> The types are not important, imo.
It’s useful to have a high level archetype, but the clusters are always fuzzy and we don’t gain much by carving out new names for things along the periphery.
Identity politics get screwy due to in groups trying to maintain order and rigid rules while some are inflexible. How many times do you try to see a conversation about an idea get lost in a debate about whether the idea falls under a particular ideology rather than the merits of the idea itself? What’s socialism? What’s feminism? What’s a conservative? What’s queer?
We make up buckets and get flustered when people define buckets differently or when some examples cross the boundaries. Then some people begin to believe that the definitions hold objective authority and place great significance on minor differences. Then people who feel they don’t fit exactly a definition declare they must be something new. Then two niche subgroups fight because they share a similar space and want the other to be made illegitimate. Then another body wants to maintain unity across the broader community so they declare all things are legit. Then the community looks stupid and confusing because it’s got so many niche classifications.
Gender identity, Christianity, political ideologies, etc. take your pick. People trying to define things that are not actually discrete is just an invitation for nonsense.
It’s fine to be “like Group X but different with respect to some qualities” and not make that a whole new taxonomical sub group.
It really does sound like people are just taking the concept of personality and tryin to overlay it on something where it doesn't fit, only leading to increased confusion. Ultimately, what is the point? What is the goal?
But believing this to be the case isn’t incompatible with respecting that they feel different from the “normal” archetype or just generally acknowledging their preferred identity as it’s the closest thing they’ve got to describe themselves.
Most people aligned with a given label are pretty reasonable and won’t demand you do anything too out of your way. Yes there are many exceptions but such is the case for every dimension of identity. This one is just a dimension that many people are eager to assert doesn’t exist.; Sometimes asserting that if you can’t cleanly identify as something easily defined that you’re just making up your differences which is of course also incorrect reasoning.
People suck at such types of thinking and most cultures encourage against it to empower in group unity.
You’re not a bigot for doing this. You are being an asshole nonetheless. And you don’t come off as more intelligent, just more clueless; even if you are in fact more intelligent.
Would you also suggest we pretend the voices that a schizophrenic hears are actually there and real? If not, why not? It's real to them..
It's a way of legitimizing the whole thing, so e.g. rather than men saying "I want to be a woman", they can lean on this idea of gender identity and say "I am a woman", where "woman" has been redefined as "anyone with a female gender identity". And per the definition of gender identity, a man can be said to have a "female gender identity" if he wants to be a woman. Naturally, this redefinition has turned out to be quite controversial.
Nobody seems prepared to answer that question, yet it is a requirement to define this. Unless the argument really just boil down to "we make shit up as we go and you need to accept it or you're a bigot".
Someone may simply feel non binary as a high level and honestly descriptor of their gender. Which is to say that they feel the gender implied by their sex is a bad fit.
The existence of some people that take this to extreme labels that seem unlikely to be distinct and noteworthy classifications does not invalidate others who take more moderate steps that are probably genuinely more accurate assessments.
A woman gender identity is someone who feels like a woman. A man’s gender identity is someone who feels like a man. A non binary identity is one that does not feel like either.
This really is not difficult to understand.
>A woman gender identity is someone who feels like a woman. A man’s gender identity is someone who feels like a man.
Wow, thanks for answering the question.
>This really is not difficult to understand
"A tefrad gender idenity is someone who feels like a tefrad, what's difficult to understand?"
"What, you want me to explain what that is in a non-recursive manner, as we would do for any other word? That is… really sad dude. Why do you hate tefrads?"
That aside, I can't think of anything that would retain my "male" gender. I see women wear the same sneakers as men, I see men with long hair, unisex clothes, ect.
That itself aside, by asking this question you are already assuming a man and woman gender. You just became even more tautological with this answer to my question which was "what is the difference between a man and a woman?" Worse, "what I want people to assume I am" is a human being, not some made up class of human that decides my identiy. A person is male or female, we use the word "sex" not as an identiy but a definate observation. "Gender" as it means anything beyond sex is a useless or even harmful term. Especially when it is used by people playing word games to trick children into getting irrevocable surgeries.
You’ve largely just avoided answering the question too. If you were magically transformed into a woman… what, you would just roll with it? You have no particular identification with being a dude? If you had the ability to transform back you wouldn’t do so because you’re a woman now and women aren’t men?
Which is... ?
>If you were magically transformed into a woman [...] You have no particular identification with being a dude?
But with my memories still intact? To answer this question I need to give some background. I believe the "gender" concept of "man" and "women" are drawn from the sex differences between male and female in humans. The most important aspect of which is hormonal differences, but also the physical weakness of the female compared to the male. Then, on top of this, there is a second order cultural effect that will dictate how this difference is expressed. But those societal differences would go away in one generation if the sex differences went away. And the societal differences are varried across cultures. But these societal differences (what one might call gender) are the result of already being a male or female. That is, the societal differences are taught and learned, not deduced. So "gender" is not a choice. For example, if a group of children were to be raised away from society and the people raising them treated the children exactly equally none of the children would have any gender. That is, there will be no additional enforcement of the already natural sex differences, which are already large. In fact, the females would be more feminine than liberal-raised females who are explicitlty nudged against their natural tendencies.
All this is to say that your question is difficult to answer because you are asking what would a female do with male memories? Would the hormonal differences win out over these memories? You're asking a question that can't be answered. As for me myself, I wouldn't be myself, because the neural architecture is different between sexes. (At least to some extent. Compare the rate of autism between males and females, for example). If we assume no neural change and no hormonal change, that is, I get to keep my testosterone, I'd probably become a female athlete of some sort. But the case you gave wasn't clear about how much "male" is left after I become female. At face value it means I only keep memories. If that's the case, there is a chance I would just ignore the aspects of the memories that would tell me to stay male.
