I have been thinking about "Gender Identity" for quite some time, and wrote this to try and clarify it in my mind, and ask if anyone else had any ideas about it. Here's what I wrote, if anyone is interested. wrhttps://open.substack.com/pub/hippiesq/p/gender-identity?r=lq7i3&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I can sympathize with your answer to the question of "what is gender identity" -- i.e., "Gender Identity isn’t anything at all".
However, I think you and far too many others are far too quick to dismiss the concept as not carrying any weight or substance at all, that all you're doing is shooting yourselves in the feet. You might consider that, as I've argued here recently, it's more or less analogous to personal identity which the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [SEP] gives some credence to. Of particular note is this summary or overview:
SEP: "Outside of philosophy, ‘personal identity’ usually refers to properties to which we feel a special sense of attachment or ownership. Someone’s personal identity in this sense consists of those properties she takes to 'define her as a person' or 'make her the person she is', and which distinguish her from others."
The problem isn't with "gender identity" itself but with how it is misused and misinterpreted. As you put it yourself: "it is used to justify body hatred, denial of physical reality, and serious, risky medical interventions in response to mental discomfort."
Steersman, I understand your point of view, and you and I have discussed this before. I personally suspect (without doing an in-depth research project, the likes of which I have no idea how to accomplish, I cannot know for sure) that "gender identity" started off to mean "the degree and type of feminine and/or masculine (as those terms are defined in a given society at a given time) qualities one possesses and with which the person feels most comfortable." This definition makes sense to me, and has value. It can be used to say that we tend to have set (although fluctuating) degrees and types of feminine and masculine qualities that are somewhat inherent to us, and allow for more acceptance of what is considered gender non-conforming behavior.
However, that definition of "gender identity," if it ever was used, has never become known or used in society at large, and remained somewhere in the world of academia. The only definition of "gender identity" that has become a part of society at large is the one that has been used by activists and judges to uphold the "right" for minors to medically transition.
Whatever these activists and judges mean by the term, it is not being used to describe a set of characteristics regarding performative gender, which could never justify the radical medical experimentation being employed in droves on young, vulnerable people. Rather, "gender identity," as it is being used, refers to an "identity" that, in and of itself, simply means that a person is "male" or "female" or "both male and female" or "neither male nor female" or something else, and, for an inexplicable reason, also means that the person (in most cases - but not all, as some people think medicalization is wholly unnecessary, but, oddly, still think they should be part of the physical category of "male" or "female" based merely upon the "gender identity") must medically transition to appear as much as possible like the opposite sex. In the case of "non-binary" people, it often means the person should at least bind or tuck (depending on what they are hiding), and sometimes also means they need medical interventions to remove, disguise or tweak sexed organs or features.
My argument is simply that, to the extent that a "gender identity" is supposed to refer to the sense of being "male" or "female," yet not refer to biology, and not refer to societal expectations/stereotypes, it is completely meaningless, and cannot justify the medical interventions being pushed on young, vulnerable people.
I would retort that "gender identity" serves only to do harm, and it should be removed everywhere from psychology and law. It isn't just sterilizing chilkdren, though that is probably the worst, it has become the foundation of myriad abuses and of nothing good.
In German the memory of the lexicon of the Holocaust has all but eliminated Vernichtung, annihilation, from the language. And the Holocaust abd 'trans" have mass sterilization in common.
Hippiesq: "I personally suspect ... that 'gender identity' started off to mean 'the degree and type of feminine and/or masculine ... qualities one possesses and with which the person feels most comfortable.' This definition makes sense to me, and has value."
Amen to that! A definition I'm ready to go to the wall with you on! 😉🙂 Or even without you, more or less in any case. But many thanks for your comments here and, in particular, for the one on my Substack which I'll try to get to shortly, although there's a lot to chew through there:
As you say, we have discussed this before, including in comments to that post, and I see that we're more or less on the same page as far as the above definitions go.
Hippiesq: "... without doing an in-depth research project, the likes of which I have no idea how to accomplish ..."
Hadn't thought about it before but it's a good question. Caused me to use Google's "Ngram Viewer" to do a search on the term "gender identity" -- haven't used it much myself, but it seems like a good start:
Seems the term first showed up on the scene in about 1966, hit a bit of a peak of popularity in 1977, a trough in 1984, and been ever onward and upward since then. Have only had time to look into a couple of the Google Books returned by the search, but the few I've read/skimmed so far more or less confirms your suspicions:
"Identity in Question (1992):
2.1 The development of gender identity
In this section we are going to look at where we come from in terms of childhood experience and the development of gender identities in childhood. Gender identity involves the construction and use of gender categories. .... What evidence exists about children’s use of gender categories? Children’s preference for particular toys is some of the earliest behaviour indicating a categorization of masculine and feminine. Preferences, behaviours or traits [some of which are biologically determined or motivated; my emphasis] mirror the views of one’s society about what is masculine and what is feminine are termed ‘gender-appropriate’. ....”
Gender identity has been likened to a symphonic orchestration. It is composed of many motifs intertwined into one integrated them. .... Gender role is the public expression of one’s individuality [personality] as male or female. Gender identity is the private experience of one’s individuality as male or female. ....”
I think the latter is rather “problematic” at best for a number of reasons, though I’d have to do a closer reading than I have time for at the moment. But offhand it seems the author isn’t acknowledging atypical personality traits – e.g., masculine traits in females – and seems a bit clueless about what is required to qualify as a male or a female in the first place.
Hippiesq: "[Gender identity] can be used to say that we tend to have ... feminine and masculine qualities that are somewhat inherent to us, and allow for more acceptance of what is considered gender non-conforming behavior."
Amen to that.
Hippiesq: "Rather, 'gender identity,' as it is being used, refers to an 'identity' that, in and of itself, simply means that a person is 'male' or 'female' ..."
