as a friendly-ish discussion without too much heat. But the tweet is so far removed from that. The tweets is from am alternative reality really. Will it make him double take and start to think something is very off?

I remember when IW said on BB "I am a real woman, let that penetrate".

My trans woman colleague says something similar. She means that her GRC, very strong sense of gender identity and style is what makes her a woman. She accepts that my prolapse, fibroids and hormonal mood swings are linked to my womanhood and that we are not the SAME kind of woman but she also insists that we are the same. And she tells me that I have a gender identity, despite me saying that I have absolutely no sense of gender at all. She tells me this makes me a-gender, which means I am, according to Stonewall, trans. Go figure. I don't understand, she is unable to explain - it's an ongoing circular conversation which is testing both of our patience.

It is very important to her that I agree with her, and she is frustrated that I don't care at all whether she agrees with me. Her opinion on whether we are the same has no influence over my fibroids - and as only one of us has to deal with that then my blasted uterus is hard evidence that we are NOT the same.

I'd like to hear what the meaning of "a real woman" discussed with a group of trans women, lib fems and gender critical people - a mix of both sexes and any gender or sexuality or hairstyles. I'd expect it to be enlightening.

It would need some skilled chairing. Victoria Coren might be a good shout, she's very bright, has a calm manner and I don't think has ever passed comment either way.

Who do you think would be suitable for a chair?

I do like Victoria Coren, a lot actually, but she doesn’t always know quite so much about particular subjects as she thinks she does. I’d be pretty sure that both she and David Mitchell think that gender ideology is nonsense, but it’s only their pal Robert Webb who’s said anything publicly about that subject.

Emma Barnett would be a good chair I think.

For no reason at all, I decided to transcribe this today. I was going to do a word count but I've already spent ages. I can't bear to look at it any more!

Intros

ED: First, I asked India to explain what she sees identity as and what it means for her.

IW: Gender identity as far as I'm concerned is just quite simply who you are. And we all know that, it's recognised that we all have an awareness of what sex we are, what gender identity we are by the age of 3 . And certainly in my own case, I can't remember a single day when it wasn't on my mind. My earliest recollection and for the first effectively half of my life. It was the first thing I thought about in the morning, and the last thing I considered before I went to bed as well. It was constantly nagging away that something wasn't quite right. And gender identity, the feminist side will strongly disagree with this, but we all have a gender identity, all of us. You only really notice it if it's in conflict in some way...

ED: Different from...

IW: Again, from my own experience it was a constant conflict for me and as soon as I transitioned I never think about it any more.

ED: It's all aligned, and so...

IW: It's all aligned, and if you actually look at nature, just very quickly, this thing that gender doesn't exist or it's just a manmade thing and people go to politically correct classes to adopt certain roles, it's just nonsense. If you look at lions or penguins, they have really unusual gender roles where the Dads stay home.

ED: Look, would a way of thinking about it as being in your case, when you were a child you had the body and you had a soul and they were misaligned. Is that a kind of simple way of looking at...

IW: Yeah, I wouldn't use soul as such, whatever seed is in us. It's our head that's our identity.

ED: You were a girl, you were born with a guy's body.

IW: Yeah, well it's that, I can't have a brain transplant so I changed my body.

ED: Right. Kathleen, anything you can or can't subscribe to in what India has said there?

KS: Well, I'm sure we are going to disagree on quite a lot of that to be honest. But I do absolutely subscribe to the idea that some people have a strong psychological identification with an idea of the opposite sex, or with androgony if they're non binary. And a strong dysphoric disgust or distaste for their own sexed body. However where I would differ from India, I think there's no good evidence to suggest that everyone has a gender indentity and that they know what it is by...

IW: There is.

KS: …by the age of three. Now why I am sceptical about that is because actually not all three year olds understand the concept of bioligical sex. They don't even necessary understand, they're slowly at that point acquiring the concepts of men and women and able to recognise them, but they're not able necessarily to apply them
But...

KS: ...consistently. And certainly gender identity is not the same thing as sex.

ED: But Kathleen, do I have a gender identity? I sort of feel that if you lopped off my kit and you gave me hormones to grow breasts I Would still feel like a man inside. And I, I suppose that's sort of in a way gender identity isn't it.

KS: It could be yeah, I don't know Evan (laugh) I think it's a personal matter.

ED: Well, right...

KS: But feeling like a man inside or feeling like a woman inside, you have to unpack that a bit. Like, what does that mean, and in practice when you ask people that it means it quite often means "Well I fit more with the stereotypes around the opposite sex than I do with the stereotypes around my own sex." Well, some people feel that way, and some people feel perfectly fine in their own bodies but that doesn't mean that their strongly identified with the stereoptypes around their own sex. So there's a continuum of positions here, and many of us don't feel we have gender identities. Now since it is defined as a very personal feeling, if you don't have it, you don't have it.

ED: Do you accept that some people will feel they don't have one India? That Kathleen doesn't feel she has a gender identity, she's a woman, based on biological sex..
IW: Absolutely, it's up to the individual.

ED: Yeah, good

IW: And as I said at the start if there's no conflict going on you're completely unaware, it's like...

ED: Like your bones, you don't... Nothing wrong with them...

IW: You don't. If look at, I've just heard Kathleen say there that there's no evidence, I'd invite all listeners to go on the NHS website or the WHO and look up when we all become aware of whether we're a boy or a girl. We, we... You certainly knew you were a boy.

