Definitions of 'gender identity'

[ThatDogIsACat]

The most common definitions of 'gender identity' all refer to inner feelings and perceptions that seemingly have no origin and no reason. For example something like this:

One's innermost concept of self as male, female, a blend of both or neither – how individuals perceive themselves and what they call themselves. One's gender identity can be the same or different from their sex assigned at birth.

Or like this:

Gender identity is defined as a personal and internal sense of oneself as male, female, or other.

I think this is underdefined and that 'gender identity' is perhaps better understood as a conflation of desire and knowledge. Those who desire to be the opposite sex in some regard, or at least desire not to be the sex they are, may use 'gender identity' to rationalise that desire into an identity belief. Conversely, those who don't have any such desire, which is most people, will rely on knowledge of their own sex if asked 'what is your gender identity?'. Particularly if it's some sort of questionnaire and the available answers include 'female' / 'male' or 'woman' / 'man'.

Looking at the forums where the trans-identified go to discuss transition, it's quite revealing to see how many of them change their self-description over time, and how this, for example, will often segue from 'I want to be a woman' (desire) to 'I am a woman' (identity).

I believe it helps to view 'gender identity' in this way because it brings more clarity to the underlying process of how such identities are developed, recognised and declared.

Interested to hear your thoughts on this. Please tell me if I'm dead wrong or missed something fundamental.

I think @Peasandsweetcorns has a point. I am British but I've lived in the US since I was 52 and I now have American citizenship so I'm technically American. But my habits are British, my attitudes are British and I sound British. Any time I speak people immediately identify that I wasn't born and brought up here. Even if I wanted to I wouldn't "pass" as a natal American.

Given that we see nationality as a combination of things, not least language, accent, attitudes, habits etc, one might make the argument that even if you are "legally american" the reality is that you will never be 100% accepted as one because you're not - you're British! Obviously day to day you don't have people rubbing your noses in the fact you're not a true american, but if you wanted to run for president your true nationality would be the relevant thing... likewise I can imagine that a group of your friends having a deep chat about american attitudes and culture and what the true essence of the USA is might find it a little offensive if you thought your insight was as relevant as theirs.

I literally don't care about (or for) all the word salad explanations. Gender Identity is based on outdated stereotypes of which sex does what/wears what/are legally allowed to do something.

Gender is hokey.

It's not possible to understand the concept of Gender Identity if you believe that all the observable differences between the sexes are the result of socialisation and conforming to sexist stereotypes.

Instead you need to believe, as I do, that there are some innate behavioural differences between the human sexes, just like there are for every other animal.

@AnonnyMouseDave - “Obviously day to day you don't have people rubbing your noses in the fact you're not a true american, but if you wanted to run for president your true nationality would be the relevant thing... likewise I can imagine that a group of your friends having a deep chat about american attitudes and culture and what the true essence of the USA is might find it a little offensive if you thought your insight was as relevant as theirs.”

Exactly.

This is a bit random, but won't have a better chance to bring it up. Came across a Swedish film about a man who had dreamed of childhood about being Swedish and got a chance to try to pass as a Swede.

Trailer here, but no English subtitles. Had a go at transcripting, but my Finnish listening comprehension is rusty. You can try to read along.

> [SV] Anne-Louise!
> [FI] My name is Tiina. Helsinki. We are in Helsinki. Your name is Mikko, and I am Tiina. It stops now.
> [SV] The first time I was in Sweden, I knew I belonged here.
> [FI] Come on! Finland! Finland! Finland!
> [SV] Don't be so Swedish.
> [SV] No, no.
> [FI] [something], Mikko.
> [FI] Mikko, you are Finnish!
> [FI] Swede-homo.
> [SV] Mikko Virtanen. Involuntary Finn.
> [SV] Mikael Andersson, psychologist.
> [SV] I would give anything for your life.
> [SV] Take my life. I don't need it any more. You're welcome.
> [SV] Mikael!
> [SV] My name is Mikael Andersson! I am now Swedish.
> [SV] Who are you, Mikael?
> [SV] You can check my passport if you want.
> [SV] Who are you?
> [SV] Do I have a sister?
> [SV] Am I a believable Swedish man?
> [SV] A nationality transvestite.
> [SV] I'm not precisely that either.
> [FI] [something] Moomins in the valley
> [SV] What? I don't understand Finnish.
> [FI] Is that you, Mikko?
> [SV] Pardon?
> [FI] Dammit.
> [SV] Swedish intercourse is the finest that there is.
> [SV] Ooh! Feels really good!
> [SV] Two perfect people...
> [FI] How the hell did you imagine this would go?
> [FI] Idiot Swede.
> [FI] Thank you.

