Is gender identity real?

[Jaimas]

Gender dysphoria is a legitimate medical condition. You don't get something like that through the medical establishment without hard science, and there is a tiny shard of the human population that legitimately has it. One reason that facts are so hard to come by outside of the medical field is because legitimate cases of it are rare; your average human can and will go through life without ever meeting a legitimate tranny because you have about one for every 10,000 or so people out there. I know legitimate dysphoric people who went through all the legal and procedural hurdles in order to transition, and, by and large, are now living happy, fulfilling lives. They're treating what's for them is a very real medical issue, and the medical establishment agrees with this.

This said.

Gender identity as Tumblr and Friends define it is 100% bullshit. It does not have a single, solitary scrap of actual science behind it. No studies of worth, not a single legitimate peer-reviewed study (I.E. one reviewed by credible people, and not like that one study a friend showed me where the author of the study peer-reviewed it herself), proving any of the genderspecial movement's claims.

I've stated this repeatedly since writing the original article on Vade back in 2014, but there is no studies proving the more modern genderspecial movement's claims on fucking anything. Hard science and genderspecials are like oil and water, and do not properly mix, and ergo many of them are vehemently anti-science (Vade's own Aura, for example). Because of this, it's perfectly fine to insult it openly. Scientific fact is cold, logical, and beautiful in its ability to not give a fuck about feelings, and more people should embrace it because it represents a bulwark that morons online can never truly circumvent (though they're trying their damnedest to do so). They don't care if their claiming this shit makes legit trannies out to be fucking lunatics, and they don't care if their claims wind up hurting people close to them, just so long as they can milk asspats and Social Media cred.

When one mentions gender identity and questions if it's real, you thusly have to clarify:

If you mean the medical definition of it, then yes, it's a thing.

If you mean the modern, social media nonsense where everyone claims to be trans without any legitimate reason for doing so, then no.

 

[goldthreadz]

The human body and brain is one hell of a strange machine. one microscopic change of alignment of a gear can change the entire way it functions.
idk about you guys but i feel that its safe to say yeah. much stranger stuff has happened.

 

[Rio]

What always fascinates me is how trans people come to realize they are trans. What does it even mean to be "a female who feels she is male". What does it mean to feel like a male?

Believe me, gender dysphoria makes itself known fairly obviously. When you have it the question isn't so much if you suffer from it as what you want to do about it.

I think gender identity is as real as any other identity. The word 'identity' is hard to define in a scientific way, but like Marvin pointed out if this one isn't real then there's no basis to consider any other identity real either. You'd be hard pressed to find a credited psychologist who denies that gender dysphoria (and by default that generally also means gender identity) is real.

Asking if the concept of a certain identity is real is in and of itself a rather vague question to pose, since you're asking for physical and concrete evidence of something that isn't really necessarily a physical or concrete concept. I assume you meant 'is transsexuality a real thing/is gender dysphoria a real thing,' to which the only answer is yes. It definitely is. Gender identity disorder/gender dysphoria is a real medical condition, and gender identity is as real a concept as the concept of any other identity.

 

[Varg Did Nothing Wrong]

Believe me, gender dysphoria makes itself known fairly obviously. When you have it the question isn't so much if you suffer from it as what you want to do about it.

I think gender identity is as real as any other identity. The word 'identity' is hard to define in a scientific way, but like Marvin pointed out if this one isn't real then there's no basis to consider any other identity real either. You'd be hard pressed to find a credited psychologist who denies that gender dysphoria (and by default that generally also means gender identity) is real.

The real question I guess I'm getting at is what does it feel like to have gender dysphoria. Why do people go through years of hormone therapy and surgery? What does it mean to be a "man" as opposed to a "woman". Do people with dysphoria feel like they're missing genitals when they look in their pants?

