Transgendered discussion (split from HoS)

[Simon_Jester]

I wasn't aware I'd suggested otherwise.

Edit: That's not sarcasm, the idea that someone other than the police would have a reason to see your license seriously hadn't occurred to me.

We may be looking at a cultural mismatch.

In the US, for instance, the driver's license is routinely used as a form of personal identification for important transactions: for pretty much anything you do at a government office, for example. I show my driver's license (as a form of photo ID) every time I do business at my bank, to identify myself. I sometimes present my driver's license (again, as a form of photo ID) when using my credit card, to prove that yes it is me who is using my credit card.

There are other forms of ID you can use for these purposes, but since all of them mark your gender, they all present the same problem: the information becomes accessible to people who don't have a right to it, but who do have a legitimate reason to ask for proof that you are who you say you are.

I suspect the same is true in Germany- presenting photo ID that includes your sex on the card is a routine requirement, not just something the police can demand from you or that the EMTs can pull out of your pocket.

The only reasons I can think of to do it the way you suggest would be:
-Poor planning (someone needs to know this, therefore everyone should know this!)
-Ulterior motives (I am actually looking for a way to slap a label on transgender people that will make their lives harder)

Personally I'm still guessing "poor planning." But that's me.

I agree.... The idea seemed good at the time.

Well, that's understandable. Especially since there appears to be an element of cultural mismatch.

If there was a form of personal identification accessible only to police and other people who have a legitimate need to know your full history, you could make a case for what you're proposing. Perhaps where you live this is normal; where most of the other people posting here live, it isn't.

[Spoonist]

It's medically relevant. I'm sorry if there are assholes in the world and I do believe that Transexuals should not be declined for medical care simply because of their transexual status but this is as relevant and pertinent to proper medical care as knowing if someone is or is not allergic to penicillin or what their blood type is. It simply is.

That right there is so stupid you should be mocked without mercy.

With that justification we should have a badge on everyone with relevant info, regardless if that info could potentially be harmful due to assholes/religious/bullies/bigots/etc.

Say religious view so paramedics know how to treat you according to your beliefs. Its for your own good you know...
Say sexual preference, its statistically more prevalent with certain conditions in same sex relationships after all. Plus you get the added benefit of people knowing when not to hit on you. Less awkward that way you know...
Say relationship status, like if you are a virgin or not, whether you are in a monogamous relationship or whether you are sleeping around. All things that have medical effect you know...
Say whether your parents are actually your biological parents. Maybe bastard is a strong word but its good to know in a medical crisis you know...
Say "race", like if you are mixed, then witch mix. There are several known medical conditions relating to heritage you know...
Say disabilities, those are really good to know. Deaf, semi-deaf etc. Dyslectic or ADD ADHD are all good to know because those will effect whether you can read your prescription and follow it.

I truly hope you are just young and ignorant and not old and stupid.

[Todeswind]

I confess that you, as someone undergoing the treatment would have significantly more knowledge on the subject and potential side effects of the treatments than I could ever begin to have. I had been lead to believe that the potential long term complications of transgender treatments were more potent than they apparently are. What little knowledge I do have on the subject comes from a close friend of mine who is in medical school whose opinions on the matter seemed plausible enough. And frankly when it comes to first responder situations I get a little edgy.

I paid my way through college by working in private security for the campus meaning that when there were medical issues I was generally the first responder, sometimes even before the EMTs got there. Most of what I ended up dealing with were alcohol or substance related but a couple of near miss suicide attempts that damn near became actual successes because of a lack of proper information about the person in question. This has significantly colored my opinion on what information should be easily accessible to medical professionals in a crisis situation. You'd be surprised how close to getting killed some people are for not thinking to tell someone that they're diabetic, or allergic to penicillin.

I still do believe that there should be some system in place for first responders to get basic medical information from everyone and yes I do think that being a transgendered (male/female/whatever) might be relevant for someone to know before they get you in surgery.

Let me tell you something:
You are UTTERLY WRONG. Completely, utterly, 100% wrong.

Not only do transsexual people take nothing else but hormones, these hormones are also utterly irrelevant for first responders. If hormones are ever relevant for a medicla condition, a blood test will be done anyway (no matter whether the patient is taking any hormones) because hormone levels can vary quite a lot in cissexual people as well, especially if they have an endocrinological condition.


The medicaly relevant differences between transsexual and cissexual people are very small - they certainly don't warrant any required identification due to being transsexual. And there is NO REASON why this could possibly justify a different gender marker for them - which wouldn't even convey the necessary information to a medical professional(guess what, the exact nature of hormone therapy can differ, too).
To a first responder, the endocrinological status should be utterly irrelevant. Just ask yourself "how often did i have to deal with someones hormones as a first responder"?
The only real medical releveance for transsexual people is long-term - for example, their liver will be under slighly higher stress, because the hormones pass trough it twice instead of once (tough certain compounds circumvent that). Obviously, injuries to the sexual organs might need to be handled diferently. That's pretty much it to my knowledge, unless we are talking about obscure genetic diseases or something like that.

To reiterate:
-There is only a very small medical relevance to transsexuality (relating to treatments for other conditions), so medical professionals rarely need to know about it.
-There is absolutely no relevance for first responders.