So yes, an hour and a half of nationality stereotypes (and trans) jokes.

Well yes, in that the idea of gender identity is simply morally wrong to me as a feminist who does not believe in these innate differences (other than evidenced sex differences) and who believes it's imperative that we dismantle these stereotypes.

But...there are women on these threads who do believe in innate differences other than reproductive differences, yet do not believe in gender identities. So I don't think what you say is entirely the case.

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I used to watch Louder with Crowder all the time. Haven't for a couple of years, but twitter led me to this ... It's a year old.

a Swedish film about a man who had dreamed of childhood about being Swedish and got a chance to try to pass as a Swede.

Oops. A Finnish film about a Finn who had dreamed, etc. Managed to confuse myself into mangling the description.

But the point is that it's all just silly stereotypes.

Whatever you imagine Swedes to be, and you imagine Finns can't be, you can be that, without having to actually claim to be a Swede.

Some of this reminds me of a phase in my life when I (politely) debated women's rights with two extremely conservative, extremely religious people online (one Christian right-winger, the other a Muslim, both believing that their holy book was the literal and unchanging truth about everything, even in translations).

The debate was impossible.

They didn't understand my reality at all and I didn't understand their reality which was based on one single book (and some extra hadits etc. in one case).

If you begin with one immovable starting point, i.e., that a (male) god has created everything for humans, has allowed one book (two) to be written about the rules of the game, and does not allow anything to be changed from this, then the only way to debate anything would be within what those books allow, in the most literal and narrow interpretation.

Those who believe in the gender identity concept (as the abstract, innermost feeling) are similar to these two religious people in that they will not debate anything that falls outside their doctrines, but will view those things as heresy, blasphemy etc.

And because in both cases there is no external evidence possible, the debates become rather similar non-debates, and at least in the gender identity case, name-calling as the replacement of debate.

I don't possess an innermost deep feeling about being feminine or masculine or neither or both, so I can't discuss the issues with a true believer, because a true believer tells me that I DO possess one, only I don't see it because I'm so content with the way women are treated and that exactly matches this hidden innermost feeling. I am so cis, in short.

Which pulls me into their framework again, just as the Abrahamic religions, in their most regressive forms, do.

@Peasandsweetcorns I would genuinely be interested in your answer to this which I posted late last night - I know it sounds silly but I felt like I was getting somewhere in trying to make sense of what you were saying!

So, I’m using male in an abstract sense, just as an idea about yourself, and you didn’t know where it came from.

What does 'male' mean in this sense though? Someone who prefers marmalade to jam? Someone who is risk-averse? Someone with traits considered masculine in a particular time and place?

Why would you use a word that describes a specific type of bodies to describe an abstract sense? The only explanation is that you have also attached another meaning to it. But what?

Like I said, it's like saying you felt you were a person with a mole on their right hand.

I don’t think any of the young teen girls I know actually identify as male. They identify as trans, or possibly as anime characters.

If you think about it, when you think about yourself, there are two directions you can take: starting with details and then progressing upwards to an encompassing concept. So, like, I have this body part, and that body part, that equals I’m female. Or you can start from an encompassing concept and then progress to details. So, because female is a concept you have already associated with yourself, you can go directly when you are thinking, to I’m female, and then progress to detail of what that means for you, and what you associate with that concept and/or yourself, if you want to, or you might just stop at the thought I’m female. You don’t have to inspect your body each time you think about yourself and conclude you’re female afresh every time, in order to think you’re female, and you don’t need to think about what female means.