Exactly right. Many of the sources I've quoted above and before -- Scalia and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy in particular -- are more or less careful about clearly differentiating between being male or female (as sexes) and having masculine and feminine traits that are merely more or less typical of each sex without being definitive -- as you've emphasized.
But various transgender ideologues and their useful/useless idiots have more or less poisoned the well by insisting on using "male" and "female" as genders and/or gender identities. For examples, see Matt Walsh's tweet of Merriam-Webster's definitions for "female" -- both as a sex and as a gender identity -- and, as a Canadian I'm somewhat ashamed to say this, Statistics Canada's call for "consultation on gender and sexual diversity statistical metadata standards":
There isn't any intrinsic problem in defining words in contradictory ways -- many words are like that -- but there are humongous problems caused by using the contradictory definitions in the same sentence or argument. The "informal fallacy" of equivocation; Wikipedia's rather sexist example:
Equivocation -- AKA, bait-and-switch -- for fun and profit. Largely why I'm rather "peeved" with Wikipedia -- smoke comes out of my ears just thinking of their egregious fraud -- for their article on transwoman and Olympian Laurel Hubbard which claimed that "she" had "transitioned to female":
My eyes happen to be brown. I was born with brown eyes. Nobody “ assigned” me the color of my eyes. I was also born female, not “ assigned” !
My brother was born male, and the doctor observed that he had the requisite sex organs to be male.
This stupid “ assigned at birth” has to go! The trans ideology has captured our language in order to control out thoughts. That this has also taken over our laws and judges is abhorrent! Judges need to be more intelligent than bowing down to the bullying of the trans cult!
Assigned at birth stuff drives me crazy. I was filling out a health form the other day and it asked for me sex assigned at birth. If it’s just an arbitrary assignment, why does it matter what it was?
Thanks for the analysis. I’ve often thought about the very circular thinking of all this, and how when it comes down to it, what they are saying doesn’t make sense or pan out. So much contradiction.
And to debunk some of the glorious "heroes" of the early cross-sex ideation history makers, here's new info on Jan Morris, originally James, who went to Casablanca and had "the surgeries" in 1972, then published Conundrum, a memoir in 1974. My then husband referenced this book and the possibilities it opened up when I told him I found his crossdressing diaries in August of 1992. Suki, the daughter who was told at age 7 to no longer call Daddy that, waited until he died in 2020 to tell the public that he was rabidly sexist and most of his many books contain lies, outside of the locations:
Great work here picking apart this case. Thank you so much. On why the Arkansas AG performed so poorly, I wonder whether you’ve seen Leor Sapir’s discussion of the general problem in unbalanced representation? He discusses it starting at about 47m in this video: https://youtu.be/LvJFAvADio8
This is oversimplified, so better to listen to what he says directly, but as I understand it, his basic take is that the AGs are overwhelmed with a huge portfolio of matters with little time to prepare, whereas the pro-gender ID side attorneys, like Strangio at the ACLU, do nothing but these cases and as a result have been able to hone their arguments over many years.
I did work in a state AG’s office as a litigation section chief for a few years, and what he is saying tracks with my own experience. But that was a very long time ago, and I would welcome your up to date take on this.
Bottom line: Thank you so much, again, for doing this needed and excellent work. We need to understand much better what is happening in the courts, and your contribution is incredibly valuable.
I'm trying not to speculate too much in these pieces, but yeah, the unbalanced representation theory makes sense. Not the whole story though. As I work on these posts, I'm more and more looking at the judge's role.
The judge reminds me of Sylvia, the Nanny's mother. Always wearing clothes 40 years too young trying to keep up with the youth and be au courant.
I've read several hundred article about gender this and that. And it's amazing the degree to which it's all a linguistic phenomenon. Endless signifiers without signified.
And by the way, Isn't the number of genders infinite as they can be any noun or fractions of nouns and can change at a moments notice?
Many of these judges have been briefed by the ACLUs and related organizations about how to think about it AND we are aware of some who have trans-id relatives. This would seem like a major reason to be disqualified if they affirmed. Who wants to admit to themselves they've been hoodwinked.
Looking forward to what more you uncover about the judge’s role in this--and all else. Definitely a lot going on here, and smart not to theorize too soon. Thanks so much for digging in to this so thoroughly!
Liberals laugh at the religious beliefs of conservatives while simultaneously enacting policies based on the unfalsifiable/religious concept of gender identity.
where the gender ideology religion does touch earth, it makes easily disprovable and false claims.
"Gender identity is not something that an individual can control or voluntarily change."
This is a false statement. Evidence? there is none. Gender identification regarding appearance is a hobby that is 100% voluntary. no one is forcing people to change their appearance.
so what if someone "feels" like a different gender. most kids who "feel" like this will stop feeling like this with puberty, as long as they dont take gender meds. if a man "feels" like a women he should still use the mens room and participate according to his biological sex. theres no evidence that participating in the opposite sex category helps.
how one "feels" is just another religious statement. if religious people cant force others to participate in their traditions and beliefs, then those who believe in gender ideology shouldnt be able to force their religion on others either.
"Efforts to change a person’s gender identity to become congruent with their birth assigned sex have been attempted in the past without success and with harmful effects."
another false statement. wheres the evidence? we know kids with gender dysphoria who arent affirmed eventually ID again with their birth gender with puberty. this is a far better outcome than suffering the Iatrogenic harms of gender affirming " care" that include life long physical and mental problems that wouldnt have occured otherwise, early death , increased suicides, life long loss of sexual function, sterility, etc.
Every gender ideology stat, claim and statement is a lie. People and groups promoting gender ideology make so many false claims their dogma and mantra may sound believable to some, at first. but once these claims are more closely looked at its clear their claims are carefully crafted fraud.
The more judges accept the unevidenced claims of the gender ideology religion, the less popular democrats will become. many countries around the world are electing right wing governments simply to avoid the severe harms promoted by liberals via gender ideology. gender ideology is a threat to democratic values.
