Is "gender identity" real?

[ByTheRiverside]

I'd like to hear your thoughts!

TRAs argue that being "transgender" is a real thing. They think there's some distinct quality to the way someone perceives themselves as a male or female, magically unobserved, that lives in the brain called "gender identity".

For my opinion - Sex Realists don't believe in this concept. We believe "transgender" is a lie, and that people are either male or female. That "gender identity" is a made-up idea that masks all of the obvious issues like autism, internalised homophobia, misogyny, sexism, sexual fetishes, etc.

What are your thoughts? Does "gender identity" exist in everyone, and are any "trans" people "valid" because of it?

And a follow-up question: As we know "gender identity" isn't real, is it possible to "prove a negative" here and come up with a hypothesis that may disprove it?

You might like to look at this piece, medium.com/arc-digital/what-is-gender-identity-10ce0da71999 by philosopher Alex Byrne (Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Byrne has written several papers on this topic, of which this is perhaps the most accessible.

One of Byrne's conclusions, carefully argued for: "If there is some kind of “gender identity” that is universal in humans, and which causes dysphoria when mismatched with sex, it remains elusive. No one has yet found a way of detecting its presence, and verifying that it is causally responsible for dysphoria."

Cautious, perhaps, as is academic philosophy's way. But, in plain terms, No, there is no such thing as gender identity.

I can't vote, because my answer is, "I don't know." I don't recognise my own feelings in what other people describe as "gender identity". But at the same time, I don't know what other people are feeling, so maybe they really feel that way? Who knows?

I don't think gender identity exists. I think it's an affinity for a set of sex-stereotypes coupled with some strong wishful thinking.
15 years ago all the disenfranchised kids thought they were otherkin and would go to great lengths to tell you they were really an angel or whatever. Can't prove or disprove that either, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same type of kids.
I think looking too hard for a gender identity and believing the lie that most people feel strongly aligned with maleness or femaleness (in its stereotyped form) is what causes some people to conclude that they don't "align" with their sex and then, if they're in a bad place, it's too easy for bad actors or useful idiots to tell them that means they "must" be transgender.
I think they then latch onto it and feel really strongly about it because it's their thing.

No I think it’s just a synonym for personality. Everyone is different and it enrages me that some people believe that if someone’s interests are dolls, make up, ballet etc then they must be a woman really, because they think that’s what defines a woman.
It’s all nonsense.

I think this tbh. I was talking to a (TW) friend recently. They said they've always felt "like a woman" but couldn't explain to me what that meant. They also couldn't understand that when I don't particularly "feel" like a woman, I just am one. They kept saying "yes but wouldn't it feel different if you were a man?"
I don't fucking know. I'm not a man, even when I'm using a drill!

But maybe they do feel some inner gender. In the same way I "know" God exists as I have an inner sense of him/her.

You're quite right that religion is a similar delusion.

And right there, you lose all sympathy. Announcing the beliefs of other people are delusions suggests you are uninterested in learning about how other people see the world. So why would anyone enter a discussion about it with you?

But what if it were a pink drill?

And at the same time, you gain sympathy from me. It’s the same willing suspension of disbelief isn’t it? I don’t believe there’s any such thing as gender identity: as previous post have said it’s just people identifying with a bunch of stereotypes and pretending it’s “science“.

How many threads are there discussing trans issues from a cis gendered point of view... What's the point? Ask a trans person if you want to know and likely their explanations would be contrasting because they are just people too having their own experience. I really don't get this endless chewing over of a subject that doesn't even effect the majority of people commenting. The worst part is, if a trans person were to tell you how it is for them, you'd likely deny their experience anyway or call them deluded or mentally ill because this isn't about asking a genuine question and seeking genuine answers, it's just another trans bashing thread dressed up and pretending to have curiosity about a subject you've no willingness to understand.

It seems to me that it’s ‘real’ in the same way that someone’s belief in a religion is. Very real to the believer, but not to atheists or adherents of other religions.

I think gender dysphoria and body dysmorphia are two sides of the same coin. Both also more common in kids with ASD.

The worst part is, if a trans person were to tell you how it is for them, you'd likely deny their experience anyway or call them deluded or mentally ill

Not true. They haven't treated me that way. Nor at least two polite transwomen who posted on this forum.

I think if you don’t have gender identity then it isn’t a deep part of identity. That’s why it had to be created to justify things. Without it, it’s just someone wishing to have a feminine appearance and do girly things or vice versa. Not profound at all.

Gender identity is real in the same sense that God is real: they are real if you believe in them.

That might make me gender fluid?

Gender criticism is real in the same sense that atheism is real: they are rejections of unreasonable demands based upon unproveable assumptions.

Fixed it for you.

Also same. I sort of think if some people ‘feel’ like a woman / man when that is not their body why does no one also ‘feel’ like a badger. Or a moth.

But also I’m open to the idea maybe there’s something somewhere in the brain which will explain it. I can’t deny (most) trans people believe what they say.

I just don’t understand it.

Gender identity is just a strong sense of preference for the stereotypical appearance and behaviour associated with one sex or the other.
A man who claims to have the gender identity of a woman is just a man who very much wishes he was a women, because he is more attracted to the stereotypes associated with it than those associated with being a man.
So do I believe its real? I think it a way of describing something that exists, yes, the strong preference. Do I believe its real in that it's any sort of measure of whether a person is a woman or a man? Absolutely not. Because that's based on sex.

That was an utterly unreasonable deletion. I think I know what part triggered the gag. Shame on the censors.

A sense of discomfort or ill-fit is absolutely natural during puberty. Calling it dysphoria pathologises a normal part of maturation.

(Sufficiently milquetoast?)