Is Homosexual Identity Dependant on Homophobia ?

[Puddy_Tat]

what “ Identity Politics” has become….competition between ever increasing identities.

is it really 'a competition' though?

is that just going along with the 'zero sum' approach that the right wing use, to try and argue that one minority getting rights / equality somehow makes things worse for everyone else?

yes, there are some (for example) gay people who are racist and some black people who are homophobic. and some lesbian / gay people who have taken up the transphobic line. i'm not sure i see the tufton street so-called 'LGB alliance' trans hate organisation as being very representative...

 

[InArduisFouette]

Now, it seems to me that gender identity is a product of human culture.

I don't think there are any genes that cause a human being to prefer wearing dresses to trousers. It is deeply conservative to argue that gender identity is innate. It is old-fashioned sexism.

What is so special about gender identity, that makes it innate, whereas other cultural sets of cultural practices are not innate? If gender identity is innate, then perhaps national identity is a biological fact too. We all know where that kind of thinking ends.​

you appear to be confusing Gender Identity with Gender Roles and Gender Presentation.

this is a position almost universally adopted by those who wish to assert than the transgender peopel are invalid.

 

[InArduisFouette]

What does that mean?

#1062; The Terrible Sea Lion

This sea lion has made the rounds. Also, a clarification on the sea lion character.

wondermark.com

a tactic commonly adopted by transphobes and homophobes ...

along with 'JAQing off' ('just asking questions' - which are rhetorical and/or bad faith ) and deliberate conflation of things like Gender Identity, Gender Roles and Gender Presentation, to imply that transgender people are sexists or misogynists

 

[PTK]

you appear to be confusing Gender Identity with Gender Roles and Gender Presentation.

this is a position almost universally adopted by those who wish to assert than the transgender peopel are invalid.

I am sure that I am not the only person who knows not the difference between, Gender Identity, Gender Role, and Gender Presentation. Will you define these terms?

 

[InArduisFouette]

I am sure that I am not the only person who knows not the difference between, Gender Identity, Gender Role, and Gender Presentation. Will you define these terms?

you can stop JAQIng off now

How Gender Identity Differs From Gender Role?

Gender identity is an innate sense of self as male, female, or something else, whereas gender role is how a person expresses their gender identity.

www.icliniq.com

 

[PTK]

There has always been homosexuality in human societies, but there has not always been homosexual identity.

Homosexual identity is a product of cultural processes. It is not a biological fact. It is not, and cannot be innate. Cultural products cannot be innate.​

Gender identity is defined by Stonewall as follows: “A person’s innate sense of their own gender, whether male, female or something else (see non-binary below), which may or may not correspond to the sex assigned at birth.”

Anyone can define any combination of words in any way they want, but material reality cannot be shaped by definitions. I can define water as dry, but it will still be wet.

People do not have an innate sense of their own gender. Given that gender itself is socially constructed, then it would not be possible for a person’s sense of their own gender to be innate. How could you be born with a sense of an identity that society had not yet assigned to you?

There is no evidence whatsoever for the claim that gender identity is innate. Such claims are hocus pocus.​

 

[InArduisFouette]

There has always been homosexuality in human societies, but there has not always been homosexual identity.

Homosexual identity is a product of cultural processes. It is not a biological fact. It is not, and cannot be innate. Cultural products cannot be innate.​

Gender identity is defined by Stonewall as follows: “A person’s innate sense of their own gender, whether male, female or something else (see non-binary below), which may or may not correspond to the sex assigned at birth.”

Anyone can define any combination of words in any way they want, but material reality cannot be shaped by definitions. I can define water as dry, but it will still be wet.

People do not have an innate sense of their own gender. Given that gender itself is socially constructed, then it would not be possible for a person’s sense of their own gender to be innate. How could you be born with a sense of an identity that society had not yet assigned to you?

There is no evidence whatsoever for the claim that gender identity is innate. Such claims are hocus pocus.​

Reported

 

[PTK]

Reported

Why have you reported this? Perhaps you could explain on what grounds you have reported it, so that we may all benefit from your analysis?

 

[InArduisFouette]

Why have you reported this? Perhaps you could explain on what grounds you have reported it, so that we may all benefit from your analysis?

because you are a transphobe and are denying the existence of gender Identity

 

[InArduisFouette]

for anyone thinking that the PTK's assertion that Gender identity does not exist -( a common trope among transphobes )

funny how the position PTK adopts is aligned iwth transphobes and not with major learned Bodies or the WHO

https://www.endocrine.org/-/media/endocrine/files/advocacy/documents/transgender-health-factsheet.pdf

Gender incongruence and transgender health in the ICD

www.who.int

 

[Serge Forward]

Reported

Give over. All identities are social constructs. The fact that some transphobes may have also argued that gender identity is social doesn't make anyone who argues that the roots of our own personal identities (whatever they may be - black/white, gay/straight, British/Indian, trans/cis) are social is transphobic. That's just guilt by association bollocks.

