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Steersman's avatar

"Some might call these differences “stereotypes,” but, to me, it is obvious that our differences go deeper. No doubt much of what “gender identity” is based on is nothing but shallow stereotypes and fashion choices, but men and women have behavioral, emotional, and psychological differences on average as well."

"By George, I think she's got it!" 😉🙂

More or less in any case, though I doubt you're much able or willing to consider the many places where you're going off the rails and into the weeds.

To start with, you make a very good point there about the many fairly significant "statistical differences on average" between "men" and "women". But those differences, by sex, is more or less exactly what many credible sources MEAN by "gender". For example, something from an old Wikipedia article on the topic:

Wikipedia: "Gender is the range [spectrum] of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them ..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gender&oldid=1119204255

One might reasonably say that femininity and masculinity are the two halves of a multi-dimensional gender spectrum encompassing a myriad of variations. Kind of like reddish and bluish halves of the colour spectrum -- a binary comprised of an infinitude of possibilities. See my post for some elaborations:

https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/a-multi-dimensional-gender-spectrum

But one place in particular where you go off the rails is in being too quick to condemn the entire concept of "gender identity", somewhat incongruous or hypocritical given you own, "No doubt much of what 'gender identity' is based on is nothing but shallow stereotypes and fashion choices"

No doubt whatsoever that too many "gender ideologues" -- and various scientific illiterates, grifters, and political opportunists -- have gone off the deep end with the concept -- as your own "something akin to a soul" illustrates. But you might try "steelmanning" the idea, and a good place to start might be the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's article on "Personal Identity". Paraphrasing them:

SEP [paraphrased]: "Outside of philosophy, the term ‘[gender] identity’ commonly refers to [those sexually dimorphic 'behavioral, emotional, and psychological'] properties to which we feel a special sense of attachment or ownership. My [gender] identity in this sense consists of those [feminine & masculine] properties I take to 'define me as a person' or 'make me the person I am'. ...."

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/

In which case one might say that your own "gender identity" is "lesbian" even though you may well have other "behavioral, emotional, and psychological" traits that are more typical of "adult human females".

The problem, or misuse, of the concept comes from claiming, or giving any credence to the claim that a "masculine or feminine gender identity" is the same as being male or female. You may wish to take a gander at a very good interview by Stella O'Malley of Heather Brunskell-Evans, and my comments thereon. But of particular note is this comment of Heather's:

HB-E: “So the idea that masculinity is fixed and femininity is fixed, all that's different now is that you can have a boy's body be truly female inside and vice versa, and nobody explains what being truly female or truly male is.”

https://stellaomalley.substack.com/p/silencing-thought-a-conversation/comment/57660136

The crux of the whole transgender clusterfuck: "nobody explains what being truly female or truly male is". And your conception of those categories doesn't appear to have progressed much beyond folk-biology or those in the Kindergarten Cop movie: "boys (males) have penises, and girls (females) have vaginas". Don't think you, and too many others, quite get the idea that there are NO intrinsic meanings to "male" and "female" -- they mean what we want to them to mean, but some definitions are very much better than others. Don't think that clusterfuck will be resolved until more people start giving some thought to the reasons why the standard biological definitions should be the only game in town.

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holly.m.hart's avatar

This! "The goal is to control the world at large, because the world functioning independently of the disconnected mine presents a threat to it. At every turn, the world and the other people in it have the capacity to show the disconnected mind that its constructs are wrong and hollow. This is why gender ideologues must silence others and shut down debate. Behind the bluster, they are incredibly insecure."

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