What is gender identity?

[megan-l]

Ok, it's my third attempt, but, still: What is gender identity? How do you determine it? How does it feel like? I don't get the point how someone can feel like man/woman/sth else. I mean, you can have features generally associated with one gender, but I don't get the 'feeling like part'. It is not supposed to offend anybody. Just curious.

[suzifrommd]

Ok, it's my third attempt, but, still: What is gender identity? How do you determine it? How does it feel like? I don't get the point how someone can feel like man/woman/sth else. I mean, you can have features generally associated with one gender, but I don't get the 'feeling like part'. It is not supposed to offend anybody. Just curious.

Human beings generally have a brain that is wired to expect them to be a particular gender. For nearly everyone that matches their body sex. For some of us, however, our gender is different from our body sex.

Gender identity is the gender our brain is wired to expect our body to be.

Problem is that sex is obvious - you can look into your underwear and figure out what sex you probably are.

But gender identity is subtle for some. It wasn't obvious what my gender identity was until I started exploring.

[Colleen♡Callie]

How do you identify?  Now ask yourself why?  Is it just because of the parts you were born with?  Because you were raised as your gender and told from the first moment of life that you were this gender?

When your identity lines up with your body it becomes a simple fact, one you rarely have to think about or acknowledge at all.  It just is.  You're male because you're male, or you're female because you're a female.  You were born such and that is how it is.  Like the fact we are human.  We don't have to think about our identity as humans, it just is. But we do identify as human.

But there are differences in the male and female brain structure, none of which really supports the crappy gender roles and stereotypes society loves to propagate.  But there are noticeable differences.  And nature is imperfect.  It leaves bodies stuck between genders, even to the extreme of being born physically the gender other than what their chromosome say (males with XX chromosomes and females with XY)

It does the same with the brain.  Sometimes leaving one to identify as the other gender, or somewhere trapped in between.  And that's when it becomes a thing you have to acknowledge.  Because your mind becomes at war with your body.  You mind expects your body to match what it is wired to think you are, but all the signals being received are say something completely different, which is someone is wired to handle.  And it causes untold amounts of stress, anxiety, mental pain, depression, etc. 

Your mind, your brain, that is who you really are.  That is you primarily, and you can't change that without changing who you are.  But the body is secondary to the mind.  It can be changed without changing who you are.

[HorizonBound]

Ok, it's my third attempt, but, still: What is gender identity? How do you determine it? How does it feel like? I don't get the point how someone can feel like man/woman/sth else. I mean, you can have features generally associated with one gender, but I don't get the 'feeling like part'. It is not supposed to offend anybody. Just curious.

Gender identity is something that is experienced by a person. We use labels to describe those experiences. There's two parts to identity that are pretty closely related; one is how experience your gender and that's an internal, very subjective and personal thing. The other is how or where you belong, socially.

Femininity (as society constructs it at least) is a deep part of my nature, something that decades of constant oppression have been unable to grind out of me. That's a fundamental part of my gender experience, because society has some pretty stupid ideas of what it means to be a man or a woman, and that's always made my lived experience a nightmare because it doesn't fit at all with how society thinks I "should" be doing or experiencing my gender. But you can be a feminine man, being feminine doesn't make you a woman; butch women are still women, right? Hell, there are even some butchy, lesbian trans women! I would experience myself as being a certain gender if I feel like I belong with that gender, that I'm "one of them" and want to be seen and treated as such.

If you want real answers to your questions, answer them yourself. What is your gender identity? How did you determine it? What does it feel like? Do you not feel like a man, woman, or anything else?

Remember: you don't know what gender you are because of your body parts. Plenty of people with your body parts have a different gender than you.

It would be cool if you answered those questions in this thread, I think it would extremely fascinating to have that discussion!

[Asche]

If you want real answers to your questions, answer them yourself. What is your gender identity? How did you determine it? What does it feel like? Do you not feel like a man, woman, or anything else?

I've been doing that.  The answer I get is "what the @#$%^ is a "gender identity"??"

I have noticed that a lot of people (mostly male) are very, very attached to being their particular sex.  But I've never been able to figure out why (other than liking the perqs of male privilege), any more than I understand why some people like to drink alcohol until they throw up (yeah, I knew some people like that in college.)  When I try to understand it, I end up talking about up-sides and down-sides, but I gather that isn't it.  If I imagine what I would choose if I could choose to remain a man or be transformed into a woman, but without all the hassles of transition, it always comes down to which I would enjoy more, rather than which is the "real me."  The "real me" in my mind doesn't seem to have a gender -- I'd be equally "me" whether I lived as a man or as a woman.

So far, my working conclusion (subject to change) is that I don't have a gender identity.  Or maybe my "gender identity" is "none of the above."

