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[–]SnowAssMan 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (38 children)

How does any of that erase culture? Gender identity is like cultural identity, except it isn't as multi-dimensional, because there are only two options with varying degrees of emphasis on conformity to them. Why is it that girls do better on maths exams if, shortly before it starts, they are introduced to a female mathematician? How can she act as a better role model for girls, than a male one could?

It's called implicit bias for a reason. We're all sexist, only different in degrees of sexism. We don't notice our sexist tendencies. That's why a lot of studies on sexist implicit bias have to be double-blind studies in order to actually record the bias accurately, because the examiners share the implicit biases with the participants!

If I said you have a cultural identity, I doubt you'd vigorously dispute it. What's the difference between cultural identity & gender identity that makes gender identity so implausible to you? Actually, ... thinking about it, you probably would argue that you don't have a cultural identity.

If you're a young, budding director in the US, people tell you that you'll be the next Spielberg (the hack lol), while in France the same talent in a young person would be likened to Goddard (someone who pushed the boundaries). French directors end up being more creative than directors from other cultures, because they had a superior role model.

[–]BiologyIsReal 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (31 children)

Honestly, the more I read you, the more I think you're mixing up or maybe combining the TRA's concept of "gender identity" with the feminist's concept of gender.

[–]SnowAssMan 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (30 children)

Gender is masculinity & femininity. Gender identity is what Simone de Beauvoir was talking about when she said "one is not born but becomes a woman":

"That formula [one is not born but made a woman] is the basis of all my theories & it’s meaning is very simple: that being a woman is not a natural fact. It’s a result of a certain history. There is no biological or psychological destiny that defines a woman as such. She is the product of a history, of civilisation, first of all, which has resulted in her current status. And secondary for each individual woman of her personal history in particular, that of her childhood. This determines her as a woman, creates in her something which is not at all innate, or an essence, something which has been called the “eternal feminine”, or femininity. The more we study the psychology of children the deeper we delve, the more evident it becomes that baby girls are manufactured to become women […] Long before a child is conscious, the way it is breastfed, or held, or rocked etc. inscribes in its body what might later appear a destiny”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3u1A0Mrjjw

[–]MarkTwainiac 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Gender is masculinity & femininity. Gender identity is what Simone de Beauvoir was talking about when she said "one is not born but becomes a woman":

There's the sleight of hand. You start off speaking of gender in your first sentence. And in that sentence you describe it accurately. But in the next breath you suddenly leap to gender identity.

What I & others are trying to tell you is that not everyone raised according to norms & codes of masculinity & femininity - gender - has a gender identity the way you keep insisting everyone does.

[–]SnowAssMan 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The reply you're replying to was to BiologyIsReal who said:

Honestly, the more I read you, the more I think you're mixing up or maybe combining the TRA's concept of "gender identity" with the feminist's concept of gender.

So, I was explaining what I understood as the difference between gender & gender identity to be, in order to prove that I understand the difference. No sleight of hand. Gender is masculinity & femininity. Gender identity is determined by gendered socialisation. I don't believe that gendered behavioural trends are biologically determined. Do you?

[–]Juniperius 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (26 children)

This quote means that femininity - womanhood, in the terminology she uses - is a trauma, a stunting, not an identity. Making a girl into a woman is like making a tree into a bonsai. Does a bonsai tree have an identity as a bonsai? No, it has just been tortured all its life to shape it into what somebody with power over it thinks is beautiful.

[–]SnowAssMan 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (25 children)

Even when she said "Long before a child is conscious, the way it is breastfed, or held, or rocked etc. inscribes in its body what might later appear a destiny" – because it sound awfully like she is talking about gendered socialisation here.

Gender identity is only an identity insofar as ethnic or national identities are identities. It's not something that can be consented to. It's also not something you can change.

We shouldn't allow the trans cult to hijack it's meaning so that they have a valid-sounding term for their feminine essence theory.

[–]BiologyIsReal 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (24 children)

It seems like you're using "gender identity" as a shorthand for gendered socialization, but I've not seen anyone else calling such socialization as "gender identity". And it certainly this is not how TRA defines the term. They can keep the term for what I care. Honestly, I don't even like the word gender because it has only made things more confusing as everyone mean something different by it.

