Qt/tra, how does identity form?

submitted by HouseplantWomen who disagree with QT are a different sex from self.GCdebatesQT

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[–]circlingmyownvoid2 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (17 children)

We are talking about formative childhood. Archetypes are how you function at that point.

So which is it? Do people with dysphoria who try to resolve their distress by developing or claiming to have an opposite-sex gender identity possess an innate sense of gendered self that they're born with and is hard-wired into their brain structures

I think it’s both. Like I think dysphoria has a biological root but it’s worsened by social pressures. But again I’m only speaking for dysphoric trans people though. I don’t want to dismiss non dysphorics but I also don’t get it.

[–]MarkTwainiac 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

We are talking about formative childhood. Archetypes are how you function at that point.

At which point in "formative childhood" exactly is it that "archetypes are how you function"? How many months of age? How long does this point last?

You seem to think that growing up in a physical, sexed body in the material world surrounded by persons, animals and plants that also have sexed bodies has zero impact and influence on the psyches of developing children. Your view seems to be that in "the formative years of childhood," only "things" - specifically "the things you like" - and now "archetypes" matter.

What about toilet training and learning names of body parts? IIRC, little kids are very much into anything and everything that has to do with how, where and why they and others urinate and defecate. They're very interested in the fact that girls and boys have different anatomy that causes them to urinate from different places in markedly different ways. They're also extremely curious about where babies come from, and many beg for information about how they themselves came into being.

Unless they have been raised in Germany or Austria, little boys handle and look at their penises numerous times a day, each time they urinate. Many tug on, scratch, rub and otherwise touch their penises and balls numerous other times a day too. And once they reach a certain age, boys all get spontaneous erections and have wet dreams. What are the archetypes that override all that sensory input from the material world to convince a boy he's really a girl?

[–]circlingmyownvoid2 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

You seem to think that growing up in a physical, sexed body in the material world surrounded by persons, animals and plants that also have sexed bodies has zero impact and influence on the psyches of developing children.

I’m making a distinction between the superficial and things that are too deep set to be flexible. I’m in fact directly saying we are influenced by outside experiences. But when they hit you effects how hard they hit you.

[–]MarkTwainiac 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I’m making a distinction between the superficial and things that are too deep set to be flexible. I’m in fact directly saying we are influenced by outside experiences. But when they hit you effects how hard they hit you.

You're all over the place, LOL.

First, gender identity is determined by "the things you like" and whether society says it's okay to like them. Then just a few hours ago, you said that "archetypes are how you function" at some unspecified point in formative childhood. I asked you pointedly

At which point in "formative childhood" exactly is it that "archetypes are how you function"? How many months of age? How long does this point last?

But instead of answering, now you say there's "a distinction between the superficial and things that are too deep set to be flexible" and "we are influenced by outside experiences" whose impact is determined by "when they hit you." But still you don't bother to give any these influences names, nor will you say at what point or points in childhood you're referring to.

Tellingly, none of the vague forces you intimate are of paramount influence at some unspecified point or points in "formative childhood" ever have anything to do with having a sexed body, with being a flesh-and-blood sentient being who lives in material world and urinates numerous times each and every day of one's life. Or with the specifics of male urinary and sex anatomy that I've mentioned - and which play a huge role in the psychic and physical development of male children and have led to quite a few "archetypes."

Please provide some specifics to back up your previous claims before skipping off to make another, wholly different claim. Thanks.

[–]circlingmyownvoid2 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

There’s not some clean psychological developmental timeline.

Children lean to function in society by learning appropriate behavior in contexts and gender roles are pushed then. How is that controversial to you?

[–]MarkTwainiac 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

There’s not some clean psychological developmental timeline.

Children lean to function in society by learning appropriate behavior in contexts and gender roles are pushed then. How is that controversial to you?

I'm not contesting that this happens, LOL. The question the OP asked, and you have been pressed on, is exactly how and when do children form their "identity" and "gender identity"? And what are the processes and steps involved in, and the explanations behind, a child developing a "gender identity" of the opposite sex?

As to your claim that "there’s not some clean psychological developmental timeline" in babies and children, actually there is. There's some variation in exactly what happens precisely when chronologically, but kids go through very distinct developmental stages physically, emotionally, mentally, psychologically, socially as they grow up - and these stages occur in sequences. Children develop in pretty uniform ways, with progressions and regressions that can be predicted well ahead of time. There are actually development timetables and charts that are used to determine if children are developmentally within the norm and more or less "on track," or if their development is delayed or precocious.

