scott1328 wrote:Beatsong wrote:But what if it's all just a great big con? What if there's not actually any such thing as gender at all, but people have just been brainwashed to believe that there is, and that certain clusters of psychological traits "make them" one gender or the other?
You mean what if gender is a social construct?
It is. Who said that gender dysphoria isn't a result of societal pressure.
The NHS, for a start:
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Gender-dys ... auses.aspx
However, recent studies have suggested that gender dysphoria may have biological causes associated with the development of gender identity before birth.
More research is needed before the causes of gender dysphoria can be fully understood.
Much of the development that determines your gender identity – that is, the gender that you feel yourself to be – happens in the womb (uterus).
Gender development is complex and there are many possible variations that can cause feelings of a mismatch between a person’s biological sex and their gender identity.
In rare cases, the hormones that trigger the development of sex and gender may not work properly on the brain, gonads and genitals, causing variations between them. For example, the biological sex (as determined physically by the gonads and genitals) could be male, while the gender identity (as determined by the brain) could be female.
At no point on this, or any of the linked pages as far as I can see, is there any discussion about exactly what "gender identity" actually IS, or anything to suggest, as you put it so straightforwardly (and IMO, correctly) that it is simply a "social construct". Indeed, the entire site is predicated on the assumption that it's automatically inherent to everybody:
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Gender-dys ... ition.aspx
Gender identity is your personal sense of which gender you belong to. For example, if a person sees themselves as female, then their gender identity is female.
For most people, their biological sex and gender identity are the same. However, some people experience a mis-match between them, and this is called gender dysphoria.
For me, and presumably for you too, going on what you say above, these statements are lies. Most people's biological sex and gender identity are not the same, because most people don't have a "gender identity" according to the definition of "your personal sense of which gender you belong to". Most people accept that society decides they belong to a particular SEX, based on their biological characteristics. And most people aren't excessively disturbed, to the point of being unable to function effectively, by the fact that that society loads a whole bunch of other crap onto that. But I am yet to see any evidence that most people have a sense of gender identity, of their own, based on feeling that they "belong" to one gender or the other.
You don't. I don't. Scarlett doesn't. Laklak doesn't. So who, prey tell, are these "most people"?
Isn't this just some shit that some people made up? And isn't it just a little bit worrying that that made up shit is now an official statement of the country's primary health authority?
Me, I agree with you. But you're wrong to assume that everyone else does. The people that actually set the agenda about this stuff don't appear to.