Oh, and heres a nice hint: Id you don't know what you are talking about, don't talk about it (or you'll look like an idiot). And you should tell your friend that he gave you completely wrong information.

If I have offended you by ignorance I am sorry.

First responders have also been known for letting transsexuals die. I don't have time to pull up articles but I know others can. It's mostly pre-op, when they can see it, and post-op is usually good enough that nobody can tell the difference. This would be giving the same bigots information to out the post-ops as well.

That's repugnant.

[Broomstick]

Edit: That's not sarcasm, the idea that someone other than the police would have a reason to see your license seriously hadn't occurred to me.

Reasons someone in the US needs to show someone "other than the police" a driver's license:

1) Bank transactions.
2) Credit purchases
3) Check writing for purchases
4) Proof of age to purchase alcohol, tobacco, fireworks, or firearms
5) Identify oneself for insurance purposes (auto and medical mostly, but also others)
6) Access to public aid
7) Proof of identity for job interview
8) Proof of residence for anything requiring that
9) Proof of ID/residence in order to vote
10) Proof of ID/residence to apply for passport (most Americans do not have a passport)

That's just off the top of my head. A slightly more esoteric one was needing to have my driver's license on my person while piloting an airplane, but that change came in after 2002. People in the US are always showing their driver's licenses to people, which is why more and more they're dropping items like social security numbers off them to prevent identity theft. It's getting to point it's a de facto all purpose ID card and you can't leave home without it.

[Serafina]

I actually know someone who undergoes body modifications to make himself similar to his "spirit animal." He insists that we refer to him as a "humanimal" and that he was truly born to be a cat. No, seriously.... Tokyo has some real... characters living in it.

Ooh, swing and a miss....


Yes, i know that such people exist. You utterly missed my point: That it is in no way comparable to transsexuality.
For transsexuality, we have decades of studies telling us that a transwomans gender identity is indeeed female, and that a transman has indeed a male gender identity. We have a possible mechanism for how this gender identity forms (several in fact), and there is plenty of evidence that it's just a normal, human gender identity as we observe it in cissexual people.
For those people who claim to be animals, no such evidence exists. There is no evidence that he was "meant to be a cat" - unless you find cat-DNA or cat-like structures in his body, this claim is reliant on a soul and reincarnation, and therefore inherently supernatural. There is also no psychological evidence that this identity is actually a stable, inherent identity instead of an acquired quirk. If we ever find scientific evidence that he actually IS a cat (because "meant to be" is meaningless), i would support his rights to be a cat.

Frankly, i have NO IDEA why you compare transsexuality to something like that, other than the following: apparently, it's both equally freaky and made-up to you. However, a transwomen ultimately wants to (and nearly always will) live like every other woman, and a transman like every other man (both are of course a wide spectrum). There's nothing freaky about it.

I suspect the same is true in Germany- presenting photo ID that includes your sex on the card is a routine requirement, not just something the police can demand from you or that the EMTs can pull out of your pocket.

Actually, the german ID-card carries no sex entry at all. It just carries a photograph, name, date&place of birth, citizenship, eyecolor, height and current residence, as well as a couple of bureacratic information (date of issue etc.).
Passports (for travel outside the EU) carry a sex entry. However, as soon as you get your name changed (which can be done before surgery), that entry is changed to match the gender on the passport and similar documents (basically everywhere but on the birth certificate). Germany does place a high value on protecting transsexual people from being discriminated because of their biology, and this helps a lot - Todeswinds suggestions would do the exact opposite.

Good grief woman, I can only provide an opinion based upon what knowledge I have. If I have offended you by ignorance I am sorry.

You haven't exactly offended me, you are just really, really wrong. I hope that you grasped that by now after being told so repedeately. "So i heard" is genereally not a good source of information, five minutes on wikipedia would have told you that you are wrong.

Edit: That's not sarcasm, the idea that someone other than the police would have a reason to see your license seriously hadn't occurred to me.

Guess what: If the police actually NEED to know about a transsexual person being transsexual, they can inquire it.
To elaborate: Suppose the police had a warrant for me under my old name (it got changed recently). They could actually make the connection between the old and new name (something which anyone else is unable to inquire about).
The only other situation where it could possibly matter is DNA-evidence. The only "advantage" here for a transsexual person is that she is likely to be excluded from a broad-term search (say, they ask all men in a village for a sample). However, this is so extremely unlikely that i don't see any justification for a special marker on an ID-card. Once they actually have a DNA-sample from a transsexual person, it'll still match (if that person is actually guilty), the only problem are broad searches.

Even for the police, it's very rarely their bussiness if someone is transsexual or not. For everyone else, it's NEVER their bussiness.

[Todeswind]

We may be looking at a cultural mismatch.

In the US, for instance, the driver's license is routinely used as a form of personal identification for important transactions: for pretty much anything you do at a government office, for example. I show my driver's license (as a form of photo ID) every time I do business at my bank, to identify myself. I sometimes present my driver's license (again, as a form of photo ID) when using my credit card, to prove that yes it is me who is using my credit card.

There are other forms of ID you can use for these purposes, but since all of them mark your gender, they all present the same problem: the information becomes accessible to people who don't have a right to it, but who do have a legitimate reason to ask for proof that you are who you say you are.

