
Our preoccupation with gender identity is a cultural step backwards - nkurz
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/features/gender-good-for-nothing
======
kough
Man, I really enjoyed this author's viewpoint. This passage in particular
voiced something I've been unable to express:

> Yet consider: in order to construct this spectrum, it is necessary first
> firmly to establish what it means to be “man” and “woman.” Even if you are
> “genderqueer”—convinced that your gender identity does not conform to the
> social norms associated with your sex—alienation from social norms depends
> on the perpetuation of social norms. Thus if you are a gruff, muscular,
> assertive woman who has adopted the genderqueer label, girlishness must
> continue to be associated with garrulousness, weakness, and passivity for
> your identity to scan.

> In short, the spectrum depends on stereotypes.

About a year ago I started to question my sense of gender, and ended up
arriving at the "genderqueer" label. But not because it felt most right, just
less wrong than the other labels. About six months later I came to a similar
conclusion as the above passage: so what if I don't do stereotypical $GENDER
things, why should that prevent me from identifying as $GENDER? Doing anything
else seemed like a special sort of narcissism, or a hobby -- not sure of the
right words, but it seemed like a needless/useless waste of time and energy.
That, combined with realizing that I don't want to define myself by my gender,
helped me stop thinking about this for the most part and, i think not
coincidentally, feel a lot happier about myself.

~~~
transman
I battled with a lot of the same challenges, but ultimately, I am much more
like the men in my life and much less like the women in my life.

At a certain point, every gendered action, from saying my name (very female)
to walking into the women's bathroom honestly felt like lying! So I
transitioned.

I've been so at peace with myself since transitioning! Ironically, I've also
been able to be a more effective advocate for all genders because now I'm in
the "boys club". By that I mean, pointing out when someone is treating men or
women differently just because of gender, but also helping highlight when
someone is expecting different treatment just because of their own gender.

I'm both happier about myself and a more effective advocate for treating
everyone equally!

~~~
kough
I'm happy to hear that you were able to make a series of choices that made you
happier! I hope that you didn't feel attacked by my comment -- the
"needless/useless" comment was intended to be with regards to my own
situation, not a prescription for others. I think it's an easy trap to fall in
to, wanting to prescribe your own beliefs upon others and make the world in
your own image ("if only they'd all just listen to me!"), but ultimately
ineffective.

> Ironically, I've also been able to be a more effective advocate for all
> genders because now I'm in the "boys club". By that I mean, pointing out
> when someone is treating men or women differently just because of gender,
> but also helping highlight when someone is expecting different treatment
> just because of their own gender.

That's awesome! I like to think that I'm still an effective advocate for
equality despite not identifying as genderqueer or taking any particular pains
to present a certain way. As a logical extension of the beliefs and decisions
described in my original comment, I try to do my best to set a positive role
model by making myself happy while presenting as $GENDER rather than
genderqueer. Be the change you want to see in the world, and all that.

~~~
transman
> I hope that you didn't feel attacked by my comment

While I'm human and may have a visceral reaction to some things, I've also
learned to regularly take a step back to check myself and my reactions.
Written communication requires this even more so than face to face!

> the "needless/useless" comment was intended to be with regards to my own
> situation, not a prescription for others.

This is one of the hardest things for many people to understand. In a group
therapy setting, one of the most common tenets (next to confidentiality) is
the concept of "I" statements. In other words, the speaker should never speak
for another person or tell another person what to do. You absolutely used an
"I" statement approach, and I really appreciate that you did so!

> > Ironically, I've also been able to be a more effective advocate for all
> genders because now I'm in the "boys club".

It took me a while to embrace this perspective, precisely because it shouldn't
matter. But there are people, men and women, who simply respond better when a
person of a specific gender says something. Typically men have more authority.
(There's actually a fair bit of research about this. For example, in the
'intelligent agent' community an agent that is given a white male appearance
will be trusted more than the exact same agent with the appearance of a white
female or a black agent of either gender). So, I've tried to harness this when
it seems to be the most effective approach to address discrimination. Every
now and then, I suspect the person I'm interacting with will respond better if
they know my background, so on occasion I've come out so that I can more
effectively communicate with the person.

There are a couple of the reasons it took me so long to embrace this
perspective. First, I want everyone to have an equal voice, in other words, I
don't want my voice to count more now just because it's deeper and comes from
a hairy face; unfortunately, we're not there yet. Second, I just want to be
me, I don't constantly want to be in trans/gender advocacy mode. About a year
after transitioning, I realized that because I was treated as a girl/woman by
the world for so long (and a non-gender conforming one for many of those
years) and I absolutely pass as a guy now, I really am in a very unusual
place. So as much as I want to just hide out in the closet, I feel responsible
to everyone to fight discrimination in a way that very few can.

Based on your language and my time in the LGBTQ community, I'm assuming some
things about your age. If I'm correct, just the fact that you questioned your
gender and are discussing that process is a very different type of advocacy,
but it is absolutely advocacy none the less! It's been nice being able to see
the generational differences, and there's been so much progress since I first
realized I was different!

Interestingly, my mother went through a questioning period (long before there
was any language for it) and came to a conclusion much like yours. So when I
first came out to her as a young kid, she thought my questioning was normal,
that I would outgrow it, and that it meant she needed to fight even more for
women's rights (because she thought that was the root of it for me). In many
respects, she was my strongest ally but also the most painful thorn in my
side. Several years after I transitioned, there was an incident in which her
language actually put my well-being in severe jeopardy. It took that incident
before she realized her experience is not my experience, and that neither of
our experiences is definitively right or wrong. Rather our experiences,
reactions, and identity are simply our own. It was a painful period for both
of us, but she's become an even stronger ally as a result.

I look forward to a time when race, gender, age, etc. aren't used to justify
violence or discrimination. Until then, I'll keep using my unusual position to
advocate for movement toward that goal. Be the change, and all that. Between
all of us, progress will continue.

------
djaychela
Interesting read, and I agree with a great deal of it. I've had quite a few
interesting conversations with my hyper-PC eldest step daughter on the subject
- all of whose female friends (aged 16-17) don't identify solely as female,
and yet all of whom haven't had any significant relationships, and all seem to
have succumbed to pressure to identify on a subject they haven't really had
much experience of. And as time goes by, more of them are finding out that
they are normal, and attracted to males.

We're all on a continuum of nearly every characteristic about us. I find the
constant desire to have to self identify on every variable is becoming
tiresome. Had I been at school today, I'm sure I would be diagnosed as on the
autistic spectrum, but fortunately I was a child of the 1970s, and unless you
were truly afflicted you were just considered "a bit odd". The kids who I
teach now mostly find labels they are given as a reason for their behaviour,
rather than a starting point for any change they may wish to undergo, and
while it's well intentioned, my experience of it (in a school with about 75%
with some firm of SEND requirement) is that it is viewed as an explanation of
current behaviour, rather than anything constructive. Not in every case, but
in the majority.

