Do you feel that gender identity exists and is innate?

[FairHippopotama]

In progressive circles, there's the concept of 'gender identity' where everyone has a gender (not necessarily corresponding to their sex) that is unchangeable and inherent to them as a person. Do you agree with this? Why or why not?

'Female' and 'woman' are sex and gender respectively, right? A gender describes the traditional roles, expectations, and norms surrounding a sex. A sex describes one of two states of the body that are primarily distinguished by primary sexual characteristics and chromosomes. Do you agree with this?

Trans-identifying men, as you refer to them, wish to associate themselves with the female sex. In doing so, they recognise this means associating themselves with the roles etc. of females. Assuming we take it for granted that society does then proceed to associate them with those roles, expectations, and norms (most likely because they 'pass' as being female, or because they wear feminine clothing - women's clothing), they are by definition a woman.

That being the case, the remaining fundamental difference is sex. Recognising this, the term 'trans women' is most logical to describe what you term 'trans-identifying men'. It shows their sex does not correspond to the female sex, the roles etc. of which form the definition of woman.

Given that we have trans women now, it makes sense to distinguish trans women from non-trans women, i.e. females who associate themselves with the roles etc. of the female sex. 'Cisgender', where cis- means 'on this side of', was coined to mean 'not trans'.

I don't understand, given all of the above, how such a term can be seen as offensive. I am consigning you to a subset of your gender rather than your sex. Your model is the one that consigns people to a subset of their sex specifically trans people.

I don't think of myself as anyone important or even somewhat slightly self-righteous. I only came here to discover the views of Mumsnet users, who are generally known to be overwhemingly female and gender-critical. I wanted to compare them to the views of trans people (in general and transmedicalists or 'truscum', if you've heard of them) - simply out of personal interest. I cannot prove it to you but I genuinely did not know how hated and offensive 'cisgender' was seen.

This was always a benign thread. I'm not some secret trans activist trying to infiltrate your movement; I'm just someone who disagrees with you. Also note that I haven't even started university yet (I'm on my gap year at the moment); 'language we threw back at you years ago' makes no sense given my age.

I am not setting out to offend; I am simply not censoring myself despite knowing I might cause offence. You are being hypocritical: the standard you are trying to impose would also restrict you and others who are gender-critical from saying certain things because they are offensive. I assume you would not do that. I can't think of a single forum platform that would ban me for using it--not Reddit, not Twitter, not 4chan; not even Mumsnet (hopefully).

I don't see it as implying or connoting any of those things. Gender-affirming people and those in the middle like me don't use it like that; we don't expect every non-trans person to accept and enjoy gender roles, norms, and expectations. In fact, I expect the vast majority of people who aren't trans, both men and women, dislike one part or another of societal conceptions around their gender. We don't make the jump from 'you freely associate yourself with these stereotypes' to 'you like these stereotypes'.

Womanhood by definition can't be attached to sex. It's the state and experience of being a woman, of having the expectations etc. of the female sex placed upon you. As I explained to a different user, in my opinion, this is hypothetically possible for males too, albeit very rare.

Maybe I'm the one who's confused. Does the gender-critical movement conceive of sex and gender as the same? The other replies on this post, the ones invoking Judith Butler et al., don't suggest that to me, but I could definitely be wrong.

'Female' and 'woman' are sex and gender respectively, right?

Wrong.
Female = sex
Woman = an adult human female. Not a man with lady feels.

They both relate to sex.

So what is gender then? Does this mean 'woman' is not a gender?

No, woman is not a gender as i just said. It's an adult human female.

As for "what is gender?" Who knows. There's no consensus on what it means. It could be stereotypes based on sex, such as women like pink and have long hair. But of course that's not true for many many women.
Maybe its a feeling inside your head. But lots of us don't have that feeling. We just are women on account of our biology.

You’ve really not come across this phrase before, @FairHippopotama?

A woman is any adult human female, regardless of presentation or personality, & the same for men being adult human males. They’re sex-related terms just like sows / boars, cows / bulls etc.

Gender is the sex-role stereotypes imposed by society.

When people claim that they must actually really be a woman or man because of how they feel or present, even though they’re the opposite sex, they’re reinforcing gender stereotypes, not fighting them.

Yes, despite the fact they often claim otherwise.

I can sort of wrap my head around this. But reinforcement requires feedback. Who is providing the feedback here?

"Woman" is a sex.
"Feminine" might conceivably be a gender.
A man/male could be feminine (i.e. resemble social ideas about women) in his own or other people's estimation, but he can't actually be a woman.

