But it doesn't explain the deeper, more innate nature of gender dysphoria. When did it become about social constructs to look down at your penis and think: "hey, that doesn't seem right." Social identity is an idea that can be changed, gender dysphoria is an experience that cannot change. Hence the distinction between transgenderism and personal styles or delusions of it.
So how would anyone know whether they have gender dysphoria or "personal styles or delusions of it", whatever that means? Possibly you'd be more comfortable with the term transsexual - it's not generally considered as a complete synonym for transgender. Transgender is a fairly broad term, and may be used by people with a variety of attitudes toward their bodies.
I think that there are two separate debates here: The question of being transgender, and the question of the meaning of the word gender. You seem to be declaring that "gender" is irrevocably tied to sexual organs (except, presumably, in terms of language and gendered nouns) and I don't think that's valid. Let's go with a really simple example that avoids most of the complications: Do you feel that the term "gender" in the following exchange is invalid? "What's Jane's gender for business purposes?" "Male. She publishes as Joe Smith."
Look, trans people aren't defined by dysphoria. The notion that basically in order to be trans you have to be uncomfortable/sad is something that's been pushed for a long time and been super harmful to generation of people trying to figure out their identities. It's not all negative; being recognized as the gender you actually are (note not the gender you 'want to be') is an equally if not more important facet, which is typically called gender euphoria. Also, not all trans people hate / are uncomfortable with their bodies. Not even all binary ones. There are degrees to which someone can transition and not everyone wants every surgery available to them, not everyone wants hormones, not everyone wants to live up societal ideals of their gender, they just want to be acknowledged as that gender. Dysphoria is not required to be trans. All that's required is "I'd be happier if people didn't think I'm something I'm not". The degree to which you relate to stereotypical gender norms varies between trans people, just as it does with cis people. Cis people are literally unable to accurate define what being trans is / is like and the fact that you keep trying to say "this is how I define trans people" is very bizarre.
It seems that at this point, the number of definitions for the word "gender" exceeds the amount of individually declared genders. Let's just take a step back and settle on a definition for the word before this descends into further chaos about the extensions of gender.
That makes me wonder... there's no real census for the number of transgender people, but the low ball is around 700,000 in the United States. The medical diagnosis for gender dysphoria would, by the doctors who diagnose it, apply to about 50,000 people in the United States. What would explain the disparity? And, the diagnosis for gender dysphoria, especially for children, can hinge entirely on the child's anxiety towards their assigned sex and the gender roles that sex forces them into. A boy who saw girls wearing dresses and playing with dolls, unable to wear dresses and play with dolls himself, could be diagnosed with gender dysphoria on that basis alone. For those children, a removal of gender identity and gender role in society would remove the anxiety associated with the diagnosis. That certainly would not work for everybody, but it crashes your definition. In order for the concept of transgender to exist, there has to be accepted notions of what it means to be male or female. If those notions don't exist in a culture, then a person is free to express whatever they feel without reproach. I mean, you used the word effeminate, characteristics regarded as typical of a woman. Uh. If there are effeminate men, then are they characteristics of a typical woman, or just characteristics of people? Society would have to answer that question. Society HAS answered that question, a few times. This one has it wrong.
Unfortunately, I think that the debate is in large part about the definition of the word, so I don't feel that we can agree on a definition before continuing the debate. To me, "gender" is a person's identification with, and choice to engage in behaviors associated with, male or female or, theoretically, combinations or nuances on male or female, in a given situation. I have no idea how broad the agreement with that definition is, or how committed I am to it.
Personally, I use gender to refer to the ternary system of pronouns that is he, she, and it - it being used to define objects and sexually ambiguous individuals. We don't have a word for one's identification with ethnic stereotypes, so why do we need gender to define one's identification with sex stereotypes?
Well...we do, really, if you step away from he word "stereotypes" and go with "cultures". We have "German", "Italian", "English", and so on. And, similarly, there are many occasions when people identify with being a member of the group "men" and a member of the group "women".
But what are you basing your use of the pronouns on, if not recognition of the gender characteristics? You're probably not stripping people down to inspect their genitals before you decide which pronoun to use - you're looking at the external gender markers.
Yeah, but that's used to refer to one's country of origin. If a person is born in China and raised in Canada, we usually refer to them as "Chinese" rather than "Canadian". Good point. However, if gender is based on characteristics other than biological sex, isn't gender a stereotype in and of itself? In addition, if gender is not defined by biological sex, why do we even need gendered pronouns? I see people complaining about "gender stereotypes" and "misgendering", and it confuses the hell out of me. They're choosing to adhere to a stereotype, yet they get upset over people making judgements based on their adherence to that stereotype.
I'm not following what you mean by this, or how it's different from what I said. Are you saying that a nation can't also be a criterion for defining a cultural group? There's a difference between embracing an identity that includes self-chosen elements from a specific cultural/social/other group, and having an identity forced on one by someone else.
