Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Lagayascienza]

How do you define your gender identity? I define my gender identity as the gender that I believe I am. If I had GD, I would have a real problem because my physical gender, my maleness, would be out of kilter with the gender I wanted to be, or felt I should be, or that I really was despite my physical characteristics. If I then underwent gender reassignment, my problem would, presumably, be solved and my gender identity would match my physical gender. Not sure I've answered your question but that's the best I can do. My gender identity is the gender I feel myself to be.

[Pattern-chaser]

I have been reading this thread and wondering why it matters to some to have such issues with others' gender identity. However, it seems to stem from a need to put people into boxes as opposed to any fluidity. However, it is beyond the issue of forum discussion of philosophy and is connected with political protest about the right to self identify along the gender continuum.

The argument is often on the basis of transgender women not being 'women' and a very clear binary categorisation of gender distinction. However, while this argument goes back to lesbian feminism, especially the ideas of Janice Raymond in 'The Transsexual Empire', the approach is currently being used to support a backlash against transsexuals, and their wish to identify and live as their chosen gender, treating them as 'liars', in denial of their own authenticity on the grounds of biological essentialism

Of course, the issues of intersex and transsexualism are not identical. A person who is born with one of the varying intersex conditions may still identify clearly with the biological sex they were assigned to or decide to transition to the opposite one. While the nature of intersex and transgender or transsexual have such important areas of variance it does show that gender is a spectrum or continuum. The idea of the continuum includes both aspects of the physical and psychological. Aside from the area of intersex, all people have some androgyny as they foetus develops identically until the process of sexual differentian and most men are women have some of the opposite sex hormones. The ones who don't are androgen insensitive 'males' who appear female although having testicles and male chromosomes.

The idea of going beyond the binary offers a way of thinking which challenges essentialism. It goes back to the idea of androgyny. It offers a less rigid framework. Some people may identify as non binary and seek some surgery to make physical changes to feel comfortable and others may not. Similarly, some transsexuals may or may not. The assumption that a person must make changes to be accepted for their gender is based on biological essentialism. The idea of the binary allows for fluidity beyond duality and integration of the masculine and feminine rather than a duality of seeing people as 'good' or 'evil'. That is where the idea of 'gender as performance' or as socially constructed comes in because it involves so much of cultural rather than biological ideas about gender roles, behaviour and presentation.

From other posts in this topic, it would appear that care and consideration, tolerance, flexibility, and understanding, are in short supply here. I wish you luck!

[JackDaydream]

I have been reading this thread and wondering why it matters to some to have such issues with others' gender identity. However, it seems to stem from a need to put people into boxes as opposed to any fluidity. However, it is beyond the issue of forum discussion of philosophy and is connected with political protest about the right to self identify along the gender continuum.

The argument is often on the basis of transgender women not being 'women' and a very clear binary categorisation of gender distinction. However, while this argument goes back to lesbian feminism, especially the ideas of Janice Raymond in 'The Transsexual Empire', the approach is currently being used to support a backlash against transsexuals, and their wish to identify and live as their chosen gender, treating them as 'liars', in denial of their own authenticity on the grounds of biological essentialism

Of course, the issues of intersex and transsexualism are not identical. A person who is born with one of the varying intersex conditions may still identify clearly with the biological sex they were assigned to or decide to transition to the opposite one. While the nature of intersex and transgender or transsexual have such important areas of variance it does show that gender is a spectrum or continuum. The idea of the continuum includes both aspects of the physical and psychological. Aside from the area of intersex, all people have some androgyny as they foetus develops identically until the process of sexual differentian and most men are women have some of the opposite sex hormones. The ones who don't are androgen insensitive 'males' who appear female although having testicles and male chromosomes.

