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?

Humanity has put up with feeling like crap since the dawn of time. All that matters to me is that people do their best to overcome the challenges we all face.

I learned how important it was to always eat smart, do moderate exercise, sleep well, and manage stress. A lot of my ailments are much easier to manage because of those simple things.

lifestyle choices are not going to cure or circumvent the serious disabilitjes you list above - especially not the generic ones - because you can’t ‘improve’ your genetics with diet and exercise. If all tbe patient needs to do is lifestyle changes for the above conditions, then the diagnosis was probably wrong. But I’m sure you know that.

Better food and more exercise will make most people feel better, whatever their health is like.

Gender is real, gender identity is another elaboration on gender. Sex is your biology. Gender is the behaviour typically associated with your sex. Gender identity is an identity based upon your gender

Gender is the behaviour typically associated with your sex

So gender is based on how you conform with stereotypes?

Biology: male.
Gender: behaviour typically associated with the male sex.
Gender identity: identity based upon the behaviour associated with the male sex.

Looks like you agree that transwomen are men, then.

What 'behaviour typically associated with' women are men who say they are women 'associated with'?

that's the crucial question.

Gender identity isn't about behaviour - otherwise no one could self id as any identity. It would be up to the observer or society to determine someone's gender.

Gender identity is completely determined by the individual. Two people behaving in exactly the same way could consider themselves different genders.

"Could consider themselves ... " Maybe. But they wouldn't necessarily be different genders, would they?

What you consider yourself to be doesn't determine who or what you are, does it? Think, for instance, of that ex-friend of my daughter's, who I once heard say, "I'm cool, me." (He wasn't cool!)

Or think of that guy who works down the chip shop (swears he's Elvis). He's not really who (or what) he considers himself to be, is he?

Do you get the point?

Unless they shattered when somebody dropped them....

No. It’s not. Gender is a set of abstract ‘rules’ based on nothing. The only thing that’s real is your biological sex. Aside from that anyone can wear, like and do anything, your genitals don’t dictate what you think and feel.

An awful lot of men seem to think with their gonads.....

My biological sex is female, I don't particularly feel like a woman. We just got quite hung up in society that men can have feminine traits in the post war period but that's increasingly pointless as men share more child rearing. Gender seems to be constructed around dominant models of child rearing.

• can't have

And the behaviour and appearance that is considered to be desirable and useful for the sexes to display, to retain the male dominated status quo.

ADHD does seem to have an objective eye gaze test. Used when no history from childhood available. Can be done even using a webcam. Weirdly effective! But presumably on licence and costs too much for the NHS to use?

It’s still at the research stage. It’s a similar story for MRI scans. Researchers have found that there are detectable differences in the brains of people with ADHD but they are too subtle and variable to be used for diagnosis.

There is a similar story for ME/CFS too. Scientists have found that there are on average 8 genetic differences in people with ME/CFS but it is nothing specific enough so far that could be used as a diagnostic tool.

Gender is a collection of ideas accepted by a proportion of society, and vehemently rejected by another proportion of society.

In the same way, eating with your knife in your dominant hand and your fork in the other is a social construct, generally agreed on in this country but rejected by many Americans at one time (no idea whether this still obtains, don't care, this is making the point not having a go at Americans); they preferred to cut up their food with knife and fork, then put down the knife, and transfer the fork to their dominant hand to eat with it. That was not socially acceptable here and naice British folk looked at them sideways for it.

Neither way of eating is "real"; each is something accepted by a society.

In England men used not to wear skirts; in Scotland, Greece, and a lot of Asian countries they did. Social mores did not make the Scotsman in his kilt or the Greek policeman in his uniform into a woman.

David Bowie wore make-up. Was he a woman? No, he was a bisexual or gay man cocking a snook at societal norms. Was he trans? Only if you agree that anyone not straight vanilla comes under the trans umbrella. which many people who are not straight vanilla vehemently reject.

Thing is, you can reject an idea, but it is no use to reject a fact: you might as well wear a badge saying "Don't blame me for gravity. I voted for velcro." Gravity doesn't care; things go on falling down whether you believe in it or not.