So what exactly is gender?

[XChrome]

I'm still waiting for [redacted], to explain in depth what gender is. According to many people, it's a feeling, a self-perception, which they are labelling as gender. My question would be; how do the people who are using this label for a feeling know that the label they are giving it is accurate? How do they know it's not just the result of being socialized into believing certain feelings or interests signify that one is the gender that society has deemed corresponds to those feelings and interests?
I genuinely want to know, because I have never had this feeling in my life. I can perceive only my biological sex. I have always regarded my self-perception as the result of my individual personality and experiences, not about either gender or biological sex. However, many of those experiences are sex specific, so biological sex does play into it in that sense.

Can anybody answer this question about what gender is? Can you describe the feeling and explain how you know what it signifies? Please note that this is not a goading post. I'm not looking for an argument, just an explanation.
Thanks.

[Post edited by MNHQ to remove tag]

That was my point. MW is woke and spouting the woke line.

Haven't you ever come across feminist who claim all behavioral differences between the sexes are socially constructed? And therefore illegitimate? There are definitely people who think that way.

Feminists think that women shouldn't be oppressed by patriarchy or reproductive roles at all, surely. Not that men and women are exactly the same. Why would feminists have created women-only spaces if all our so called socially constructed differences were illegitimate?

I think that you're making the same point as me.

If we accept that someone can be legally American but ethnically Ghanaian because of something nebulous and subjective, why not accept that someone can be biologically male but genderologically a woman?

Yes, but based on what? That's my question. What is the feeling behind gender identity?

While I agree, mostly, there is mounting evidence that some aspects of what we consider socially/environmentally constructed gendered behaviour/traits are influenced by biology.

"However, it is well established that biology plays a major role. In fact, in the last few years research has focused mainly on neuroanatomy and sexual dimorphism of the brain, exploring the influence and shaping role of several genes and sex hormones [4]. In particular, the sexual dimorphic brain is considered the anatomical substrate of psychosexual development, on which genes and gonadal hormones may have a shaping effect [11]. Growing evidence shows that prenatal and pubertal sex hormones permanently affect human behaviour and heritability studies have demonstrated a role of genetic components."

"...cismen and ciswomen present anatomical differences in the total brain volume, as well as in several sex-dimorphic structures. In particular, the total brain volume is bigger in cismen, and in transgender men similar volumes to the assigned gender at birth were found [12,13,14,15]. However, the total intracranial volume in transwomen resulted to be in between male and female controls [12]. Furthermore, sex differences have been observed in cortical thickness that is higher in ciswomen compared to cismen in several regions [16,17]. Studies conducted on transgender individuals reported signs of feminisation in cortical thickness of transwomen, while no sign of masculinisation was found in transmen [18,19]."

But they don't get to self ID into Irish citizenship. There's a whole load of gatekeeping when it comes to nationality (basically because taxes).

And if our putative Canadian's case for Irish citizenhood was that due to some wash of cultural influence in the womb they actually are an Irishman who happened to develop a Canadian body instead of the usual Irish one, they'd certainly not get the result "oh you poor thing, of course you are Irish, here is your Irish passport". They would be laughed out of there and/or sectioned.

MonkeyToHeaven · 23:53

Laydee brains! 😂

But they don't get to self ID into Irish citizenship. There's a whole load of gatekeeping when it comes to nationality (basically because taxes).
And if our putative Canadian's case for Irish citizenhood was that due to some wash of cultural influence in the womb they actually are an Irishman who happened to develop a Canadian body instead of the usual Irish one, they'd certainly not get the result "oh you poor thing, of course you are Irish, here is your Irish passport". They would be laughed out of there and/or sectioned.

I think we might be at cross purposes. In my attempt at drawing an analogy

biological sex = legal nationality (let's imagine for now both immutable)

gender = perceived nationality (perhaps ethnicity)

The point being not to do with legal gatekeeping, but with the fact that someone can think of themselves and be accepted as (and importantly in a sense other than the legal one, be) American (or Irish or Scottish) because they speak in a certain way and live in a certain way (and place), not because they have been through a legal process.

Excellent summary. Thank you.

Yes, and wearing shamrock tee shirts, drinking Guiness and trying to imitate an Irish brogue wouldn't be taken as evidence I was Irish.