We are in a tangential agreement - men can only feel like men; only men can feel “not manly”. The condition of dysphoria is easily explained as not being euphoric about ones sex.
Sex is real, was determined at conception, and cannot be altered. A man cannot “feel like a woman” any more than a goldfish can feel like a turtle.
One cannot be or feel a “gender”, or grammatical agreement between words and sex, any more than one can feel “singular” or “plural”, or perhaps “dative” or “accusative”. One cannot be “assigned” a “number” at birth, and struggle with feeling plural rather than singular all life long, or accused of being accusative rather than vocative.
Nobody is “born the wrong sex” any more than someone is “born the wrong size” or “born with two legs incorrectly”, though anorexia feels like the wrong size, and body integrity dysmorphia feels like the wrong legs. There is no misalignment. There is only debilitating misperception and feeling.
Once you simply substitue “sex” for “gender” in these conversations, everything becomes crystal clear and easy to discuss.
anyone can feel like a man or a women. or a palm tree or a trash truck. but so what? its a harmful fraud to claim this feeling is a free ticket to spaces of opposite gender or to promote quack medicine to address these feelings. the meds dont help anything and certainly make everything worse. men going into womens spaces puts womem at risk, sets womems rights back 300 years and causes democrats to lose elections and for conservative polcies to be enacted.
men in drag arent safe in womens spaces. theyre safer in the mens. and theres a reason for that. 99% of assaults on women are via biological men. trans ID men assault women at the same rate as non trans ID men. thats why people dont want men in women's restrooms. and when they go in there theyre not safe. every incident reg "trans" id is always in the womens restroom. its never in the mens. men couldnt care less if someones in drag.
men instinctively know that men in drag are just another man living his man life same as any other man.
dylan irish name budweiser dude and guy who claims to be "trans" and has a TV show with his whole family (forget his name) are just as much men as Arnold Schwarzenegger in the same way a chihuahua and a rottweiler are both dogs. if a rottweiler feels like a cat i support that dogs freedom to do so. but i wouldnt put a rottweiler in a cat cage with cats. and its unfair to give a rottweiler meds for cats.
It’s like circling around a drain endlessly like nonsensical conversations in “Through the Looking Glass - Humpty Dumpty insists that “I mean what I say, and I say what I mean” are equivalent (symmetric) but of course they aren’t.
It’s the first argument I ever had with transsexuals, when I was 19, and it still is the argument.
Consider these propositions, which can be mirrored between men and women:
1. Being a woman is not the opposite of being a man.
2. Masculinity is not the absence of being feminine.
3. A man not feeling like a man is something only a man can experience.
4. Only a woman can feel like a woman feels.
(A set of pure Catch-22’s in a way.)
So… man not feeling like a man is not a man feeling like a woman.
A man cannot feel like a woman.
Only women can “feel like women do,” and only men can “feel like men do.” They are mutually exclusive categories, though not opposite, by definition.
Every time you hear “dysphoria” it is not about “feeling like the opposite sex” - men and woman are no more opposites than bread and butter.
It is at origin, a pure form of (existential) unhappiness with having to be as one is born, and not being otherwise.
Fortunately, for 99.97% of humans, the hormones involved in puberty reconfigure bits of the body and mind, and that the gift of orgasmic pleasure makes up for the discomfort. Puberty is most of the cure.
For some people, that isn’t true. But it doesn’t make them feel or be a different sex. It just means they are never comfortable with the way they were born, no matter how they disguse the
it is as if a sharp edged chopstick has been thrust into our brains and then forcefully stirred. leaving us with a kind of custard where our brains used to be.
Though as I indicated in my recent comment here about Francis Bacon, the problem is basically the "shoddy and inept uses of words" by virtually everybody, present company excepted, of course. 🙂
But you in particular might like something in the same vein from Confucius some 2000 years before Bacon said pretty much the same thing:
"If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success. ... Therefore a superior man considers it necessary that the names he uses may be spoken appropriately .... What the superior man requires is just that in his words there may be nothing incorrect."
Something I got originally from an old tweet (2019) from a medical doctor, "la scapigliata" -- Isidora Sanger, author of "Born in the Right Body". However, I'm no longer able to access Twitter, having been banned for offending Musk's minions ... 🙂
"Is gender immutable or fluid? Socialized or inborn?"
The $64,000 question -- suitably adjusted for inflation, of course. But awesome post -- a generally thorough and cogent analysis of the issues and the problems with the concepts of "gender" and "gender identity"
Both of which are, as you put it, "never meaningfully defined" -- the crux of the whole transgender clusterfuck. But we can't possibly answer those questions until we actually state what we MEAN by those terms -- those are the starting blocks which too many are still stuck at, spinning their wheels, disappearing up their own fundaments. As philosopher Will Durant put it relative to a famous quip by Voltaire:
Durant: “ 'If you wish to converse with me,' said Voltaire, 'define your terms.' How many a debate would have been deflated into a paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms! This is the alpha and omega of logic, the heart and soul of it, that every important term in serious discourse shall be subjected to strictest scrutiny and definition. It is difficult, and ruthlessly tests the mind; but once done it is half of any task."
Moot of course exactly how we might define both, and whether they have any utility even if it's possible to do so. But -- with so many people blathering on at great length about the terms as if they refer to something real and on related issues -- it seems warranted to make some effort to put the concepts on something of a scientifically and/or philosophically sound footing. And the most sensible definitions I've seen are those touted by a few sensible feminists writing or quoted in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [SEP], and by the late great Justice of the US Supreme Court Anton Scalia:
SEP: "2.2 Gender as feminine and masculine personality ... Instead, she holds that gender is a matter of having feminine and masculine personalities that develop in early infancy as responses to prevalent parenting practices."
Scalia: “The word 'gender' has acquired the new and useful connotation of cultural or attitudinal characteristics (as opposed to physical characteristics) distinctive to the sexes. That is to say, gender is to sex as feminine is to female and masculine is to male.”
