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[Consul]

I presume it means "(inner) awareness/consciousness/knowledge". However, one cannot be aware/be conscious/know that one is female/male unless one is female/male; so there can be no contradiction between one's "gender identity" qua knowledge of one's gender (= sex) and one's gender (= sex).
Gender self-knowledge (= knowledge of one's sex) is not innate! Babies aren't born with innate knowledge of their sex.

Your challenging of the dictionary definitions of gender is absurd because dictionaries are a form of colloquial understanding, which are important basis of meaning but rather different from the technicalities of concepts of philosophy.

There are frustratingly many different definitions of "gender" and "gender identity" in general dictionaries, scientific ones, and scientific textbooks & papers. If you think "gender identity" defined as "the (inner) sense of one's gender" doesn't mean "the (inner) awareness/consciousness/knowledge of one's sex", then what do you think does it mean?

Your own argument misses the basis of personal identity and is not about gender itself. One particular aspect of 'being', as argued by Sartre is the way in which people exist in an embodied way and on the basis of this, develop understanding through reflection. This is not separate from social development of understanding.

Therefore, based on this thinking it can be argued that identity involves internalised meanings, including aspects of gender identity. This leads to the notion that gender identity must involve an inner 'sense' of identity, which is different from the bodily aspects of the male/female dichotomy. In animals there may be incongruence between anatomy but not it is different from other the self-consciousness.

First of all, regarding the non-logical, psychological/sociological concept of identity, I too think the basic problem with it is that…

"Although ‘identity’ remains a highly popular concept, both in academic and everyday discourse, it is a conceptually, operationally and politically seriously troubled idiom. …[T]he concept is so aloof and vague that it leads either to radically soft and loose uses where ‘identity’ stands for anything and everything[.]"

(Malešević, Siniša. Identity as Ideology: Understanding Ethnicity and Nationalism. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. p. 56)

Now you're using the phrase "personal identity":

* In one sense personal identity is a person's diachronic numerical identity, i.e. a person's numerical sameness over time (which is an objective condition that is not the same as a person's subjective perception of it).

* In another sense it is a person's personality, i.e. a person's relatively constant "assemblage of qualities which makes a person what he is, as distinct from other persons; distinctive personal or individual character"—a person's "unique combination of psychophysical qualities or traits, inherent and acquired, that make up each person as observable in his reactions to the environment or to the social group." (OED)

One's self-representations in general and one's sexual self-identification in particular are part of one's personality.

I have never denied that there can be an incongruence or non-correspondence between one's sexual self-identification and one's sex, i.e. between believing/being convinced/being certain that one is female/male and being female/male. And there can also be a cognitive dissonance between desiring to be female/male and knowing that one is male/female.

The difference involves language primarily because that is what is different from animals because both humans and animals have sensory perception. Language is bound up with human intersubjective understanding and involves self-consciousness. This means that the actual question of whether gender is innate is a little step beyond whether gender identity is innate.

However, it would be absurd to say that there is not a correspondence as based on the Joan/John case, which pointed to the inner aspects of innate gender involvement in the development of gender identity. When John was forced into becoming Joan by sexologists it was as if identity could be socialised. In John's situation, he struggled with the biological aspects despite being given female hormones and surgery to correct the circumcision error. In his autobiographical account he described how he was hairy and tormented for his bodily appearance. This involved biological aspects of identity and his own 'inner' sense of gender identity, and his knowledge of his own history and the decisions of sexologists.

John was not intersex or trans, so it is a rather unique and unfortunate one, but it has shown the complexity of innate gender and gender identity. It involves core aspects of biology but, also, the role of self-consciousness in the process. It is applicable to the understanding of identity and gender dysphoria.

John's sexual self-representation as male—his (true) conviction that he was male—didn't correspond to what others wanted him to be(come).

Why use a nebulous term such as "identity" in this context when other and much clearer ones are available: self-representation—some sorts of which are self-identification, self-belief (self-conviction), and self-knowledge (self-cognition)?