The idea of going beyond the binary offers a way of thinking which challenges essentialism. It goes back to the idea of androgyny. It offers a less rigid framework. Some people may identify as non binary and seek some surgery to make physical changes to feel comfortable and others may not. Similarly, some transsexuals may or may not. The assumption that a person must make changes to be accepted for their gender is based on biological essentialism. The idea of the binary allows for fluidity beyond duality and integration of the masculine and feminine rather than a duality of seeing people as 'good' or 'evil'. That is where the idea of 'gender as performance' or as socially constructed comes in because it involves so much of cultural rather than biological ideas about gender roles, behaviour and presentation.

From other posts in this topic, it would appear that care and consideration, tolerance, flexibility, and understanding, are in short supply here. I wish you luck!

I did see some more open approaches, such as those by Sy Borg. Of course, it is far wider than the forum and, here, it is more philosophical. In real life, it is often tinged with outright prejudice and discrimination. This occurs in teaching and mental health settings. It is also connected with a lack of understanding of 'difference' in general, and may be parallel with racism. The danger may be of new forms of Neo-Nazism, and this is the danger which may missed by those who cling to biological fundamentalism.

There is often the accusation that activists are trying to force their views onto others, while in actual fact it may be the other way round with most trans and non-binary wishing to be left alone. Of course, it is cultural wars with both sides thinking that their perspective is the correct one. Of anything the non binary approach allows for more dialogue about the nature of gender and the scope of all gender identities and thinking. It can become heated while there have been far more playful approaches, such as the gender-bending pop singers, which may allow for far more creative diversity as embraced by the North American Indians, and ideas such as 'two spirit' people, which allows for more subtle thinking.

[Sculptor1]

Picking out odd cases is neither here nor there.
The case for gender dysphoria is well established.

Yes, indeed, it's a real psychological phenomenon.

Attempts to make gender a simple binary are a failure. A simple authoritarian attempt to control people.
It should be obvious that gender is a variable and moving feast.

How do you define "gender"?

Well... exactly.
I see it as a multifaceted set of spectra.
Imagina sphere whose poles are physically male and female; yet another set of poles at 90 degrees represent mental attractions.
Each of us can exist at any point within the sphere having variable attractions and degrees of masculinity and femininity.
One might even pitch different aspects of our personalty as points inside the sphere so that heach of our personalities can form diffuse areas inside the sphere.
Most men would occupy the male pole, with women mostly at the other pole; yet between the two . An area of mantality might overlap the physical but could occupy differnt areas.
What is and what is not male and femaie are largely informed by natural tendancies, but culture mandates much of it.
Pink for a girl bluse for a boy- acutally it was only 100 years ago that pink was a boy's colour and is stilloften selected as a shirt colour by poss blokes in the city.
Face adornment- make up and jewelry are female? Not if you are in the Wodabe culture of Niger where the man adorn themselves to attact women.

[Sculptor1]

Tom Allan is one of the UK's bes tknow homosexual entertianers. He wears his effeminacy openly and is loved for his personality.
Article from The Guardian.

Tom Allen looks back: ‘One of my coping mechanisms was to create a fantasy life, pretending to be an Edwardian aristocrat’

Born in London in 1983, Tom Allen is a standup comedian and TV presenter. His comedy career kickstarted in 2005 when he was crowned the winner of talent competitions So You Think You’re Funny and the BBC New Comedy award. He has since hosted The Apprentice: You’re Fired!, Cooking With the Stars and The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice. His documentary My Big Gay Wedding is available on BBC iPlayer.

A friend took this photo of me before the start of the school summer holidays. I was 16 and standing in front of the sixth form centre with an expression that sums up what I was like back then: maudlin, but also quite precocious and pretentious.

As a teenager, I felt very unusual. I was burying the fact that I was gay, deep down in my psyche, and as a result I didn’t feel at ease with the world. My experience of school had been openly homophobic. There was a pain and longing in my life, which is all very normal when you’re a teenager, especially when it comes to fancying people. The difference was that my friends, most of whom were girls, could talk about it together and possibly tell the person, and maybe it would develop into a relationship. The idea that I could express my feelings to another man – while at a comprehensive school in Bromley – was absolutely unthinkable. I had to ignore it.