 

[shibbolethal]

The real question I guess I'm getting at is what does it feel like to have gender dysphoria. Why do people go through years of hormone therapy and surgery? What does it mean to be a "man" as opposed to a "woman". Do people with dysphoria feel like they're missing genitals when they look in their pants?

it's a whole bunch of different things, and it varies slightly from person to person. i couldn't explain it to you, but here's a link that i glanced over that has a bunch of different accounts from older trans people, most of whom have been living as their preferred gender for a long time. i don't think that a person who isn't trans could really understand it any more than a person who doesn't have autism could understand what it feels like to be autistic.

 

[Varg Did Nothing Wrong]

i don't think that a person who isn't trans could really understand it any more than a person who doesn't have autism could understand what it feels like to be autistic.

I think you're probably right, which makes it harder to understand what the point of all this hype or talk about transgenders even is nowadays.

Sexual preference is easy enough to understand, you can empathize with homosexuals and such because you think "hey, they're like me, except the things I feel for gender X, they feel for Y" or whatever, but when you get into this identity stuff, you really get bogged down in just what all of it means.

I wish there was a way a simple "country boy" like myself could understand it with real-world examples.

 

[shibbolethal]

I think you're probably right, which makes it harder to understand what the point of all this hype or talk about transgenders even is nowadays.

i think that when it comes down to it, it's not a matter of understanding if you really can't understand. it's a matter of acceptance. i don't understand all the intricacies and brain chemistry involving why some people are, say, schizophrenic, but i accept that they are schizophrenic and i don't let that define them as long as they don't let it define themselves either, if that makes sense. or even if you can't accept it, just tolerating it like you'd tolerate anything else is good enough!

if you really want to understand it, or if you have questions, maybe you could google it or try talking with a transgender person? :powerlevel: i know i'm open to questions ect.

 

[Male Idiot]

If it is an illness, why is it not treated and why is it encouraged? Seems like a fuckup.

Either its an illness that needs treating, or it is... what is it? A mutation? Its not a choice for sure.

 

[shibbolethal]

If it is an illness, why is it not treated and why is it encouraged? Seems like a fuckup.

Either its an illness that needs treating, or it is... what is it? A mutation? Its not a choice for sure.

it sure is an illness! it's treated by hormone therapy. unless you're referring to getting treatment for gender dysphoria as being 'encouraged.' that's kind of like saying that giving a person with depression some medicine is somehow encouraging their illness.

it's about as much of a choice as being gay is. it's plausible that it's a mutation, just like it's plausible that being gay is caused by an excess of androgens or estrogen in the womb, but there's no hard science to back it up, aside from some brain studies.

 

[Techpriest]

Considering there's plenty of societies that historically have 'genders' that aren't linked to sex, no, gender identity is real. Gender is very much a cultural construct.

 

[Aquinas]

Someone told me that on reddit, im not sure if thats the same guy who also turned out to constantly moderate a porn sub for that one pokemon autists love

 

[ChuckSlaughter]

Sex and gender aren't even the same thing. Sex is between your legs, and gender is between your ears.

They most certainly are the same thing though there is a campaign to make them different. The word gender predates any western notion of trans people or gender roles or anything like that.
The correct thing would have been to make a new word to describe this distinction but the academic trans community does whatever the fuck it wants.

As it is I suppose the campaign is successful I tend to know what people mean and I now use the word gender as such myself.... but no these people are deliberately changing words.

 

[Mariposa Electrique]

The real question I guess I'm getting at is what does it feel like to have gender dysphoria.

I don't know what it's like, but being born a woman or even human you can just guess; imagine going to sleep as a woman or a man one night, and then waking up with as a different sex, but with the same genes and desires in your brain still the same. This is why I don't buy into the male lesbian with no real signs of dysphoria; the reality that you're very much attracted to female bodies indicates that their brains still went through the process of virlization in utero. I don't believe that sex and gender are not intertwined like tumblr would like for you to believe, which means most of it is BS.