But, given that more or less solid definition for "gender" as feminine and masculine personalities and personality types, it is then not much of a stretch to see "gender identity" as a variation on "personal identity", a fairly solid concept and a topic on which SEP also has an illuminating article. Paraphrasing it:
SEP [paraphrased]: "Outside of philosophy, [gender identity’] usually refers to [sexually dimorphic personality traits] to which we feel a special sense of attachment or ownership. Someone’s [gender identity] in this sense consists of those [feminine and masculine personality traits] she takes to 'define her as a person' or 'make her the person she is', and which distinguish her from others."
Complex issue that is in urgent need of some coherent and objectively based definitions. But related thereto is one further point of yours that bears emphasizing, a quote from the testimony given, an answer given to a question presented:
"A. So, as I recall, Dylan had expressed to me that he had first identified as a male at around age 10 or so."
But the problem there is that many people haven't a clue what it means to say "identify as", though, to be fair, it is a somewhat pretentious and uncommon phrase. But, as the Oxford Learner's Dictionary [OLD] puts it, it means:
OLD: "identify as; phrasal verb
identify as something:
to recognize or decide that you belong to a particular category"
But one can't just arbitrarily say that one is a member of a particular category unless one can actually pay the membership dues. For example, someone saying that they "identify as a teenager" when they are 50 is or probably should be sufficient reason to put them in jail or a mental institution. But some bearded dick-swinging transwoman saying he "identifies as a female"? 🙄 Either he's using "female" in a non-standard way, or he's crazier than a shit-house rat; in neither case should he be given anything more than the time of day, if that.
Major part of the problem with the whole transgender clusterfuck is that, as Francis Bacon put it some 400 years ago, "shoddy and inept uses of words lays siege to the intellect in wondrous ways." That is where we need to start if we want to have any hope at all of resolving that problem.
As I always advise, substitute the word “sex” for “gender” and discussions become clear and much simpler. There are no “gender” traits, only sex traits. One isn’t identified with respect to sex by gender, but by sex.
There are other grammatical terms abused, gender isn’t alone. Gender, number, case, animacy, countability.
Consider people who refuse to be singular people and insist on being referred to in plural forms, as “we” and “they” - which links bombastic royalty to multiple personality disorder to “non-binary”. No, it’s not non-binary it’s non-English.
I call it the mystification of the obvious. Unhappiness is dysphoria. A woman is the bearer of a cervix. Sex is gender. Sex change is affirmation. Genital mutilation is affirmation surgery. Depression is suicidal ideation. Permanent Chemical castration is reversible puberty blocker. Patient, well
Meaning support is lethal suicide-inducing conversion therapy. Ordinary is “cisgender”. It’s all so funny if it weren’t sad.
Sufeitzy: "As I always advise, substitute the word 'sex' for 'gender' and discussions become clear and much simpler. There are no 'gender' traits, only sex traits."
As I said in a response to your note, many people quite reasonably DEFINE "gender" to MEAN "sexually dimorphic personalities and personality types". Getting your knickers in a twist because they do so doesn't seem particularly wise or credible -- particularly when there is so much solid evidence for that dimorphism:
The ONLY thing that, by definition, determines membership in the sex categories is whether an organism has functional gonads of either of two types, those with neither being sexless:
"Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems."
One can't very well determine sex category membership if the definitions are totally open-ended. If you want to do that then all you have at best is a spectrum, if not an incoherent and totally useless mess. It also makes it impossible to ask questions about which other traits correlate with each sex, and by how much.
Sufeitzy: "One isn’t identified with respect to sex by gender, but by sex."
Thanks for this. The circular thinking seems to come from overloading the word "gender".
To me it seems that gender would be more clearly defined as if you're a man wanting breasts and a vagina, if you're a woman wanting no breasts and a penis/testes. Other characteristics also apply including hair on the body and voice. Does it also include strength, height, and sex drive (using the trope that men want more sex than woman)? Does a trans-woman also long for a uterus and the ability to create children.
Using this, gender identity is then just out of alignment with your body from a sexual parts point of view. Sex is simple the chromosomes that produce the parts. That's immutable with today's medical technology.
That would bring into question defining gay and lesbian. Are gays attracted to the gender (i.e. parts) or the chromosomes. Science has already stated that gays are attracted to guy smells. But as a gay person, the bodily parts also part of it.
It also brings into question what defines a person as str8. Is a str8 person attracted to gender or sex?
Seems the ALCU, trans community and the courts know that this is all a pandora's box. Why no just task the anthropologists to define and be done with it. The APA only creates a definition to define some appropriate treatment. They could default to the anthropological view also. The AAA certainly tried to not jump into the controversy by cancel a panel discussion on the immutable characteristics of sex.
I have been thinking about "Gender Identity" for quite some time, and wrote this to try and clarify it in my mind, and ask if anyone else had any ideas about it. Here's what I wrote, if anyone is interested. wrhttps://open.substack.com/pub/hippiesq/p/gender-identity?r=lq7i3&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I can sympathize with your answer to the question of "what is gender identity" -- i.e., "Gender Identity isn’t anything at all".
However, I think you and far too many others are far too quick to dismiss the concept as not carrying any weight or substance at all, that all you're doing is shooting yourselves in the feet. You might consider that, as I've argued here recently, it's more or less analogous to personal identity which the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [SEP] gives some credence to. Of particular note is this summary or overview:
SEP: "Outside of philosophy, ‘personal identity’ usually refers to properties to which we feel a special sense of attachment or ownership. Someone’s personal identity in this sense consists of those properties she takes to 'define her as a person' or 'make her the person she is', and which distinguish her from others."
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/#ProPerIde
The problem isn't with "gender identity" itself but with how it is misused and misinterpreted. As you put it yourself: "it is used to justify body hatred, denial of physical reality, and serious, risky medical interventions in response to mental discomfort."
https://hippiesq.substack.com/p/gender-identity
But that some people misuse tools is no reason to throw them overboard. Only reason to re-educate them or take them out of their hands.