[helen2010]

megan-l

If you really wish to explore gender you may find Kate Bornstein's books Gender Outlaw and the Gender Workbook compelling reading and revelatory.

Gender to me is a dance.  In its purest form it is a fluid understanding and expression of the self and therefore identity in response to multiple factors including history, social experience, biology, situation, others etc.  Some may read you as per your presentation but your presentation may in itself be an act, your theatre, a performance designed to accent an aspect of yourself or consciously designed to provoke, engage, entertain or assure others. 

To me categorising gender as being either male or female is simplistic and misleading, using a continuum between these binary definitions also feels limiting.  Perhaps gender is best visualised as an 'n-dimensional' bubble of self.   There again it is perhaps nothing more than an unhelpful fiction tied with the ego designed to confuse and to deceive.

Aisla

[Kaelin]

The catch with trying to feel a gender identity is that someone may not actually find one.  People can have an identity, but it may have nothing to do with gender.  Just as someone may slide from uncertainty into certainty after achieving certain realizations, a person can just as well believe something to be true but think better of it after taking in more information.  When one sees not just themselves as being bombarded by gender roles, gendered circles, and gendered experiences but other people being bombarded as well, it can be natural to question what gender is supposed to be in the first place.  What makes someone a man or a woman?  How does someone know they're feeling an identity and not just calling upon a convenient stereotype or calling upon a flawed idea like "who do you relate more to" (which doesn't hold up when you consider you're always relying on examples that are not representative of the potential whole and which are always impacted by the societies they live in) or even "what body do you feel you're supposed to have?"

I was first pretty certain I wasn't a woman, but over time I feel like less I am a man.  I'm me.

[megan-l]

"I've been doing that.  The answer I get is "what the @#$%^ is a "gender identity"??"" - I have the same. Lot's of unrelted things as an anwser. And I've been thinking about gender identity for quite a long time. It's more than a year now in my 17.75-year life. Yeah, and, Asche, I have also noticed that for certain people their gender IS really important and that their characters are really massively gendered. Women too. I'm not the case. Maybe that's because I have always be the smart one and my approach to reality may be somewhat in the framework of ideas and intellect. "I'd be equally "me" whether I lived as a man or as a woman" - that's the case,   I   am an intellect, basically.

Well, sometimes I do feel feminine, or masculine, but it's not the thing right? It's not an overwhelming majority of my life and others do experience both sides too. It's more 'feeling like' than 'feeling like being'.

Horizonbound, well, I could anwser, but the anwser would make no sense (like "I like cookies and math" to "Are you a man, woman, genderqueer...?". Or I think about sexual orientation, which is relevant but it's not the thing). There is a real mess down there, like a jungle. Too much things to see anything. There is something uncommon, otherwie I would not question the issue at all. But I'm not trans in the way I want to present much different than I do now. Neither do I have a clinical dysphoria, but I DO need an anwser that would be emotionally satisfying, because it won't give me peace.

Anyhow, the gender roles seem limiting. I think that if I could painlessly, effortlessly and nicely transition to the male form or whatever, it would be just exchanging one frame for another. And the massive infuence of stereotypes is also .. hm.. massive. And negative. I think also that threating women as their bodies only (sex+procreation) is reeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaly stupid and it's the greatest misconception of whole history. (May sound stupid, please, forgive, talking about intense feelings always has this effect of lack of words).

[megan-l]

Hm, quite funny that I'm questioning for more than a year, I have changed nothing and I'm pretty sure that my best friend thinks I'm a transgayman since I told her that in my dreams I'm a guy frequently, and I think she's sure since I asked her about how she experiences sexual desire. And I ended up thinking she's about demisexual.
Anyway, funny situation. I don't know how she perceives it, but, yeah, in fact, my brain is quite guyish, which does not make a transman out of me. To be a transman, someone must want others to percieve them as a man. And I don't.

[peky]

Do you prefer to be called Sir or Ma'am ?

That is your gender identity... that innate self perception of being male or female or something else for some souls

[HorizonBound]

I've been doing that.  The answer I get is "what the @#$%^ is a "gender identity"??"

I have noticed that a lot of people (mostly male) are very, very attached to being their particular sex.  But I've never been able to figure out why (other than liking the perqs of male privilege), any more than I understand why some people like to drink alcohol until they throw up (yeah, I knew some people like that in college.)  When I try to understand it, I end up talking about up-sides and down-sides, but I gather that isn't it.  If I imagine what I would choose if I could choose to remain a man or be transformed into a woman, but without all the hassles of transition, it always comes down to which I would enjoy more, rather than which is the "real me."  The "real me" in my mind doesn't seem to have a gender -- I'd be equally "me" whether I lived as a man or as a woman.

