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]

and coercion and control

I would push back against the idea that gender is based on 'norms' rather than culturally imposed - otherwise you could say that it is the norm in Afghanistan for women to wear Burqa and not speak in public - which infers that this is a choice that women have made, rather than that it is something that has been imposed through force (and violence).

Gender ideology's ideas and definitions are entirely different to the historical meaning of gender (and I would argue the common use).

They have created a mythical gender identity that must be taken on faith - as it is internal and cannot be measured or seen. This magical identity can change at any given moment, according to their will and enables them to make choices in that moment that is in direct opposition to rules of the country they are in (ie the use of single sex categories/facilities).

This gender identity superpower enables them to blast their enemies into silence and compliance with a wave of their hand and a call to HR/Police.

It's quite an impressive feat really, if it wasn't so toxic.

The historical meaning of gender was that it was an aspect of grammar.

Gender as a more polite way of saying sex was invented in the 1980s and taken up by sociologists keen to have something to write about in their endless log-rolling academic publications. A few journalists, wanting snappy headlines when writing about Boy George et al noticed that it rhymes with bender and a world of obfuscation and exploitation was born.

It's the sex of your body and I can't get my head around anything other. Maybe I'm wrong

Before all this gender bollocks, my understanding of gender was on a spectrum from masculine to feminine.
Everyone is on that spectrum somewhere, but, they are not necessarily stationery, one day they might feel more masculine than the day before.

@PriOn1

Great points about some behavioural differences being innate and sex-based. I think we have to accept this is true for practical purposes. The issues are, as with the physical/physiological sex-based differences, how great those differences are between the sexes and how much they matter, if at all. As an example, risk-taking and aggression are types of behaviour exhibited more in men than women. But that's as a class. History has many examples of bold or aggressive women (but none whatsoever of men who have given birth). The brain is plastic and anyone, male or female, can learn to be bolder or more aggressive. Also, as a society, we can decide to value traits exhibited more often in women. The reason we don't is because we don't value women.
Full agreement with your last paragraph about gender identity - in fact that is what the term originally meant. It was a stage in child development when they understood that they had the same kind of body as either Mummy or Daddy.

Moving on to pps' remarks, I reject the nationality/ethnicity analogy.
I would say that getting a GRC is not like moving to China, immersing yourself in Chinese culture, learning Mandarin, marrying a native Chinese person and then applying for and getting Chinese nationality.
It's more like

1. avidly watching some awful, racist, historically inaccurate drama serial set during the Opium Wars called Nympho Chinks - featuring nasty stereotypes of opium addicts, sexually compliant girls and lazy, obsequious orientals - with a cast of white actors in bad makeup, then
2. deciding that you love the drama serial so much that that you practically qualify as a Nympho Chink yourself and
3. on that basis, getting a Chinese passport but
4. keeping your British citizenship and continuing to enjoy the relative freedom of life in Britain.

And all the while you either don't know or you just ignore any actual Chinese people and you never go to China.

The analogy isn't perfect because in reality you could move to China etc, etc and China, though less free and prosperous than the UK, is more powerful. But it works because even if the drama serial was a well made historical drama with rounded characters, a deep appreciation of millennia of culture, presented the story from China's pov and adhered to the highest production values, it would still just be telly. No-one can have the experience of the opposite sex.

But anyway, like the OP and the rest of us, I await input from any passing genderist.

I recently re-listened to an older episode (pre-2015) of a popular science podcast. The invited expert was chatting about differences in behaviour between the two sexes (in those ancient days, this was not a cause of controversy or apparent confusion). He mentioned two countries, one of which had the highest violent crime rate in the world and the other had the lowest. He then noted that the ratio of male:female convicts was 90:10 or something similar. Thus, I felt, neatly demonstrating both the nature and nurture aspect of differences in sexed behaviour.

Just say it out loud. Job done.