Steersman, I understand your point of view, and you and I have discussed this before. I personally suspect (without doing an in-depth research project, the likes of which I have no idea how to accomplish, I cannot know for sure) that "gender identity" started off to mean "the degree and type of feminine and/or masculine (as those terms are defined in a given society at a given time) qualities one possesses and with which the person feels most comfortable." This definition makes sense to me, and has value. It can be used to say that we tend to have set (although fluctuating) degrees and types of feminine and masculine qualities that are somewhat inherent to us, and allow for more acceptance of what is considered gender non-conforming behavior.
However, that definition of "gender identity," if it ever was used, has never become known or used in society at large, and remained somewhere in the world of academia. The only definition of "gender identity" that has become a part of society at large is the one that has been used by activists and judges to uphold the "right" for minors to medically transition.
Whatever these activists and judges mean by the term, it is not being used to describe a set of characteristics regarding performative gender, which could never justify the radical medical experimentation being employed in droves on young, vulnerable people. Rather, "gender identity," as it is being used, refers to an "identity" that, in and of itself, simply means that a person is "male" or "female" or "both male and female" or "neither male nor female" or something else, and, for an inexplicable reason, also means that the person (in most cases - but not all, as some people think medicalization is wholly unnecessary, but, oddly, still think they should be part of the physical category of "male" or "female" based merely upon the "gender identity") must medically transition to appear as much as possible like the opposite sex. In the case of "non-binary" people, it often means the person should at least bind or tuck (depending on what they are hiding), and sometimes also means they need medical interventions to remove, disguise or tweak sexed organs or features.
My argument is simply that, to the extent that a "gender identity" is supposed to refer to the sense of being "male" or "female," yet not refer to biology, and not refer to societal expectations/stereotypes, it is completely meaningless, and cannot justify the medical interventions being pushed on young, vulnerable people.
I would retort that "gender identity" serves only to do harm, and it should be removed everywhere from psychology and law. It isn't just sterilizing chilkdren, though that is probably the worst, it has become the foundation of myriad abuses and of nothing good.
In German the memory of the lexicon of the Holocaust has all but eliminated Vernichtung, annihilation, from the language. And the Holocaust abd 'trans" have mass sterilization in common.
Entirely unevidenced opinion ...
You might actually try reading some history of the term:
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22gender+identity%22&year_start=1880&year_end=2000&case_insensitive=on&corpus=en-2012&smoothing=3
But then again, pigs might fly ...
Hippiesq: "I personally suspect ... that 'gender identity' started off to mean 'the degree and type of feminine and/or masculine ... qualities one possesses and with which the person feels most comfortable.' This definition makes sense to me, and has value."
Amen to that! A definition I'm ready to go to the wall with you on! 😉🙂 Or even without you, more or less in any case. But many thanks for your comments here and, in particular, for the one on my Substack which I'll try to get to shortly, although there's a lot to chew through there:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/is-nothing-sacred-looking-into-the/comment/36738199
As you say, we have discussed this before, including in comments to that post, and I see that we're more or less on the same page as far as the above definitions go.
Hippiesq: "... without doing an in-depth research project, the likes of which I have no idea how to accomplish ..."
Hadn't thought about it before but it's a good question. Caused me to use Google's "Ngram Viewer" to do a search on the term "gender identity" -- haven't used it much myself, but it seems like a good start:
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22gender+identity%22&year_start=1880&year_end=2000&case_insensitive=on&corpus=en-2012&smoothing=3
Seems the term first showed up on the scene in about 1966, hit a bit of a peak of popularity in 1977, a trough in 1984, and been ever onward and upward since then. Have only had time to look into a couple of the Google Books returned by the search, but the few I've read/skimmed so far more or less confirms your suspicions:
"Identity in Question (1992):
2.1 The development of gender identity
In this section we are going to look at where we come from in terms of childhood experience and the development of gender identities in childhood. Gender identity involves the construction and use of gender categories. .... What evidence exists about children’s use of gender categories? Children’s preference for particular toys is some of the earliest behaviour indicating a categorization of masculine and feminine. Preferences, behaviours or traits [some of which are biologically determined or motivated; my emphasis] mirror the views of one’s society about what is masculine and what is feminine are termed ‘gender-appropriate’. ....”
https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Identity_in_question/KoerDAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22%22+gender+identity+%22%22&pg=PT15&printsec=frontcover
"Schizophrenia Bulletin (1976):
Gender identity has been likened to a symphonic orchestration. It is composed of many motifs intertwined into one integrated them. .... Gender role is the public expression of one’s individuality [personality] as male or female. Gender identity is the private experience of one’s individuality as male or female. ....”
https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Schizophrenia_Bulletin/MGXWGsYPCSwC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22%22+gender+identity+%22%22&pg=PA267&printsec=frontcover
I think the latter is rather “problematic” at best for a number of reasons, though I’d have to do a closer reading than I have time for at the moment. But offhand it seems the author isn’t acknowledging atypical personality traits – e.g., masculine traits in females – and seems a bit clueless about what is required to qualify as a male or a female in the first place.
Hippiesq: "[Gender identity] can be used to say that we tend to have ... feminine and masculine qualities that are somewhat inherent to us, and allow for more acceptance of what is considered gender non-conforming behavior."
Amen to that.
Hippiesq: "Rather, 'gender identity,' as it is being used, refers to an 'identity' that, in and of itself, simply means that a person is 'male' or 'female' ..."
Exactly right. Many of the sources I've quoted above and before -- Scalia and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy in particular -- are more or less careful about clearly differentiating between being male or female (as sexes) and having masculine and feminine traits that are merely more or less typical of each sex without being definitive -- as you've emphasized.