So far, my working conclusion (subject to change) is that I don't have a gender identity.  Or maybe my "gender identity" is "none of the above."

Well, here's another way to look at it. Gender isn't something that exists outside yourself, like a Platonic Ideal or something, and you try to find out if you are that thing. Rather, your identity is just a way of summing up your lived experiences, putting them in a container and labeling it so you can get a grip on it in your mind, and so you can communicate that to other people. If you don't have a word for something, it's very difficult to understand or think about, or work with that idea, or see how it relates to other ideas. It's like a label on a soup can, it just describes what's in the can: chicken soup, perhaps. There's a million possible recipes for chicken soup (some of them don't even have chicken), but for some reason we consider the recipe we just cooked up to be best described by the words "chicken soup." So, if other people disagree it doesn't make it NOT chicken soup. It just means they disagree about "counts as" chicken soup, or maybe they don't believe that chicken soup actually exists (crazy talk, obvs).

Your gender is your personal experience of living in a world where gender is everywhere. Read about other people's experience of gender and the words they use to describe them. Explore your gender, try on different clothes and change your mannerisms and journal about it and talk with trans people etc etc. The only guide you have is what feels right, what you know just makes sense to you. Once you have a really clear idea of how you experience your gender, look around for identity terms and find one that fits. If none of them fit, try to sum up your gender if in a few sentences and make a new word for it. 'Cuz that's exactly how we got every gender identity there is: someone didn't have a word for their experience, so they just made one up. Heck, if your experience of gender changes, your identity (the labels you use to describe it) can change.

Are you familiar with the terms agender, http://gender.wikia.com/wiki/Neutrois]neutrois[/url], or genderless? They're all pretty similar, but there's some variation on how people use these terms. You might find reading about them interesting.

[Asche]

The catch with trying to feel a gender identity is that someone may not actually find one.  People can have an identity, but it may have nothing to do with gender.

Only half-joking, I say that my "gender identity" is techie.  (As in: I'm a techie.)  Music, making things work, and treating people decently are much closer to the core of who I am than which bathroom I use or what I have between my legs.

The only way I can make sense of the phrase "being a man" is either (a) anatomy or (b) conforming to your society's sex-based expectations.

I'm probably outing myself as horribly limited and unempathic, but no matter how hard I try, I can't make sense of "even though I have a male/female body, I always knew I was really a woman/man" other than not being able to accept what society expects one to be (based on one's assigned sex.)

I'm aware that other people do have some sense of a "true gender," but I have to simply accept it on faith and accept that it's something I will never understand.

I was first pretty certain I wasn't a woman, but over time I feel like less I am a man.  I'm me.

That about sums it up for me.

[Umiko]

ITS A PAIN IN THE BEHIND! if you hear a that little voice in your head screaming to you, its not a hallucination. what i discovered is that my dreams are closely linked to my mind therefore what my true thoughts are is reflecting in my dreams (why i can remember them so vividly to the point it drives me insane ) but like other's said, if someone calls you by your technical gender and you feel that ping of "hey, thats not my gender" than yes, you most likely have GD (gender dysphoria) or gender identity for a lack of a better word. sry if i didnt explain clearly xD i tend to try and throw my 2 cents in xD 

[ativan]

Strip away all the things, the terms that people use for you.
Now do the same thing for the ones you use for yourself.
Forget if you can, all the identifiers others and you use for yourself.
Quiet the questions you have about it.
If even for a moment, you might see your identity.
If not, you will at the very least, have come a lot closer than all those terms and such.
Identity is a very personal thing, so get rid of the things that hold that sense of self back.
That's not some zen/budda/whatever kind of thinking.
It's merely stopping all the noise so you can hear yourself think.
Still working on it,
Ativan

[Satinjoy]

Do you prefer to be called Sir or Ma'am ?

That is your gender identity... that innate self perception of being male or female or something else for some souls

Amusing.  My gut reaction?  Pick one.  Doesnt matter.   Best one?  When they say,, ummm,, ahh - and forget the pronoun.

I have three identities.

Physical I am transwoman.  I need a female body.  Male does not work for me.

Socially, I morph, like Emily does.  Now I can observe it come and go.  Triggered by all kinds of things.  When I clear the triggers, I become ... real.  Neither male nor female.

In my center, I am neither male, though I have male reactions, attractions, needs, nor female, though I have female sensitivity, joy, emotions, and sometimes attractions.  I am unique.  It is  not a gender identity so much as a not gender identity.  It is Spirit.

I find binary gender if applied to myself to be amusing.  I am three identities.  I have multiple attractions and orientations, most shut down voluntarily through marrage.

