7 ms·

Our preoccupation with gender identity is a cultural step backwards

68 points by nkurz 11y ago

squozzer 11y ago
Gender and other forms of identity remain because they are a) convenient and b) lucrative.
- yahyaheee 11y ago
  I see it more as social capital and power
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
dave2000 11y ago
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!
- chris_wot 11y ago
  What is gender? What is race?
- forgotpwtomain 11y ago
  > 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 11y ago
    It certainly doesn't seem to have provoked anything particularly interesting in the way of responses.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- yahyaheee 11y ago
  Good list
kr7 11y ago
> 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
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
  - klipt 11y ago
    You seem to be implying that transgender people are that way out of choice. If so, how do you reconcile this statement: > Girls often don't want to be treated "like a girl" either - girls rebel too. The way society treats and socializes girls and women is very proscriptive and often sucks. with the fact that there are many more transwomen (who do want to be treated like a girl) than transmen (who don't want to be treated like a girl)?
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
- whatyoucantsay0 11y ago
  No argument that starts with "sample size: 1" is ever a convincing one.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
djaychela 11y ago
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 11y ago
  > 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.
  - yahyaheee 11y ago
    While I agree with this and hope this is ultimately where we are headed, I think the world has to go through this phase to get to the one where people finally honestly don't care or hold bias
    - golemotron 11y ago
kough 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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 11y ago
    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.
Claudus 11y ago
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 11y ago
  > As a free thinker I tend to reject social constructs.
parenthephobia 11y ago
> 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 11y ago
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.
krstck 11y ago
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-identity/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/02/18/typical-mind-and-gender.... 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).
stegosaurus 11y ago
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. :)
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
golemotron 11y ago
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+and+Interpretive/8508 http://www.mayomedicallaboratories.com/test-catalog/Clinical.... 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.
gaur 11y ago
tl;dr: "Gender isn't important to me, so it shouldn't be important to anyone else either!"
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

68 points by nkurz 11y ago

squozzer 11y ago

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

yahyaheee 11y ago
I see it more as social capital and power

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

dave2000 11y ago

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!

chris_wot 11y ago
What is gender? What is race?
forgotpwtomain 11y ago
> 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 11y ago
  It certainly doesn't seem to have provoked anything particularly interesting in the way of responses.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

yahyaheee 11y ago
Good list

kr7 11y ago

> 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

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- klipt 11y ago
  You seem to be implying that transgender people are that way out of choice. If so, how do you reconcile this statement: > Girls often don't want to be treated "like a girl" either - girls rebel too. The way society treats and socializes girls and women is very proscriptive and often sucks. with the fact that there are many more transwomen (who do want to be treated like a girl) than transmen (who don't want to be treated like a girl)?
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
whatyoucantsay0 11y ago
No argument that starts with "sample size: 1" is ever a convincing one.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

djaychela 11y ago

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 11y ago
> 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.
- yahyaheee 11y ago
  While I agree with this and hope this is ultimately where we are headed, I think the world has to go through this phase to get to the one where people finally honestly don't care or hold bias
  - golemotron 11y ago

kough 11y ago

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 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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.

Claudus 11y ago

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 11y ago
> As a free thinker I tend to reject social constructs.

parenthephobia 11y ago

> 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 11y ago

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.

krstck 11y ago

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-identity/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/02/18/typical-mind-and-gender.... 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).

stegosaurus 11y ago

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. :)

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

golemotron 11y ago

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+and+Interpretive/8508 http://www.mayomedicallaboratories.com/test-catalog/Clinical.... 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.

gaur 11y ago

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

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]