I suspect the same is true in Germany- presenting photo ID that includes your sex on the card is a routine requirement, not just something the police can demand from you or that the EMTs can pull out of your pocket.

More than likely, I've never lived in any one country for more than a year or so at a time with the exception of Highschool.

EDIT: Though I am a US citizen on paper.

[Simon_Jester]

So, Todeswind, I hope that you now see why there are huge privacy objections to labeling transsexuals as "other" on government documents (including ID cards).

And on top of the privacy objections, there's another problem, which is that by doing so you are officially labeling them as "not really a man/not really a woman." A female-to-male transsexual is going to dislike being called "not really a man" as much as you* or I would. How would you like to be required to fill out all government forms with a line for sex as "other?"

To have that label applied officially is a huge slap in the face, and a totally unwarranted one- it serves no useful purpose. No one is better off, no one learns any useful information or any information they have a right to know, no public interest is served... the only things it accomplishes are:

1) Singling out transsexuals for discrimination, and
2) Giving them a label that humiliates them every time the issue arises, even if they are not discriminated against in that particular case.

So this is just flat out a bad plan for everyone involved.

*Here assuming you are male, or am I mistaken?

[Mayabird]

I confess that you, as someone undergoing the treatment would have significantly more knowledge on the subject and potential side effects of the treatments than I could ever begin to have. I had been lead to believe that the potential long term complications of transgender treatments were more potent than they apparently are. What little knowledge I do have on the subject comes from a close friend of mine who is in medical school whose opinions on the matter seemed plausible enough.

This med school friend of yours wouldn't happen to be a Japanese guy, would he/she? After all, Japan has seriously fucked up issues with gender relations and can barely handle having more than one gender as it is.


I could've sworn there were more stories involving paramedics including some more recently but the only one I can find with a quick search was that of Tyra Hunter, though that was fifteen years ago. There are other cases of mistreatment that don't involve death, and suffice to say page upon page of listings of police brutality. But that point has already been beaten into the ground.

[Spoonist]

We actually already have a term for folks like that - part one gender and part another - and it's called "intersex".

I was/am curious how intersexed would fit into the two worldviews that has been advocated between Serafina and Paula42. So to both of you how in your gender models do you place people of the intersex spectrum?
For further clarification it would be neat if both of you would for examples place people with androgen insensitivity syndrome and/or Klinefelter's syndrome and/or full Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome?
And to make sure that neither of you weasel out, do it both medically and psychologically.

In my own personal view describing humans as having only two or three genders is misleading and too simplified, as there are all sorts of combinations and in between states medically and psychologically all the way to homogamy.
However I recognize the cultural artifacts in language and sociology that rests on the dualism of two sexes, therefore I'd support anyones wishes in being treated as one or the other or neither as they themselves see fit. Which includes crossdressing transvestites which doesn't have nor wishes to change the plumbing but plays the other part anyway, as well as butches and femmes. (With the note that it is impolite and risky not to tell a speculative partner of any difference between expectations and reality).

[Serafina]

I was/am curious how intersexed would fit into the two worldviews that has been advocated between Serafina and Paula42. So to both of you how in your gender models do you place people of the intersex spectrum?
For further clarification it would be neat if both of you would for examples place people with androgen insensitivity syndrome and/or Klinefelter's syndrome and/or full Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome?
And to make sure that neither of you weasel out, do it both medically and psychologically.

Given that this is a discussion about gender, psychology is more important, so i'll adress it first.

My model is basically as follows: What we call gender is a sum of various properties. These properties are independent of each other and therefore individually put people into various categories.
Some examples to show what i mean:
One basic layer, the one we are discussing here, is male/female gender identity. It is mostly a matter of self-identification, but caries a variety of traits assosciated with it.
Sexual orientation is another layer. Being gay doesn't make you less of a man, being lesbian less of a woman. As i said above, the layers are independent of each other.
Feminine/masculine behaviour are also another layer. A butch lesbian does not have any less of a female gender identity.

You could put all of this into a list of traits. I described myself that way earlier in this thread:

Gender identity Woman/female
Family: Lesbian
Behaviour: Feminine
Maturation: Adult (post-puberty, pre-menopause)

So i would say that i am a woman who is attracted to other women, has a feminine behaviour and an adult sexuality. Other women might be attracted to men or have a masculine behavior or a still stuck in puberty. However, none of this means that they do not have a female gender identity - for that to be the case, they would have to have a male gender identity.
I did not put transsexuality in there because, after i thought about it for a while, i do not see how it relates to gendr at all. If someone would want to put it there, he or she is welcome to do so, and there might be other traits missing from my list that others consider relevant for gender.

So basically, i see all these things as independent categories. How does this relate to intersexed people? Well, most of them DO have a firm male or female gender identity. Some might genuinely have a third gender identity, i'll admit that i do not know enough to give a firm opinion here. However, this is not relevant for transsexual people, or even intersexed people in general.


Now medically, i do not consider physical traits to be of any importance to gender identity. After all, a cisman does not have a "less male" gender identity just because he is scrawny and looks feminine, and a ciswomen does not have a "more male" gender identity because she is physically strong - so why should this apply to trans- or intersexual people?
Now it MIGHT be that some intersexual people have gender-causative brain structures that are actually in between. If i am correct and the BSTc/INAH3 are part of these gender-causative structures, then we might find that women are 5-10, men are 15-20 and some intersexed people are 10-15. However, this is speculation - and it's definitively not the case with transsexual people, where no such in-between state is found.