But various transgender ideologues and their useful/useless idiots have more or less poisoned the well by insisting on using "male" and "female" as genders and/or gender identities. For examples, see Matt Walsh's tweet of Merriam-Webster's definitions for "female" -- both as a sex and as a gender identity -- and, as a Canadian I'm somewhat ashamed to say this, Statistics Canada's call for "consultation on gender and sexual diversity statistical metadata standards":
https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1549382790952656899
https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/concepts/consult-variables/gender
There isn't any intrinsic problem in defining words in contradictory ways -- many words are like that -- but there are humongous problems caused by using the contradictory definitions in the same sentence or argument. The "informal fallacy" of equivocation; Wikipedia's rather sexist example:
"Since only man [human] is rational.
And no woman is a man [male].
Therefore, no woman is rational."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation
Equivocation -- AKA, bait-and-switch -- for fun and profit. Largely why I'm rather "peeved" with Wikipedia -- smoke comes out of my ears just thinking of their egregious fraud -- for their article on transwoman and Olympian Laurel Hubbard which claimed that "she" had "transitioned to female":
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/wikipedias-lysenkoism
There's your "justification" for the "activists and judges to uphold the 'right' for minors to medically transition."
My eyes happen to be brown. I was born with brown eyes. Nobody “ assigned” me the color of my eyes. I was also born female, not “ assigned” !
My brother was born male, and the doctor observed that he had the requisite sex organs to be male.
This stupid “ assigned at birth” has to go! The trans ideology has captured our language in order to control out thoughts. That this has also taken over our laws and judges is abhorrent! Judges need to be more intelligent than bowing down to the bullying of the trans cult!
Assigned at birth stuff drives me crazy. I was filling out a health form the other day and it asked for me sex assigned at birth. If it’s just an arbitrary assignment, why does it matter what it was?
Thanks for the analysis. I’ve often thought about the very circular thinking of all this, and how when it comes down to it, what they are saying doesn’t make sense or pan out. So much contradiction.
And to debunk some of the glorious "heroes" of the early cross-sex ideation history makers, here's new info on Jan Morris, originally James, who went to Casablanca and had "the surgeries" in 1972, then published Conundrum, a memoir in 1974. My then husband referenced this book and the possibilities it opened up when I told him I found his crossdressing diaries in August of 1992. Suki, the daughter who was told at age 7 to no longer call Daddy that, waited until he died in 2020 to tell the public that he was rabidly sexist and most of his many books contain lies, outside of the locations:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twucapkZdFE&t=1s
Great work here picking apart this case. Thank you so much. On why the Arkansas AG performed so poorly, I wonder whether you’ve seen Leor Sapir’s discussion of the general problem in unbalanced representation? He discusses it starting at about 47m in this video: https://youtu.be/LvJFAvADio8
This is oversimplified, so better to listen to what he says directly, but as I understand it, his basic take is that the AGs are overwhelmed with a huge portfolio of matters with little time to prepare, whereas the pro-gender ID side attorneys, like Strangio at the ACLU, do nothing but these cases and as a result have been able to hone their arguments over many years.
I did work in a state AG’s office as a litigation section chief for a few years, and what he is saying tracks with my own experience. But that was a very long time ago, and I would welcome your up to date take on this.
Bottom line: Thank you so much, again, for doing this needed and excellent work. We need to understand much better what is happening in the courts, and your contribution is incredibly valuable.
I'm trying not to speculate too much in these pieces, but yeah, the unbalanced representation theory makes sense. Not the whole story though. As I work on these posts, I'm more and more looking at the judge's role.
The judge reminds me of Sylvia, the Nanny's mother. Always wearing clothes 40 years too young trying to keep up with the youth and be au courant.
I've read several hundred article about gender this and that. And it's amazing the degree to which it's all a linguistic phenomenon. Endless signifiers without signified.
And by the way, Isn't the number of genders infinite as they can be any noun or fractions of nouns and can change at a moments notice?
Many of these judges have been briefed by the ACLUs and related organizations about how to think about it AND we are aware of some who have trans-id relatives. This would seem like a major reason to be disqualified if they affirmed. Who wants to admit to themselves they've been hoodwinked.
Looking forward to what more you uncover about the judge’s role in this--and all else. Definitely a lot going on here, and smart not to theorize too soon. Thanks so much for digging in to this so thoroughly!
This case makes for very entertaining reading! Thank you for distilling the circular narrative used by the plaintiffs, and incredibly, the judge.
Liberals laugh at the religious beliefs of conservatives while simultaneously enacting policies based on the unfalsifiable/religious concept of gender identity.
where the gender ideology religion does touch earth, it makes easily disprovable and false claims.
"Gender identity is not something that an individual can control or voluntarily change."
This is a false statement. Evidence? there is none. Gender identification regarding appearance is a hobby that is 100% voluntary. no one is forcing people to change their appearance.
so what if someone "feels" like a different gender. most kids who "feel" like this will stop feeling like this with puberty, as long as they dont take gender meds. if a man "feels" like a women he should still use the mens room and participate according to his biological sex. theres no evidence that participating in the opposite sex category helps.
how one "feels" is just another religious statement. if religious people cant force others to participate in their traditions and beliefs, then those who believe in gender ideology shouldnt be able to force their religion on others either.
"Efforts to change a person’s gender identity to become congruent with their birth assigned sex have been attempted in the past without success and with harmful effects."
another false statement. wheres the evidence? we know kids with gender dysphoria who arent affirmed eventually ID again with their birth gender with puberty. this is a far better outcome than suffering the Iatrogenic harms of gender affirming " care" that include life long physical and mental problems that wouldnt have occured otherwise, early death , increased suicides, life long loss of sexual function, sterility, etc.
Every gender ideology stat, claim and statement is a lie. People and groups promoting gender ideology make so many false claims their dogma and mantra may sound believable to some, at first. but once these claims are more closely looked at its clear their claims are carefully crafted fraud.
