Michael Laidlaw, MD and experienced endocrinologist, says, ‘There is a concept defined called “gender identity” which has no physical presence and apparently can only be made known to the person in which it resides.’ That confirms my assessment of the "My brain is male" point of view. It is most likely nonsense.
On the other hand there is this from the European Society of Endocrinology. "Transgender brains are more like their desired gender from an early age." ScienceDaily, 24 May 2018. While this seems to support the "My brain is male" point of view, note the refutation at twitter.com/joandark11.
Over the past few years of being closely involved with a family with a gender-fluid child, I have come to respect the following people, who have helped me to interpret the debate:
- gendercriticalgreens (Rosemary Goude)
- lilymaynard @LilyLilyMaynard (“I'm an activist cos my gay daughter thought she was a boy. I didn't support her transition, & she outgrew it.)
- www.transgendertrend.com
Green Party and the gender identity issue
The reason I'm posting on this vexed issue again is that I am really concerned where the Green Party is going on the gender identity issue and I am opposed to the "my brain is male" idea. What I mean is, I have no problem with people self-identifying with any gender they like (as gender is a social construct), but I cannot agree with the idea that sex is defined by a feeling in a person's head (as sex is a biological given). I can see how we got to where we are (as mentioned below) but I think it is time to sift the terms 'sex' and 'gender' out again and maintain a distinction between the two.
How 'sex' and 'gender' got conflated
It seems to me that the terms 'sex' and 'gender' got confused and conflated some time in the 1980s, largely as a result of well-intentioned lobbying by feminists in the 1970s to deconstruct sexual stereotyping. They focused on the word gender to highlight how our culture is socially constructed.
That is where we get the idea that gender is a socially constructed spectrum, ranging from very masculine to very feminine.
But we don't have a word for a person who identifies as feminine (rather than female) or as masculine (rather than male). We just have the words 'boy' and 'man' or 'girl' and 'woman' - which are also the words that define your sex as a human being. What if we had a word like 'fem' or 'femme'? Male-to-trans persons could then be described as such, without being described as women.
Brilliant piecc by Cath Bann at peacenews.info/node/9171/trans-women-are-trans-women
That is where we get the idea that gender is a socially constructed spectrum, ranging from very masculine to very feminine.
But we don't have a word for a person who identifies as feminine (rather than female) or as masculine (rather than male). We just have the words 'boy' and 'man' or 'girl' and 'woman' - which are also the words that define your sex as a human being. What if we had a word like 'fem' or 'femme'? Male-to-trans persons could then be described as such, without being described as women.
PS. Peace News article: 'Trans women are trans women'
Brilliant piecc by Cath Bann at peacenews.info/node/9171/trans-women-are-trans-womenPPS. Previous posts
My previous posts on this topic are under the label https://roadlesstraveller.blogspot.com/search/label/feminism
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