Can we talk about gender identity? Not transgender experience, just gender identity.

[AG31]

When I was in my twenties I discovered that not all people have the same experience when it comes to mental imagery. In fact, some people (like me) have almost no ability to make mental visual images. I now realize that was why I felt baffled when tips in the Sunday supplement for remembering names by associating a picture with them just didn't work for me. I thought I had a "picture" in my mind. But what I really had was a non-visual idea. It was quite an Aha! experience when I learned how people can vary be in this regard.

Last week I had a similar experience. Ever since the idea of transitioning gender became a topic of public discussion, I've been puzzled. I just couldn't conjure up what it meant to "feel" a different identity than one's body had. I didn't think much about it, but now I believe this may be another instance of how people's brains can vary. The Aha! happened when I read this statement by @secondlullaby, 'apparently attachment to gender is something a lot of us are lacking. When I say "I don't understand" it, I mean I literally do not understand.' Oh! So maybe "attachment to gender" is like the ability to make mental visual images. Some people have it and some don't. And there are lots of points in between.

Anyway, it set me wondering. Here are some of my questions. Although I'm interested in everyone's responses, I'm particularly interested in hearing from people who have never experienced gender dysphoria.

Edit: Great answers so far. Thanks to all. This is probably a little late, but I should have clarified that I'm not including sexual orientation under the heading of "gender identity." For my purposes a person who has a mental identity of male can be oriented toward men or women or both. Likewise for a person who has a mental identity of female.

1 - Does what I said above make sense to you?

2 - Do you have a sense for your own gender apart from just inhabiting a particular physical body?

3 - If "yes," to #2, are you able to describe what that mental experience is?

4 - If "yes," to #2, does this involve wanting to participate in the behavior society expects of a gender? In other words, if society didn't have different expectations/norms for the sexes, would your sense of your own gender identity be as strong?

 

[secondlullaby]

When I was in my twenties I discovered that not all people have the same experience when it comes to mental imagery. In fact, some people (like me) have almost no ability to make mental visual images. I now realize that was why I felt baffled when tips in the Sunday supplement for remembering names by associating a picture with them just didn't work for me. I thought I had a "picture" in my mind. But what I really had was a non-visual idea. It was quite an Aha! experience when I learned how people can vary be in this regard.

Last week I had a similar experience. Ever since the idea of transitioning gender became a topic of public discussion, I've been puzzled. I just couldn't conjure up what it meant to "feel" a different identity than one's body had. I didn't think much about it, but now I believe this may be another instance of how people's brains can vary. The Aha! happened when I read this statement by @secondlullaby, 'apparently attachment to gender is something a lot of us are lacking. When I say "I don't understand" it, I mean I literally do not understand.' Oh! So maybe "attachment to gender" is like the ability to make mental visual images. Some people have it and some don't. And there are lots of points in between.

Anyway, it set me wondering. Here are some of my questions. Although I'm interested in everyone's responses, I'm particularly interested in hearing from people who have never experienced gender dysphoria.

1 - Does what I said above make sense to you?

2 - Do you have a sense for your own gender apart from just inhabiting a particular physical body?

3 - If "yes," to #2, are you able to describe what that mental experience is?

That’s funny because I have the lack of mental imagery too. I always thought when people said something like “picture an apple,” they were just being metaphorical. I mean, they couldn’t actually see an apple, right? But apparently they can. I only found out this year that people actually picture things!

Same for internal monologue. Apparently people talk to themselves in their heads all day. I’m capable of talking in my head, but I just turn it on when I need it. Someone I know can’t shut up their internal monologue without blasting music or something, and it just goes by itself all day. That sounds awful!

I think you already have my answers to your numbered questions. Interested to see what others have to say.

 

[AlexBailey]

1. Yes, I understand how different brains can work so differently and have such different tastes. If you look at personal style, even within gender norms, there is a huge variation with how people present themselves. Why are outliers so upsetting to some people?

2. Yes, I do not feel that I am a ‘man’ in the way so much of society tries to enforce what gender roles or presentation should be. I feel drab when I dress typically male unless I go full formal, and I feel completely natural in a skirt.
(Edit) This issue goes way deeper than clothes and mere physical presentation, there are many times when I’m among men where I stand out as different in the way I sit or stand or interact. My stepfather used to tell me I’d “never make it in a man’s world” because of my natural “soft” way of being.

3. I feel frustrated that being myself is offensive to closed minded people.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Yes, it makes complete sense to me. I think I realised quite early, and definitely by the time I was a teenager, that people experienced the world in many different ways, some similar to me, others vastly different. It would never occur to me to think that my experiential view was the only one.

That psychological awareness deepened as I got into the workforce, with basic psyche profiles such as Mayer-Briggs etc. that we all did as part of management training. Some of those were eye-openers, especially the more sophisticated profiles that compared my profile to every other person who'd ever done the same test: "Oh, so that's why people don't think like I do," when I discovered that for some attributes, I'm a one-percenter.

Nowadays, the same thing happens with my neuro-diverse friends and colleagues - gee, look at that, we think differently, who'd have guessed that? Ask @stickygirl about my thousand words!

In terms of my sexual identity, that revealed itself most when a good friend at university, who was gay but pretended not to be, used to flirt outrageously, calling me his, "Second favourite body." Both of us knew nothing was ever going to happen, because I had no doubt in my mind that I was heterosexual; he knew that, I knew that, so both of us could get on being who we were. His first favourite body didn't have a clue, and probably would have been shocked if he knew.

Number three? You'd only need to read a couple of my stories to see that.

 

[SimonDoom]

In my day-to-day life, I fit a "normal" demographic: middle-aged, male, heterosexual, cisgender. I've never felt gay urges and have no personal experience with an alternative gender identity.

But I'm the opposite of you in another respect: I have a fertile ability to conjure up mental images and to imagine being different from the way I am. I don't have gay fantasies but I find it interesting to imagine being gay and to write a story about what that would feel like. Transgender identity is more difficult for me, but that's probably because it's newer and more novel to me. I've had gay friends since the 1980s but far less experience with transgender acquaintances. Erotica for me is in part a way to use my imagination to explore what it would be like to feel things I don't actually feel.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Yes, that makes perfect sense. I was going to mention that point on the other thread, but it turned into the usual content and I couldn't be bothered.

A good friend was trying to work through all this years ago, back when we'd seemed to have the same sorts of reaction to the concept of gender, but then were diverging (cut to 20 years later - he's a trans man with a cute beard and generally assumed to be a camp man, I'm a woman who really doesn't get gender, we are still close).

They figured that some people have a very strong sense of their gender and assume everyone does, and others really don't and some of those assume the first lot are just fantasists or worse. Whereas in reality you have people on a sliding scale, possible clustered mainly at each end.

Very much like the Kinsey scale (from 0, heterosexual, to 6, totally homosexual). Which nowadays doesn't have the same level of disbelief and abuse from the majority to the minority, though when I was a teenager my mother still insisted that gay people didn't really exist - obviously the people who said they were gay existed, but they didn't really fancy people of the same sex, they just said they did to get attention... (Why yes, being a teenager who figured I was lesbian was a right barrel of laughs.)

Back in the 90s when the media was first mentioning trans people as existing, I ended up going to a seminar on transsexuality (using the word used then). Beforehand, I admitted I didn't really get it - why would anyone care that much about what sex their body was? Cue shock from a dozen women round me, so I tried to clarify, "Seriously, if you woke up tomorrow in a man's body, it would be a crisis? I mean, I'd be worried my straight boyfriend wouldn't be interested any more, but apart from that, I'd be having a wank and pissing standing up and getting on with my life!"

Let's just say this was not a popular opinion. One woman said "If I woke up in a man's body and it was permanent... I'd... I'd kill myself!" And most of the others said much the same, even if not quite so forcefully.

So I figured that if she and others with that opinion are considered sane and normal, then surely having the same opinion but your body has physically fucked up (because bodies: they can always fuck up!), must be equally sane and normal.

And indeed I've since knowingly met well over 100 trans/non-binary people of various ages and walks of life, and they're just people. Being trans isn't relevant to our interactions, unless actually talking about their experiences. Like any group, some will be irritatingly enthusiastic about how they've solved life, the universe and everything when they first come out (see also queer people, vegetarians and vegans, anyone with a new hobby or political allegiance...)

Meanwhile I technically could call myself non-binary, or I prefer genderless, but I can't be arsed because I really don't give a shit.

Possibly relevantly, I'm also terrible at telling if someone is male or female, unless there's blatant clues like a beard or big tits. It's a known thing that trans people are more likely to be autistic (and have PhDs ), as are people with bad facial recognition and bisexuals, and queer people I believe are also more likely to be trans - a whole hotbed of interesting brain-wiring possibilities there!

If you aren't into neuroscience, transgender stuff is really pretty boring and I wish the media would shut up about it. When I was younger (slim and androgynous in DM boots) I got yelled at in ladies' toilets a few times, which was quite unnerving, and I'd hoped such harassment would have died out a generation later.

 

[EnbyKnight]

It doesn’t surprise me when Cis folks say they don’t understand attachment to gender or what it means to be gender diverse (how I choose to umbrella folks who identify in any way that is not cis). There are plenty of experiences I will never understand, but that doesn’t invalidate them or make me doubt the reality of those experiences.

I was nearly 30 when I realized that I am nonbinary. The best way I can explain it is unfortunately using something that not everyone understands or experiences as well, which is understanding vibes and energies. For me, I feel what I experience as masculine and feminine energies and I can feel them fluctuate within me. For the longest time I thought “oh I’m a tomboy” or “I just grew up with brothers and am a weirdo.” But as I paid more attention to my own energy and read more about others experiences I realized that my energy changes and I never feel only one or the other and never have.

I’m not sure if this answers your question or really makes sense.

As a separate note, I agree and totally get most of what you shared, kumquatqueen, but wanted to share a thought on the below.

Like any group, some will be irritatingly enthusiastic about how they've solved life, the universe and everything when they first come out (see also queer people, vegetarians and vegans, anyone with a new hobby or political allegiance...)

I think it’s good to note that grouping the enthusiasm and euphoria of “coming out” with vegan/veg, hobbies, etc, is not quite fair or accurate. At least from my perspective. First, the other groups are typically trying to convert someone to agree with them (again, in my experience) or try out their new thing, while trans and queer people typically are not (or are not at all from those I've met and know)). Also, just as gender dysphoria is real, gender euphoria is so real. Being enthusiastic about who you are and finding peace and joy within your own body is something we shouldn’t shame because it honestly is a magical experience for many. Again, this doesn’t apply to all people and their experiences, but I felt the comparison wasn’t quite apples to apples. (Or isn’t a comparison of the same thing. I am trying to avoid such phrases for our ND friends, apologies for when I forget).

 

[AG31]

Here's an edit I made to the OP.

Edit: Great answers so far. Thanks to all. This is probably a little late, but I should have clarified that I'm not including sexual orientation under the heading of "gender identity." For my purposes a person who has a mental identity of male can be oriented toward men or women or both. Likewise for a person who has a mental identity of female.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I think it’s good to note that grouping the enthusiasm and euphoria of “coming out” with vegan/veg, hobbies, etc, is not quite fair or accurate. At least from my perspective. First, the other groups are typically trying to convert someone to agree with them (again, in my experience) or try out their new thing, while trans and queer people typically are not (or are not at all from those I've met and know)). Also, just as gender dysphoria is real, gender euphoria is so real. Being enthusiastic about who you are and finding peace and joy within your own body is something we shouldn’t shame because it honestly is a magical experience for many. Again, this doesn’t apply to all people and their experiences, but I felt the comparison wasn’t quite apples to apples. (Or isn’t a comparison of the same thing. I am trying to avoid such phrases for our ND friends, apologies for when I forget).

That's a fair point. I was thinking of conversations I've had where someone has said "why do trans people all have blue hair and are in their 20s and talk about being trans all the time?" and I'll say "that's the ones you notice" (cos it's true), while also thinking 'fucking annoying, aren't they, just like any evangelist or indeed various queer friends of mine at the same age, and tbh I was a bit of a knob in my 20s too'.

Gender euphoria is just as alien to me as gender dysphoria. Some discourse suggests you should want everyone to feel gender euphoria, but while obviously I don't want anyone to feel dysphoria, people talking about euphoria with their gender expression always sounds to me disturbingly like people talking about 'feeling God's love' and 'knowing' the Christian god exists. (I'm an atheist).

Finding peace and joy in your own body feels pretty exclusionary when you're disabled and have chronic pain, but I'll stop there so as not to detail this thread. Pretty sure I've not felt masculine/feminine 'energies', though I like subverting gender norms. How female vs male I feel has varied over time, from pretty androgynous to very female (being heavily pregnant).

FWIW I can visualise objects and scenes just like movies, though details are blurry, so everything is in the right places yet I can't recall a face. I often have 'vivid dreams' thanks to meds, which is generally entertaining, sometimes horrible nightmares, sometimes brilliant. In my dreams I may be me or someone else, and as me, may have a female or male (or other) body. Once I woke up and was truly terrified when I couldn't find my penis (having been mid-shag in the dream...) It took about half an hour before I remembered my body has never had one. It was mildly disappointing.

 

[MelissaBaby]

When it comes to gender and how we perceive it we need to start at the beginning. As children we are put into gendered clothes, fed, loved and encouraged to start on the long road to adulthood. The indigenous tribes of America don't distinguish between boys and girls until they're around 6 or 7, they simply have a word for "child".

As a West European child you are happy to be cared for and the significance of gender might be irrelevant ( we'll come back to that ). It's only when restrictions begin to be imposed that a transgender child will begin to say "Hang on, why have you put me in the line for boys when I'm a girl?" You cross the playground, a teacher laughs, saying 'No XXX, you need to be in the the line for boys'. Because XXX is desperate to please the teachers, they go along with the game, but if the child is autistic as well they know this is a lie and this sets up a conflict. Besides, the autistic child may not care about gender differences - until now!

Anyhow, we now have a kid who is totally baffled by the adults, not just apportioning a gender title - girl/boy to you, but actively discriminating against you from the sense of gender one has.

I guess the point is, that even as a child, you just know. It isn't how the parents raised you in a weird community, it isn't because of the colour of the room you slept in or the food you ate. It's really no different to the wiring of someone who is gay, or someone who is left-handed.

Thank you for this post. I have noticed that a seemingly large portion of those I know who are nonbinary or trans are also neurodivergent. Perhaps they are just more out in the open. Food for thought.

 

[EnbyKnight]

That's a fair point. I was thinking of conversations I've had where someone has said "why do trans people all have blue hair and are in their 20s and talk about being trans all the time?" and I'll say "that's the ones you notice" (cos it's true), while also thinking 'fucking annoying, aren't they, just like any evangelist or indeed various queer friends of mine at the same age, and tbh I was a bit of a knob in my 20s too'.

Gender euphoria is just as alien to me as gender dysphoria. Some discourse suggests you should want everyone to feel gender euphoria, but while obviously I don't want anyone to feel dysphoria, people talking about euphoria with their gender expression always sounds to me disturbingly like people talking about 'feeling God's love' and 'knowing' the Christian god exists. (I'm an atheist).

Finding peace and joy in your own body feels pretty exclusionary when you're disabled and have chronic pain, but I'll stop there so as not to detail this thread. Pretty sure I've not felt masculine/feminine 'energies', though I like subverting gender norms. How female vs male I feel has varied over time, from pretty androgynous to very female (being heavily pregnant).

FWIW I can visualise objects and scenes just like movies, though details are blurry, so everything is in the right places yet I can't recall a face. I often have 'vivid dreams' thanks to meds, which is generally entertaining, sometimes horrible nightmares, sometimes brilliant. In my dreams I may be me or someone else, and as me, may have a female or male (or other) body. Once I woke up and was truly terrified when I couldn't find my penis (having been mid-shag in the dream...) It took about half an hour before I remembered my body has never had one. It was mildly disappointing.

Off the top, very fair point about folks who are disabled and/or have chronic pain and how that can be a very exclusionary thing to say. I did mean more mental peace and joy than physical, however my choice of phrasing could have and should have been better (though that's important for gender diverse folks who have gender affirming care).

Right, it would made sense that gender euphoria is as alien and dysphoria. They are generally thought of us antonyms and experiencing euphoria with gender is directly because a gender diverse person has felt dysphoria. So I don’t think everyone would or should experience gender euphoria. As I noted, you don't have to understand it to believe that it's something ppl experience and respect that it's real. I think that's a big theme for us gender diverse folks in there conversations.

I find the comparison to a feeling the presence of the Christian god interesting (said without judgement). I was raised Catholic and no longer participate or believe in any organized religion. I think more than anything it’s an understanding of self and joy of having a release of dysphoria. Maybe that does sound like a religious experience to some but for me seems more grounded in self than another being.

I can vaguely visualize things myself. But if I concentrate too hard it’s gone. I do have a very good spacial memory (I was able to count how many people attended a conference session from “visualizing” the room but it’s not like a movie picture) but I can’t manipulate things within that.

 

[XerXesXu]

When I was in my twenties I discovered that not all people have the same experience when it comes to mental imagery. In fact, some people (like me) have almost no ability to make mental visual images. I now realize that was why I felt baffled when tips in the Sunday supplement for remembering names by associating a picture with them just didn't work for me. I thought I had a "picture" in my mind. But what I really had was a non-visual idea. It was quite an Aha! experience when I learned how people can vary be in this regard.

Last week I had a similar experience. Ever since the idea of transitioning gender became a topic of public discussion, I've been puzzled. I just couldn't conjure up what it meant to "feel" a different identity than one's body had. I didn't think much about it, but now I believe this may be another instance of how people's brains can vary. The Aha! happened when I read this statement by @secondlullaby, 'apparently attachment to gender is something a lot of us are lacking. When I say "I don't understand" it, I mean I literally do not understand.' Oh! So maybe "attachment to gender" is like the ability to make mental visual images. Some people have it and some don't. And there are lots of points in between.

Anyway, it set me wondering. Here are some of my questions. Although I'm interested in everyone's responses, I'm particularly interested in hearing from people who have never experienced gender dysphoria.

Edit: Great answers so far. Thanks to all. This is probably a little late, but I should have clarified that I'm not including sexual orientation under the heading of "gender identity." For my purposes a person who has a mental identity of male can be oriented toward men or women or both. Likewise for a person who has a mental identity of female.

1 - Does what I said above make sense to you?

2 - Do you have a sense for your own gender apart from just inhabiting a particular physical body?

3 - If "yes," to #2, are you able to describe what that mental experience is?

It’s no different from understanding another's subjective experience of anything - largely inaccessible.

When I first started studying Cognitive Science (47 years ago), the inaccessibility of the cognitions of others was explained by pointing to something red, getting everyone to agree that it was red, and then asking individuals to explain what they experienced when they saw the colour red. Next, we were asked how we knew that everyone else shared our cognitive experience. Well, you can’t know, but you have a fixed inference that others must have the same cognitive experiences as one’s self because you can agree that it’s red, it has the subjective experiential quality of ‘redness’ and a common objective measurement of a spectrometer. From there, our lecturers would move, to demonstrate that this is a false belief because most of our cognitions have no objective referents, they're cognitive constructs which have no external referent save the language individuals use to express them. Nevertheless, it’s a belief most of the world proceeds upon. In 50 years we’ve learned that we don’t always agree that red is red.

The moral imperative to learn from diverse phenomenal experiences | Aeon Essays

What happens inside our heads is programmed much like AI, except by immersion in a culture rather than the internet.

In a culture which has a binary concept of gender/sex, questions of gender dysphoria – eg: having a girl’s mind, but being born in a boy’s body – arise. In a culture which conceives of multiple genders, the concept of gender dysphoria is unnecessary, it doesn’t arise.
What you're experiencing is an insight into your cognitive programming, and the deceptiveness of language as a means to describe it.

 

[AG31]

One woman said "If I woke up in a man's body and it was permanent... I'd... I'd kill myself!"

Seriously, if you woke up tomorrow in a man's body, it would be a crisis? I mean, I'd be worried my straight boyfriend wouldn't be interested any more, but apart from that, I'd be having a wank and pissing standing up and getting on with my life!"

This is a good way to re-phrase the question. If you woke up with the other sex's body, how would you react? (Leaving out practical matters like the impact on your current romantic/family life).

 

[madelinemasoch]

Reading all this is very strange to me. My interest in erotica started long before I ever published anything, just reading Venus in Furs and Gilles Deleuze's philosophical interpretation of it. What I'm about to say will make little sense to those unfamiliar with it: I consider myself an innovator on his theory in the sense that while the father-image is destroyed, the masochistic subject is transformed into a woman, a daughter and not a son. Hint: it's feminization. This is within a framework where "masochism" essentially means "femdom" and "sadism" essentially means "maledom." I made this innovation because when I read it, it was as if it was describing my erotic/gender life to me.

This is one reason why I find the separation of sex and gender to be erroneous. It may make surface-level conversations easier, but it doesn't make any sense in reality. It's like saying to me, "you're a woman, but you're also a man" ... it just doesn't work. I'm a woman because my body has been re-inscribed as such. My thesis is essentially that feminization actually makes one a woman. It's the most radically inclusive pro-transfemme theory I could find, and I had to finalize it myself! It's also probably the most "radical" thing about my belief system.

One only has to read me to see that process playing out for at least one of the characters in any given one of my stories and at various stages.

 

[Comshaw]

When I was in my twenties I discovered that not all people have the same experience when it comes to mental imagery. In fact, some people (like me) have almost no ability to make mental visual images. I now realize that was why I felt baffled when tips in the Sunday supplement for remembering names by associating a picture with them just didn't work for me. I thought I had a "picture" in my mind. But what I really had was a non-visual idea. It was quite an Aha! experience when I learned how people can vary be in this regard.

Last week I had a similar experience. Ever since the idea of transitioning gender became a topic of public discussion, I've been puzzled. I just couldn't conjure up what it meant to "feel" a different identity than one's body had. I didn't think much about it, but now I believe this may be another instance of how people's brains can vary. The Aha! happened when I read this statement by @secondlullaby, 'apparently attachment to gender is something a lot of us are lacking. When I say "I don't understand" it, I mean I literally do not understand.' Oh! So maybe "attachment to gender" is like the ability to make mental visual images. Some people have it and some don't. And there are lots of points in between.

Anyway, it set me wondering. Here are some of my questions. Although I'm interested in everyone's responses, I'm particularly interested in hearing from people who have never experienced gender dysphoria.

Edit: Great answers so far. Thanks to all. This is probably a little late, but I should have clarified that I'm not including sexual orientation under the heading of "gender identity." For my purposes a person who has a mental identity of male can be oriented toward men or women or both. Likewise for a person who has a mental identity of female.

1 - Does what I said above make sense to you?

2 - Do you have a sense for your own gender apart from just inhabiting a particular physical body?

3 - If "yes," to #2, are you able to describe what that mental experience is?

1 - Does what I said above make sense to you?
Mental imagery, yes it does make sense. I've always been able to conjure pictures in my head. When I read a book it plays out in my head like a movie. I see all the characters as I'm reading about them. For me that is how the world is and I can't understand not having that ability.

But what does "attachment to gender" mean? I can understand recognition of self, of who I am. Gender is part of that, albeit not the largest part. I have never had occasion to question it because for me it just is. I really don't think any of us could understand how it feels to be gender dysmorphic unless we are. Can anyone understand a heroin addict's addiction? Know how it feels to crave a drug? I don't believe anyone can unless they have been there. The same goes for a person born into the wrong body. How am I to understand how they feel? I can cognatively recognize that it is, but I could never understand the feelings of it.

To that point I have often thought on a "what if", in the future they develop a machine where a person can inhabit and share another's mind? How advantageous would it be to actually experience what others are going through? How many of us would? How many of us would benefit from the experience? Or would it just reinforce preconceived notions and bias? Yeah, I'm weird I know.

2 - Do you have a sense for your own gender apart from just inhabiting a particular physical body?
Not really. As I said above, for me it just is. I have never had occasion or reason to question my gender. Because of my answer question 3 is moot.


Comshaw

 

[EnbyKnight]

To that point I have often thought on a "what if", in the future they develop a machine where a person can inhabit and share another's mind? How advantageous would it be to actually experience what others are going through? How many of us would? How many of us would benefit from the experience? Or would it just reinforce preconceived notions and bias? Yeah, I'm weird I know.

The psychology nerd in me loves this train of thought. That would be so fascinating. In your hypothetical future, am I right thinking I would then be able to see your brain build the visual while you read a story, for example? So you’d experience thoughts and emotions? Also physical responses to emotions?
(Sorry for the off topic, feel free to PM if it’ll derail too much)

 

[Comshaw]

The problem with posing that question, and KQ's answer was typical, is that adults will flippantly cite sexual novelty. I don't mean to single out KQ, but her response is echoed in countless 'what if' threads and erotic stories, from power-stripping emasculation to manic masturbation. Surely everyone has pondered how it would be to 'wake up' in the opposite sex, but they are whimsical sexual fantasies and not a feeling so overwhelming that taking one's life seems a reasonable alternative to the misery of dysphoria.

If you exclude the body, then we're inevitably led to consider social dynamics in western culture, the imbalances between men and women. @XerXesXu makes a good point in citing non-western culture, where several gender terms are used, but that only explains their acceptance in society not the reason behind the desire to change in the first place.

Some native American tribes differentiated many gender roles. And even in western culture, this has been going on a lot longer than most want to recognize. I recently read an article about a woman who worked for the U.S. Cavalry at some of the Army posts in the west. She was said to be homely but was married twice. How that worked with her husbands wasn't explained. When she died and they were preparing her for her funeral they found her to be male. With that revelation, the question becomes, why would she live as a woman all those years? The only reasonable answer is she felt like one.

Over the years I've also read a couple of articles about men in the civil war and several in the west after the war who were found to be women upon their death. Again, why would they live that way? And again the only reasonable answer is that they felt they were men.

So gender dysmorphia isn't new. It's just one of those things that has been recently recognized.


Comshaw

 

[AG31]

I've added another edit to the OP.

4 - If "yes," to #2, does this involve wanting to participate in the behavior society expects of a gender? In other words, if society didn't have different expectations/norms for the sexes, would your sense of your own gender identity be as strong?

 

[Kumquatqueen]

The problem with posing that question, and KQ's answer was typical, is that adults will flippantly cite sexual novelty. I don't mean to single out KQ, but her response is echoed in countless 'what if' threads and erotic stories, from power-stripping emasculation to manic masturbation. Surely everyone has pondered how it would be to 'wake up' in the opposite sex, but they are whimsical sexual fantasies and not a feeling so overwhelming that taking one's life seems a reasonable alternative to the misery of dysphoria.

I wasn't intending to be flippant - that's my considered response after thinking about the topic for many years (what happens when many of your friends are queer sociologists and such), hence focusing on boring practicalities - function, relationship, and how I'd be treated by others, which given I'm fairly androgynous working in a male-dominated but civilised field, wouldn't change much. Thing is, the concept of a mental gender is just outwith my ability to compute. Like I'm Mr Square in Flatland, and you're a Cube in 3D Land trying to explain what a third dimension is.

So those types of story you describe are equally alien to me - they would only work in a society with strict gender roles which isnt really the one I live in, and certainly isn't what works inside my head.

If you exclude the body, then we're inevitably led to consider social dynamics in western culture, the imbalances between men and women. @XerXesXu makes a good point in citing non-western culture, where several gender terms are used, but that only explains their acceptance in society not the reason behind the desire to change in the first place.

Neuroscience is really at the very beginnings of trying to figure out why anyone desires or believes anything.
Back when I was first trying to understand trans stuff and getting accusations of being trans myself because some friends were, I did a wee survey asking trans people I knew well enough whether, in a culture which had totally lost all vestiges of gender roles and expectations, they would still feel the need to transition physically, or would being able to express their persona without any repercussions suffice?

Half said yes, half said no (but only 5 of each so hardly proof of anything). But again, it's a hypothetical and impossible question, so noone can really answer.

All I know is gender dysphoria is real for some people, the experts (including the affected people) haven't managed to resolve gender dysphoria via psychotherapy (as opposed to say cases where people are distressed by the changes wrought by puberty but not because of gender) despite years of trying, but generally gender-affirming care including hormones and possibly surgery enables people to live happily ever after. Surgery may seem major but it's got no higher regret rates than any other surgery. I've seen so many people transition over the last 25 years, and generally end up way, way happier than before. Even the ones that aren't doing so well are mostly less fucked-up than they were to start, and the problems are more to do with lack of family or other acceptance than their gender.

 

[NoTalentHack]

Thank you for this post. I have noticed that a seemingly large portion of those I know who are nonbinary or trans are also neurodivergent. Perhaps they are just more out in the open. Food for thought.

This is one of those things that gets debated a lot. Is it more that ND is linked to NB/trans, or is it that they're not linked specifically, but that if you realized you are one, you're more likely to realize and/or act on the other?

What I mean by that is this: the first day I took my ADHD meds, it was like the world changed. I suddenly understood... like, everything that neurotypical folks had been saying to me my whole life. Not because they were correct--at least not for me--but because I suddenly knew how different I had been that whole time without realizing it. I wasn't lazy, or flighty, or irresponsible; I had a legitimate neurological difference from them. The entire world made way, way more sense, and it made me question a lot of things I hadn't before.

I had already put the trans thing to bed for me years before. I knew I was cis, because I had actually worn skirts, lipstick, nail polish etc. as part of the goth subculture back in the 90s. For me, it was 100% a fashion thing; I wore them because androgyny, in that culture, was in. While I found certain aspects of a few things to be comfortable (skirts are WAY more comfortable than pants in Texas summers), I also didn't feel like, "Oh, this is me, this is what I should be." It was just a thing I did because it was the fashion. Outside of going clubbing, it was always jeans and t-shirts for me, and sometimes when clubbing, too, if I didn't feel like putting in an effort. On the flipside, I knew several goths (and dated one) for whom the androgyny of the goth scene was their gateway into a new gender identity.

If I hadn't had that knowledge before I got treatment for ADHD, I absolutely would have done a self-assessment afterwards. And I think it might go both ways; if you realize you're trans, and the whole world has been wrong about you in one thing, why wouldn't you go looking for others? But if you don't make one of those two steps, for whatever reason, you either might be unable or unwilling to make the other, too.

 

[madelinemasoch]

(To be clear, dysphoria refers to the mismatch of sex/gender rather than any resulting depression etc.)

It doesn't. It's literally the experience of a discomfort with one's body or position in a sociality, i.e., when someone else doesn't recognize you for who you are. It's not even a "mental illness", it's just this experience that goes away and comes back periodically. What you're describing as a "mismatch" between "sex" and "gender" is just being trans.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

Same for internal monologue. Apparently people talk to themselves in their heads all day. I’m capable of talking in my head, but I just turn it on when I need it. Someone I know can’t shut up their internal monologue without blasting music or something, and it just goes by itself all day. That sounds awful!

It fucking sucks.

 

[MelissaBaby]

The voice in my head never shuts up. I’m just grateful there is only the one.

As for visualization, when I write I see everything like I am watching a movie. I was surprised to learn that not everyone does.

 

[alohadave]

The voice in my head never shuts up. I’m just grateful there is only the one.

Mine also never shuts up, but I've never considered it anything but my thoughts in my head.

I'll have sort-of conversations with myself to help me reason things out, or to work out a problem, or organize what I'm thinking about.

As for visualization, when I write I see everything like I am watching a movie. I was surprised to learn that not everyone does.

It comes up fairly frequently in /r/books where people talk about having no internal visualization. From what I've seen, it's about 5-10% of the population. The term is aphantasia.

Something that I haven't seen anyone else talk about is that I don't imagine sounds when I read or write. Not even voices in dialogue. It's kind of weird and interesting. I also rarely describe or use sounds in my work as well.

It's one aspect of movies and TV that are superior over reading, for me.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

When I was in my twenties I discovered that not all people have the same experience when it comes to mental imagery. In fact, some people (like me) have almost no ability to make mental visual images. I now realize that was why I felt baffled when tips in the Sunday supplement for remembering names by associating a picture with them just didn't work for me. I thought I had a "picture" in my mind. But what I really had was a non-visual idea. It was quite an Aha! experience when I learned how people can vary be in this regard.

Last week I had a similar experience. Ever since the idea of transitioning gender became a topic of public discussion, I've been puzzled. I just couldn't conjure up what it meant to "feel" a different identity than one's body had. I didn't think much about it, but now I believe this may be another instance of how people's brains can vary. The Aha! happened when I read this statement by @secondlullaby, 'apparently attachment to gender is something a lot of us are lacking. When I say "I don't understand" it, I mean I literally do not understand.' Oh! So maybe "attachment to gender" is like the ability to make mental visual images. Some people have it and some don't. And there are lots of points in between.

Anyway, it set me wondering. Here are some of my questions. Although I'm interested in everyone's responses, I'm particularly interested in hearing from people who have never experienced gender dysphoria.

Edit: Great answers so far. Thanks to all. This is probably a little late, but I should have clarified that I'm not including sexual orientation under the heading of "gender identity." For my purposes a person who has a mental identity of male can be oriented toward men or women or both. Likewise for a person who has a mental identity of female.

1 - Does what I said above make sense to you?

2 - Do you have a sense for your own gender apart from just inhabiting a particular physical body?

3 - If "yes," to #2, are you able to describe what that mental experience is?

4 - If "yes," to #2, does this involve wanting to participate in the behavior society expects of a gender? In other words, if society didn't have different expectations/norms for the sexes, would your sense of your own gender identity be as strong?

1) Kinda. First; I always found it weird when people lack visual thought, or however you call it. I would think to myself; these people have no imagination. That's your experience/life, not mine. Even with my imagination, I can't concieve not having visual thought, like you didn't get attachment to gender, or feeling different. You don't live it, all you can do is speculate at best, being something you may never experience, and probably not a thought until that moment.
2) I guess...? Trying to figure out what that means, myself. Like am I aware of what I am, or is it a sense of being? And does a lack of that simply means that I innately know what I am, so there's never any pondering about it? I know I'm a guy, but sometimes I don't wanna be. Sometimes I wish I didn't look too manly, so I could at least pass as androdynous. Like whomever it was; I had a dream once where I was a chick, and it was disapointing when I woke up.
3) Not sure I answered 2 well enough, or at all, to answer 3.
4) This one is making 2 make a bit more sense. I just wanna be me. I don't aspire to be-- not even sure how to answer this and ignore my associated answer to 2. I don't wanna be a stereotype. Most of what society... the hedgemony expects from genders is bullshit, to me. I don't see it as striving for greatness of mankind. The hedgemony is what keeps people from not having these norms-- it's a social contract. I can't say it'd strengthen my gender identity, but it would help to some degree of me doing what I want. Maybe. I don't know if it's fear or anxiety; I forgotten about the feeling.