And PTK did not say that gender identity doesn't exist

 

[smokedout]

Give over. All identities are social constructs. The fact that some transphobes may have also argued that gender identity is social doesn't make anyone who argues that the roots of our own personal identities (whatever they may be - black/white, gay/straight, British/Indian, trans/cis) are social is transphobic. That's just guilt by association bollocks.

And PTK did not say that gender identity doesn't exist

They've implied similar before. But to be charitable this sounds like cross purposes. All the things on your list, which could equally include man and woman, are social constructs when manifesting as personal identities which are mediated by the social conditions of the time. But they usually also have a material basis. This may be more nebulous when it comes to something unobservable such as sexuality or gender identity but it may well still be there. Exclusive opposite sex attraction 'may' just be innate in some people. A sense of comfort and ease with both your biological sex and assigned social role that flows from that may have a biological or genetic basis. These are questions which are deeply complex and which science as yet hasn't been able to answer.

But for many people sexuality and sex/gender identities feel both innate and significant, despite in the case of LGBTQ people being constantly challenged in the way cishet identities just aren't. It's understandable someone might get prickly if it is implied that something that fundamental to a person's often lifelong lived experience is not real, or just a social construct. LGBTQ people as they manifest as identities in contemporary society may be social constructs but that doesn't mean predominantly or partial same sex attraction or a sex/gender identity discordant to assigned sex as birth are not real or could be eliminated under the correct social conditions.

 

[Serge Forward]

They've implied similar before. But to be charitable this sounds like cross purposes. All the things on your list, which could equally include man and woman, are social constructs when manifesting as personal identities which are mediated by the social conditions of the time. But they usually also have a material basis. This may be more nebulous when it comes to something unobservable such as sexuality or gender identity but it may well still be there. Exclusive opposite sex attraction 'may' just be innate in some people. A sense of comfort and ease with both your biological sex and assigned social role that flows from that may have a biological or genetic basis. These are questions which are deeply complex and which science as yet hasn't been able to answer.

But for many people sexuality and sex/gender identities feel both innate and significant, despite in the case of LGBTQ people being constantly challenged in the way cishet identities just aren't. It's understandable someone might get prickly if it is implied that something that fundamental to a person's often lifelong lived experience is not real, or just a social construct. LGBTQ people as they manifest as identities in contemporary society may be social constructs but that doesn't mean predominantly or partial same sex attraction or a sex/gender identity discordant to assigned sex as birth are not real or could be eliminated under the correct social conditions.

I wouldn't disagree with any of that.

 

[PTK]

They've implied similar before.

So, you keep a note of all my posts, do you?

Please then quote the post in which I “imply” that gender identity does not exist.

I have never implied that gender identity does not exist.

Gender identity is not innate. It is not a “biological fact” that it is innate.

To claim that identities are innate is deeply reactionary, and in some times and places this claim has actually been the justification for people being killed.

If evidence was found that gender identity was innate, then that would overturn the basis of biology It would mean that DNA codes not only for material characteristics, but also for immaterial things - thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, dispositions. If anyone found evidence that social identities were innate – in other words, genetic – then they would be in line for a Nobel Prize.

The statement “gender identity is innate” could itself be considered to be transphobic, for it precludes the possibility that someone can change their gender identity. You cannot change something that is innate.​

 

[smokedout]

One of the most depressing things about gender critical ideology is how it shrugs off the relentless durability of gender across all recorded human societies as just a social construct and goes no further than that, as if that tells us anything at all really. Yet this is a deeply complex and important subject that has been studied extensively by everyone from neuroscientists to anthroplogists to radical feminist philosophers and all of this work is just brushed aside with no further thought.

It's intellectually incurious and negates one of the most important factors moulding human societies which is not trans people, but why gender endures so successfully amongst cis people. What's wrong with you all? It's just a social construct, and a deeply harmful one. Why not just stop doing it?

 

[smokedout]

If evidence was found that gender identity was innate, then that would overturn the basis of biology It would mean that DNA codes not only for material characteristics, but also for immaterial things - thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, dispositions. If anyone found evidence that social identities were innate – in other words, genetic – then they would be in line for a Nobel Prize.
​

Don't be silly. There is a huge amount of discussion amongst scientists across several diciplines about whether things like personalities, character traits, or things like gender identity or sexuality are innate or socially formed. You might even have heard of the nature/nurture debate. There certainly seems to be some kind of innate (and frequently sex based) behaviour in almost all other animals. This observation does not overturn the basis of biology even if it isn't yet very well understood.

