Gender identy: What does it mean to "feel like" a man/woman?

Great Debates
141

You go guy. When you’re young you can write your entire name in cursive. When you get older you’re lucky if you can print your intitials. Women don’t know what they’re missing. It makes hiking soooo much easier after a cup of coffee.

I’ve never understood sexual preference. Surely, on paper, sex with women has to look better than gay sex. I would expect some desire to give it a shot (isn’t gay sex just an emulation of het sex).

Back to the debate, I think the distinctions of feeling like a man or women will continue to change because of the emancipation of women over the last century. Still, I’m very much like my father. I can build a house or swap out a car motor. I have 3 pairs of shoes and a half dozen good pocketknives. When I was a kid I played with cars, built airplane models and played soccer. None of these things define masculinity but are certainly indicative of what was once the domain of “guy world”.

142

“Purple” is a color, and even if a color-blind person can’t experience color directly, there’s no reason he can’t grasp the concept of what colors are.

No explanation of the concept of gender identity has been forthcoming in this thread.

143

OK. I’m just trying to reconcile this fact with the statement many here have made that their sense of “gender identity” is independent of their genitals. If having a penis can’t make one “feel like” a man, why would being uncomfortable with one’s penis therefore make somebody feel like they aren’t a man?

Again, from my perspective it makes perfect sense, since I do associate my gender identity with my plumbing. But for somebody who claims that plumbing is irrelevant to gender identity, I don’t understand why one would therefore feel uncomfortable with the “wrong” type. Why would you want to cut something off that doesn’t affect how you feel about who you are?

Barry

144

godzillatemple, my discomfort with my penis is, partially, because I’m not a man. You are reversing cause and effect, along with a few other fallacies that I think you should figure out on your own.

I’m not going to respond to your second question because you’re putting words in my mouth. I suspected that you were trying to lay a trap with your last question; you have revealed that, in fact, you were trying to do so. I’ve no interest in arguing down your strawmen.

145

godzillatemple, my discomfort with my penis is, partially, because I’m not a man. You are reversing cause and effect, along with a few other fallacies that I think you should figure out on your own.

I’m not going to respond to your second question because you’re putting words in my mouth. I suspected that you were trying to lay a trap with your last question; you have revealed that, in fact, you were trying to do so. I’ve no interest in arguing down your strawmen.

146

Presumably anyone reading this far in understands why I cannot speak for all people to whom “gender dysphoria” would meaningfully apply – if you thought we were a homogenous group, you’ve been disabused of that notion by now, yes?

I could be comfortable being male, or at least I could have been at one point, if things had been different. “Different” meaning…

I’m not sure “inverse” would be a really great trade, insofar as there is a hell of a lot of shit that female people have to put up with for which there is no excuse, and insofar as I would not want to subject all my female partners to all the stuff I hate about being male – but what the hell, if it wouldn’t be a really great trade it would at least be a damn good trade. Sure. Let the females be the “boys”. Hey, if nothing else, it would bring rape pretty close to a dead halt. (Or so I think. I suppose the argument could be made that a world of macho {macha?} women might run in packs and do coercive and physically/sexually painful things to males, but I just don’t buy into the likelihood)

I am, in some centrally important ways, not like KellyM. I am, in other, also centrally important, ways, her kin, (and I hope she accepts me as such), another person for whom a lot of the things that are true for her are also true.

Oh, and while the male bod doesn’t seem alien to me, and I have for other reasons a huge distrust of medically-administered programs in which psychiatry plays a major gatekeeper role, if you were to provide me with a cute little portal that I could just walk through and convert to female, I’d hop through. I doubt that I’d hesitate. I might even run.

147

Kelly: I’m sorry you feel that way, as it was not my intent to set up a straw man, put words into your mouth, or in any other way attempt to “lay a trap” for you.

If you simply do not want to continue the discussion, however, that is entirely up to you.

Barry

148

godzillatemple: Give it up. KellyM can’t even perceive the inconsistencies in the statements she’s made, much less the inconsistencies in their implications. Thus the complaints about “putting words in her mouth” and “strawmen”. She’s just using the names of fallacies in an attempt to divert your argument.

She can’t help you answer your question.

149

At the same time, TVAA, you come across to me as a color-blind person who denies that orange exists; is it not possible that you’re the one not grasping the concept?

Daniel

150

godzillatemple writes,

Well, if you were an atheist (I don’t know if you are or not, I’m just using the example that comes to mind) and you were talking with some theist friends, and they tried to explain to you how it was to believe in the Divine, you might feel much the same way.

Friend: “It’s like there’s someone…up there.”
You: “Yeah, but when they play their music too loud, I just yell at them to turn it down.”
Friend: “No, it’s like knowing that someone cares about you no matter what.”
You: “Yeah, my parents love me, even when I got that nose ring.”

