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 gender identity did not exist then we would be unable to complain about shoe shops with sections marked "girls shoes" and "boys shoes".

I think you have difficulty pinning down the definition in your head but it's clear in modern life that gender identity exists.

If gender identity did not exist then we would be unable to complain about shoe shops with sections marked "girls shoes" and "boys shoes".

Those are gender, not gender identity.

That's not "gender identity", that's gender stereotypes. The exact thing most feminists have been arguing against for the last couple of generations.

I do not have a gender identity but I can complain about girls shoes and boys shoes.

What I'd complain about though is more the design than the sizing. and the lack of robust shoes in girls sizes.

I think the religion analogy is useful.

I personally do not believe that people have a 'gender identity', and certainly don't have one myself. Scientifically I am female, and that makes me a woman. I also do not believe in God (or any other form of deity).

However, I have good friends with a very strong sense of faith and belief in God. This is a very important part of their life and how they act. They acknowledge that there is no way to scientifically prove that there is a God, or that religious teachings are objectively correct- this is what faith is all about. I think it is important that they are free to openly hold and speak about these beliefs and to practise their religion. But that freedom cannot over-ride the freedoms or rights of other people. So my religious friend should be able to worship etc but not to insist that I follow the same religion or face punishment (eg. loss of employment) and should not be able to use her religion to avoid complying with laws that protect other people (eg. equality legislation). In the context of religion I don't think this is a contentious view- I know religious leaders and atheists that share this approach. I think the same should apply to the belief in gender identity.

"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"

It is a real thought that some people have. A potentially harmful one where it is urging people to harm their own healthy bodies or transgress other people's boundaries. It can be a thought that becomes deeply lodged and very hard for a person to move on from, like OCD or eating disorders or depression. Like those, one could research whether there's any genetic or chemical influence on who is likely to get stuck in this thought pattern, or whether it's purely environmentally influenced. One could research whether there are therapies that can help the person move on from that thought pattern or whether in some cases the person will never be able to move on, and in that case what the best way is to help them live a successful life as far as possible.

But it's also only a thought and doesn't affect reality from the perspective of other people. Having gender-identity-thoughts doesn't change your sex.

That's my best rationalisation at the moment. Critique welcome.

one could research whether there's any genetic or chemical influence on who is likely to get stuck in this thought pattern, or whether it's purely environmentally influenced. One could research whether there are therapies that can help the person move on from that thought pattern or whether in some cases the person will never be able to move on, and in that case what the best way is to help them live a successful life as far as possible.

Yes, please! It seems to me such an obvious thing to do before encouraging children to undergo unproven chemical and surgical treatments.

"cis" is insulting nonsense

I think we're arguing over semantics here.

That's pretty much my view, though you've expressed it better than I could.

Gender identity is a personal, subjective, unverifiable belief that one is a man/woman/other, based on what one believes to be a man/woman/other in the first place, and unrelated to one's sex.

Gender stereotypes are material, objective behaviours and attributes that a society associates with a sex.

Could hardly be any more different.

Alternatively Google AI tells me that

"Gender identity refers to a person's deeply felt, internal sense of being male, female, a blend of both, or neither. It is one's personal, innate concept of self, which may or may not align with the sex they were assigned at birth."

In which case we all have one, though not everyone will even think about it. I'd estimated mine is about 75% female 25% male or maybe a little more skewed towards the male.

This sums it up perfectly.

In which case we all have one,

Huge assumption you're making here. Loads of people on this very forum have testified that no, they don't feel this sensation at all.

Gender identity is an idea, not a reality.

It's the idea that your thoughts are more important than the reality of your sexed body.

Unfortunately thoughts are really quite easy to manipulate, to influence, usually for profit (as in this case)

Gender stereotypes are bad enough - rigid ideas that each society forms that limit men and women in their choices, behaviours and presentation.

But to say that thinking that you like pink shoes means that you are thinking 'like a woman' is to say that women are nothing more than gender stereotypes.

If you fail at your gender stereotyping (which I do proudly) then according to gender ideology you must subject yourself to pharmaceutical and surgical 'correction', at vast physical and pyschological cost to yourself and everyone around you.

So gender identity is as real as tinkerbell - it's a created fantasy that some people find very attractive, but wearing a tink costume doesn't mean you can fly.

I disagree. As PP said, the shoe shops thing is gender stereotypes, not gender identity.

No. No such thing. There is biological sex and then an infinite number of personalities.

Define "feel". I feel female because I am female.

Let's be honest this is a made up quarrel. Nobody would bat an eyelid at women saying they have a gender identity of female or a man saying they have a gender identity of male if the trans lobby had never existed.

We probably wouldn't worry overmuch about a man who said he was male but had a gender identity of female.

The quarrel is with men who insist that their gender identity changes their sex.

And I would prefer to focus on the genuine issue that gender identity cannot alter your sex than have arguments about semantics.

Of course not, because sex is based on the physical and gender is based on sex. Separating the two has meant that people conflate gender with personality traits or character, but even if there's a clear correlation between sex and personality in the population, it's irrelevant because sex is biological.

And I would prefer to focus on the genuine issue that gender identity cannot alter your sex than have arguments about semantics.

If there's no such thing as gender identity, then obviously it can't alter one's sex. So it seems like a rather big question to me to ask in the first place if gender identity even exists. If it doesn't, problem solved.

I've never understood this link. I'm autistic and have a very strong need for truth and logic, which is typical of autists, so I could never go along with someone pretending to be the opposite sex, let alone do it myself.

The need for truth and logic may be behind it if you end up not fitting strongly gendered societal stereotypes

so for me - girls don’t do maths - I love maths and I’m great at maths - I can’t be a girl

simple logic from me as a child

Males and females have different feet. Different size, shapes, widths, and so need different shoes. So shoe shops might have some 'gender' impact - colour of the shoes, say. But some aspects of classifying shoes and clothes by sex are necessary.

Some people really want to be the opposite sex, even though that's impossible, and they are willing to go to considerable trouble to that end.

Sometimes there are reasons, even logical reasons, but some reasons – such as AGP – can't be broken down to first principles: they just exist.

On those impossible wishes we built a social and legal edifice which has been reverse-engineered to create concepts like gender identity.

There are people who legitimately can be said to have a gender identity, and that's the very rare people with a DSD which means they must choose. Feminising or virilising treatment, or no treatment? Leave birth registration as is, or apply for its retroactive correction? Their choice is their identity. But there's no overlap at all between their situation and that of a 'transgender' person who has developed normally as, and been raised as, one sex or the other.

If you start to spell out what those "gendered behaviours" are it's a mixture of crass stereotyping and fashion.

So by lumping men who identify with a cluster of feminine stereotypes and fashions in with women who strongly don't want to be defined by how they relate to stereotypes and fashions - you are creating a category which tries to contain people who are diametrically opposite on both possible metrics of sex and gender.

Such a category is completely incoherent and of no practical use. You may as well just talk about the category of "people".