It is not based on what you see as 'delusion' and it may have a basis in the brain itself. This is the underlying 'mysterious'.element and it is difficult to pinpoint clearly because It involves the nature of identity rather than simply the male/female dichotomy. What you try to see as 'delusion' is different from psychosis. If transsexualism was identical with psychotic disorder, presumably it would be treatable in a similar way to psychosis, which it is not. In the assessment of gender dysphoria, there is an overall assessment for psychosis. Gender dysphoria is not consistent with a background of psychosis and delusional thinking because it involves the complexity of the formation of the nature of personal identity, which involves biology and self-consciousness.

As far as I know, gender dysphoria can be a symptom of psychosis; but it isn't in itself a type of psychosis.

A delusion is "anything that deceives the mind with a false impression; a deception; a fixed false opinion or belief with regard to objective things, esp. as a form of mental derangement." (OED) Note that "especially" is not synonymous with "essentially", so there is a distinction between psychotic delusions and non-psychotic ones! I am not saying that all males/men believing to be females/women, or vice versa, are psychotically deluded.

[Consul]

First of all, regarding the non-logical, psychological/sociological concept of identity, I too think the basic problem with it is that…

"Although ‘identity’ remains a highly popular concept, both in academic and everyday discourse, it is a conceptually, operationally and politically seriously troubled idiom. …[T]he concept is so aloof and vague that it leads either to radically soft and loose uses where ‘identity’ stands for anything and everything, …"

(Malešević, Siniša. Identity as Ideology: Understanding Ethnicity and Nationalism. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. p. 56)

Oops! There's something missing:

"…or it is articulated in a hard essentialist way so that through reified group membership the concept acquires features and attributes of individual human beings."

(Malešević, Siniša. Identity as Ideology: Understanding Ethnicity and Nationalism. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. p. 56)

[Consul]

If you were trying, instead of typing the above regressive nonsense, you would have immediately remembered that, in the John/Jan case, John had no male parts and everyone had told him he was a girl and treated him as such from infancy. Yet he never felt like it. He knew. Inside. In his mind.

He remained certain and convinced that he was male—and he was right, because he was male! So what we have in John's case is sexual self-belief & self-certainy that amounts to sexual self-knowledge (since he truly believed to be male). There's no need for the ambiguous and nebulous term gender identity!

[Consul]

+++I just noticed that this thread is in the wrong subforum—Ethics & Morality. It should be in the Epistemology & Metaphysics subforum!+++

[JackDaydream]

To Consul,

Consideration of sex/gender goes beyond quoting texts and philosophy as abstract academic ideas separate from human experience. What it ends up with is your approach lacking depth of understanding in the analysis of an essential critical philosophical and social issue of the present time. I am sure that no one is saying that you have to agree with them but it may be worth you thinking about your own approach, as it seems to be detached as if hiding an emotional blindspot. Objectivity is important for rigour but this particular issue is a highly emotive and controversial one. It is one which needs psychological mindedness as well as reasoning in the spirit of self knowledge in approaching it in the fullest way.

[JackDaydream]

+++I just noticed that this thread is in the wrong subforum—Ethics & Morality. It should be in the Epistemology & Metaphysics subforum!+++

Your raising of the section into epistemology and metaphysics shows how you see it as an abstract, almost as qualia, rather than a topic of social concern, and about values inherent in psychology, ethics and politics in life.

[Sy Borg]

If you were trying, instead of typing the above regressive nonsense, you would have immediately remembered that, in the John/Jan case, John had no male parts and everyone had told him he was a girl and treated him as such from infancy. Yet he never felt like it. He knew. Inside. In his mind.

He remained certain and convinced that he was male—and he was right, because he was male! So what we have in John's case is sexual self-belief & self-certainy that amounts to sexual self-knowledge (since he truly believed to be male). There's no need for the ambiguous and nebulous term gender identity!

He didn't know he was male, except for his gender identity. No one told him he was born male. QED.

[Sy Borg]

+++I just noticed that this thread is in the wrong subforum—Ethics & Morality. It should be in the Epistemology & Metaphysics subforum!+++

Cute. So now psychology is metaphysics.

It's not even a philosophical question, it's a science question. Yet the "philosophers" here tend to ignore the prior research done on transpeople, which is why the concept of gender identity exists.