Because it's extremely unhelpful to try to make the same word mean two different things when one of those things is nebulous, self defined and (IMO) has very little material impact on how one is treated by others in the grand scale of things, and the other is concrete, objective, fixed, and has a very signifiant impact on one's life outcomes, and therefore has specifical legal and social rights and supports.

Taking the example of the legally American but ethnically Ghanaian person, would you expect their Ghanaian ethnicity to actually give them the rights of a Ghanaian citizen if they are not legally Ghanaian? No. That is the difference.

A male's "genderologicness" as a woman in terms of his social personality and taste being more aligned to society's expectations for women rather than men is a very superficial and small subset of the full way womanhood is experienced by an embodied female.The two states are in no way the same, equivalent or interchangeable.

The issue with gender identity is not the identity, it's the use of appropriated language to claim access to sex based resources under the justification of gender.

I am sorry to say that I absolutely disagree with what @MonkeyToHeaven wrote, above: "While I agree, mostly, there is mounting evidence that some aspects of what we consider socially/environmentally constructed gendered behaviour/traits are influenced by biology."

There followed some extracts, examples and references from a research paper whose scientific methodology and conclusions are entirely without any shred of evidence of any kind. The pseudoscientific arguments contained in the paper are not even worth bothering to read. The paper is baseless, witless and pointless from beginning to end.

It's too late to dig into the details, but if it's the study I think it is, what it proved was that people with bigger bodies - and therefore bigger heads - have a larger brain volume. When you control for body size the differences vanish.

And that taking cross sex hormones may cause a certain amount of brain shrinkage in men - which is a bad thing, it doesn’t make them.women but is a sign of brain damage; but doesn't cause brain growth in women - which a good thing, because it doesn't cause skull growth.

Of course. People find meaning through metaphors and stereotypes that resonate with how they see themselves all the time.

Other people who actually are the things they are identifying as may find this more or less offsensive on a personal level, most likely in proportion to the degree that actually being that thing has a material impact on their life.

The issue with genderists is that they are taking these personal metaphors and subjective identities and trying to elevate them into universally accepted truths about a person, and into legal rights.

FWIW I think we should understand "gender" like a spirit animal or a band T shirt - a way of labelling how you see yourself and maybe signalling who (and is not) "your tribe". And I think that's a valid and potentially social useful concept in which the much-maligned 127 or whatever genders even starts to make sense.

The only thing I don't accept about "gender" is the current incarnation that is appropriating the language, and in the case of women, the legal and social resources, of sex, based on what I consider to be a persoanlity metaphor, because sex is something different that exists in a material and fixed way and it is not interchangeable with identity.

'Sex' is biological - born of the body. 'Gender' is a concept born of the mind alone, entirely separate, a sum-total of all the messages, metaphors and stereotypes received since birth.

Yes. And the real answer is, because they are not the same kind of thing.

In the case of being English and Ghanaian, it is possible to be both, in several ways. Ethnicity and nationality are different, a person can be French by nationality but not have a single ancestor from Europe and not be French at all ethnically. They are totally different things.

It's also very possible for cultures to mix, and for a person to have more than one cultural background. An Italian in the US will have both Italian cultural roots, and American ones, and in fact there is a distinct Italian-American culture.

Sex isn't like that. There is not a sense in which you can be both male and female.

Gender could be, I suppose, but only if completely separated from sex, which is not actually what people do. But even then, it's hard to know what it means. As much as some might like to talk about sex stereotypes, the fact is people are largely allowed to go against the grain on these things if they want to as individuals. People really don't mind women who like to fix cars, or men who like to do makeup, and they are still men and women. Men dressing as women might be the exception but even there, it tends to be because they (often rightly) suspect them of cross dressing which is a different thing altogether

Worse, they say it's soooo much more important than sex, and that it should override everything else - particularly the opposite sex's rights to privacy, dignity and freedom of association, particularly when it comes to women saying NO to men in dresses.

The point being not to do with legal gatekeeping, but with the fact that someone can think of themselves and be accepted as (and importantly in a sense other than the legal one, be) American (or Irish or Scottish) because they speak in a certain way and live in a certain way (and place), not because they have been through a legal process.

Picking up on this one...