KS: Even the NHS is fallible, even the NHS.

ED: Kathleen, you ..

IW: But it's interesting we have philosophers disagreeing with doctors and experts in the actual field and trans people who are actually trans.

[….]

ED: Let me…

KS: Philosophers have a strong history of analysing feelings and the thing about feeling is that it's essentially felt. It's not like bones where other people can look in and observe them and say what's happening to you. And many people are unaware of tiny bones in their bodies but they still have them. But feelings are by definition felt, so if you don't feel them, you don't have them. Now...

ED: But you are at the end of the day a philosopher arguing with....

KS: I just wanted to add... I know and philosophers have said...

IW...the NHS and trans people.

IW...You're a philosopher. You’re not trans.

KS: I am. You've got me there India.

ED: Let's just get into this Kathleen. You may not have what you would call a gender identity...

KS: I do, I do actually. I do have an affinity with the masculine actually I just wanted to make that clear.

ED: Ok

KS: I think I do understand something of having a male gender identity and I do feel times at very odds with my own sexed body. So it's not actually something I don't have experience of. But I take it seriously when other people tell me that they don't.

ED: Right. And you take it seriously when people say they do have a gender identity, it's not the same as they're biological sex and that is their lived experience and they want to be respected for that and live by that.

KS: Yes

ED: and as a philosopher you don't have any objection to that...

KS: No, I've got no objection to that. Now, the only objection I have is when claims about gender identity are brought into replace claims about sex. In particularly important contexts.

ED: OK, and that's things like safe spaces for women, should that be based on biological sex or gender identity. And India, can I just be clear - you accept the existence of bioligical sex and it has importance in certain contexts?

IW: Of course, we've all got a biological sex but it's intertwined with your gender identity as well. In Kathleen's view, gender identity is like going into a shop and probably picking a pair of shoes...

KS: ... No it isn't.

IW: It's all very nice and pleasant. But for trans people, it's because their innate internal biological gender is in conflict with their sex so you try and marry it up.

ED: Kathleen, I just don't quite understand why this is such a vicious argument. Because could we not agree that there is such a thing as gender identity, there is such a thing as biological sex. To some people it's the gender identity that's most important, and to some people it's the biological sex that feels most important to them, defining of who they are. Now, who would disagree with that summary? Kathleen, would you disagree with that?
KS: Well, no. My book has got a chapter on gender identity where I argue there is such a thing as gender identity and it's important to take it seriously. However, so, so, speaking for myself the reason I got involved in the politics of it and the reason it gets, it seems to me to get, so vicious is because these institutional claims are being made on behalf of gender identity. So it's no longer just an interpersonal matter of respecting someone's gender identity in conversation or trying to understand who someone is. It's telling us we can't mention biological sex, that we can't track it...

IW: No, you can.

KS: ...that we can't have Woman's spaces... Well, thanks.

ED: At least, at as far as India is concerned, that's not a problem.

KS: Thank you, that's great.

ED: India you agree with my little summary there, that some people will find their biological sex the more important defining notion of who they are?
IW: They will, absolutely. But where I would disagree with the essence of what Kathleen's argument is, at the end of the day Evan, this is a really rare thing. You would be forgiven if you landed from Mars and arrived in Britain for thinking there's a plague of trans people causing chaos and being a threat to society, it's simply not the case. We're 0.5% of the population, so half that again, 0.25%, is trans women which is what all the controversy is about. So you’re looking at how many of those 0.25% of the population would be dangerous or a threat to erasing the word woman. It's tiny.

ED: I don't want to get into the applications, I want to get into the philosophy and the personal experience of this. I think this has been a really helpful discussion and I'm grateful to you both. Would you each be up for having further discussions about this, because it is really difficult to have discussions like this. Maybe we go somewhere and we talk to one or two other people who have views on this. But India would you be up for that?

IW: Yeah

ED: And Kathleen would you?

KS: Definitely.

ED: I'd like us to do that on PM over the next couple of months, I think we want to, I do want to shed light on this debate. We've made a very good start here and I'm grateful to both of you thank you.

Oh yes! Emma Barnett would be IDEAL

Pigeon that is very, what is the right word? Enlightening.

@PigeonLittle
Thank you for doing this big thing.

IW began by talking about gender as an identity, then swopped to speaking of lions and penguins’ gender roles as apparently SAHDs. It is very confused.

Firstly, no human has to stick to any gender role - a woman can go out hunting for banking loot, and a father can stay at home looking after children and cooking - both without feeling ‘unaligned’ or needing gender reassignment.

Secondly, lions never give up their male traits. Incoming lions want to kill the cubs of other males. Established males aggressively defend their pride against intruders. They mate as males. The lionesses give birth and look after cubs in a crèche within their pride.

I remember when IW said on BB "I am a real woman, let that penetrate".

I've just started a thread that demonstrate when this is allowed to penetrate politics at the highest level.

Belgium destroys women's only spaces www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4415855-belgium-destroys-women-s-only-spaces

Within, please note tbe occupation of the politician and the laws around gender parity in party elections (?) not clear on the precise area.

Come and see the amazing non-binary panda!

As if pandas didn’t have enough problems already

Just saw one of my fellow pandas being mentioned.