I consider this to be much easier and conclusive than trying to craft a new term for every single possible combination. Furthermore, creating such a "single-word classifiction" would give the impression that, say, a "insert single word describing a gay masculine man" has a different basic gender identity than a "insert word for hetero masculine man", which is not the case.

Paula is apparently trying to go for such a single-word classification. If you are in any way different from a straight, masculine man or a straight, feminine women, you would have to be classified as something completely different. She applies that to transwomen - a minimal difference is enough to make them a "third gender". Therefore, other different gender-traits, such as being gay, would also warrant such a re-classification. I fail to see how this reflects reality - a gay man is still a man, a man with feminine behavior is still a man, a transman is still a man. They identify as such and others identify them as such as well.

[Spoonist]

Paula42
Since there is such a pile-on vs you right now and you wouldn't adress my tangent seriously anyway let it be known that you don't have to respond to my inquiry and that I will think no less of you for ignoring me in this thread until the pressure once again abates.

Serafina
Same as above.

As to your response. First what would you say is the difference or if there is none between 'gender' and 'gender identity'.

Would have been nice if you had skipped the paragraph regarding what you think Paula says and instead elaborated on the medically part.

Your layered or decimal works fine when people agree to the layers individually but becomes a bit convoluted for the extreme end of the human spectrum. An example from a case I saw in a documentary as put in your layers:
Gender identity: Neutral
Sexual preference: Gender neutrals only
Behaviour: Neutral (mostly masculine in my view)
Maturation: Some parts adult, other parts adolescent
etc
So I agree mostly with you, but think that there are so many combinations that our arbitrary need to put people in boxes for simplification purposes usually means that some will fall outside those boxes. Now without bigots/assholes it would have been simpler but we must take them into account unfortunately.

Reread it and there is some verbal dhiarea from me there but it would be even longer if I try to explain any missing nuance.

[Serafina]

As to your response. First what would you say is the difference or if there is none between 'gender' and 'gender identity'.

The way i am using them, the two terms are defined:
-Gender: A set of criteria describing various attributes of humans related to their behaviour and social role.
-Gender identity: The most obvious criteria and one of the most basic ones, present in every individual from birth

So yes, there is a difference here - "gender" is a whole set of things, "gender identity" is one of these things. It's like talking about paint - paint is what you are talking about, and color would be one of the subsets.

So I agree mostly with you, but think that there are so many combinations that our arbitrary need to put people in boxes for simplification purposes usually means that some will fall outside those boxes. Now without bigots/assholes it would have been simpler but we must take them into account unfortunately.

I do not claim or use a completel dichotomy in any of the criteria - there aren't just two options to chose from, and often it's a sliding scale. A good example would be sexual orientation, which is mostly a sliding scale between "attracted to men" and "attracted to women", but can also have other classifiers such as "attracted to masculinity" or "attracted to androgyny".
Yes, that can also apply to gender identity. However, cases of a third option or in-between state in gender identity are rare. I do not reject them outright, i merely reject the notion that all or even a majority of transsexual people are put into such a category. The reason is simple: Nearly all transsexual people do identify their own gender identity as either male or female, and there is nothing that suggests that they are wrong.

Basically, i am trying to describe peoples gender that way. Some people require a more sophisticated description - someone might be accurately described as having a "masculine behavior", someone else could behave masculine in most cases and not in others. In the latter case, simply putting "masculine" in it would not be 100% accurate - another description would be better.
However, i also like to apply the KISS-principle (keep it simple, stupid): If we make every description too complicated, the description loses the value of being simple. Therefore, i try to create descriptions (such as "masculine", "feminine", "gay", "straight", "bisexual", "adult") that are accurate for a great number of people. If precision is needed, it can be added later on. Having a few terms with qualifiers is easier than having several dozen terms for each criteria, each describing what can be described with qualifiers as well.


You actually did that in your example. You used easy-to-understand terms (albeit you didn't define them, e.g. i would not know what you mean by "neutral gender identity) and qualfiers when necessary (such as "mostly masculine"). That's in principle what i am striving for when describing someone gender.


To use my paint-example above:
When talking about paint, we can describe a variety of it's properties: Color, brightness, opacity and whatnot. Each one of these can be described in simple terms: Red, blue, green; bright or dark, pague or transpartent. If more accuracy is needed, it can be done - scarlet red, 70% opagueness etc. However, it would be inadvisable to use these terms all the time, even when such accuracy is not necessary - it's too complicated to say "i am looking for a car of "specific red color #245" when "i am looking for a red car" suffices.

The same applies to gender - it's good to find terms that are accurate most of the time. There will be some overlap in some cases where those are not accurate enough, or one simply wants to have great precision - if that is the case, it's perfectly fine to use qualifiers.

[Spoonist]

-Gender identity: The most obvious criteria and one of the most basic ones, present in every individual from birth

Gender identity is NOT solely socially constructed. You can NOT raise a child born with a male gender identity to have a female gender identity or vice versa.
A lot about the behavior assosciated with men and women is socially constructed, yes. The identification as either is not.