I should note that the opposite case - a boy[0] who's parrents where convinved by John Money,[1] the originator of "gender," to raise him as a girl after a botched circumcision, eventualy committed suicide. So I don't think this will be an exactly pleasant situation either way I choose.
>If you had the ability to transform back you wouldn’t do so because you’re a woman now and women aren’t men?
I probably would, because of the memories, but you didn't give that option. Perhaps if the option was given after lets say 5 years then "I" wouldn't but I don't know, because I wouldn't be me. This was a really complex (and rather useless) case to answer "what is the difference between a man and a woman." Even given the difference between a man and a woman this is still a hard question to answer at all and one that is impossible to answer absolutely.
So you recognize it is conceivable for someone in a female body to desire to be a man. Great.
For YOU, you think only your memories would drive this and you can’t fathom people coming to such a conclusion otherwise. You assert that hormones might lead you to accept being a woman.
Well some people have naturally different levels hormones. So by your reasoning it stands that some people may have naturally varying identification with their gender.
I think most of your thinking here is dumb and willfully ignorant of the explanations of people who feel they are not the correct gender despite being in a body of that sex. But sure, glad we can agree that this concept is fathomable.
>You just became even more tautological with this answer to my question which was "what is the difference between a man and a woman?"
>>We have a good approximate idea of male and female gender in our society.
>Which is... ?
Such a simple question yet still no answer. At least now you're done deflecting with hypotheticals and admit by your silence that you simply cannot answer it.
>So you recognize it is conceivable for someone in a female body to desire to be a man. Great
actualy you are conflating sex and gender here (again). I said I would like to go back to being male, not back to being a man. And this like I said is only somewhat certain in the begining; afterwords how could I know? And my claim is that I would go back because my raised gender is stonger than sex hormones (again, only certain in the first moments of the event). My response relies on the fact that _raised gender cannot be easily be changed_. If that is true then it reflects even worse on people who claim that their "true" gender is different from how they were raised. A moticum of serious thought could have told you this, but you are clearly being willfuly ignorant by this point, evading my question for the fourth time using hypotheticals you clearly can't understand yourself.
>For YOU, you think only your memories would drive this and you can’t fathom people coming to such a conclusion otherwise.
Yes, and this is because that is the logical outcome follwing the reasoning that brought me to that conclusion in the first place.
>You assert that hormones might lead you to accept being a woman.
As well as literaly being a woman, yes, and that is only in the case that it already happened, not before those two things happen. And even then like I said I would probably be misserable at best so "accept" means "to endure without protest or reaction"[0] in this case, not "to make a favorable response to" or "to give admittance or approval to" but I can see plainly that your are trying to twist words here.
>Well some people have naturally different levels hormones.
I beleive Estrogen-like endocrine disrupting chemicals, for example as found in plastics[1], have some effect on estogen levels in men. However given the unfathomably high suicide attempted rate of transgenders, I beleive that the solution to this problem is not more estrogen but less of it (for example not using plastics clothes, cups ect). It is also important to note that I beleive that the high rate of transgenderism can only be fully explained by societies applause and celebration of it. EEDCs only alllw people to fall into this trap, more or less.
>So by your reasoning it stands that some people may have naturally varying identification with their gender.
Not exactly. Gender as I am explaining it is something taught and learned (for example, wearing a dress has no biological meaning, and men used to wear dresses). Feminimity, which makes up most of what causes the development of gender in the first case, on the other hand in fact is caused in part by hormones. But that does not mean that it is reasonable for what I have explained to be gender to change. For example, tomboys, who do not display the hormonal effects given by mean sex differences, still identify as girls. And you are overstating the extent to which people's hormones deviate from their expected levels for their sex if you think that incites a gender change. No more proof is needed than the fact that males take estrogen to transition. If their estrogen levels were already high enough that they were already women, they would not need more. And inversely they would not need hormone blockers. Taking your statement at face value, however, that "people may have naturally varying identification with their gender," I have never disagreed. In fact part of my claim that gender, in any form but especially as an "identity" doesn't exist is that gender is useless is in part because of this reason, and note that sex covers 99% of the cases of what we would describe as gender without being an identity. And I don't beleive that a person of a given sex ever naturaly crosses from one gender to another (or perhaps in 0.00001% of cases or similar). And that is because hormone levels are never so out of whack, and the strength factor is still relevant, and raised gender (as I explain it, and for lack of a better word) reinforces sex deifferences.
>I think most of your thinking here is dumb and willfully ignorant of the explanations of people who feel they are not the correct gender despite being in a body of that sex.
They have other mental issues that make them think that (for example autism) coupled with proding fron other transexuals online.
>But sure, glad we can agree that this concept is fathomable.
We don't agree, in part because of what I have already written above, and in part because you barely have anything to say in a concreate way to begin with.
Personality is an overlapping but poorly fitting term to describe identity.
Transitioning gender is not so much about changing how you perceive your personal identity in a self reflective way so much as a term for publicizing it so that others have a frame of reference for understanding where you’re coming from because it’s uncommon and non obvious and helpful to them if they’re open to accommodating your own identity, imo.
The types are not important, imo. But a simple thing may be that you feel very uncomfortable being seen as a thing of sexual or romantic interest from heterosexual men (or anything) and you want to make it clear that this is not a social role you want to play. Can you stop dudes from feeling that way? No. But perhaps you can create a social norm that such feelings are not brought up much as it’s generally not cool for gay men to openly hit on openly straight men in public.