So, I think someone identifying as male, can be starting with I’m male as a pre-stored idea about themselves (i.e. developed in the past with no conscious recollection of the process, like how most people probably can’t remember the actual process of learning what sex they were), and where their idea of what ‘male’ means in association to themselves is not necessarily defined.

Then they think about what having the thought they’re male means, to varying degrees depending on the person. They might think it means they’re trans, they might think it means they’re in the wrong body, they might think it means they’re nonbinary, if they recognise also thinking they are female, etc. Maybe they might dismiss it. They might have a variety of beliefs about the origin of the thought (it’s a mistake to think they will necessarily believe the thought originates from a gender essence in my view). They might also associate different ideas to themselves via the concept of male, like toast topping preferences, risk aversion and so on like you say, lol.

So, I don’t think ‘male’ has a defined meaning in this sense. It could be more or less defined, and have different meanings for different people, and someone might not have done much of any real thinking about what it means to them.

Some people seem to have greater capacity for introspection than others, and I have noticed that some people do more introspection over time, and it can be thinking about what it really means for them over time that leads people to ‘detransition’ sometimes.

With some people I think you would be able to have a conversation with them about what they think, but how possible that would be and how much sense it would make would vary a lot depending on the person, how much thinking they’d done, and how open and articulate they were. Also, starting from stereotypes about what they might believe (wrong body, gender essences, gendered souls, pink and blue personalities etc) might well close down conversation before it started.

That’s my theory of what happens with some people. I don’t suppose it would cover everyone.

Hopefully that answers your question.

So, I think someone identifying as male, can be starting with I’m male as a pre-stored idea about themselves (i.e. developed in the past with no conscious recollection of the process, like how most people probably can’t remember the actual process of learning what sex they were), and where their idea of what ‘male’ means in association to themselves is not necessarily defined.

But male has a definition. It's absurd to start using the word 'male' to mean whatever you want it to mean. If you do that with all words, then language becomes meaningless.

Male means of the sex which produces sperm. Starting from that point, what would make a female person think she was male?

A lot of people, though, despite the lack of scientific evidence for this — and despite all the decades of evidence in psychological and social research showing clearly how we're affected by cultural expectations from birth onwards — retain the reactionary and regressive belief that males and females have different ways of thinking, abilities, emotions, minds and even spirits or souls. Someone who feels they're actually, literally, the opposite sex holds this (patently false) belief that non-physical attributes (such as feeling sensitive to others' emotions, or being very analytically-minded, or not liking competitive sports) are based in biological differences. They then deduce from this false premise that there must be differences e.g. in brain structure (which haven't yet been found despite the extraordinary lengths scientists have gone to over the centuries to try to produce evidence to give moral backup to societal discrimination and oppression based on these alleged differences).

So they're not saying they "want" to be a different sex or looking at their body and seeing a different body there: they just been brought up to believe that gender constructs are biological reality and are taking those beliefs to their logical conclusion when they know their own personalities don't match those typically ascribed to their sex.

The majority of the UK population, trans or not, sees things this way: hence the support for trans beliefs over gender critical feminist beliefs.

Have you any evidence that the majority of the UK population thinks that? It seems weird that they should.

No evidence to hand, but it's why feminists have been having to work so hard to counter gender stereotypes. There have been big advances such as how now that girls do better at school there's no longer the idea that females can't do as well academically, but still it's often taken as fact, for example, that females aren't as good at maths, or that men are less emotionally attuned due to biological reasons (rather than cultural).

So, I think someone identifying as male, can be starting with I’m male as a pre-stored idea about themselves (i.e. developed in the past with no conscious recollection of the process, like how most people probably can’t remember the actual process of learning what sex they were), and where their idea of what ‘male’ means in association to themselves is not necessarily defined.

Ok, I think I'm getting there. So they've heard a word, not understood what it meant but decided that it probably means one of their own characteristics... like if lots of people called me "shy", and I thought, oh I'm a Saggitarius, and I've noticed other Saggitarius people being called "shy", so shy must be something to do with the month you were born in. A misattribution of the word.

But at some point I'm going to realise what shy means and that I've been using it wrongly. Except, I suppose, if it had been decreed that asking what shy was was a social faux-pas, marked you out as a bigot and that actually being shy meant 'anyone who felt they were shy' - you're never going to clock that everyone is in fact using the word "shy" to mean utterly different things.

