Gender Identification; what does this mean?

[TBUK]

Hi all,

 

I have found myself struggling to understand a lot of the conversation surrounding gender in the world. I have no doubt this is not entirely my own fault or lack of understanding causing this but I do struggle with the idea of gender identification. Male-identying board members: what does being a man mean to you? Female board members: what does being a woman for you? I know I am male but beyond my physical state I don't really understand what that means. Sure one can make predictive generalisations about male and female members and how they behave but I do not seem to have any understanding of gender beyond this. Am I crazy?

 

This is particularly concerning to me vis-a-vis people who do not feel at home in their own bodies. This to me to be concerning, a marker of dissasociation between one's body and one's mind that is perhaps not healthy. To clarify that I do not mean to say that people are somehow wrong to feel this way but rather that engaging in the practise of artifically rectifying perceived issues with one's physical appearance may not be the healthiest way to deal with this kind of body dismorphia instead trying to deal with the root problem, most likely originating in childhood.

 

If other perhaps feel more attached to their gender than I do this would enligthen this topic for me a lot.

 

Thoughts?

[Kevin Beal]

There is a fatal categorical error in thinking that a "gender identity" is the thing itself. By that, I mean that a gender identity must refer to other things. It can't be something which you subjectively relate to (e.x. "I identify with X"). You can identify with another person on a level in which you both have some shared experience, but that does nothing to explain gender dysphoria.

 

Transgendered people present as the opposite sex. To say that they identify as the opposite sex is completely meaningless. I can identify as Jesus Christ, a rock or an island, and that does nothing in any way to change anything metaphysical about who I actually am.

 

Feeling like I am a man is not what makes me a man. It's the body I was born into, which so happens to produce typical behaviors, attitudes and interests. It's not the behaviors, attitudes and interests themselves which make me a man. A woman who shares the same interests etc doesn't become a man. Rather, she is a woman who has male typical interests.

 

The problems goes back to Queer Theory when the word "gender" was hijacked to conflate unlike things. The word "gender" used to only describe nouns and not people. There were only 4 genders: masculine, feminine, undetermined and neuter. "Hen" is feminine, "bull" is masculine, rabbit is "undetermined" (since it can refer to either sex) and "book" is neuter (since it can have no sex). Sex describes people – man, woman, intersex etc.

 

It paints a big picture to describe a person as a woman in a man's body, but it is not a technically true statement. Exposure to or lack of certain hormones in fetal development may change our neurology, and some have claimed this is responsible for producing gender dysphoria. The limited research I've done seems to back this up beyond my own doubt anyway. It raises more questions than it answers though.

 

What are people actually referring to when they use the misnomer "gender identity"? There are plenty of people who share the same interests, behavior and attitudes as the opposite sex, but do not have any desire to present as the opposite sex, much less the agony of feeling as if they are in the wrong body and desire to cut off their genitals like some people with gender dysphoria do. These appear to be two entirely different things – which is why I feel absolutely enraged when parents take a child whose personality resembles much more the opposite sex and puts them on hormone treatments which permanently alter their body chemistry, and give them a new name.

 

Nobody really knows what gender dysphoria is and many researchers are too afraid to research it, if it puts it in a pathological light because they get PC thugs banging down their doors. John Hopkins, where they did the first gender reassignment surgeries, stopped doing it and I don't think they even treat it or diagnose it or anything anymore. It seems they want to distance themselves from it as much as possible.

 

People are quick to compare it to homosexuality, but we understand homosexuality infinitely better than gender dysphoria. Nobody would call homosexuality a disease or disorder, and to avoid being perceived as a bigot, people treat gender dysphoria the same way. But we don't know that yet. People who speak with certainty, that it is like homosexuality in that way, may know something I don't, but more likely, they are talking out of their asses.

 

If someone wants to present as the opposite sex and use those pronouns, I don't really care – if they have gender dysphoria or not. What I care about is the PC police stomping their boots down your throat for saying that you don't automatically buy into the postmodernist worldview that gender is anything you fucking want it to be. I have sympathy for the people who experience whatever this thing is.

 

I have no sympathy whatsoever for the anxious hypocrites who project their own malice, ignorance and discomfort onto you for expressing healthy skepticism. It prevents scientific and philosophical progress in this area, and it's cowardice in the worst sense of the word.

[TBUK]

Thanks Kevin, that cleared up a lot of things for me. I certainly agree that the effect that the PC police has on the free sharing of ideas is to a great degree responsible for holding back our understanding in this field. It's good to know I am not the only one who does not really understand gender dysphoria.

[utopian]

You might want to take a look at Borderline Personality Disorder. I recently became involved with someone with BPD, and did a lot of looking into it. There are several sources which show BPD is a common source of gender confusion, and the more you look into it, the mechanics of it become quite apparent. 

[neeeel]

The idea that it is possible to be "born into the wrong body" is really  misleading, and bizarre. 

 

Perhaps thats not the same as gender identification. 

[Mister Mister]

Great stuff as always Kevin.  I would add that, for the majority of people, gender dysphoria, or gender identity disorder is a kind of a "phase" that kids go through, and by the time they are 18, they have outgrown it and are usually homosexuals.  However, it is becoming more and more common to give these kids hormone therapy to minimize the effects of puberty, potentially having lasting impacts on their brain and body.