[–]SnowAssMan 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (23 children)

It seems like you're using "gender identity" as a shorthand for gendered socialization

What else determines a social identity other than socialisation? What are you using it as a shorthand for?

but I've not seen anyone else calling such socialization as "gender identity".

Yes, you have. Check the top comment again, or do a Google Scholar search for gender identity, you probably have to exclude 'trans' & 'dysphoria' from the search to reduce the amount of trans spam in your results. You'll get hundreds of thousands of results.

And it certainly this is not how TRA defines the term.

They use all terms incorrectly. Every term they use is in reference to & reverence of their feminine essence theory.

They can keep the term for what I care.

Then they should keep woman too. They can also keep Beauvoir's quote that Jenner appropriated & the feminist movement as a whole, as well. Who cares what they erase in order to define their gender spirits into existence.

Honestly, I don't even like the word gender because it has only made things more confusing as everyone mean something different by it.

Really? Is "unisex" also "confusing" to you, since "everyone means something different by it"? Unisex toilets means toilets for both sexes, while unisex clothing means clothing that is neither masculine nor feminine. So confusing & deserving of being disliked as a result. What about the word feminine? You can have feminine features, or a feminine figure – but those things aren't construct! That's biology! How cOnFuSiNg. If only exceptions never existed! If only context never mattered!

[–]BiologyIsReal 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (22 children)

You can quit your condescending tone, dude. I insist, they can keep the term "gender identity", which was associated with transsexualism from the beginning. Why would I want to reclaim a term made up by sexist men like Robert Stoller and/or John Money?

This wikipedia article you linked talks about gendered socialization and it says that this socialization creates the "gender identity" of an individual. "Gender identity" is defined as this:

By the time children reach the age of three, many will have acquired a firm sense of themselves as male or female, a gender identity that remains throughout life. In addition, many pre-schoolers develop a firm awareness of gender stereotypes, insisting that certain activities or items of clothing are not for girls and others not for boys. Yet gender identity does not automatically follow from biological sex.

This sounds a lot like what TRAs say to me... The only difference being that these scholars don't think "gender identity" is innate.

As for my dislike of the word gender, it's not that I personally find the term confusing, but TRA are taking full advantage of the confusion caused by people meaning different things by it. For feminists gender is about the societal expectations of each sex, for TRA is "gender identity", for linguists and speakers of gendered languages is a grammar category, and for many other people is the biological category of sex. Moreover, I think talking about gender helps to hide the fact that sexism and misogyny are sex based. For that reaon, I prefer talking about sex roles or sex stereotypes. Also, I really don't understand English speakers's aversion to the word sex. In Spanish, sexo (sex) means both the biological category and the sexual act too and nobody have a problem with it.

By the way, are you going to say anything about the fact you lied about the paper about 5α-reductase-2 deficiency and 17β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase-3 deficiency that I posted yesterday? Or are you going to pretend these guys don't exist because they challenge your theory?

[–]SnowAssMan 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (21 children)

Wait, you found something on Wikipedia that sounds like TRA ideology? Shocking! Anyway, what you found doesn't even affirm trans ideology, you're just reading something into it that isn't there. Obviously, if someone is socialised as a girl, but is a boy, then yes, their gender identity would in that case not match their sex.

Where do you get the idea from that gender identity was "associated with transsexualism from the beginning"? You could just as easily say it was associated with homosexuals, or intersex people from the beginning, since that's just as true (within psychoanalysis). Actually, it's far closer associated with intersexuality than transsexualism. From the very start gender identity is understood as originating from socialisation. I know you'd rather believe MarkTwainiac over me (bc I'm supposedly the only one who says this), but in Stoller's own words:

"By the time of the phallic stage, an unalterable sense of gender identity – the core gender identity (“I am male”) – has already been established in the normal person. While later, as a result of conflict, the boy may have doubts about his maleness, or may even say, “I wish I were female,” this still implies that he knows he is male but would rather it were otherwise. Thus we can say that the core gender identity remains unchanged throughout life; this is not to say that gender identity is not constantly developing and being modified, but only that at the core the awareness of being either a male or female remains constant. It has already been noted that this core gender identity is produced, starting at birth, by three components. The first of these is the contribution made by the anatomy of the external genitalia. By their “natural” appearance, the external genitalia serve as a sign to parents that the ascription of one sex rather than the other at birth was correct. Then too, by the production of sensation, the genitalia, primarily from external structures but in females additionally and dimly from the vagina, contribute to a part of the primitive body ego, the sense of self, and the awareness of gender. The second component, the infant-parent relationships, is made up of the parents’ expectations of the child’s gender identity”

In his first book he even demonstrates that he understand the difference between sex & gender: "sexes, male and female, with two resultant genders, masculine and feminine”.

Don’t just believe TRAs when they say something or someone affirms their ideology, likewise don’t believe gender critical feminists who are so convinced of the threat posed by the trans movement that they endow it with more power than it actually has, creating a Frankenstein boogeyman half-real half-imagined. Your jumping-off point should always be that nothing of merit affirms trans cult ideology, because that appears to be the case 99% of the time. Remember that brainsex thing that totally backfired? All their “evidence” is like that – evidence to the contrary. They just say things with conviction repeatedly & people believe them, inexplicably.

The one thing QT & GC have in common is they are allergic to reading. But they won’t let that stop them from bestowing their ignorance onto others, unprompted.

In English all the laws & academic writing says gender e.g. gender inequality, gender ratios, gendered slurs. You can't change all your terms every time someone appropriates them. Feminism has been taken over by a bunch of patriarchists. Why not abandon it as well? It'd never end, that's why.

I didn't lie, I just mistook your link for mine. It's not my theory, it's sociology, it's the only theory, since even the big bads: Stoller & Money confirm it.

[–]BiologyIsReal 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (20 children)

I DIDN’T find an article on Wikipedia. YOU WAS who linked that article in your first comment who you told me to check in another comment, you big liar.

Yes, I’ll believe u/MarkTwainiac any day over you. She is not one who keeps lying about what I said or did in order to look good in the forum. Anyway, I already knew about Stoller and Money’s involvement in the making of transsexualism before this discussion. So, it’s not like I’m blindly trusting her.

So, you’re saying you’re not GC or TRA and think both are ignorant. Then why are you in this forum in the first place? To impress all the silly women with your “superior” male intellect and call them names?

So, all the laws in English say gender rather than sex? Then how is the Democratic Party in the US want to expand the definition of sex to include sexual orientation and “gender identity” in law? And how do you explain that sex (not gender) is one of the protected characteristics by British law? Yes, I know this because I’ve following closely the development of the transgender movement in the UK and US the past months, you know, by READING.

And did all the academics writings in English talk about gender, not sex? Really? Even the ones in the biological sciences?

I didn't lie, I just mistook your link for mine. It's not my theory, it's sociology, it's the only theory, since even the big bads: Stoller & Money confirm it.

Yeah, and I’m Santa Claus. The only way that you could have mistook it if not only you didn’t bother to open the link to read the abstract, but also didn’t even read the title that I’ve copied & pasted in the link. Seriously, the papers where about very different conditions. How could you have mistook it?

Anyway, are you ever going to address how these guys fit in the blank slate theory? By the way, there is a big problem with all the cruel experiments with the penis-less boys like Reimer that you are not considering. You think the fact that many penis-less boys raised as girls keep identifying that way is the result of their socialization. But these boys were not merely socialized as girls. No, they were also subjected to unnecessary medical procedures in order to keep the lie. Don’t you think that may influence how they see themselves? This is not unlike transactivists claiming GnRH agonists are a neutral option that gives the children time to think about their “gender identity”. Another thing about the paper you linked, I don’t think it’s possible to make any conclusion because the numbers are small (and the number of older patients even smaller), but I find interesting the number of males who re-adopt a male identity increase with age. The authors even mention a case of a patient who re-adopt a male identity at age 52 after his parents’ death. Here’s the relevant part:

Perhaps some children already harbor an internal gender identity different from the assigned gender, but because of parental pressure or incompliance with parental expectations, they do not let the interviewers in on it. This rationale may apply to Reiner and Gearhart’s two patients with cloacal exstrophy whose declaration of male gender was not accepted by their parents, and to the one patient each in Reiner and Gearhart (2004) and Reiner and Kropp (2004) who refused to discuss her (?) gender identity with the interviewer. It may also have applied to the patient with classical exstrophy who was raised female but underwent a gender change to male at age 52 years after both his parents had died (Feitz, van Grunsven, Froeling, & de Vries, 1994).