 

[PTK]

because you are a transphobe and are denying the existence of gender Identity

I think that, if you are going to report someone, you ought to read what they actually wrote. I did not deny the existence of gender identity. I identify as being of a particular gender, and I am not so solipsistic as believe that I am unique in that.

You claim that gender identity is innate.

Eye colour is innate. The number of fingers that a person possesses is innate. Something that is innate is something that a person is born with. No human being has ever been born with any kind of identity; that is a “biological fact”.

To be charitable, I think that you may have been confusing the word “innate” with another word.​

 

[smokedout]

Eye colour is innate. The number of fingers that a person possesses is innate. Something that is innate is something that a person is born with. No human being has ever been born with any kind of identity; that is a “biological fact”.

To be charitable, I think that you may have been confusing the word “innate” with another word.​

Is heterosexuality innate? Or just sexuality for that matter? If you dumped a load of humans on an island and told them nothing of sex and reproduction would they die out because all the blokes would be off shagging water melons?

 

[PTK]

Don't be silly. There is a huge amount of discussion amongst scientists across several diciplines about whether things like personalities, character traits, or things like gender identity or sexuality are innate or socially formed. You might even have heard of the nature/nurture debate. There certainly seems to be some kind of innate (and frequently sex based) behaviour in almost all other animals. This observation does not overturn the basis of biology even if it isn't yet very well understood.

According to the person to whom I responded, there is no debate on the origin of gender identity. It is a “biological fact” that gender identity is innate. A position which, as I pointed out, could be construed be some people as transphobic, as it denies that claims of those who say that they have changed their gener identity.​

[Apologies for the change in the text format. This seems to be beyond my control].

 

[PTK]

Is heterosexuality innate? Or just sexuality for that matter? If you dumped a load of humans on an island and told them nothing of sex and reproduction would they die out because all the blokes would be off shagging water melons?

Well, I think that sexuality is innate, but that sexual identity is not.

 

[smokedout]

According to the person to whom I responded, there is no debate on the origin of gender identity. It is a “biological fact” that gender identity is innate. A position which, as I pointed out, could be construed be some people as transphobic, as it denies that claims of those who say that they have changed their gener identity.​

[Apologies for the change in the text format. This seems to be beyond my control].

I don't think one precludes the other. Some kind of sex dysphoria, such as a dislike of the sexed body or an enduring feeling that someone would be more at comfort or ease as the other sex, might be innate. There is evidence, in genetics, neuroscience and the practice of treating intersex kids that leans in that direction but I don't think it can be said with any certainty.

How that manifests as an identity will be dependent on several things, including level of distress caused to that individual (possibly based on innate qualities) and the society it exists in, and this may change over a lifetime.

 

[smokedout]

Well, I think that sexuality is innate, but that sexual identity is not.

By sexuality do you mean the capacity to experience sexual pleasure, or sexual preferences for the same, opposite or both sexes?

If you accept sexual preferences as largely innate then I do think you need to speak with caution when dismissing someone's sexual identity as just a social construct. That is likely to feel dismissive of someone's own experience of their sexuality and also opens up the question of whether it could (or some would say should) be changed, whether through changes to social conditions or the individual.

To be clear I'm not saying we know for sure, on a scientific basis, whether sexual preferences are an innate part of our biology we don't currently understand or socially formed. I suspect a bit of both which is why this discussion is at cross purposes. But they feel that way for a lot of people and it certainly hasn't been scientifically ruled out.

I don't think certainties in either direction are very useful here, whether discussing sexuality or gender identity. In part because we just don't know whether there is a biological basis to these things or whether it is purely social or what the interplay between both might be. We may well never know. But also because it doesn't really fucking matter. They are deeply significant to the individuals concerned and the experience and importance of being gay or trans (or straight or cis), and being accepted as such, is not negated even if it is something which turns out to be purely nurture rather than nature.

 

[Serge Forward]

Maybe I'm misreading you smokedout but you seem to be underplaying the power of social constructs, conditioning, roles, etc as "just" a social construct. As humans, we are social animals, and the power of social constructs is immense. There's no "just" to it. There's a reason why cis/het identity persists with such a dominant place in society, with power, wealth and control behind such a "paradigm". Sure, it's not all socially constructed and whether one identifies as cis or trans, LGTB+ or straight, will be based on a combination of partly innate and partly social influences. The lines between the two will remain quite blurred until the day some clever clogs might be able to unpick them. Identity derives from a mixture of social and innate factors but in the end, it's a social construct. Sexuality is largely innate but may include social factors. Saying any of that doesn't erase trans people any more than it erases cis people.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Well, I think that sexuality is innate, but that sexual identity is not.

A sexual drive is innate, for sure. I'd say that's all we can say with certainty. For sure, we can say that various fetishes cannot be innate - they must be learned ways to express an innate sexual drive that have developed in response to experience. How far we can say that any particular sexuality has innate or learned components is a very difficult question. Nature or Nurture is generally a futile question as the two cannot be meaningfully separated - it is nurture of nature in some form or another, always.

