“What is Your Gender Identity?”

How would you respond to this question if you were put on the spot? Here’s one approach . . .

If I were asked today, I would say something like this: “Unlike sex, “gender identity” is an incoherent and thus meaningless term.”

Why do I think “gender identity” is an incoherent term? Here is one reason:

In other words, gender ideologists claim that one’s genitals are both A) completely irrelevant to one’s gender and B) highly relevant to one’s gender. To make both of these claims is incoherent. Here’s another thing I might add:

Another idea . . .

Perhaps you could point out that “gender ideology” embraces the regressive sex stereotypes most of us (not only feminists) have been trying to downplay for decades:

A comment to the above tweet:

It really sucks to know that we worked so hard to erase gender stereotypes. Let girls and boys dress how they want, play with whatever toys they wanted, play whatever sports, have whatever interests…boys can dance, girls can be mechanics. We fought so hard. Then this crap.

Or you could invite them to listen to this podcast where Bari Weiss interviews Andrew Sullivan, a pioneer in gay rights.  Sullivan doesn’t support gender ideology because it is functionally homophobic. Most children claiming to be confused about their sex will, if left alone (not surgically butchered and rendered sterile by cross-sex hormones) grow up to accept their bodies, the great majority of them growing up to be gay (and see here).  For this reason, Sullivan characterizes gender ideology to be homophobic.

If things heat up too much, you might want to inject some humor:

Or you could get parental:

Or you can spell things out in detail to avoid confusion. My position is a lot like this:

I’m just going to make some things clear:
I support single sex spaces.
I support third spaces/unisex spaces for trans people.
Womens sports should only be for women.
Womens prisons should only be for women.
I believe transwomen are men. And transmen are women.
I don’t believe every single trans person is an autogynephile/pervert, but some trans people can in fact be perverts. This is true for any demographic of population (there are bad white people, there are bad women, there are bad men, etc.)
🤷🏻‍♀️
I believe gender affirming care for children is child abuse.
I am unsure whether gender dysphoria is real, but I support adults rights to do what they wish with their bodies, so long as there are proper safeguards in place for those who may be mentally ill.
I do align myself with people who I agree with on some of these issues but not all of these issues. I don’t do purity tests.
I hope this clears things up.

You might get called names. They might call “phobic.” If so, remind them that you are merely disagreeing with their ideas:

If you keep getting flack for responding with these sorts of ideas, perhaps you could sing this song to those people who are probably melting down because you won’t refer to yourself as “cis gender”:

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[Added Aug 17, 2023]

For those who honestly like to learn why, for thousands of years, biologists have noticed, tested and confirmed the claim that there are only two human sexes, male and female, I recommend these two sources, both of which are highly accessible to non-scientists and also offering links to scientific journals and books:

A) The Paradox Institute, by Zach Elliot.

Some recommended videos:

What are Sexes.

Origins of Two Sexes.

B) Reality’s Last Stand, by Colin Wright.

Some recent recommended articles:

“Don’t Take Pride in Promoting Pseudoscience: The science is clear: biological sex is not a spectrum.”

Over the last decade, we have observed a striking shift in the politics of LGBT issues. There has been a move away from broadly supported principles based on equality toward the imposition of radical, pseudoscientific ideologies concerning biological sex. A growing genre of articles in high-profile news outlets, magazines, and scientific journals is signaling the end of a binary and immutable perspective on biological sex. The appeal of these pieces lies in the belief that rejecting the binary concept of sex provides society with a liberating opportunity for self-definition, unfettered by material constraints.

One might consider these debates too arcane to have any real significance. However, the pseudoscientific notion that biological sex is mutable and exists on a non-binary continuum serves as a key justification for allowing males who identify as women to compete in female sports and access female prisons, and for administering treatments such as puberty blockers and “gender-affirming” (i.e., body modifying) hormones and surgeries to adolescents and adults alike to fix a perceived misalignment between their sex and “gender identity.” The implications are serious, as these recommendations make women’s sex-based rights unenforceable and directly impact the healthy bodies and minds of children. It is of utmost importance that such actions are grounded in reliable science, not in fashionable political ideologies.

With Pride month kicking off, we can anticipate a veritable flood of articles heralding the end of the sex binary. Indeed, we didn’t have to wait very long.

