SparklingConsequences: Thank you for the reference. Not really helpful, however: it tells us ‘The term gender identity refers to a person’s innermost sense of their own gender …’, so – far from trying to give us any way of detecting the presence of gender identity – it leaves us pretty much in the dark as to what this latter is actually supposed to be.
(Byrne, I recall, dealt with this and related matters in the piece I referenced. I found his treatment convincing. You?)
The paper you reference explicitly deals, not at all with gender identity per se, but exclusively with the effects of hormone therapy on brain function, effects often inferred, given the paucity of (physical) neuroanatomical evidence. Interesting to some, perhaps, but nothing that might conceivably convince a sceptic of the existence of our elusive gender identity (in Byrne’s sense). How might we detect the presence of this latter? We are left in the dark in which we began.
There is more.
SparklingConsequences, you say you ‘just translate it [ sc the idea of gender identity] to refer to my own internal thoughts, opinions etc about my own sexed body.’
Hmm. If that is what gender identity is – one’s thoughts and opinions about one's body – then, yes indeed everyone has a gender identity in that that everyone thinks about her body sometimes. (Noting, perhaps, that all human bodies are sexed in some way, whilst leaving aside puzzles about what external thoughts might be.)
And, perhaps, we might allow that thoughts about one's body might in some way mis-match with sex and so could be the cause of gender dysphoria. But that cannot stand once we realise that (certain) thoughts about one’s body are what constitute gender dysphoria.
You say your dysphoria is anyway ‘mostly body dysphoria’. I wonder if this means you assimilate your condition to what the NHS calls ‘BDD’ ( ‘Body Dysmorphic Disorder’ see BDD)? – 'a … condition where a person spends a lot of time worrying about flaws in their appearance.'
If your dysphoria is not similar to BDD, I wonder if you might possibly explain the difference between the two? NHS explains gender dysphoria (see gender dysphoria) – as '… a sense of unease that a person may have because of a mismatch between their biological sex and their gender identity.'
Of course any such explanation might add to the ‘pain’ you have felt, so please refrain if that is the case. I wonder, though, how your ‘non-focus’ on the idea of gender identity sits with the (NHS) notion of gender dysphoria as caused in some way by this very thing.
Of course if Byrne is right and there really is no such thing as gender identity, what will be left of the distinction between BDD and gender dysphoria?
… In any case, the matter stands as before. You have given me no reason to believe there is any such thing as gender identity; neither has the paper you reference. We may have cleared up some of the undergrowth, as it were, but still Byrne’s No one has yet found a way of detecting its presence stands tall.
Given this, far from everyone having a gender identity, it seems rather that we have no reason to think there is any such thing as gender identity.
No?