 

[redsquirrel]

I'm not sure if part of the disagreement here is as much about the definition of 'innate' as anything else.
Personally I'm not sure what innate means in this context. Even if something is social I'm not sure that that does not mean it cannot be innate(?), at least on certain definitions. I would probably just avoid the term innate altogether.

I note that while the outline of the link InArduisFouette mentions innate the FAQs simply state

Gender identity refers to one's internal sense of belonging to a particular gender.

And

The factors influencing gender are biological and social factors.
- Biological factors include hormonal levels and genetic composition.
- Social factors include the influence on gender roles by the families, media, authority figures, and other people who are influencing a child's life.

Which I'd agree with.
Though I think in noting that both biological and social factors playing a role it would be sensible to recognise that those terms are not exclusive or necessarily distinct, i.e. biological factors can have a role in forming the social factors.

 

[smokedout]

I

Maybe I'm misreading you smokedout but you seem to be underplaying the power of social constructs, conditioning, roles, etc as "just" a social construct. As humans, we are social animals, and the power of social constructs is immense. There's no "just" to it. There's a reason why cis/het identity persists with such a dominant place in society, with power, wealth and control behind such a "paradigm". Sure, it's not all socially constructed and whether one identifies as cis or trans, LGTB+ or straight, will be based on a combination of partly innate and partly social influences. The lines between the two will remain quite blurred until the day some clever clogs might be able to unpick them. Identity derives from a mixture of social and innate factors but in the end, it's a social construct. Sexuality is largely innate but may include social factors. Saying any of that doesn't erase trans people any more than it erases cis people.

I'm not trying to underplay social constructs as I tried to make clear in my last post - that ultimately innateness doesn't really matter in terms of the significance to the individual and the impact on the way they move through the world. But this comes in the context of a broader debate in which the idea of transness as a social construct is used to undermine trans people (and sometimes LGB people). A debate in which appeals to 'basic biology' are paramout and leave no nuance or understanding of the significance of social constructs.

Which is why I'm arguing it should be used with caution and sensitivity. Because the notion of social construction is not used to undermine cis/het identities. And when you tell an LGBTQ person that their identity is a social construct what they might hear is that they are being told their own experience and understanding of their lives and bodies is not real, or worse not valid. Because that is how it is frequently employed. It kind of has been on this thread - "People do not have an innate sense of their own gender."

That is an absolutist and reductive statement. One of the reasons gender has been so enduring may well be that actually they do - not as a set of stereotypes, but perhaps as an inherent sense of themselves as male/female, or an inherent tendency to mimic those of the same biological sex (as proposed by Cordelia Fine amongst others). Maybe this sense is stronger in some than others. Maybe some don't experience it consciously, or even subconciously at all. Maybe the whole edifice of gender is purely socially formed or maybe it is rooted in something which can be felt, is biologically real, but not completely understood. We don't know, and anyone who says we do is basing their opinion on ideology not science. We know fuck all about brains really which is why it's so frustrating that people take such simplistic but insistent positions on this.

 

[Serge Forward]

All fair points ^^^

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Though I think in noting that both biological and social factors playing a role it would be sensible to recognise that those terms are not exclusive or necessarily distinct, i.e. biological factors can have a role in forming the social factors.

This last bit is important. They're not independent - it's always nuture of nature. These are questions that are extremely hard to unpick, and there may not always be a reason to try to unpick them. It's only relevant really if you're trying to change someone's particular sexuality/sense of identity.

I think that it is notable how, as homosexuality has become far more socially acceptable, theories about 'gay genes' or 'overbearing mothers', etc, have faded away. It no longer matters.

 

[Silas Loom]

yes, there are some (for example) gay people who are racist and some black people who are homophobic. and some lesbian / gay people who have taken up the transphobic line. i'm not sure i see the tufton street so-called 'LGB alliance' trans hate organisation as being very representative...

A comparison with black people being racist would be stronger and more telling.

It can be awkward for white people to argue the toss over hierarchies of racism with black people who think, for instance, that anti-semitism is not racist.

Similarly, it demands a lot of bullishness for straight men to take issue with gays who feel that adolescent trans over-recognition erases gay identity, or for that matter with female gender-critical feminists.

 

[Jennaonthebeach]

Having immersed myself in LGBT community for a while, when i was in London, I lost count of the number of both gay people and straight people who told me quietly, and on the side, that they would probably more accurately describe themselves as bisexual but biphobia that exists within straight and LGBT+ communities has pushed them to identify as one of the two more acceptable binaries. I suspect without any of the phobias, and if any sexuality was equally acceptable, there'd be a lot more bisexuality and the term for it would be "normal human sexuality".