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?

If a man is "some people with a male body and some people with a female body", and a woman is "some people with a male body and some people with a female body" and non-binary is "some people with a male body and some people with a female body", then what exactly is everybody identifying as?

Since identity is a personal self representation it doesn’t have to be consistent with anyone else’s idea so the contradictions don’t matter ?

You do realise you don't have a public to play to here, right? Watching you perform your little act all on your own is truly embarrassing.

Damn. What happened in here?

I think some people believe in their gender identity. I am tired of them insisting that everyone has a gender identity. If you say you don't have one, you might be labelled "agender" as I have been on many an occasion.

Of course you're a gender. You're a woman.

I think it’s helpful to separate the concept of sex - being a woman

from
gender which means different things to people to simply the conversation. It’s important to some people and therefore disrespectful to remove the language they need to talk about it. Gender isn’t you sex

A woman is an adult human female. You only get to be one by being born female and not dying in childhood. You cannot identify into it, or out of it.

Gender is the collection of stereotypes (different in different cultures, just to underline the lack of real-world substance) inflicted on children via societal expectation. I reject gender completely because all it has ever done is seek to limit me.

I think what they mean by ‘feeling like a woman’ is an abstract idea of what they think that might be like. They can’t possibly ever know.

There are other forms of body dysphoria - people who don’t think their limbs are their own for example. It’s all in their head. It’s not real.

So yeah… I’m in the ‘it’s all bollocks’ camp.

Unnecessary!
(and wrong)

Dammit @MNHQ, stop being so heavy-handed with the deletions! What was wrong with NattySnake's response to me at 1853? They're entitled to their opinion, and nothing in that post was offensive or in any way against Talk Guidelines.

But it is a belief.

You don’t know. You believe in God. You have faith in the absence of evidence.

I think the point being made was entirely valid.

There are comparisons to be made with gender identity and religious belief. Including with the reaction to questioning the beliefs.

Woman is not a gender. Woman is the the word for 'adult human female'.
Girl is not a gender. Girl is the the word for 'juvenile human female'.

Woman and girl refer to sex, specifically to the female sex.

'Gender' is a collection of stereotypes associated with being female or imposed upon women and girls. 'Feminine' is a gender.

"Agender" not "a gender". It means "identifying as not having a gender" or genderless. It irritates me because it's like using cis - still buying into gender ideology.

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?
I'm going to invoke Russel's Teapot: the burden of proof lies on the person making the claim, as opposed to shifting the burden of disproof to others.

Why do I have to waste energy trying to disprove something that nobody has yet got round to defining?

I definitely don't have a gender Identity. I am female but haven't a clue if I FEEL female in the sense of feeling the same way other females do. I doubt it as I expect we are all very different.

One of the most upsetting things I have ever read about trans is that there are people who have dementia and don't remember transitioning, who become seriously distressed at their bodies and people using wrong sex language for them, which seems unbearably cruel. And sadly it also seems to indicate that they didn't feel they identified as the opposite sex for their whole lives. I fear this could happen more and more as the numbers grow (although thankfully a lot of those who claim a trans identity don't always go down a medical route).

Reminds me of the deletions a few years ago, when we were forbidden from stating certain facts. Facts which are now openly acknowledged.

It is indeed a belief. That doesn’t mean it’s a delusion.
I think you’d lose interest in talking to someone who called you delusional.

It isn’t a good way to progress a conversation, or to find shared ground or compromise.

Contradicting someone is fine. Calling them delusional is not.

Oh for heaven's sake. I'm making a joke.

"Agender? Yes, you have a gender. Female!"

That's it. I didn't just become a transgender ideologist in the space of hours.

You people bang on non-stop about how we all have a gender identity. Therefore, I get an opinion on it. I'm a "cisgender" woman, and therefore, I get an opinion on my "cisgender" gender identity.

I think it's complete shit and doesn't exist. I reject that it's a thing for me. Therefore, I reject that it's real for you, too.

Some transgender people
believe all people have a gender identity but not all

try to avoid generalising

What do the rest of them believe?

Some will believe that only some people have a gender identity of course

Some "cis" people really do seem to care a lot about performing their gender, avoiding certain things associated with the other gender, and even putting pressure on gender nonconforming people to stop being gender nonconforming. So I would think, perhaps, that these people really do have a "gender identity".

It's irritatingly incomprehensible to those of us who have found this sort of thing deeply irritating since at least the age of six, but it does seem to be real.