Are you sure that simply because you don’t have a real strong sense of gender identity, that other people’s feelings like that are so hard to understand? I mean, look at the atheist above; while I’ve seen people say things like that it was in jest, not real ignorance. Don’t most atheists, regardless of their personal feelings, have at least an idea why theists feel the way they do? No one’s asking you to grow a “gender identity” the size of anybody else’s, just to sort of understand where theirs is coming from.

But then, I was always shocked that quilting wasn’t considered a “masculine” hobby to start with-- try dividing a 44" piece of fabric into 728 3 x 4 right triangles with a 1/4" seam allowance on all sides of each triangle, then figure out how much fabric you need to buy at the store-- without any paper. Or figure out if a pattern can be cut into two or flipped to fit better, and still work; it’s all math and spatial orientations and cool stuff. So don’t trust ME as far as gender identity goes.

(for the record: age 28, quilter, 6’ tall, geek/former computer tech, prefers guys for romantic relationships, has love/hate relationship with own facial hair and is currently not shaving it)

Corrvin

151

Left Hand of Dorkness: So, tell me… Did you feel that you were trapped with the wrong user name, or what? :smiley:

152

Just changed my handle; when I originally signed up here four years ago, I wasn’t figuring on using the board very often, and certainly not for personal posts. Now that I am, I’d prefer not to be doing it under my real name.

Daniel

153

Even color-blind people can grasp some of the properties of color when they’re told them; there are any number of accurate explanations of “orange” that they could understand and use.

But no one has offered a coherent set of properties of “gender identity”, and it seems every statement about it contradicts at least one other that’s been offered.

The problem isn’t that they’re referencing an experience I do not directly perceive, but that they’re not referencing any experience at all. The phrase “gender identity” does not appear to signify anything to the people participating in this discussion; more accurately, it means something different to each one. And no one has managed to explain precisely what it means to them.

154

They’re not really related. Until I was five or six years old, I didn’t pay any mind to whether I was a ‘boy’ or a ‘girl’. It just didn’t matter to me. I played Pony League baseball (Pinto level) when I was six, I spent most of the first five years of my life wearing whatever hand-me-down shorts I could pilfer off of my older cousin and no t-shirt because I was more comfortable playing and running around that way. I didn’t like dresses and tights and long hair and patent-leather shoes because they weren’t very comfortable items for playing ball and climbing trees. My parents tried to discourage my choices of clothes and hobbies, and to make me wear dresses and do other things that ‘girls do.’ They would tell me ‘You’re a girl. Stop acting like a boy.’ I had no idea what ‘acting like a boy’ meant, because I was just having fun.

I went to kindergarten, I was identified as female so I had to use the girls’ restroom, went through all the other stuff (grew breasts, got my period, etc) and that was fine with me. I still got a lot of crap for being a ‘tomboy’, which just never made sense to me. I just wanted to do the things I found interesting and fun and be left alone with it. I’ve always been attracted to guys, so I guess that makes me a heterosexual female. There’s really nothing I want to do that I can’t because of the body I’m in, so my only contention was the societal attitude that my interests and attitudes were ‘male’ instead of ‘female.’

The lack of desire to have kids, or the active desire to not have them, is rooted in a couple of areas. One, I just don’t like kids. I don’t find babies and children very interesting. I don’t like spending time around them, or interacting with them much at all. I tend to like people once they are capable of carrying on a complex and intelligent conversation. Two, I like my life to be my life. I like having the freedom to decide on Friday morning that I’m not going home all weekend, or to go out somewhere after work instead of going home and making dinner, or to just have some pretzels for dinner while I watch TV, and that’s not something I could do if there were a kid depending on me to take care of it. I’d also lose out in the career area since I would have to take at least some time off of work, and that’s not very appealing to me. I wouldn’t want large chunks of my money going to daycare when they could go to other things that I’d rather be paying for. If I woke up tomorrow and had a male body, I still wouldn’t want kids. It’s not like it’s due to ‘Oh, well I just wouldn’t want one in my uterus but if I had the other side of the process I’d be fine with it.’ I don’t want one in my uterus, but even if I didn’t have a uterus, I still wouldn’t want a kid.

I have no problem peeing standing up, and I have factory installed female plumbing.

155

People have explained it plenty of times but you chose not to listen. Gender Identity is what someone decides for themselves. That’s it. Each person has their own Gender Identity so when you ask someone to describe it, they will all describe various things. Some people don’t have much awareness of it and that doesn’t make them any less of a person or any less aware of their own self.

156

So one person can feel that their genitals are somehow alien, but their behavior patterns and sexual preferences are perfectly acceptable, and be motivated by their gender identity?