~~~
kough
> I find the constant desire to have to self identify on every variable is
> becoming tiresome.

Right? This is super frustrating to me as a current university student. It
seems like gender identity is just another way of tribe-association that is
particularly popular among the rich and well-educated. It functions in the
exact same way as identifying as a supporter of a particular football or
baseball team. Deeply frustrating to have to engage with this, especially
because honestly it is tiring and hard to think about.

~~~
tamana
Ate you familiar with fraternities and sororities? But you think that he
genderqueer folks invented this obsession with gender identity?

~~~
kough
> But you think that he genderqueer folks invented this obsession with gender
> identity?

No, I do not think that genderqueer folks invented this obsession with gender
identity. It's very unclear to me how you read that meaning from my original
comment.

------
golemotron
A lot of the controversy about gender today only makes sense in light of broad
historical context.

Gender was synonymous with biological sex until John Money introduced a
distinction in 1955. That distinction has been amplified across the decades to
a the point where cultural consensus considers gender to be primary and
biological sex irrelevant. We can and should ask why this is happening in
Western Culture first. The reason is because it is part of a long cultural war
that is being fought over the idea that inequalities can and should be fixed
by culture and the idea that inequalities will inevitably persist due to our
nature as humans. The progressive impulse has animated a lot of positive
change in the West but it stumbles when it comes up against actual
differences. It either pretends that they don't exist in order to maintain the
narrative or it assumes that differences must be bad and opts toward a view
that any difference that leaves a group with less perceived power must be
eradicated by adopting the trappings of power.

Transgenderism is ground zero for this cultural/biological clash. Boys/Men
generate about 17x the amount of testosterone as women
[http://www.mayomedicallaboratories.com/test-
catalog/Clinical...](http://www.mayomedicallaboratories.com/test-
catalog/Clinical+and+Interpretive/8508). Estrogen and oxytocin have real
effects on self-perception and behavior. When someone says "I feel like a man"
or "I feel like a woman" we are hearing them through the filter of their
biology (do I feel the urge to smash things or nurture?) along with cultural
self-perception.

In non-Western societies, without the overlay of our culture, hormones
influence roles and sense of life without much mediation. In the West we
struggle with this. Is the burka oppression or a choice? Is it a valid choice
to forgo a career and feel fulfilled as a mother and then a grandmother if
that feels right to you? Can you be oppressed if you don't feel oppressed?
It's hard to escape our narrative and consider it something we impose on our
nature.

------
stegosaurus
I've always found the idea of gender identity a bit odd because it seems to
present this idea of discrete 'identities', negating human personality,
drawing patterns where none need to exist.

Talking about appearance (which covers race, gender, basically stereotyping in
general) - a human might look at another human, see that they have certain
attributes (I dunno, wonky teeth, not well shaven, particular gait, whatever)
and decide to box them.