The more judges accept the unevidenced claims of the gender ideology religion, the less popular democrats will become. many countries around the world are electing right wing governments simply to avoid the severe harms promoted by liberals via gender ideology. gender ideology is a threat to democratic values.
We are in a tangential agreement - men can only feel like men; only men can feel “not manly”. The condition of dysphoria is easily explained as not being euphoric about ones sex.
Sex is real, was determined at conception, and cannot be altered. A man cannot “feel like a woman” any more than a goldfish can feel like a turtle.
One cannot be or feel a “gender”, or grammatical agreement between words and sex, any more than one can feel “singular” or “plural”, or perhaps “dative” or “accusative”. One cannot be “assigned” a “number” at birth, and struggle with feeling plural rather than singular all life long, or accused of being accusative rather than vocative.
Nobody is “born the wrong sex” any more than someone is “born the wrong size” or “born with two legs incorrectly”, though anorexia feels like the wrong size, and body integrity dysmorphia feels like the wrong legs. There is no misalignment. There is only debilitating misperception and feeling.
Once you simply substitue “sex” for “gender” in these conversations, everything becomes crystal clear and easy to discuss.
anyone can feel like a man or a women. or a palm tree or a trash truck. but so what? its a harmful fraud to claim this feeling is a free ticket to spaces of opposite gender or to promote quack medicine to address these feelings. the meds dont help anything and certainly make everything worse. men going into womens spaces puts womem at risk, sets womems rights back 300 years and causes democrats to lose elections and for conservative polcies to be enacted.
men in drag arent safe in womens spaces. theyre safer in the mens. and theres a reason for that. 99% of assaults on women are via biological men. trans ID men assault women at the same rate as non trans ID men. thats why people dont want men in women's restrooms. and when they go in there theyre not safe. every incident reg "trans" id is always in the womens restroom. its never in the mens. men couldnt care less if someones in drag.
men instinctively know that men in drag are just another man living his man life same as any other man.
dylan irish name budweiser dude and guy who claims to be "trans" and has a TV show with his whole family (forget his name) are just as much men as Arnold Schwarzenegger in the same way a chihuahua and a rottweiler are both dogs. if a rottweiler feels like a cat i support that dogs freedom to do so. but i wouldnt put a rottweiler in a cat cage with cats. and its unfair to give a rottweiler meds for cats.
It’s like circling around a drain endlessly like nonsensical conversations in “Through the Looking Glass - Humpty Dumpty insists that “I mean what I say, and I say what I mean” are equivalent (symmetric) but of course they aren’t.
It’s the first argument I ever had with transsexuals, when I was 19, and it still is the argument.
Consider these propositions, which can be mirrored between men and women:
1. Being a woman is not the opposite of being a man.
2. Masculinity is not the absence of being feminine.
3. A man not feeling like a man is something only a man can experience.
4. Only a woman can feel like a woman feels.
(A set of pure Catch-22’s in a way.)
So… man not feeling like a man is not a man feeling like a woman.
A man cannot feel like a woman.
Only women can “feel like women do,” and only men can “feel like men do.” They are mutually exclusive categories, though not opposite, by definition.
Every time you hear “dysphoria” it is not about “feeling like the opposite sex” - men and woman are no more opposites than bread and butter.
It is at origin, a pure form of (existential) unhappiness with having to be as one is born, and not being otherwise.
Fortunately, for 99.97% of humans, the hormones involved in puberty reconfigure bits of the body and mind, and that the gift of orgasmic pleasure makes up for the discomfort. Puberty is most of the cure.
For some people, that isn’t true. But it doesn’t make them feel or be a different sex. It just means they are never comfortable with the way they were born, no matter how they disguse the
it is as if a sharp edged chopstick has been thrust into our brains and then forcefully stirred. leaving us with a kind of custard where our brains used to be.
wow. just had a look at that twitter thread. am going to buy that sanger book. thank you.
🙂 Seems about right ... 😉🙂
Though as I indicated in my recent comment here about Francis Bacon, the problem is basically the "shoddy and inept uses of words" by virtually everybody, present company excepted, of course. 🙂
But you in particular might like something in the same vein from Confucius some 2000 years before Bacon said pretty much the same thing:
"If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success. ... Therefore a superior man considers it necessary that the names he uses may be spoken appropriately .... What the superior man requires is just that in his words there may be nothing incorrect."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectification_of_names#Confucius
Something I got originally from an old tweet (2019) from a medical doctor, "la scapigliata" -- Isidora Sanger, author of "Born in the Right Body". However, I'm no longer able to access Twitter, having been banned for offending Musk's minions ... 🙂
https://twitter.com/lascapigliata8
"Is gender immutable or fluid? Socialized or inborn?"
The $64,000 question -- suitably adjusted for inflation, of course. But awesome post -- a generally thorough and cogent analysis of the issues and the problems with the concepts of "gender" and "gender identity"
Both of which are, as you put it, "never meaningfully defined" -- the crux of the whole transgender clusterfuck. But we can't possibly answer those questions until we actually state what we MEAN by those terms -- those are the starting blocks which too many are still stuck at, spinning their wheels, disappearing up their own fundaments. As philosopher Will Durant put it relative to a famous quip by Voltaire:
Durant: “ 'If you wish to converse with me,' said Voltaire, 'define your terms.' How many a debate would have been deflated into a paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms! This is the alpha and omega of logic, the heart and soul of it, that every important term in serious discourse shall be subjected to strictest scrutiny and definition. It is difficult, and ruthlessly tests the mind; but once done it is half of any task."
