STUDY: Gender is defined inconsistently in transgender equality debates

[Bardoux]

STUDY: Gender is defined inconsistently in transgender equality debates
Zack Ford, October 28th

One of the challenges when discussing transgender equality is defining the terms sex (male vs. female), gender (man vs. woman), and gender identity (transgender vs. cisgender). Opponents often conflate all three by reducing them to biological sex, disregarding how individuals define their own gender identity. A new study examining the rhetoric around trans equality debates has found that, in fact, many people are "torn between valuing self-identity and believing that biology determines gender."

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2013/10/28/2848171/defining-gender-transgender-equality/

[genderhell]

The article refers to trans identities.

I am disliking that term. It sounds like the trans person has a "manufactured identity" that would
fit with a mental-illness model of GID.

I am mtf trans, and I refer to my "old" male persona as fake, and it was never developed. I never could function as a male, no relationships, only mental debilitation and crisis.

I don't see my "trans identity" as a manufactured identity. I have a real female personality that was suppressed.

[VeronicaLynn]

These issues are largely because of our puritan based society. There are, or at least were, not sure if there are any anymore, tribes of people that walked around naked. Because we as a society, sexualized nudity, it is somehow an issue to share locker rooms. We do in some places allow nude beaches though. Is there a really high rape rate on nude beaches?

[Vicky]

We do in some places allow nude beaches though. Is there a really high rape rate on nude beaches?

The two beaches I am aware of near me, and several naturist camps also not far away have neither more agressive rapes, nor a reputation for sex on top of the beach blankets or in the pools. At the camps they do have a little higher incidence of poison oak rash on newcomers, but that happens from love encounters of folks up in our National Forest side canyons who went hiking with clothes on, but who have gained painful infections in their love-making regions nonetheless.