I still think that the most likely explanation is that people conflate "male" and "masculine" - I have seen this happen nearly on a daily basis - and therefore that being male-bodied means you have a certain grouping of psychological characteristics (broadly described as "masculine" although clearly this changes over time and geography).

I think that when people are using the word "male" to refer to anything except male bodies (or cables) they usually mean sex stereotypes.

Yet you would disagree here?

Do you think that "male" means to people (people who use it to mean things other than actually "male"!) an utterly random collection of things, varying from person to person? Do they get confused about other meanings of words too, is it a lexical thing? (I'm thinking of the person on another thread who thought "sea defences" were "seedy fences"!)

I had to fill something in the other day that asked for my gender identity and gave a list of man (including transmen), woman (including transwomen), other, prefer not to say. It then went on to ask if my gender identity matched my sex assigned at birth.

I had to put prefer not to say for both as I don't have a gender identity and I don't believe that gender identities 'match' sexes.

It would be interesting to compare the number of 'prefer not to say' responses before and after changing sex to gender identity. Are they really getting the information they want with these questions? It was for equality monitoring I believe.

Sorry, wrong thread!

Nationality kind of works as an analogy.

You've changed your legal nationality, just as a trans person can change their legal sex. But that doesn’t change the fact of your place of birth, just as it doesn't change the fact of their sex.

And it doesn't alter your formative experiences. You can learn the supeeficialities, like driving on the other side of the road and using your cutlery the American way. But there will always be some cultural references and nuances that you miss, or that baffle your US friends, because you grew up with Muffin the Mule and the 11+ instead of letterman jackets and prom. You can learn about the meanjng and cultural significance of those things, but they will never be part of your emotional hinterland in the way they are for someone born and raised in the US.

And putting that comparison into Peasandsweetcorn's theory, you would not have moved to the US, adapted to the way of life, and then started to think of yourself as partly American. You would have begun with the thought 'I'm an American' (not 'I like the Ameican lifestyle', or 'I want to become an American', but 'I am one') and may or may not have then emigrated to make your passport align with your thought.

But that inital thought is plainly wrong.

Yet you would disagree here?

I had to think about this, and I think I don’t disagree, but I think there’s more to it and that we are thinking slightly differently about some things. I’m going to start near the end and work backwards:

Do you think that "male" means to people (people who use it to mean things other than actually "male"!) an utterly random collection of things, varying from person to person? Do they get confused about other meanings of words too, is it a lexical thing?

Your understanding of the concept ‘masculine’ is I think the same as mine; it’s something which changes over time and geography and means different things to different people; a nominalistic view. I think all concepts / words are like this. It’s not utterly random, but they mean different things to different people and vary across time and geography. Sometimes people aren’t even aware they think differently to each other.

When it comes to the word ‘male’, and forgetting about trans men for the moment, you can have two people who both think male refers to people with certain body characteristics, and who both agree on who they think is male, but whose understanding of ‘male’ is different to each other. Day to day it’s not something which needs thinking about, and a lot of people won’t have given it any thought.

Someone who essentializes male is likely to think there is an essential something (essence) which links all male people (they may not be sure what that something is, but they’ll believe there is something essential); that people are male or they aren’t based on whether they have the essence, and that there is a hard boundary, as someone either has the essence or not; that the body characteristics they observe are signs of the essence; it’s black and white and immutable.

Someone with a nominalistic view of male would not believe in an essence linking all male people. They may still categorise people as male based on the body characteristics they observe, but they wouldn’t believe those body characteristics are signs of a male essence, shared by all male people. They would consider that they are simply labelling people male (assigning people to a male category) based on observations. There would be a gray / fuzzy boundary to the category, and it would vary across people, geography and time. On the face of it it would seem like the nominalist and essentialist were thinking the same way, as most of the time they might categorise people the same, but their understanding of male, and beliefs about reality are actually quite different, even though at a simple dictionary level they might have the same definition of male.

