I was going to post this on the last thread but it got nuked and I decided to keep it. Is quite long but sort of relevent to this I think@
I'm finding it difficult to phrase this without it sounded provocative but would those questioning the idea of internal gender identity accept that their might be an external factor to gender, one that is probably entirely imposed and difficult to avoid, but which almost all people possess (or perform) to some degree nonetheless.
Presentation is obviously a part of this, does someone's wardrobe contain solely items which correspond to their assigned sex at birth, or a majority which do, or none which do. Does someone wear make up, or use perfume or aftershave, or gendered scented toiletries, what is their hair like? Do they use face creams, or other typically gendered products? Do they look like their assigned sex, or the opposite one or neither when they look in the mirror, and how much of this is down to their active choices of presentation rather than body shape or bone structure? Do they feel happy when they see themselves as a woman or man in the mirror or unhappy? How would they feel If someone mistook them for the sex different to their assigned sex - insulted, complimented or neutral? If someone went into their home how easy would it be for someone to tell what gender they were by the style of decoration they have or the possessions they own?
And this is all surface level stuff, there's a lot that is much harder to pin down such as is their body language typically male or female, what pronouns do they (and others) use to describe themselves, how do they feel about their sexual characteristics - do they like their genitals, are they repulsed by them, or simply neutral? How do they like to fuck, do they like to be penetrated or penetrate. If they are a man do they stand or sit to use the toilet? What would an analysis of their speech and vocabulary suggest? How would they feel if they looked in the mirror and had a hairy chest, or tits, or a cock or no cock, would it bother them at all if this wasn't synonymous with their assigned sex? Who are they in their dreams, are they always, never or sometimes the same gender (or sex) as their assigned sex? Would they like to change anything about their bodies to make themselves look more or less like the socially accepted version of their assigned sex? Does the thought having having a sex change, or taking testosterone or estrogen feel comforting or horrifying, or neutral?
To be clear I'm suggesting any of these things make a man a man or woman a woman, or that few answering these questions will fall into a typical gendered role for all of them. But if the answers to these questions (which I'm not expecting anyone to answer by the way) in the large tends towards one gender or the other then isn't that some form of gender identity, one that perhaps isn't necessarily felt, but it easily objectively observable? And for those who say they don't have a gender identity but present with a gendered identity surely the question is why play along? And if you do play along then is it really fair to criticise trans people for doing the same thing, albeit in my opinion in a slightly more subversive way?