The topic was in the ethics section because, if one is not aware of the decades of research in the field, this looks like a matter of right and wrong, unnatural and natural, sin and virtue, as it was portrayed in mainstream media.

[Consul]

+++I just noticed that this thread is in the wrong subforum—Ethics & Morality. It should be in the Epistemology & Metaphysics subforum!+++

Your raising of the section into epistemology and metaphysics shows how you see it as an abstract, almost as qualia, rather than a topic of social concern, and about values inherent in psychology, ethics and politics in life.

The question "Is there such a thing as an innate sense of gender?" is not an ethical question, so this is the wrong subforum.
Given that there is no Psychology subforum, this thread could as well be put into the General Philosophy subforum.

[JackDaydream]

+++I just noticed that this thread is in the wrong subforum—Ethics & Morality. It should be in the Epistemology & Metaphysics subforum!+++

Cute. So now psychology is metaphysics.

It's not even a philosophical question, it's a science question. Yet the "philosophers" here tend to ignore the prior research done on transpeople, which is why the concept of gender identity exists.

The topic was in the ethics section because, if one is not aware of the decades of research in the field, this looks like a matter of right and wrong, unnatural and natural, sin and virtue, as it was portrayed in mainstream media.

The way in which John knew there was 'something wrong' intuitively shows the complexity of an innate sense of gender and identity. Biology is part of psychological wiring. It is far from simple though and the exact role of hormones in the brain is not clear. The translation of biology into the emergence of identity includes so many variables. The division between nature and nurture is a binary and, even the so called debate as to whether male/female is a binary or non binary is a binary distinction to some extent when there is no absolute answer.

[JackDaydream]

+++I just noticed that this thread is in the wrong subforum—Ethics & Morality. It should be in the Epistemology & Metaphysics subforum!+++

Your raising of the section into epistemology and metaphysics shows how you see it as an abstract, almost as qualia, rather than a topic of social concern, and about values inherent in psychology, ethics and politics in life.

The question "Is there such a thing as an innate sense of gender?" is not an ethical question, so this is the wrong subforum.
Given that there is no Psychology subforum, this thread could as well be put into the General Philosophy subforum.

I probably would have put the question into the general.philosophy section. It could even have gone into the philosophy of science.one. If anything, the question may show the crossovers central to philosophy and the underlying problem.of neat categories in thinking.

[Lagayascienza]

A dictionary definition of "gender identity" is: "the personal sense of one's own gender.…"

I'd like to know what exactly "sense" means here.

I presume it means "(inner) awareness/consciousness/knowledge". However, one cannot be aware/be conscious/know that one is female/male unless one is female/male; so there can be no contradiction between one's "gender identity" qua knowledge of one's gender (= sex) and one's gender (= sex).

Gender self-knowledge (= knowledge of one's sex) is not innate! Babies aren't born with innate knowledge of their sex.

This is confused. Awareness of anything emerges gradually as a person ages and develops. Gender identity, like sexuality and secondary sex characteristics, emerges gradually. But because a trait emerges gradually does not mean that trait is not innate. No one is born knowing anything. For example, no one is born knowing whether they have blue or brown eyes. Eye color is innate but awareness of it only emerges gradually. Similarly, sexuality and gender identity can be innate but emerge only gradually into consciousness. Awareness of my own sexuality and gender identity certainly emerged gradually through childhood and puberty. I suspect it is the same with everyone. The unfortunate John/joan case illustrates this gradual awareness of sexual identity.

[Lagayascienza]

This issue falls across several philosophical areas so it might as well be in this sub-forum as another.

[JackDaydream]

This issue falls across several philosophical areas so it might as well be in this sub-forum as another.

Maybe, it should be permitted to remain in the ethics section, as an amorphous 'Fried Egg' of a question, which blurs the boundaries between life experiences and philosophical riddles.

[Lagayascienza]

Yes, it's as good here as anywhere and I see no point in moving it. The issue has many facets including the biological, the psychological, the social, the political and the ethical. All of which are legitimate subjects of philosophical discourse and all of which have been touched on in this thread. Thus the sub-forum it "should" be in could be debated endlessly and pointlessly.