Here I'd disagree strongly, probably on semantics of half-full vs half-empty or maybe because I've not studied the topic enough. If so please enlighten me.

Having witnessed lots of babies growing up and having a kid starting kindergarten right now most of them change lots of their behaviour to fit the groups gender bias when socialized at age 2-5. The perception of how you should behave if you are part of either perceived gender group will be rough on individual children not conforming, so they do. With a clear cultural bias from the family as well. This observation leads me to believe that the gender identity grayscale is much larger and more neutral if individuals would be left alone, but when socialized it turns much more black and white. (Which gives such results as homophobes being more likely to be aroused by gay porn, with obvious theoretical implications.) So much so that it would be my opinion that most of us does not have a strong gender identity at birth but when faced with the dualistic boxes the kids are forced to make choices of either belonging to a gender box or not fitting into such a box and it gets a lot stronger as they approach pre-puberty.
Some do have a strong gender identity at birth, but I'd say they are a minority.

Now as a caveat I agree that most kids lean one way or the other and when pushed jumps easily into a box but I see a lot of struggling not to be put into the boxes.

So just like I think there would be lots more bisexuals without the cultural oppression of homosexuality, I think that there would be lots more who would not like to define their gender identity in the black and white terms of male/female without the pressure.

As an example would be all the people who finds out as adults that they had different plumbing (intermidiate or dual) but the parents opted to have surgery for them as babies. In the stuff I've seen and read almost all of them conformed to the gender bias their parents gave them. But also most of them talked of having feelings of not belonging to the gender they where raised as but would never wish to be the other gender either. (Don't have a source right now, latest such I saw was a BBC series dealing with the brain made in 08 inlcluding research from 07.)

[Serafina]

@Spoonist:
Okay, to me, gender identity is basically about this:
Which gender-related behaviour do you want to acquire, which gender-based behaviour do you learn while growing up.

What you are describing is the process of learning that behaviour. In our current society, children are of course less restricted than earlier (the classic "boys playing with dolls, girls playing with trucks" doesn't really apply anymore), which is good.
However, there is still a lot of gender-based behaviour around, and most likely always will be due to biological diffrences. Now, children do not just learn something because they are told to, they do not only behave in a certain way because they are told to - they often do so because they want to. Children really want to learn - gender identity is about what they want to learn.

This can be well-observed in transsexual children - a transgirl would try to behave like the girls, even if there is a lot of pressure from parents, teachers, peers etc. to behave like a boy. The child clearly did not get that idea from society - so where does it come from?
The answer is gender identity - a biologically hardwired drive to identify as one of the two basic genders.

Now, the behaviour that will be acquired due to this certainly has a great variety, and is of course still related to gender. And it's not purely restricted by gender identity - a girl can acquire male interests and a boy female interests, of course. That is what you are describing, what you have observed - the behaviour that is being learned. Gender identity is about WHY the behaviour is learned, and i think "society" is not a sufficient explanation for this question.

As an example would be all the people who finds out as adults that they had different plumbing (intermidiate or dual) but the parents opted to have surgery for them as babies. In the stuff I've seen and read almost all of them conformed to the gender bias their parents gave them. But also most of them talked of having feelings of not belonging to the gender they where raised as but would never wish to be the other gender either. (Don't have a source right now, latest such I saw was a BBC series dealing with the brain made in 08 inlcluding research from 07.)

This is typical for intersexed children - it's getting better, luckily, but it is still commonplace to just correct the "birth defect", sometimes even without informing the parents! To my knowledge, only about 60 of these children feel comfortable enough with their assigned gender role - that's close enough to the 50% we would expect (given that 50% of them will have a female gender identity and the assignment is almost always as female). It would be splendid if you could give a source for "almost all of them conformed to the gender their parents gave them".
In addition, keep in mind that intersexed children really could be the "special case" Paula is talking about and that their gender-identity is genuinely in-between (after all, their development in the womb was already very messed up, so that's not a big leap).

Now you might like to look up "David Reimer". He was born as a normal, non-intersexed child. During circumcision, his penis was destroyed and the doctors subsequently decided to perform crude SRS (like with intersexed children) and told the parents to raise the child as a boy. The parents did just that, and no one except them knew what had happened. In effect, David was raised and seen as a completely normal girl.
Now the point here is that this effectively made David a transman - and he describes pretty much the same feelings. He never identified as a girl - despite large peer pressure and his parents.

Note that David is not the only case where something like this has happened - it happened to tens of thousands of intersex children, and similar cases with non-intersexed children happened as well.


You claim that being born with a strong gender identity is rare - and i fully agree that this is a genuine possibility. Other than Paulas claims, it carries some explanatory value and does not contradict evidence. However, i'll wait for evidence or a really good argument until i "personally believe" it - it would be great if you could provide either or both.

[Broomstick]

A lot about the behavior assosciated with men and women is socially constructed, yes. The identification as either is not.

Here I'd disagree strongly, probably on semantics of half-full vs half-empty or maybe because I've not studied the topic enough. If so please enlighten me.