Edit: fixed some typos

[–]BiologyIsReal 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Did Simone de Beauvoir ever used the term "gender identity"? I'll confess I'm not well-read in feminist theory or philosophy, which is why I usually stick to biology. However, to me in this paragraph she is talking about gender roles, not "gender identity". It's late here, so I'll watch the video later.

[–]MarkTwainiac 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

You don't address any of the issues I have raised. You just keep moving the goal posts and introducing new topics.

I've never suggested humans don't have a culture or that we aren't products of culture! I have objected to your simplistic portrayals of all cultures as equally, uniformly sexist monocultures with no nuance, gradations or contradictions. I have questioned your insistence on the much-debunked idea that all human beings are "blank slates." And I have objected to your portrayal of all people as nothing but passive absorbers of the culture they were raised with & live in, and your view that all parents are equally sexist authoritarians whose main goal is raising their own kids according to sex stereotypes & inculcating them with sexist beliefs.

What's the difference between cultural identity & gender identity that makes gender identity so implausible to you? Actually, ... thinking about it, you probably would argue that you don't have a cultural identity.

Please don't put words in my mouth. You are coming off as incredibly arrogant. You can't read my mind. I am perfectly willing to discuss such topics as cultural identity, ethnic identity, national identity, religious identity, regional identity, class identity and so on. But those are very different topics to gender identity. And gender identity is the topic here.

[–]SnowAssMan 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

You keep reinterpreting what I'm saying, by removing any nuance to make me sound ridiculous. I specifically said:

We're all sexist, only different in degrees of sexism

& this:

Gender identity is like cultural identity, except it isn't as multi-dimensional, because there are only two options with varying degrees of emphasis on conformity to them.

Your response:

I have objected to your simplistic portrayals of all cultures as equally, uniformly sexist monocultures with no nuance, gradations or contradictions.

Do you honestly think that yours is a fair representation of what I've been saying? "Degrees" is a synonym of "gradations".

I am perfectly willing to discuss such topics as cultural identity, ethnic identity, national identity, religious identity, regional identity, class identity and so on. But those are very different topics to gender identity.

I can only repeat myself. Gender identity is just like cultural identity, except there's only two of them. How can class identify be a thing, but somehow gender identity isn't? That seems totally inconsistent. What is stopping gender identity from being like class, nationality, ethnicity identities?

[–]MarkTwainiac 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

What is stopping gender identity from being like class, nationality, ethnicity identities?

Everyone has a socioeconomic status based on their own or their family or household income, level of wealth & accumulated assets, or lack thereof. Everyone was born in a place on earth that can be found on a map and is legally defined as a nation or territory. Some people end up stateless, but even they were born in a land/on land that exists in material fact and the precise spot can be located by longitude & latitude. Everyone has parents and a family lineage and ancestors who started out in one part of the world or another & whose genes & customs have been passed on, and therefore an ethnicity.

But not everyone has a gender identity!

Gender identity is like religion. Just because many people believe in religion & have a religious identity doesn't mean everyone does.

Last year or so, Ray Blanchard - or maybe it was Ken Zucker - pointed out on Twitter that most "normal" people do not have a gender identity. We have an awareness that we are male or female, but this is just one of the many facts & beliefs about ourselves that is incorporated into our overall concept of self. It's not the linchpin of our entire sense of self. The only people who've traditionally had a gender identity are those who have an issue with their sex and wish they were the opposite sex, or of no sex.

But nowadays, a psychological phenomenon once seen in a teensy-tiny proportion of the population is being assumed to be universal amongst all humans. I have no problem with you & others saying you/they have a gender identity. My issue is with you & others insisting that everyone has one. And with you telling me I have a gender identity whether I like it or not, and that I have no choice in the matter.