It's not just "speak in a certain way" though is it? If I, who has no Scottish ancestry for at least 100 years, has never lived in Scotland and has a Welsh accent were to adopt a Scottish accent I might genuinely think of myself as Scottish, might even persuade some people I am Scottish, but I don't think anyone who knew my background would agree with my claim to a non-legal Scottish identity.

Unlike the genderological womanhood of biological men, the cultural/ethnic nationalities you are thinking of are all born out of some emperical connection to the culture or geography beyond a personal preference or resonance. And the more tenuous that connection gets, the less the identity will be accepted by others.

So how does one identify as a man or woman?

@FlirtsWithRhinossaid;

Unlike the genderological womanhood of biological men, the cultural/ethnic nationalities you are thinking of are all born out of some emperical connection to the culture or geography beyond a personal preference or resonance.

Right. What is the connection to being a woman that a biological man can claim? It's based on a feeling, not anything material. Putting a dress and makeup on a male body doesn't create that connection, it just reinforces this feeling, a feeling such a person should be able to at least describe. I do wonder if having the surgery creates somewhat of a connection for them, because at least their bits appear to be female.

Exactly. Why should it be considered more meaningful and important than biological sex, so much so that the rules need to change to force other people to accept it as such?
The only answer I ever got to that question was about facilitating trans rights and creating safeguards for alleged transwomen so that other biological males have less opportunity to prey on them. Tellingly, the safety of alleged transmen is never discussed. If gender trumps biological sex and they are men in female bodies, they therefore have to use male single sex spaces, surely. What are the safeguards for them? None, apparently. They simply don't count.

The problem with any assessment of behaviour is that it’s impossible to say whether differences are innate or a result of socialisation. There are certainly feminists who have stated, here and on Twitter, that all behavioral differences between men and women are caused by the latter.

The reality is that we don’t know, as socialisation begins the moment we are born, so there is never a “blank state” situation and there is no ethically appropriate way to check. If however, we extrapolate from other mammalian species, it’s apparent that there can be quite significant behavioral differences between males and females, which are probably largely down to hormonal differences and which become more obvious after puberty.

The most obvious behavioural difference in humans, mainly because it’s the only one we tend to measure, which as far as I know has some consistency in various cultures around the world, is in violence and criminal offending. Some of that will be cultural, of course, but I doubt you will find anywhere in the world, where the women are more violent and commit more criminal offences than men, which suggests to me there is some innate difference, even if that is caused or related to physical differences in size and strength.

Regarding the nationality analogy, it works up to a point. I’ve often thought getting a GRA was a bit like me moving to a different country and working through the process to obtain a passport and citizenship. I’m then technically that nationality, but as I wasn’t born and raised there, I’m not really of that country in the same way those born there were. So legally I would be Spanish, for example, and the government would treat me as if I was Spanish. I might even pass as being Spanish, but I would know I wasn’t really, if I was any kind of rational person.

However, the analogy only works up to a point. Unlike sex, there are no consistent physical markers that would mark me out as British rather than Spanish. You might be able to instigate some kind of DNA testing, but even if you found I was ethnically Spanish, descended from families that had lived in Spain for millennia, that wouldn’t make me Spanish necessarily because nationality is effectively only a legal label, defined by where you were born or have lived or where your ancestors were born or lived. Being male or female is physically dictated by genetics and generally very easy to identify. It’s not simply a matter of legal labelling, although that is what gender ideologists are trying to turn it into.

As to what gender or gender identity is, gender ideologists seem to be pushing for some definition of it being “an innate understanding of what sex you are”, but I would argue that “having an innate understanding of what sex you are” ought to be closely linked to your actual sex. If you believe yourself to be the opposite sex to reality, then you probably need psychiatric help because something has gone wrong. Which is why the concept of “gender identity” needs an entire new, invented language to back it up. Without that language and the faith to believe something unproven and unprovable, the entire concept falls apart.

Gender is signalling an acceptance of sex role stereotypes and an insistence on imposing them on everyone whether they want them or not.

It's a useful marketing tool - you can sell much more stuff, particularly for the young, if you convince buyers that conforming to the stereotypes is obligatory.

And note well, it is about conforming to stereotypes. A person with XY chromosomes who wears a pink dress and a person with XX chromosomes who takes hormones to make their face whiskery are both conforming to constructed artificial stereotypes.

Gender is conformity and consumerism.