Having witnessed lots of babies growing up and having a kid starting kindergarten right now most of them change lots of their behaviour to fit the groups gender bias when socialized at age 2-5. The perception of how you should behave if you are part of either perceived gender group will be rough on individual children not conforming, so they do. With a clear cultural bias from the family as well. This observation leads me to believe that the gender identity grayscale is much larger and more neutral if individuals would be left alone, but when socialized it turns much more black and white. (Which gives such results as homophobes being more likely to be aroused by gay porn, with obvious theoretical implications.) So much so that it would be my opinion that most of us does not have a strong gender identity at birth but when faced with the dualistic boxes the kids are forced to make choices of either belonging to a gender box or not fitting into such a box and it gets a lot stronger as they approach pre-puberty.
Some do have a strong gender identity at birth, but I'd say they are a minority.

Now as a caveat I agree that most kids lean one way or the other and when pushed jumps easily into a box but I see a lot of struggling not to be put into the boxes.

My own personal experience leads me to disagree with this. There has never been any doubt in my mind I'm a female, I have never had any desire to be anything but female, and on top of that I'm on the extreme heterosexual end of the Kinsey scale - I have never been aroused by another woman, never fantasized about sex with other women, never had any sort of erotic dream about women, for me it's men, men, men when it comes to sex. However, many if not most of my interests tend toward the masculine. This caused a great deal of concern when I was child (the times were less enlightened), including sending me to "charm school" not once but twice, more than one attempt to medicate me into better behavior (which, thank goodness, my parents resisted), and my own self having to force myself to adopt "proper" feminine dress and manners when occasions called for that. I still have predominantly masculine hobbies, and I work in construction these days, which is drenched in testosterone to put it mildly. Yet my gender identity, according to the definition Serafina provides us, is unquestionably and unequivocally female.

There is a difference between behavior and identity. Behavior can be modified, and society can give you great incentive to modify your behavior, but it can't change what's inside. If you forced someone such as Serafina or the Duchess to exist as a man in society you might get someone who can play the part... but that would NOT change how they are inside their own skulls. And I have no problem with people falling all over whatever spectrum you look at - the physical, the behavioral, the sexual orientation, the whatever. Ultra feminine lesbians are just as real as a het tomboy such as myself. Hypermasculine gays exist along with effeminate straight men.

Perhaps my willingness to accept that Serafina and other transwomen ARE women comes out of my own experience, that the exterior does not always match the interior. In my case, my exterior behavior is at odds with what some people consider properly female, for Serafina her physical body is at odds. Honestly, if I had been an adult 50 years ago my own existence would have been miserable, as I most likely would have been forced to either conform to "proper" behavior or live a marginalized life, perhaps even be institutionalized as mentally ill (such things did happen). Maybe that's why, whether I agree with people or not, I feel so strongly that as long as no one else is getting hurt they should be free to live as they choose.

[Zed]

A lot about the behavior assosciated with men and women is socially constructed, yes. The identification as either is not.

Here I'd disagree strongly, probably on semantics of half-full vs half-empty or maybe because I've not studied the topic enough. If so please enlighten me.

Having witnessed lots of babies growing up and having a kid starting kindergarten right now most of them change lots of their behaviour to fit the groups gender bias when socialized at age 2-5. The perception of how you should behave if you are part of either perceived gender group will be rough on individual children not conforming, so they do. With a clear cultural bias from the family as well. This observation leads me to believe that the gender identity grayscale is much larger and more neutral if individuals would be left alone, but when socialized it turns much more black and white. (Which gives such results as homophobes being more likely to be aroused by gay porn, with obvious theoretical implications.) So much so that it would be my opinion that most of us does not have a strong gender identity at birth but when faced with the dualistic boxes the kids are forced to make choices of either belonging to a gender box or not fitting into such a box and it gets a lot stronger as they approach pre-puberty.
Some do have a strong gender identity at birth, but I'd say they are a minority.

Now as a caveat I agree that most kids lean one way or the other and when pushed jumps easily into a box but I see a lot of struggling not to be put into the boxes.

There is a difference between behavior and identity. Behavior can be modified, and society can give you great incentive to modify your behavior, but it can't change what's inside. If you forced someone such as Serafina or the Duchess to exist as a man in society you might get someone who can play the part... but that would NOT change how they are inside their own skulls.

Ofcourse it would change how they are inside their own skulls. If a transexual identity does not exist in a particular society, one cannot see said identity as a valid option, and will most likely identify in a way that said society does acknowledge. Homosexual identity did not exist in ancient Greece, and therefore Greek men did not identify as homosexuals (or even bisexuals), despite the fact that they routinely had sex with young men of their own sex. The Greek mind did not see a homosexual identity as a possibility, and therefore, culture helps determine one's sense of identity.

[Serafina]

Ofcourse it would change how they are inside their own skulls. If a transexual identity does not exist in a particular society, one cannot see said identity as a valid option, and will most likely identify in a way that said society does acknowledge. Homosexual identity did not exist in ancient Greece, and therefore Greek men did not identify as homosexuals (or even bisexuals), despite the fact that they routinely had sex with young men of their own sex. The Greek mind did not see a homosexual identity as a possibility, and therefore, culture helps determine one's sense of identity.

That only changes what you call it, not your actual identity, your actual self. A greek man could still be solely attracted to men, he just would not have a label for it.
If i would not know any other transsexual person, if i didn't know what transsexuality was - i would still be who i am, i would just call it something else. Not to mention that i do not actually identify as "transsexual", i identify myself as a woman - being transsexual is part of who i am, but not part of the male/female dichotomy.