Okay, let me say again, if you base gender of stereotypes of behaviour there is no way to distinguish between genuine transgenderism and personal styles or delusions of transgenderism. You need to use gender dysphoria, the central part that it makes it more than an idea or a disorder, but instead a true, innate identity. It is on that basis that it is medically accepted.
And why does that matter? Why use the difficulty of definition to decide/decree which reality is permitted to exist? If a person is, for example, biologically female, and doesn't get surgery to change that fact, but chooses to function in their life as male, and use a male pronoun, and is perfectly happy doing so, are you arguing that I'm not allowed to call that person "he"? Because...why? Why does it need to be medically accepted? If the person in my example above is happy, then there is no medical issue that I can see, because they're happy. Medicine is for problems. Are we to take away their happiness because it doesn't represent a problem?
This is about people choosing to identify as something different than their birth-granted classifications, right? I'm saying that a person's ethnicity is the one they're born with, regardless of their adherence to its culture. It's like identifying as part of a religion without following any of its religious text, choosing only to identify with that religious group because one fits with the stereotypes associated with it. If a label has no concrete denotation, then it's useless. We can define gender as a stereotype without contradicting dysphoria. Biological sex is based on one's chromosomes. Gender is based on cultural expectations of one's biological sex. Transsexuality is dysphoria.
I don't see how that's relevant to anything that I've said. Are you arguing that Italians, or Germans, or American Southerners, or hackers, or gardeners, or Trekkies, or "Beliebers", or other identity groups, have a religious text? Are you arguing that all members of those group MUST emulate specific attributes of the group? Are you arguing that those groups are inborn and can't be chosen? I really don't have the faintest idea what you're arguing.
But that then leaves you with the idea that transgender people have to embrace stereotypes, which is not true. There are butch, tough, motorcycle riding lesbian transgender women out there. Just as it is also not true that transgender aren't as good at acting like the stereotypes of the gender they are.
I didn't mean that you have to have surgery to be male internally if you were born with a vagina. Quite the opposite. I'm saying you're gender is neither your sex(physical gender) or your masculinity/femininity but rather the experience of how you match with your sex and that has some association with gender stereotype behaviours. I do think surgery is good though. If you have gender dysphoria, which is uncomfortable, why not get rid of it by matching you sex with your gender? Especially with transgender men, seeing as breast-binding causes subtle, long-term damage to your ribs and chest muscles. Doesn't mean it validates the idea, but it's a useful thing nonetheless.
Again, no. Dysphoria is not the primary, necessary quality in determining if you're trans. Did you see my post? Also, 'delusions of transgenderism'? What? I'd also question your reliance on 'medical acceptance' given that being trans was medically considered a disorder for a long time. What makes you think that current 'medical acceptance' should be the be-all-end-all in the discussion given that background?
I'm not following your point at all any more. Before, you seemed to be arguing that we can't just let people choose their gender because that will lead to people just choosing their gender. We never seemed to get to why that would be bad. Now you seem to be arguing that people choose their gender. The only thing that you seem to be consistent on is that if your biological sex doesn't match with your chosen gender, you're supposed to be unhappy about it, unless you have surgery. In other words, I have no idea what you're saying.
No. That was just an example. Groups have concrete sets of characteristics that define people or objects as part of that group. People who fit those characteristics are part of that group.
But they're not a fixed set of characteristics, with every characteristic matching every group member.
The characteristics unique to each member of the group are connotations. It's not what defines one as part of that group.
Okay, people I'm not saying you have to be unhappy. I'm just gender dysphoria is uncomfortable. And @izzybot, I disagree, how many people who have no discomfort with their bodies have passed psychiatric tests? Seriously, can you tell me anything about that? Not saying you have to have surgery but if you truly have no desire for it at all, what is there to your experience that makes you feel not a gender other than ideas? If you can give me a good answer, maybe I'll agree. The point is not everyone who says they're trans is trans, as much as we want to agree with our friends when they come out, you have to hold a grain of salt that maybe they might turn out to fail tests and are not truly trans. Trans people are the one who are demonstrably having the innate experience they are the gender that does not match their sex. My point about medicine is that we need to be careful, as I said, to not to just accept people's ideas of their identity because it's nice. The reason these identities should be accepted is medical validity and harmlessness, so any that are unsubstantiated or harmful I don't accept. That is my position in
No, I'm not accepting that. You're stating it as fact, but I'd need far more than that to accept it even as usually true. I'd certainly need some specifics and examples. So much of this thread seems to be about the rules that a person Must Obey!!! before they can choose a specific identity. But most identities aren't like a sorority; you don't usually apply to some authority for membership. Sometimes you do--for example, native Hawaiians get some special benefits, and you can't just declare an association based on, say, childhood association with native Hawaiian traditions. But that's an exception. If someone tells me that they're, say, "Italian", why would I argue with them? Even if they appear to me to be of, say, Japanese ancestry, for all I know they grew up in an Italian neighborhood, or were raised by an Italian family, or their ancestors migrated from Japan to Italy before they migrated from Italy to the United States, or...who knows? And why do I care?