“Gender Ideology’s Shaky Twin Pillars: The pillars of gender ideology are grounded in politically motivated wishful thinking instead of empirical bedrock.” An excerpt:

Gender ideology rests upon two main pillars. The first proposes that the two sexes are not distinct and immutable categories, but rather correspond to a collection of many traits that one can plot along a spectrum. Male and female, in this view, exist only in a statistical sense. The second asserts that every human brain contains an unchangeable “gender identity” that is knowable from a very young age, physically detectable, and may conflict with one’s biological sex. The practical aspirations of gender ideologues depend on the truth of both claims: if male and female are not arbitrary or mutable, then there would be no basis for allowing males in female sports, prisons, or female-only spaces; if sex is binary, and no innate and fixed gender identity exists, then one cannot be “mismatched” from one’s sex—and “gender affirming” treatment is unjustified. Put another way, the belief in the sex spectrum provides the assurance of the ability to materially change one’s sex, while the belief in an innate and fixed gender identity that can be “mismatched” from one’s sex (i.e., a person can be “born in the wrong body”) provides the ethical justification or even obligation for hormonal or surgical intervention.

These gender-ideology pillars lack empirical support and are buttressed entirely by politically motivated wishful thinking. Consider a recent Washington Post article by English professor Jennifer Finney Boylan, which tried to establish the validity of both. Boylan does not seem to understand the well-established universal property that defines all males and females in nature, displays confusion about the difference between how sex is defined versus how it is determined, and demonstrates a tenuous grasp of the research of so-called “brain sex” that purports to ground “gender identity.” . . .

What “determines” whether an individual is male or female? For what determines an individual’s sex is different from what defines it. “Sex determination” refers to the processes that set an embryo on the developmental pathway of becoming male or female. But the mechanisms responsible for triggering male and female development do not define the male and female sexes themselves. Humans and other mammals use genes located on chromosomes to trigger sex development; some animals, like many reptiles, use temperature. Just as chromosomes do not define an individual mammal’s sex, temperature does not define an individual alligator’s sex. Rather, one’s sex is defined by his or her primary reproductive anatomy, indicating the type of gamete (sperm or ova) he or she can or would produce.

“The Sex Binary vs. Sexual Dimorphism: These related concepts must never be conflated.”

A scientist’s job is very straightforward: describe the natural world as clearly and accurately as possible. This is done through making careful observations, identifying important questions the answers to which would further our understanding, constructing testable hypotheses to answer those questions, and conducting properly controlled experiments.

Because scientists are human, which is to say fallible, it is impossible to completely eliminate bias from the scientific process. Until recently, most scientists agreed that bias was bad and should be eliminated or reduced as much as possible. This is why many safeguards have been implemented to eliminate or reduce bias, such as double-blind peer review, conflict of interest disclosures, and study pre-registration. But there has been a recent push within the sciences insisting that new bias needs to be introduced to counter biases they assert are currently skewing scientific research to the detriment of underrepresented minority groups.

Nowhere is this newly introduced bias more rampant than on the topic of biological sex. This is because it is widely believed among activists that binaries are not only unnatural, but inherently bad. Nature, they claim, is inherently “queer,” meaning that rigid categories are more likely to be relics of human bias rather than naturally occurring phenomena. Binaries are viewed as de facto evidence that privileged and powerful groups have simply constructed them to either maintain power or obtain more of it. Since binaries are viewed as tools of oppression, activists have put the sex binary directly in their crosshairs.

More and more papers are coming out purporting to have debunked the antiquated notion of the sex binary in favor of new “spectrum” or “multimodal” models of sex. Because “scholarship” on this topic is rooted primarily in passionate political activism instead of the dispassionate pursuit of truth, academic rigor has been thrown out the window and peer review has become little more than a cabal of ideological gatekeepers.

[Added Aug 19, 2023]

I added the following because those promoting gender identity advocate strongly that they need to talk to grade school kids about “gender.”

[Added Aug 20, 2023]

Two more observations:

1. Gender ideologists argue that “gender” is both a social construct and biologically determined.”

1. Advocates claim that “There is no one way to express masculinity or femininity.”  My response below:

[Added Aug 26, 2023]

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[added Sept 6, 2023]

Rob Henderson is spot on:

[Added Sept 20, 2023]

Seth Dillon: “I understand why some people think it’s respectful to use “preferred” pronouns, but I disagree. I think the demand itself is disrespectful. They’re asking others to affirm a falsehood — they’re holding up two fingers and requiring everyone to say there are three. I think it’s about control, about getting you to submit and give up your grip on a reality they don’t like, and that you respect neither the other person, nor yourself, nor the truth if you comply.”