Edit: This also goes the other way round - if someone was told (and didn't know any other way etc.) that characteristic X made him a member of group A, then he would probably identify as a member of that group.
Or to use an actual example - if i were to live in India and everyone TOLD me that i am a Hijra, i would probably say and thing that i am one. However, that would not change the fact that i actually want to be a woman, i just would have no words to express it.

[Zed]

But even the very notion of what womanhood consists of and what manhood consists of are socially constructed. For instance, a Greek man who allowed himself to be penetrated was adopting feminine passivity (while the Greek man who penetrated him was masculine). Likewise, lesbianism was not to be allowed, because the Greeks believed that in order to accomodate lesbianism, one of the women would have to assume the role of a man, which was intolerable. What the genders constitute depends on one's culture, and is not simply identifiable with biological sex.


Edit on seeing Serafina's edit: you don't believe that the circumstances in which you live will change your desires, wishes, conceptual framework, et cetera? How exactly do you think your sense of self is determined? Solely biologically?

[Serafina]

Edit on seeing Serafina's edit: you don't believe that the circumstances in which you live will change your desires, wishes, conceptual framework, et cetera? How exactly do you think your sense of self is determined? Solely biologically?

Yes, i do believe that some basic things, such as basic gender identity (male/female), are largely or even solely biologically determined. All animals are born with some instincts, why should humans be the exception?
Furthermore, i have seen pretty good evidence that some things are really hardwired - such as basic gender identity or sexual orientation. Their exact expression is altered by society, but they are not created by it.

Remember that we only know what was socially acceptable during the times of the ancient greeks etc. A greek women could still be solely attracted to other women - that's the hardwired part. She might not act on it because it would be social suicide to do so, and if she did she probably would not call herself a lesbian or anything like that - but that doesn't change her actual sexual orientation.
Likewise, if i were to live in India, that would not change my basic gender identity - i might not be able to act on it like i am now, i might call it something else, but it would still be there.

So far you've been ignoring the difference between basic gender identity as i described it, and other parts of gender, the exact expression of it. You've also ignored that both sexual orientation and basic gender identity seem to be in-born, or at the very least formed during the first year after birth (tough the former is more likely).
Both basic gender identity and sexual orientation have been pretty much proven to be indepenent of ones upbringing. Their exact expression is certainly influenced by society, but the seed for them is there from the beginning.

[Simon_Jester]

There is a difference between behavior and identity. Behavior can be modified, and society can give you great incentive to modify your behavior, but it can't change what's inside.

Although, if it gets to you early enough, it may change your internal attitudes toward external behavior. As you yourself pointed out, there have been times and places where the accepted "manly" activities included writing poetry, flower arrangement, elaborate tea-drinking rituals, and slicing people in half with swords. The fact that no one in feudal Japan saw any incongruity among this set of activities* suggests that yes, our notions of what the expression of gender identity looks like are rather malleable.

But there's a difference between expression of an identity and the identity itself. A samurai who spent much of his time sipping tea and writing poetry had just as much self-perception of masculinity as some random cave-guy who would never consider doing such things. In either case, questioning the masculine identity of these men would be a good way to get one's head bashed in... even though the expression of that identity is almost totally different from one to the other, aside from the aforementioned head-bashing tendencies.

So Spoonist has a point if we modify the argument a bit: while virtually all people would seem to be born knowing their gender identity, they aren't born knowing how people with their gender identity are expected to behave in their culture. Much of that is going to be learned behavior, and it will vary dramatically from place to place.

I suspect that will extend to the behavior of transsexuals: if men in country A behave, and are expected to behave, differently from men in country B, I'd predict that transmen in country A will feel most comfortable behaving differently from transmen in country B. Because while both groups of transmen identify as men, their notions of the definition of the word 'man' are subtly different.

[Zed]

So far you've been ignoring the difference between basic gender identity as i described it, and other parts of gender, the exact expression of it. You've also ignored that both sexual orientation and basic gender identity seem to be in-born, or at the very least formed during the first year after birth (tough the former is more likely).

What precisely is 'basic gender identity' and what constitutes 'the exact expression of basic gender identity'? Tell me what form of behavior or form of feelings constitute each of these. Please be more specific than 'feeling like one is a man' or 'feeling like one is a woman', because the character traits associated with the male and female gender vary depending on one's culture.

Both basic gender identity and sexual orientation have been pretty much proven to be indepenent of ones upbringing. Their exact expression is certainly influenced by society, but the seed for them is there from the beginning.

I don't think you have adequately proven that there is a dichotomy between an inborn gender and its culturally determined expression, because I don't think you can dissociate what gender is from what people who identify as said gender do and are expected to do.

[Spoonist]

For clarification I'll start with everything I agree with.

However, there is still a lot of gender-based behaviour around, and most likely always will be due to biological diffrences.

Agreed.

Children really want to learn - gender identity is about what they want to learn.

Agreed.

This can be well-observed in transsexual children

Agreed.

and i think "society" is not a sufficient explanation for this question.

Agreed.
I found no clear quote but I also agree that transsexualism is most likely derived from biological traits.
With that covered here is where I have a different opinion.