The idea of gender identity seems to be a way of trying to break out of that
box of judgement. So yeah, I look like I have a penis, sexually I can interact
with those with vaginas and produce children, but that's where it ends, I
figure.

What I personally don't understand, at the moment, is what makes it different
from anything else - identifying as working/middle/upper class, as a
nationality, as whatever, really. They all seem like patterns of the same
thing to me. If you're working class and you waltz about in a suit with links,
providing you can even afford such a thing, you're not going to be treated
well by your peers. And that sucks! But what does the identity help? Being
able to find others who want to do the same things?

Is it just that we're doomed to try to simplify our models about society by
creating these groups, so gender identity is about trying to move the groups a
bit to limit damage? Or what?

Fundamentally I'm not sure I even understand what it means to 'identify' as an
X. What if I think that all of the groups are nonsense? That I don't feel
working class, or middle class, or male, or female, or whatever? I sort of am
one of them, by birth and inheritance, I guess, but my feelings about it seem
kind of immaterial?

edit: Turns out that reading the whole article properly, rather than skimming
it, means that my comment is almost entirely superfluous. :)

------
krstck
This brouhaha about gender identity requires some 'fixed points' about gender
that I thought we progressives had all already agreed were nonexistent!

But I don't think the point about the author's personal experience of not
"feeling like a girl" proves anything - see "cis by default", or
[http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/02/18/typical-mind-and-
gender...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/02/18/typical-mind-and-gender-
identity/). It's possible that there are people who _do_ feel strongly that
their body doesn't match what their mind is telling them, and it's a cause of
suffering. As I understand it, it really _is_ all about sex in this case
(which makes the author's quip about her "true self not having arthritic
knees" irrelevant).

------
parenthephobia
> _I have no idea what it “feels like” to be a woman—and I am one._

The crux of her argument seems to be that because _she_ can't imagine feeling
like she has the wrong sex, nobody _actually_ feels like they have the wrong
sex, and it's all about identifying (or not) with cultural expectations of
femininity or masculinity. But,

> _the statistical rarity of true gender dysphoria_

So she doesn't actually dispute that gender dysphoria exists.

She asserts that _claimed_ gender dysphoria is more common nowadays and most
such claims are not _genuine_ gender dysphoria, presumably because she doesn't
believe that sociological changes could influence the prevalence of
psychological conditions, and/or people's ability and willingness to identify
as having the condition.

> _the whole trans movement does seem to have awfully [much] to do with
> clothes_

Clothes are one of the ways people in our culture signal their gender. It
shouldn't be surprising if people who believe they are female want to wear
clothes which are culturally associated with females. But, if you don't
believe that (most) trans people have gender dysphoria then, sure, all you see
is people worrying about clothes.

> _But I hate to break it to the converts to my sex: women who were born women
> schlep around most of the time in jeans and trainers. The version of
> femininity offered up by Caitlyn Jenner is foreign to me—exaggeratedly
> coiffed, buffed and corseted_

But you've heard of the Kardashians, right? It isn't as though almost always
looking glamorous when in public is a _trans_ trait. It's a trait that some
_people_ have.

------
donatj
As a whole it comes down to narcissism and desire to feel 'special'. Sexuality
is a spectrum with nearly infinite points and we're all fluid on the spectrum.
Labeling a select hundreds of points on the spectrum is needles. Being happy
doesn't require a label. It requires the acceptance of your peers, and I don't
think insistence on corrrect labels or new pronoun's help with that.

------
gaur
tl;dr: "Gender isn't important to me, so it shouldn't be important to anyone
else either!"

------
squozzer
Gender and other forms of identity remain because they are a) convenient and
b) lucrative.

~~~
yahyaheee
I see it more as social capital and power

------
Claudus
As a free thinker I tend to reject social constructs.

If sex is biological expression, and gender is a social construct then I
acknowledge sex and reject gender.

~~~
SixSigma
> As a free thinker I tend to reject social constructs.

------
kr7
> For me, my very self has no gender. While obviously I can only testify to my
> own experience of being a person—to my knowledge, I’ve only been this one—I
> cannot imagine that I alone enjoy such a self-perception.

It may be anecdotal but the case of David Reimer certainly contradicts her
theory.

Reimer was castrated as an infant and raised as a girl after a botched
circumcision. He had surgery and hormone therapy. Nevertheless he identified
as a boy and displayed many of the same symptoms that trans people do.

I would say his 'self' had a gender.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer)

~~~
whatyoucantsay0
No argument that starts with "sample size: 1" is ever a convincing one.

------
dave2000
And race too! Stop fighting for equality; know your place.

One thing I did like and agree with about about the piece, though, was this:

> and save the conniption fits; I’m not on social media and > never read
> online comments)

That's how you deal with trolling!

~~~
forgotpwtomain
> And race too! Stop fighting for equality; know your place.

Comments like this do nothing to generate an intelligent discussion and make
one wonder whether you even bothered to read the article.

~~~
dave2000
It certainly doesn't seem to have provoked anything particularly interesting
in the way of responses.