By far the best baby and child development books/guides I've read are those from the Gesell Institute at Yale. There's one for each year of children's lives, and the books describe all the stages kids go through as they develop step by step. Especially in the first years of life, children's development progresses week by week.

If you're genuinely interested in this area, I recommend Gesell's work and that of all the child development theorists who have followed in his footsteps. It's not like Gesell's theories and insights are exactly new. His theories are nearly 100 years old now:

Gesell’s theory is known as a maturational-developmental theory. It is the foundation of nearly every other theory of human development after Gesell. Early in the 20th century, Dr. Gesell observed and documented patterns in the way children develop, showing that all children go through similar and predictable sequences, though each child moves through these sequences at his or her own rate or pace.

This process is comprised of both internal and external factors. The intrinsic factors include genetics, temperament, personality, learning styles, as well as physical and mental growth. Simultaneously, development is also influenced by factors such as environment, family background, parenting styles, cultural influences, health conditions, and early experiences with peers and adults. Gesell was the first theorist to systematically study the stages of development, and the first researcher to demonstrate that a child’s developmental age (or stage of development) may be different from his or her chronological age.

https://www.gesell-yale.org/pages/gesell-theory

[–]circlingmyownvoid2 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I’m not talking about functionality. I’m talking about identity. What’s the precise mechanism and time for any of the mental issues tied to childhood trauma?

[–]MarkTwainiac 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This isn't even word salad. It's just buzz words strung together that say and explain nothing:

functionality... identity.. mental issues... childhood trauma.

[–]loveSloaneDebate King 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

Are you saying the combination of you having dysphoria and also being pressured by male socialization that you rejected while you somehow absorbed female socialization is why you know you’re not a man/are a woman?

Because that’s an entirely unique experience that no man or woman who isn’t trans expériences. So i think what the rest of us aren’t getting is how your dysphoria and socialization means tou aren’t the gender that traditionally goes with your sex.

That’s what you never explain. How your feelings and personal sense of self mean so much that they overpower biological fact.

[–]circlingmyownvoid2 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

Are you saying the combination of you having dysphoria and also being pressured by male socialization that you rejected while you somehow absorbed female socialization is why you know you’re not a man/are a woman?

Growing up dysphoric effects the lens of the attempted socialization. Feeling alienated from the ideas pushed on you in a way most people don’t shapes the effects of that attempted socialization.

I wouldn’t say I have female socialization. But I don’t think it’s accurate to call me a man. Whether I am a woman is a point in open to discussing. It’s not that important to me personally. However not being a man is a point that I am dead set.

[–]loveSloaneDebate King 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

Okay…

Socialization still has nothing to do with what gender someone is. Gender is based on sex. It’s not personal, it’s not chosen individually. It’s societal. So whatever You socialization you absorbed or rejected, and however you feel inside, is irrelevant to gender.

Gender is another thing that doesn’t care about your feelings

Also, man and woman aren’t genders so none of this would really matter. Even if your gender were "female", you’d still be biologically male, that’s would mean technically speaking you’d still be a man because that’s the sex based term for biological male adults.

The issue is not the language, it’s the weight You personally put on words that literally only exist to distinguish male humans from female humans.

[–]loveSloaneDebate King 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Again- you being personally dead set on not being a man is not enough to change biological facts. You have to prove TW are not men, and you have never done that. Sex, gender, fact, Langauge, reality, truth- all things that don’t care about anyone’s feelings.

[–]circlingmyownvoid2 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

You conflate gender and sex in a way that we don’t then use it as a language shell game.

Sex and gender aren’t the same. My sex is regrettably male. But my gender is in no way man.

[–]loveSloaneDebate King 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I agree. Your gender is in no way man.

Nobody’s gender is man.

Because man is not a gender.

(Neither is woman)

[–]BiologyIsReal 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

A man is an adult human male. It has nothing to do with sexist stereotypes and all with biology.

[–]circlingmyownvoid2 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

And I don’t agree with your definition, as you know. Repeating it accomplishes nothing.

[–]BiologyIsReal 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

And you know we don't agree with your definitions and yet you keep repeating the same arguments. What is the difference?

[–]circlingmyownvoid2 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

It’d be awful quiet here with me. Someone s gotta keep the lamp lit.