 

[KiwisAreCute]

I never understood certain people's need to say they're trans post-transition. Unless someone is going to have sex with you, nobody cares what's in your pants.
Also, genderfluidity sounds like bullshit to me. Nobody feels completely masculine or completely feminine all the time.

 

[Mariposa Electrique]

Also, genderfluidity sounds like bullshit to me. Nobody feels completely masculine or completely feminine all the time.

I don't think there is much to feeling masculine and feminine anyway, meaning, it does not feel like anything except for maybe that we are overly emotional sometimes and men are horny all the time until their 60s.

 

[Puppet Pal Clem]

How is it not a mental illness?

I mean regardless of whether they truthfully feel that way, certainly nobody would argue it's a healthy thing to be.

 

[Male Idiot]

it sure is an illness! it's treated by hormone therapy. unless you're referring to getting treatment for gender dysphoria as being 'encouraged.' that's kind of like saying that giving a person with depression some medicine is somehow encouraging their illness.

it's about as much of a choice as being gay is. it's plausible that it's a mutation, just like it's plausible that being gay is caused by an excess of androgens or estrogen in the womb, but there's no hard science to back it up, aside from some brain studies.

Your analogy is flawed.

A depressed person is given medicine to be no longer depressed.
A dysphoric one is not given medicine to make him or her comforable as they are, but rather altered so that the body matches the state of the mind.
That's the same logic as giving a person with split personality two ID cards for both his or her personalities. That's not treatment.

 

[shibbolethal]

How is it not a mental illness?

I mean regardless of whether they truthfully feel that way, certainly nobody would argue it's a healthy thing to be.

it was removed from the DSM, so it's not officially a mental disorder. body dysphoria is a mental illness though. i'm not a psychologist, but most of the time professional psychiatric care for trans people revolves around helping them deal with depression and anxiety involving the way society perceives them. it's sort of like a mental illness, but i think it can be entirely "cured" by surgery and hormone therapy, whereas stuff like schizophrenia is incurable and can only be managed by heavy medication and constant therapy.

Your analogy is flawed.

A depressed person is given medicine to be no longer depressed.
A dysphoric one is not given medicine to make him or her comforable as they are, but rather altered so that the body matches the state of the mind.
That's the same logic as giving a person with split personality two ID cards for both his or her personalities. That's not treatment.

hey, man. i'm not a doctor. all i know is how professionals currently treat trans people, and that's by therapy and hormones. there's no medicine to make somebody cis, as far as i know, just like there's no medicine to make somebody straight. you could argue that gay camps or whatever could "cure" or "treat" them, but more often than not it results in suicide. ineffective.

 

[KiwisAreCute]

Your analogy is flawed.

A depressed person is given medicine to be no longer depressed.
A dysphoric one is not given medicine to make him or her comforable as they are, but rather altered so that the body matches the state of the mind.
That's the same logic as giving a person with split personality two ID cards for both his or her personalities. That's not treatment.

While it's not normal to want to mutilate your body since you're unhappy with it, I don't see any other way you can treat it. Even if given drugs for depression, you have to put effort into learning coping mechanisms and other things to manage with depression. Drugs don't give you a magic cure to a problem.
I see no way to stop someone from becoming what they want. Gay people tried to stop "being gay", since it's not normal technically, and people tried to treat homosexuality. They would learn mechanisms to help them stop having homosexual urges, and would follow instructions from the bible. That didn't stop them, and didn't stop homosexuality. I don't see trans being a very different story. I don't think we can treat it through "curing them of being trans".

 

[Mars Attacks!]

Considering there's plenty of societies that historically have 'genders' that aren't linked to sex, no, gender identity is real. Gender is very much a cultural construct.

Most third genders rely on sex stereotypes and come from societies with very strict gender roles. I completely agree with you that it's a cultural construct, but that means there's nothing inherently female or "other" about a man who performs stereotypical female behaviors instead of male ones or vice versa.