The key for me, and the thing that I struggle with, is the physical dsyphoria.  I have hopes that the non binary part of me will overpower the physical dysphoria just enough to preserve my way of life and my marriage.  When that reality begins to break down, through fear and noise, I melt down and the forum has to come and intervene again.

What is gender identity?  Multifaceted, but part of the same diamond.  Which part do you wish to see?  All should sparkle at the end through unconditional love and self acceptance of who you were created to be.

My mind is coming back.  I am so screwed when i forget who I am.

[Pica Pica]

I think it's one of several bedrocks of self built when you are young, part of the ability to say 'I am.....'

I found after saying 'I am an androgyne,' I was then able to shuffle, shore up and strengthen the other foundational parts of me. (I am more optimist then pessimist, I am keen on words and how they are used, I prefer mercy to justice, I prefer co-operation to competition &C...)

Beyond that, no idea.

[megan-l]

@HorrizonBound: checked out before, but the problem is that there is something, although not essentially being a man/woman. And neutrois has the connotation of cutting out your breasts and using non-female pronouns, which is not my thing. My approach on body is essentially different. It's an approach of usefulness and function.

And maybe it's the problem that my experience is unclear, it's a jungle of colourful stuff, but evaluating it as 'more pink', 'more blue', 'more grey', 'more nothing' ,'more whatever' is pointless. This isn't even anything. Genderqueer also carries connotation of queer - non-heterosexual, which is not me either. I'm perfectly biologically hetero. Butch isn't it too (homosexual connotation). Non-binary makes some sense as it suggests something different, but it isn't the thing either. Androgynous makes some sense, but if you could see me, I'm not androgynous in any commonly understood way. Well, actually there is a thing, but I've never met a description of something similar. And my description would be simplistic and stereotypical. Would not give the idea. Practically all attempts to define it end with a 'but...' statement.

@Asche: I'm a techie too Music rules.

"I'm aware that other people do have some sense of a "true gender," but I have to simply accept it on faith and accept that it's something I will never understand." - yeah, I completely agree. Another description that I came across was sort of "I feel like the person that is looking through my eyes is neither male nor female".

@Satinjoy: What you have described, I would name rather 'feeling feminine/masculine/.."

To the "I am.." part. I think that as a very little child I was feeling like just me, and everyone kept on telling me that I'm a pretty little girl, pink and stuff. And I did not get it, but being a girl was not bad, because I got pink and glittering things. I concluded that girls and boys differ only by hair length, adults are silly "making" everyone into girls or boys by cutting their hair in the proper way. It was not obvious that some body features make girls and boys, because adults were small or tall, or fat or thin, or had light or dark hair, had diverse faces etc. However the person inside me remained 'just me', and always treated 'being a girl' as if I was an actor in a theatre. For the happiness of the audience. Empty. I always thought that everyone is playing. That it's a sort of game. Some girly things were very fun too. Like being nice and pretty. And pink. (I love pink still  ) Physical appearance is still my favourite part of femaleness. As for the emotions, I have always been overemotional even as for a girl, but not in the sense of being non-logical. I have always been more logical than others too. The person inside is rather just 'a brain'. Or 'a human'. Or 'some intelligent being'. Like a brain put into some random body. (sf winds, isn't it?). Only a bit mor than a year ago I discovered that gendered things can feel natural and are not always acting. And I got really confused, especially as some of those things did not agree with 'girliness'.

Got lenthy. I'm ending.

[helen2010]

Megan

"I always thought that everyone is playing. That it's a sort of game."

You have captured a part of my experience.  I can't say that I have ever felt particularly male or female but at times I have admired and coveted different parts of their respective life experience.  Nevertheless I have learned to play my birth assigned gender role and have done this very well.  It was the sense that I was missing something, something to which my birth gender did not provide ready access which brought me  to the point where I now identify as non binary and in many ways gender queer rather than androgyne.

However at this stage my thinking is that this may in turn be just another phase or identity that I have chosen to currently identify with and to learn to express.  Whether this is my true self remains to be seen.  Perhaps we are all part of a greater construct and our sense of individual identity is an illusion and part of our spiritual evolution or journey.

Aisla

[JulieBlair]

Hello everyone,
I am at "Esprit"  this week which is a trans conference next to a rain forest and sparkling in the sun.  Here everything is simple and clear.  I a Julie, a woman, no more no less.  I have spent the better part of my life trying to tease out gender, sex, sexual orientation, why I felt wrong, why I felt alone.

What it all converges on is when I am in the quiet space of meditation, and I picture how I look, and how I fit into the world.  The image is feminine.  What role I am playing, what is between my legs is not very relevant.  What I choose to do with that imagery is what  engages dysphoria, and even madness. It seems I must align myself to that fairy girl, or dry up and blow away.

That is my gender, that is who I am.

Love you all in the Port Angeles sunshine.
Julie