Many people think they are male or female, based on their body, but haven’t thought about what they think that means to them in the above level of detail. It’s not that they’ve misattributed / misunderstood the word, just that there are degrees of thinking that aren’t necessary for day to day life. They may be influenced by people around them with an essentialist understanding, and repeat that interpretation of male without really thinking about it (like trans people sometimes repeat things they hear without really thinking about it)

I have a nominalistic view, because I believe there is continuous evolution, where there are differences between individuals categorised as male. The essentialist understanding of male isn’t compatible with evolution, because male needs to be different across individual people for evolution to be possible.

The point is that even people who aren’t transgender often have the thought they are male / female without having thought what they think it means in detail, and without misunderstanding the words.

I think that when people are using the word "male" to refer to anything except male bodies (or cables) they usually mean sex stereotypes.

I think that’s probably right, at least when they are describing doing things in a ‘male’ way, etc.

I still think that the most likely explanation is that people conflate "male" and "masculine" - I have seen this happen nearly on a daily basis - and therefore that being male-bodied means you have a certain grouping of psychological characteristics (broadly described as "masculine" although clearly this changes over time and geography).

I don’t know how people form ideas about themselves exactly (I’m not sure anyone knows). My thinking is there must be common mechanisms for everyone.

I’ve noticed as well that some people conflate masculine and male, and it does seem to be a factor for some people. I think though that it’s not specific to trans people; it seems more a reflection of essentialist thinking about ‘male’.

I think another factor is that people are inspired by the people around them, whether they are male or female, and nothing to do with stereotypes or masculinity or femininity, but people aspire to be like the people who inspire them. I have no idea how it would work, but my sense is that somehow, probably subconsciously, that could lead to incorporating a sense / thought of being male / female, not just a desire to be.

My view is that the body and mind are one thing. So, your thoughts and sense of consciousness aren’t separate from your body and are themselves biological. It seems likely that there would be biological aspects about sense of identity / self / consciousness that aren’t yet understood, and that vary between people (not in an essentialised male / female way in my view though) and which play a factor as well.

Ok, I think I'm getting there. So they've heard a word, not understood what it meant but decided that it probably means one of their own characteristics... like if lots of people called me "shy", and I thought, oh I'm a Saggitarius, and I've noticed other Saggitarius people being called "shy", so shy must be something to do with the month you were born in. A misattribution of the word.
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But at some point I'm going to realise what shy means and that I've been using it wrongly. Except, I suppose, if it had been decreed that asking what shy was was a social faux-pas, marked you out as a bigot and that actually being shy meant 'anyone who felt they were shy' - you're never going to clock that everyone is in fact using the word "shy" to mean utterly different things.

Getting back to the beginning. So, I think it’s a bit like this sometimes yes, but I wouldn’t say they misunderstood a word. Rather, they heard a word, and they heard what someone else thinks it means, but they haven’t always thought for themselves what they think it means; whether they agree, or whether the meaning they heard is compatible with other beliefs they may have. That takes time; people need to hear different ways in which people think, and do their own thinking. Like you say that’s not easy when they are worried about social faux pas, and offending people with strong views.

I think it’s the same with anything, any concept really; you can see the same processes happening with lots of things. There isn’t enough education in my view, and education is difficult and opposed by some people due to strong views. There is extra risk for people struggling with sex / gender, due to medicalisation and inadequate education. They may make medical choices based on their understanding at one time, and then later come to view those choices as incorrect as their understanding changes. That said, you could say the same about any medical choices really. Space for people to be open and full participants in society, without being pressured, by society, into medicalisation is important I think.

@Peasandsweetcorns
I have a nominalistic view, because I believe there is continuous evolution, where there are differences between individuals categorised as male. The essentialist understanding of male isn’t compatible with evolution, because male needs to be different across individual people for evolution to be possible.

In your nominalist view, how are babies made?

It’s no different to an essentialist one. The difference is that an essentialist would have a belief in some form of male essence which links all male people, whereas I don’t believe in male (or female) essences, because they aren’t compatible with evolution.

So an essentialist is a believer in genderism?

You imply that you understand that male is a sex and is linked to the reproductive role. It has no other meaning yet you also imply that to you it does. What is this other meaning of male?