[–]SnowAssMan 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Your socioeconomic status is the catalyst of your class identity, just as your sex is the catalyst of your gender identity. Most people aren't even aware of their class, especially if they're American, so not being aware of your gender identity doesn't dispute its existence. If everyone has a socioeconomic status then everyone has a class identity, if everyone has a sex then everyone has a gender identity.

You never bothered explaining how all these other identities can exist, but randomly when it comes to gender, no such identity exists.

The only people who've traditionally had a gender identity are those who have an issue with their sex and wish they were the opposite sex, or of no sex.

That's called cross-gender identification: https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=%22cross+gender+identification%22&btnG=

vs. gender identity: https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=%22gender+identity%22+-trans+-dysphoria+&btnG=

[–]MarkTwainiac 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

You never bothered explaining how all these other identities can exist, but randomly when it comes to gender, no such identity exists.

I did not say "all these other identities" exist. I said certain facts about each of us exist. Nowhere did I mention the word "identity":

Everyone has a socioeconomic status based on their own or their family or household income, level of wealth & accumulated assets, or lack thereof. Everyone was born in a place on earth that can be found on a map and is legally defined as a nation or territory. Some people end up stateless, but even they were born in a land/on land that exists in material fact and the precise spot can be located by longitude & latitude. Everyone has parents and a family lineage and ancestors who started out in one part of the world or another & whose genes & customs have been passed on, and therefore an ethnicity.

The extent to which people emphasize elements like class/wealth, nationality/place of origin, ethnicity in their self-concepts varies greatly across cultures and historical periods and amongst individuals in the same culture and period. Not everyone constructs their sense of self out of "identities" or identity labels in the way you keep insisting.

I have a sex, but I do not have a gender identity. Just like I have an age, but not an age identity.

Gender = sex stereotypes of masculinity/femininity. Gender is not a lens through which I see myself, nor a scale via which I appraise myself.

[–]SnowAssMan 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I did not say "all these other identities" exist. I said certain facts about each of us exist. Nowhere did I mention the word "identity":

Bloody hell. I asked you: what is stopping gender identity from being like class, nationality, ethnicity identities? To which you said all this:

Everyone has a socioeconomic status based on their own or their family or household income, level of wealth & accumulated assets, or lack thereof. Everyone was born in a place on earth that can be found on a map and is legally defined as a nation or territory. Some people end up stateless, but even they were born in a land/on land that exists in material fact and the precise spot can be located by longitude & latitude. Everyone has parents and a family lineage and ancestors who started out in one part of the world or another & whose genes & customs have been passed on, and therefore an ethnicity.

You've also said this, after I suggested that you probably don't believe in cultural identity:

Please don't put words in my mouth. You are coming off as incredibly arrogant. You can't read my mind. I am perfectly willing to discuss such topics as cultural identity, ethnic identity, national identity, religious identity, regional identity, class identity and so on. But those are very different topics to gender identity. And gender identity is the topic here.

So which is it? Does cultural identity exist, or not? You seem to be having trouble deciding. And if cultural identity exists, insofar as, we are, in your words: "products of culture", then how is it that we all have cultural identities, but not gender identities?

I have a sex, but I do not have a gender identity. Just like I have an age, but not an age identity.

False equivalence, your age keeps changing. Do you think you have no social identities (identities you share with others)?

Not everyone constructs their sense of self out of "identities" or identity labels in the way you keep insisting.

Then how come female role models will improve girl's performance, while male role models fail to do the same? It's obviously something we are unconsciously aware of.

What accounts for men & women's gendered behavioural trends? Why are there certain behaviours & interests generally shared by women, but not by men? Are these differences biologically determined? Please don misinterpret that as meaning that all women are uniform & opposite to all men. I'm talking about patterns again, you know, patterns? You know, like trends. Like fashion. Today, women wear those hideous high-waisted trousers/skirts/bottoms – it's a fashion trend. Do they all wear it all the time? Seemingly yes, but exceptions still exist. But remember, exceptions don't disqualify trends in any way.