She may not ultimately be male, but that doesn't mean I have to cause offence and use feminine pronouns and her deadname in front of her. Maintaining a level of respect for others' feelings sometimes comes above the truth.

So you don't want to offend your sister by using terms she would find upsetting. Fair enough, she's your sister and you don't want to upset her.

But in later posts you say this regarding offence:

I actually had no idea that the gender-critical movement was this opposed to the term 'cisgender', to the extent that some of you seem to think you are agender. Although I now recognise the offence some people take, I will continue to use it because (a) I am simply using it to mean someone who isn't trans, someone who doesn't consider themselves to have transitioned, (b) it's widely seen as a neutral term, and (c) I don't think your offence is reasonable. I am sorry for our disagreement.

And this:

I am not setting out to offend; I am simply not censoring myself despite knowing I might cause offence. You are being hypocritical: the standard you are trying to impose would also restrict you and others who are gender-critical from saying certain things because they are offensive. I assume you would not do that. I can't think of a single forum platform that would ban me for using it--not Reddit, not Twitter, not 4chan; not even Mumsnet (hopefully).

Apparently it's OK to cause offence to loads of women you don't know by insisting on using terms that you know they find offensive.

You're not setting out to offend, but when you've been told that you're being offensive you say you don't think our reaction is reasonable and you're going to carry on doing it anyway.

Perhaps you should have a little think about who's really being hypocritical here.

I'll see if I can find a link to the special rules on language which were imposed on us here about 10 years ago regarding terms which both sides find offensive, since you so obviously have no knowledge of the background of this debate.

I haven't even started university yet (I'm on my gap year at the moment); 'language we threw back at you years ago' makes no sense given my age.

As for this... If you're going to jump into a discussion that some of us have been involved in since you were in primary school, it might be worth looking at the history of this discussion rather than mansplaining your half-baked ideas to us.

A common definition of "Woman" is "The female gender."

Female denotes body characteristics, chromosomes and reproductive sex, whereas woman is an adult social noun.

Trans women cannot be female, but they may become women, feminine or not.

Links for you @FairHippopotama .

This is the archive link to the special rules for sex and gender discussions from 2016. It specifically mentions 'cis' as a banned term.

https://archive.ph/XbZ8U

The current version of the rules is more relaxed and doesn't ban specific terms, but as I said, you should be aware of the background to this discussion, including its history from when you were too young to take part yourself.

For general background on the discussion, this is a good place to start.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me

No male person can become a woman. Women are female. People can't change sex.

Many people, myself included would agree that people cannot change sex. Males can not become female, females cannot become male.

I disagree that man and woman are absolute synonyms for male and female.

Woman = adult female human.
Man = adult male human

Similar to:
Cow = adult female bovine
Bull = adult male bovine.

Try milking a bull and let me know how you get on.

I'd be interested in reading that bovine sociology paper on gender you are referencing :)

I'm just a 5'4" size 6 adult without a gender identity who developed breasts, wide pelvis and gynomorphic fat distribution rather than height, muscles, extreme body hair and a deep voice as a teen many decades ago. Discounting my hair, and voice, I'm not especially feminine.

They are not synonyms in my experience.

My hair ranged between a grade 1 & a grade 4 buzz cut for years until I got bored & grew it, I haven’t owned any make up or heels since I was a student 30ish years ago, I mainly live in trousers, I have a techy job, I lift weights & I do my own DIY.

None of this makes any difference to me being a woman. Are you saying that we’re the only species on the planet that doesn’t have terms for adults of each sex?

You don't really understand the issue do you?

Your mumbo jumbo was designed by paedophiles. Try following that thinking through.

So you know something is offensive but you’ll do it anyway? Wow! It’s not the best word. If you can’t think of another one that’s your problem.

So what is the word for an adult human female if it’s not woman? I mean you can’t use woman because according to you that could include males. So what is the word we can now use?

No

Your age probably explains your perspective.

We are almost certainly all older than you, by a decade or three. In those decades, we (most of us) have raised families and forged careers. We will have taken on the vast majority of childcare and sacrificed (part of) our careers to do this. We didn’t do this because we identify as women (we don’t), we did this because we ARE women: we have breasts to feed with, we gestate and give birth. We see the oppression and the inequality we are subject to, and we are angry that ‘being a woman’ (as described above) can be reduced to a feeling.

When I was 18, I’d probably have agreed with you, because I didn’t know what it felt like to be 45, perimenopausal, have birth injuries, do all the night feeds because breastfeeding, carry the life admin, be the breadwinner, navigate SEND issues, do an MSc while holding down a job, et cetera.

We use woman because it includes women. If you need something more specific to you, then there are innumerable adjectives that may be selected to isolate uniqueness or community.