Or that their genitals are fine, and their sexual preferences are appropriate, but their personality somehow “doesn’t fit” their body? And that would also be gender identity?

If everyone’s defintion of “gender identity” is unique and purely subjective, this entire discussion is pointless.

157

adventure, I’m 75 and I feel young.

Feeling “old” or feeling “young” mean different things to different people. If you look through different societies you will find that in some societies, feeling aged is regarded as a negative feeling and in others a positive feeling.

So what does it mean to feel “old” or “young”? If you ask that question, people will give you hundreds of responces but they all will have different opinions and different personal experiences. It is the same with Gender Identity.

I feel like a woman if I am trying on clothes and putting on makeup. I feel like a woman if I am building an outdoor playplace.

Gender Identity can be flexible and some people have different Identities throughout their lives, although, for the most part, most of us have solid identites.

Culture also depictions numbers of genders and expressions thereof. In our culture we only have words for “woman” and “man” which is disappointing as there are plenty of people who have other Gender Identities.

So I have two XXs, vagina and a very feminine body. I also was a huge tomboy through most of my life and identity with male characters far more than female charaters and several parts of my personality are more masculine than feminine. So my personality doesn’t fit my body. Still, I consider myself a woman.

My boyfriend, Shiki, has a Y chromosome and a penis. But he has a lot more estrogen in his body than most guys and looks very feminine. Although for a while he thought he wanted to be a woman, he now realizes that he is both a woman and a man and is something our society has no words for. (although plenty of other societies do.)

My friend, Jan, has a Y chromosome and a penis but she is working on removing her penis and is taking estrogen. She has never been more happier in her entire life. Her Identity is that a woman.

And I don’t think this discussion is pointless. I think it is interesting how we all have different experiences and different ideas of what it means to be a “woman” and what it means to be a “man.” I find research and discussion on topics like these absolutely fascinating.

158

I think I finally understand where you’re coming from in this argument. I believe you are looking for an equation and a simple formula that applies to everyone, a single question anyone can answer, and if so, then yes, it is pointless. That, however, would be a result-based judgement, that if there is no answer then there is no point to the question. I must argue that the process of the discussion is essential even if there is no answer.

For the people involved, and especially for the people whose lives are affected, it is anything but pointless. I think I’m most sympathetic to Daniel because, like him, if I had the opportunity to go through a magic mirror and try being female for a while, I’d do it without a second thought (if there was a way back, of course). However, I am still attracted to women, despite also being intrigued by the idea of being one. What’s more, I’ve felt this way since I was a very small child. I think I have a mild case, because I don’t plan to do anything about it, but I certainly can’t describe my feelings in so many words, not so you understand it.

It’s not like asking a blind person what “purple” is because a blind person can recite the definition given to him by a sighted person who has built the proper instruments to measure “purpleness.” We have no such advantage. There is no future being with a Gender-Measurer or a Identity-Definer so we can, like the blind man, look up the definition in the back of a book which was written on someone else’s authority. If we continue to think of gender identity as a binary condition without even knowing how to define gender then we’re not proceeding into the discussion with an open mind, either.

A better analogy is like deciding the exact point where “pink” becomes “red.” Yes, we all have eyes and most of us can see well, but all we can say is “we know it when we see it.”

With the problem of gender-identity, of course, only a few of us bother to try to look, and only when we’re compelled to. If you feel the discussion is pointless, don’t read it. Even with the lack of a consensus answer, I find the process fascinating.

FISH

159

This one hit me yesterday:

It’s commonly understood that women are more intuitive than men. Cite? I’m not sure I can provide one for the concept of “women’s intuition,” whether it’s medically sound or not. All I know is that I’m dumb as a rock when my fiancee sends me subliminal signals. You know the common scenario:

Him: Hi, dear, how was your day?
Her: Fine.
He thinks: Wow, she’s fine. Think I’ll get a beer.
She thinks: I feel awful. Doesn’t he know that?

Men can become inductive, of course, over time: he can eventually learn the subtle cues that “fine” is not what it seems. A woman would more easily realize when statements and reality aren’t the same, due to that alleged woman’s intuition.

Now, my question is: do the transgendered folk have this power? Let’s ignore any biological changes or the introduction of estrogen in a male-to-female’s system–although, truth be told, I don’t know if the basis of women’s intuition is biological, chemical, psychological, or just a lot of dumb luck. Would a standard, unaltered individual who has male plumbing but an allegedly female brain be able to do this?

160

** ResIpsaLoquitor**, it’s just one example, but my boyfriend is much, much better at guessing my moods than any other guy I’ve met. If I’m upset about something, he knows. It’s one of the reasons why I prefer to date males with female brains.

The only downside is that he’ll sometimes do the female thing where we say that we are fine but you can tell that we’re not. Damn annoying it is. :stuck_out_tongue: