Reply to I guess I still don't understand transgender definitions of gay and straight

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Let me ask this.  My biological sex is female.  I menstrate.  I bear children.  I produce milk for those children.  I like penises and like hard lean bodies.

But, how do I figure out what "gender" I am?   I think I must be the gender equivalent of color blind, because I can not begin to imagine how one knows what gender one is?[/quote]

The rebuttal to this is that you don't feel a gender identity because your gender identity aligns with your sex, and you are thus "cisgender." From the POV of those who endorse the concept of gender identity, only people whose gender identity doesn't match their sex (and are thus transgender, non-binary, genderqueer, etc.) can "feel" their gender identity because they feel that something is off/out of alignment. To those who are cisgender, the feeling is unknowable. It is something that can only be understood by experiencing it, and cannot be adequately explained to those who are cisgender because cisgender people have no frame of reference for it.

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This is interesting. I am uncomfortable with the assertion that "everyone has an inborn gender identity, you just don't realize you have one because yours matches the sex you were assigned at birth." I don't feel like I have an inborn "gender identity." I'm a cisgender woman and I feel that my gender identity is socially constructed, like my identity as a short person and an American. If I'd been born a tall French man I would be a tall French man. I'm sure my personality would be somewhat different in that case.

I'm sure many cisgender women do feel they were born with a female gender identity, I just don't.

To be clear, I don't question that transgender people have a gender identity that doesn't "match" and that this is very painful. They should be allowed to live as the gender they identify with, use the pronouns they want to use, pee in the bathroom they need to use, etc. I just dont know why this has to go along with an assertion that EVERYONE has an inborn gender identity. It seems like, can't you just speak from your own experience, why do you have to try to speak for everyone else too?

I also wonder if all trans people accept that being trans is biological or innate, vs. a choice. This seems related to the question of whether everyone has an inborn gender identity. I certainly know some gay people who see sexual orientation as a choice, not something they were born with, even if that's a minority view. It would surprise me if all trans people accepted this "it's biological" position. (I don't personally know any trans people that I know of.) I can see why it makes sense to frame it that way for legal and rhetorical reasons. But it does seem like a weird case of trading one form of blind adherence to "science" (if you're born XX you're a woman, XY you're a man, that's it) for another (everyone's born with an innate female or male gender identity, some people's don't match the sex they were assigned at birth, that's it). 
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