What is your opinion on gender identity?
Gender identity is self-determined. It is NOT a “conscious choice” someone makes, but part of someone’s inner sense of self. I would say it’s the inner sense of your sex. If you ask the vast majority of biological boys/girls what sex they are they can tell you, and for the vast majority their gender will match their sex.
Some will feel that their “sex is wrong”. Biologically they are one sex, but internally they feel they are the other. In this case, there is a difference between biological sex and sexual identity. This can be described as a difference between biological sex and gender identity. Unfortunately, there are no real clear terms for this because of different ways of defining gender and sex, and the overlap of the terms.
Perhaps more, unfortunately (in my view), many other people “jumped on the bandwagon” and started identifying gender in a myriad of different ways that go beyond males & females and blends (people who believe in possible combinations that may be variable or remain stable), which include lack of gender altogether, and any number of other things. I believe this is very unfortunate because it makes a relatively simple concept (which is perhaps lacking ideal terms) a lot more complicated.
I believe that type of gender identification is “consciously self-determined” based on “how someone feels”, and that is a very different phenomenon from a person who feels VERY DISTRESSED and possibly suicidal as a result of living in the body of one sex when they feel they belong in the other. I would consider these people “transsexual” and the others “transgender”.
At least one problem is a disagreement of terms. This is partly a result of disagreement about the definition of terms. Part of the problem is a lack of appropriate clear terms.
Biologically sex is determined by chromosomes, but chromosomes are rarely checked at birth to determine sex. Most often sex at birth is determined by the presence of a penis or a vagina. Reproductive anatomy, especially in terms of females is not clearly present at birth. Female sex is generally determined by the presence of labia, rather than a penis. Further inspection of the female reproductive system is not usually conducted in the determination of sex at birth.
I believe it’s fair to say that anyone who has a vagina is female (sex not only gender) even if that was acquired after birth (if it is “enough to determine sex at birth” it should be “enough to determine sex later”). I believe it’s fair to include people who internally identify that way, because the same reasoning for why someone changed still applies, that is how they see themselves. Perhaps they’re in the process of changing, or they don’t have the resources to change.
The problem with not requiring a vagina is the introduction of a slippery slope. “What if someone thinks they are female but they have no desire for a vagina and they really like their penis and wouldn’t dream of parting with it,” I say that is a different thing.
I believe it’s unfortunate that these 2 situations are “put in the same box” (transgender) when I feel that they are very different things…and the distinction gets totally lost.
I would define “gender identity” as the sex in which people see themselves. This is usually consistent with biological sex, which is usually consistent with sex at birth. I see the world in a binary way, and the issue is pretty simple “gender identity can be the opposite of physical sex”
A more politically correct answer is a lot more complicated because it can mean a lot more things and have a lot of different motivations. I would say that gender identity in current use is defined by “an individual’s sense of gender, which may or may not be related to their sense of sexual identity, which may or may not have a strong correlation with gender traits”