  People who transition have a huge rate of suicide, around 50% I believe, though obviously we don't know how much of this is internal psychological issues, vs. external issues of social alienation and so forth.  But nevertheless, people are potentially dooming these kids to a miserable life of freakishness, when in fact the majority of them could probably go on to live a completely normal and happy life as a gay person.  As Kevin said, the PC hysteria around the real medical and scientific uncertainty in this area is really harmful, and when it harms children who don't have all the information or reasoning ability, it's really contemptible.

 

As far as being born in the wrong body, I agree with neeel.  There are people who think they are Napoleon, people who think they are dead, people who think they are missing an arm.  We recognize these people as mentally ill and don't indulge their fantasies.  Again, we can't say for sure if GID fits in this kind of mental illness, but it is at least open to inquiry.  I would also say, it's really a weird kind of double-think as far as the queer theorists go.  On the one hand, they're saying, "just because I was born with a vagina doesn't mean I have to look and act a certain way"...ok fine, I mostly agree.  But on the other hand, they're saying a man can get a perm, wear lipstick and high heels, get a boob job, and he's now a woman...do you see the disconnect?

[RCali]

I have a penis, I am a man.

[TBUK]

Utopian, I am relatively familiar with BPD. Not sure how it could be associated with gender dysphoria?

 

I will look into it however. Thanks for your input.

[utopian]

Here are SOME sources on it;

 

http://aapel.org/bdp/BLgenderUS.html

http://www.psychologistanywhereanytime.com/disorders_psychologist_and_psychologists/psychologist_borderline_personality.htm

http://www.borderlinepersonalitydisorder.com/what-is-bpd/

 

One of the sources specifically states gender dysphoria is clinically associated with BPD. I was planning to do a very involved article on this subject, but it will take a lot of time. If you require it from me, I ask that you wait until my research is properly prepared. Last time someone doubted I would come through, I wrote a 20 page article, which is my signature. However, if you are fine with a short version, here you go.

 

BPD stems from severe childhood abuse/neglect. BPDs find themselves doing anything and everything in order to acquire and maintain attention. BPDs will entertain any falsehood in order to maintain their inner narrative which perpetually shifts the blame outside of themselves. BPDs usually cannot face the truth, and will go to murderous and/or suicidal lengths to avoid doing so. 

 

In pursuit of their inner narrative, one of the manifestations of BPD is to entertain the falsehood that the BPD is actually the wrong gender. As this is controversial, it produces all kinds of attention for the BPD, satisfying their desperate inner desires. BPDs can be so fundamentally opposed to facing the truth, that they will entertain their fantasies, such as being the incorrect gender, to the point of physically mutilating themselves in an attempt to align reality to their fantasy. It is not uncommon for any and all BPDs to self harm even if they are not entertaining the gender dysphoria fantasy. 

 

In the end, collaboration with a BPD entertaining gender dysphoria is the same as collaborating with an anorexic's idea that they are fat, when they are skinny. It's all actually in their head, which was unfortunately broken at a very young age. The state has a vested interest in entertaining this issue as it distracts and disarms the public while the state commits atrocities around the globe. The media has a vested interest in entertaining this issue because as can be seen with people like Bruce Jenner, there is lots of money to be made off the story, and corporations collaborate because they can sell expensive products and services to these poor broken people in the form of expensive surgeries, makeup, dresses, hair products etc.

 

It's an environment so catastrophically insane, the average individual cannot even comprehend it.

[TBUK]

Thanks Utopian,

 

That makes lots of sense thinking of the people I know with BPD, seeing it as a form of self-delusion, attention seeking self harm. I think this has been what I suspected all along. The idea that people curtailing the conversation around this issue are harming these poor people makes me feel sick really and I supposed I had hoped that I would prove wrong so as not to have to accept this disgusting truth but once again the world fails not in proving how disgusting people can be.

 

Thanks, would love to read the full piece when/if you finish it but don't feel obligated on my account,

 

Tobie

[shirgall]

There is no male or female, there is only normal and Y-chromosome deficient. 

[Eternal Growth]

Gender identity is a very fundamental aspect of the personal understanding of and relationship to the self that develops very early in age (before sexuality) in the physical structures of the brain, and cannot be affected by social/cultural factors or attempts at reparative therapy. Once formed, it will remain consistent throughout a person's life. One of many studies from the literature I quickly found:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/ref/10.1080/09513590400018231
"In the human brain, structural differences have been described that seem to be related to gender identity and sexual orientation."

The earliest (from mid 90s) study on the physical brain structures behind gender identity as it relates to transsexuality:

https://pure.knaw.nl/portal/files/515234/15106_285_swaab.pdf
"Here we show that the volume of the central subdivision of the bed nucleus of the stria terminals (BSTc), a brain area that is essential for sexual behaviour, is larger in men than in women. A female-sized BSTc was found in male-to-female transsexuals. The size of BSTc was not influenced by sex hormones in adulthood and was independent of sexual orientation."
 

Transsexuality (which is a narrower category than "transgender", a term which includes other forms of gender variance, some of which may well be influenced by social factors) is a very rare condition in which an individual's gender identity - hence the neurological structures underlying it - are not consistent with other physical manifestations of sexual dimorphism that the individual has.

[SoCaliGirl]

I have noticed that most trans men and women have very different experiences in terms of 'discovering' or coming to an understanding about their own gender identity & expression.

 

It's fascinating; I honestly don't see why non theistic individuals are anything other than curious about the topic.