On gender as an aspect of grammar, that's very interesting to me, and I'm going to think about that. I'm having some clashes to do with a trans relative, how I refer to them. I just can't seem to bring myself to use their preferred pronouns. Not to them, but when I'm talking about them. I want to get this right, it's just so difficult

Made up stereotype bollox

In my view, gender is the social signifier of your biological sex. Obviously it’s all balls and if a man wants to wear makeup or a woman wants to wear overalls and be a mechanic, great. But male homophobia is so strong that being seen as feminine is seen as “gay” for men and so we’ve ended up in this position where loads of men can’t accept their own feminine side.

This is a sensible definition

Also - excellent username. I ❤️ Colin 😁

I think the believers in gender identity have finally realised that it does sound a bit like a list of sexist stereotypes, so have now invented the concept of gender expression. So men dressing like they're going to a 90s party as Bet Lynch is just their gender expression. Their gender identity as women means they definitely are women though, and it's not sexist. Or something.

Testosterone means that certain behaviour will be more common in males and oestrogen means that other behaviour is more likely in females. This isn’t stereotypical bollocks, this is nature. And gender is the word to describe this general behaviour. For example men are more likely to be competitive and aggressive and women are more likely to be nurturing and seek group cohesion. This is gendered behaviour.

Men dressing like they're going to a 90s party as Bet Lynch

...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.

Yes the nature/nurture dichotomy is interesting.

I think feminists who believe all differences between men and women are mistaken, because surely human behaviour is a slight mix of both. (Mostly socialised on my opinion).

The propensity for violence and paraphilia certainly travels down the Y chromosome. That's pretty much why women-only public toilets were first built, campaigned for by feminists, nearly 150 years ago. (They were predictably burned down.... By men). They were campaigning on safety grounds, because of all the male aggression. I'm not sure anyone can say male aggression is purely socialised, it seems to be the testosterone. Men are "too hormonal" 😂

I mean, hormones do actually play a part in behaviour, but testosterone is a big one.

Sorry I just noticed
Frankensteinian · Today 09:47
Made a similar point.

Good point!

I agree. Extra testosterone makes anyone more aggressive - see rates and patterns of offending of women who have taken testosterone. Undeniable. But it's also important to stress that everyone remains responsible for their own actions. The hormone might give you a greater propensity for violence but it does not cause you to act violently.

Exactly otherwise all men would be raging maniacs.
My Nigel, he's lovely.

😀

I think the analogy is that some people are drawn to France or the US for example, in the same way that some people aspire (for want of a better word) to be the opposite sex. They may have no ancestry and never even have visited that country.

An American Anglophile might choose very early in their life to learn, to move to the UK, to immerse themselves in English culture, to speak with an English accent and to stop saying sidewalk.

Personally even if I knew all this I would accept them as English. And most people they met, even if they were a bit more nationalist and gatekeepy about it, probably would not know their history and would take them as English.

I would accept them, certainly. Not least because everyone is capable of experiencing the culture of another country and gaining an understanding of it. Not to mention that natives do not all experience the culture and history of their country in the same way as each other.

However, men cannot experience being women. So however sympathetic and well-intentioned, they cannot share our specifically female experiences, social or biological. That's the fundamental flaw of that analogy.
They can't become women by virtue of a legal instrument. Being granted a passport is all that is required to make a person a citizen of a country. If the law/government says you are British, you are. Nationality is a legal construct. Sex is material, biological reality. A GRC cannot perform magic.

That was just an example, there is increasing evidence that prenatal androgens impact on aspects of gender development. They suggest that "prenatal androgens have facilitative effects on male-typed activity interests and engagement (including child toy preferences and adult careers), and spatial abilities, but relatively minimal effects on gender identity."

You might find the idea uncomfortable, I do too, but there really is a body of work that suggests there is a biological basis for gendered behaviour. How much is socialisation & how much is biological is hard to tease out. But it makes sense that different biochemistry is likely to impact behaviour.

We know testosterone does, for example, at key stages & throughout life. But we also know that certain activities and environments impact the level of it.

I remain open to the idea, your unsupported claims which are entirely without any evidence, methodology or argument aren't going to chance that.

Absolutely spot on 👍