https://quotefancy.com/quote/3001527/Will-Durant-If-you-wish-to-converse-with-me-said-Voltaire-define-your-terms-How-many-a
Moot of course exactly how we might define both, and whether they have any utility even if it's possible to do so. But -- with so many people blathering on at great length about the terms as if they refer to something real and on related issues -- it seems warranted to make some effort to put the concepts on something of a scientifically and/or philosophically sound footing. And the most sensible definitions I've seen are those touted by a few sensible feminists writing or quoted in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [SEP], and by the late great Justice of the US Supreme Court Anton Scalia:
SEP: "2.2 Gender as feminine and masculine personality ... Instead, she holds that gender is a matter of having feminine and masculine personalities that develop in early infancy as responses to prevalent parenting practices."
https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/feminism-gender/#GenFemMasPer
Scalia: “The word 'gender' has acquired the new and useful connotation of cultural or attitudinal characteristics (as opposed to physical characteristics) distinctive to the sexes. That is to say, gender is to sex as feminine is to female and masculine is to male.”
https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep511/usrep511127/usrep511127.pdf
But, given that more or less solid definition for "gender" as feminine and masculine personalities and personality types, it is then not much of a stretch to see "gender identity" as a variation on "personal identity", a fairly solid concept and a topic on which SEP also has an illuminating article. Paraphrasing it:
SEP [paraphrased]: "Outside of philosophy, [gender identity’] usually refers to [sexually dimorphic personality traits] to which we feel a special sense of attachment or ownership. Someone’s [gender identity] in this sense consists of those [feminine and masculine personality traits] she takes to 'define her as a person' or 'make her the person she is', and which distinguish her from others."
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/#ProPerIde
Complex issue that is in urgent need of some coherent and objectively based definitions. But related thereto is one further point of yours that bears emphasizing, a quote from the testimony given, an answer given to a question presented:
"A. So, as I recall, Dylan had expressed to me that he had first identified as a male at around age 10 or so."
But the problem there is that many people haven't a clue what it means to say "identify as", though, to be fair, it is a somewhat pretentious and uncommon phrase. But, as the Oxford Learner's Dictionary [OLD] puts it, it means:
OLD: "identify as; phrasal verb
identify as something:
to recognize or decide that you belong to a particular category"
https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/identify-as
But one can't just arbitrarily say that one is a member of a particular category unless one can actually pay the membership dues. For example, someone saying that they "identify as a teenager" when they are 50 is or probably should be sufficient reason to put them in jail or a mental institution. But some bearded dick-swinging transwoman saying he "identifies as a female"? 🙄 Either he's using "female" in a non-standard way, or he's crazier than a shit-house rat; in neither case should he be given anything more than the time of day, if that.
Major part of the problem with the whole transgender clusterfuck is that, as Francis Bacon put it some 400 years ago, "shoddy and inept uses of words lays siege to the intellect in wondrous ways." That is where we need to start if we want to have any hope at all of resolving that problem.
As I always advise, substitute the word “sex” for “gender” and discussions become clear and much simpler. There are no “gender” traits, only sex traits. One isn’t identified with respect to sex by gender, but by sex.
There are other grammatical terms abused, gender isn’t alone. Gender, number, case, animacy, countability.
Consider people who refuse to be singular people and insist on being referred to in plural forms, as “we” and “they” - which links bombastic royalty to multiple personality disorder to “non-binary”. No, it’s not non-binary it’s non-English.
I call it the mystification of the obvious. Unhappiness is dysphoria. A woman is the bearer of a cervix. Sex is gender. Sex change is affirmation. Genital mutilation is affirmation surgery. Depression is suicidal ideation. Permanent Chemical castration is reversible puberty blocker. Patient, well
Meaning support is lethal suicide-inducing conversion therapy. Ordinary is “cisgender”. It’s all so funny if it weren’t sad.
Sufeitzy: "As I always advise, substitute the word 'sex' for 'gender' and discussions become clear and much simpler. There are no 'gender' traits, only sex traits."
As I said in a response to your note, many people quite reasonably DEFINE "gender" to MEAN "sexually dimorphic personalities and personality types". Getting your knickers in a twist because they do so doesn't seem particularly wise or credible -- particularly when there is so much solid evidence for that dimorphism:
https://substack.com/@humanuseofhumanbeings/note/c-38911367
The ONLY thing that, by definition, determines membership in the sex categories is whether an organism has functional gonads of either of two types, those with neither being sexless:
"Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems."
https://web.archive.org/web/20181020204521/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/female
https://web.archive.org/web/20190608135422/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/male
One can't very well determine sex category membership if the definitions are totally open-ended. If you want to do that then all you have at best is a spectrum, if not an incoherent and totally useless mess. It also makes it impossible to ask questions about which other traits correlate with each sex, and by how much.
Sufeitzy: "One isn’t identified with respect to sex by gender, but by sex."
What? That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.
Anyone who goes with the nonsense of “assigned at birth” is suspect. You know very well aware they are going to go from there.
Thanks for this. The circular thinking seems to come from overloading the word "gender".
To me it seems that gender would be more clearly defined as if you're a man wanting breasts and a vagina, if you're a woman wanting no breasts and a penis/testes. Other characteristics also apply including hair on the body and voice. Does it also include strength, height, and sex drive (using the trope that men want more sex than woman)? Does a trans-woman also long for a uterus and the ability to create children.
Using this, gender identity is then just out of alignment with your body from a sexual parts point of view. Sex is simple the chromosomes that produce the parts. That's immutable with today's medical technology.
That would bring into question defining gay and lesbian. Are gays attracted to the gender (i.e. parts) or the chromosomes. Science has already stated that gays are attracted to guy smells. But as a gay person, the bodily parts also part of it.
It also brings into question what defines a person as str8. Is a str8 person attracted to gender or sex?
Seems the ALCU, trans community and the courts know that this is all a pandora's box. Why no just task the anthropologists to define and be done with it. The APA only creates a definition to define some appropriate treatment. They could default to the anthropological view also. The AAA certainly tried to not jump into the controversy by cancel a panel discussion on the immutable characteristics of sex.
This judge is seriously under-educated and overly reliant on the ideologies endorsed by major medical organizations. I am shocked and dismayed.