The answer is gender identity - a biologically hardwired drive to identify as one of the two basic genders.

My view is that this is not how biology works. Something as complex as gender identity IMO can not be binary. Just like medical gender or sexual preference. There should be room for all kinds of mixups or inbetween states. That's what I perceive that I'm missing in the model you describe, the grayscale, the exceptions.
A dual scale with an X & Y axis with one being male GI and one female GI as a simplified model would match mutch better with the diversity I see around me. Because the binary model doesn't explain people who feels that they fit in neither category or those who feel they fit in both.

Now, the behaviour that will be acquired due to this certainly has a great variety, and is of course still related to gender. And it's not purely restricted by gender identity - a girl can acquire male interests and a boy female interests, of course. That is what you are describing, what you have observed - the behaviour that is being learned.

Kinda, sorta but not only. Lots of kids I know go through stages where they want to be the other gender or where they don't want to be their biological gender. Some of those stages are long as in over a year for a 3 year old. And its not just playing either they are sincere. while other kids never even think about it.
So I'm still not buying a binary solution to this.

just correct the "birth defect", sometimes even without informing the parents

Read an article where a US doctor defended this practice because then they didn't have to put it in the charts and thus the insurance agencies would not know and still insure the child. Its such an ignorant way of dealing with something that complicated.

To my knowledge, only about 60 of these children feel comfortable enough with their assigned gender role - that's close enough to the 50% we would expect (given that 50% of them will have a female gender identity and the assignment is almost always as female). It would be splendid if you could give a source for "almost all of them conformed to the gender their parents gave them".

I'll dig, given my schedule gimme a couple of days. But mind you that given the phrasing of your response we could both be refering to the same dataset.

Note that David is not the only case where something like this has happened - it happened to tens of thousands of intersex children, and similar cases with non-intersexed children happened as well.

And continues to happen. Despite so much knowledge against such views. Its really depressing.

You claim that being born with a strong gender identity is rare - and i fully agree that this is a genuine possibility. Other than Paulas claims, it carries some explanatory value and does not contradict evidence. However, i'll wait for evidence or a really good argument until i "personally believe" it - it would be great if you could provide either or both.

Huh, not likely unfortunately. I've not studied the specifics enough, just have a healthy curiousity and like to watch documentaries about the human condition. My opinion comes from observation of children and youths, so it is limited to my circle which is a too small sample.
Mind you I had the qualifier 'at birth'.

Broomy, just saw that your post was directed at me, thought it was to Paula so I skipped it, some is addressed above and I'll write another response for the rest.

[Spoonist]

@Brooomstick
I can see from your response to me that I was less than clear about what in Serafina's quotes I disagreed. Sorry for the confusion. I disagreed with there only being two options and that those options where set from birth. The intersexed spectrum and my experiences gives me doubt about both.

There is a difference between behavior and identity. Behavior can be modified, and society can give you great incentive to modify your behavior, but it can't change what's inside. If you forced someone such as Serafina or the Duchess to exist as a man in society you might get someone who can play the part... but that would NOT change how they are inside their own skulls.

Agreed. See my comment on homophobes above. But with the caveat for the concept of predispositions, where the biology dictates the terms but without a catalyst would not trigger. I think that some of the things related to gender behavior and identity might be linked to such predispositions.

[Simon_Jester]

If we adopt any kind of two-axis or 'spectrum' model of gender identity, we have to accept almost right off the bat that practically the entire human race forms two fairly tight clusters on the plot: "male" and "female," with only a handful of marginal cases lying outside the clusters.

In many cases, there are so many complicating factors involving the outliers that it's hard to say definitively that they lie outside one of the two main clusters at all, both because the clusters do have a bit of haziness at the edges, and because of social upbringing factors. It's not hard to imagine why a girl-raised-as-a-boy might exhibit masculine behaviors, and even claim masculine identity when asked, when in their innermost heart they remain convinced that they're really a girl. There are all kinds of feedback processes encouraging them to give the 'right' answer (boy) and avoid the 'wrong' answer (girl).

If they tend to flip-flop between the two, it may not mean that their gender identity is confused. It could just as easily mean that they're nervous about whether to express that identity to people who don't want to hear it- so they flip-flop between "perceived-safe" and "honest" instead of between "I'm a boy" and "I'm a girl."

As to one of Spoonist's specific points:

Kinda, sorta but not only. Lots of kids I know go through stages where they want to be the other gender or where they don't want to be their biological gender. Some of those stages are long as in over a year for a 3 year old. And its not just playing either they are sincere.

Roughly what percentage of children exhibit this behavior?

[Spoonist]

If we adopt any kind of two-axis or 'spectrum' model of gender identity, we have to accept almost right off the bat that practically the entire human race forms two fairly tight clusters on the plot: "male" and "female," with only a handful of marginal cases lying outside the clusters.

Most would, yes. "Practically all" is going a bit far I think.
Mind you that I only claimed it was a better model...

Roughly what percentage of children exhibit this behavior?

Since its my own observation I wouldn't trust it to be quantifiable. But maybe one-two in a group of ten that was sincere and at least four of ten who would play the other gender a lot over a time period. Mind you I think in a different environment and with less tolerant adults around that number would decrease.