One of my coping mechanisms was to create a fantasy life, which largely involved pretending to be an Edwardian aristocrat, John Gielgud or someone from a Virginia Woolf novel. That’s possibly what I was trying to emulate in that photograph, particularly with the hand in the pocket. I also wanted to be Noël Coward. Sometimes, I’d get teased at school for losing my hair, so I’d slick it back with Brylcreem, because that’s what Coward did.

The way I styled myself had a sense of disobedience about it. Even though my dad, who was a coach driver, took a lot of pride in the way he looked, sometimes I’d get dressed and he would say: “No, no, don’t go over the top.” For a lot of parents, it’s important that your kid looks and behaves in a certain way so they fit in, and I certainly didn’t. It was the late 90s, the era of young people wearing tracksuits, and being scruffy and belligerent like the Gallaghers. I kicked against that by being smart and a favourite of the teachers. I saw working very hard and excelling as a little rebellion.

The music room was also a salvation for me. It was a way to hang out with the other gay teenagers who were too scared to come out. There, we were able to express ourselves in a way that the rest of school might not have understood, such as with niche jokes about the musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber. I liked to be funny, too, but my mawkishness was a little overbearing. I was far from being the class clown, which to my mind conjured the image of someone who was a bit bantery. I was never a fan of banter. I was much more of a fan of chatting in an unfocused way.

While I had lovely friends, the homophobia I witnessed at school and in the world in general was so insidious that I absolutely hated myself. Those views seemed to go unchallenged, and it all contributed to this feeling of repulsiveness. All the cultural touchstones about homosexuality were shrouded in tragedy and shame. There was never a happy story about an openly gay character.

[Fried Egg]

Gender identity definitely exists. Don't believe the postmodernists. Check out the tragic case of John/Joan. You cannot push a gender onto a person to whom it's not suited without doing damage, no matter how strong the attempted conditioning.

If I don't believe gender identity exists, why would I attempt (or advocate) to "push it" on anyone?

It seems clear to me that gender identity is a social construct which is the only explanation that makes sense as to why people believe they are (or want to be) the opposite sex/gender that their chromosones dictated.

A always, thought experiments can yield interesting results, when it comes to putting oneself in another's shoes. To imagine how it might feel to have to live in an unsuitable gender, what if you had been forced by circumstance be a member of the National Front? You would need to pretend to go along with other members to avoid trouble, but that doesn't mean you'd find the situation tolerable. You might only last a while before feeling you have to "come out".

This analogy doesn't even make any sense. No one is forcing me to be a man, I simply am because that's the way I was born. What constitutes forcing me to accept my gender by society? The denial of access puberty blockers when I am still a child? Not given access to cross sex hormones or actual surgery to alter my body to mimic the typical characteristics of the opposite sex?

However, given the history of people adopting variant gender roles in indigenous societies and the intractability of genuine gender dysphoria (not the modern non-binary phenomenon), it's clear that there is reality to at least a percentage of claims that brain gender does not always match society's traditional gender demands. The situation, in practical terms, is not black & white.

Gender dysphoria is surely more than one feeling at odds with "society's traditional gender demands". It is feeling at odds with one's actual sex/gender (as dictated by their chromosones). In many ways, modern western society we have never been so free of traditional gender demands (some would argue too free). What we are still not free of is the physical constraints of our own bodies although modern technology is increasingly now finding ways to overcome those constraints.

No, if there is genuinely something real in the idea of being gender dysphoric (i.e. not merely a social construct), it must come from something physical. We know that our brains are "sexualised" by exposure to hormones (controlled by our hormones) just like the rest of the body. Perhaps then gender dysphoria might sometimes be indicative of a mismatch between the sexualisation of the brain and the rest of the body? And if so, perhaps this can then be detected somehow?

In the end, I think society should just leave people alone and let them be the gender they feel themselves to be. I don't understand why people have such a problem with it. Religion, intolerance/fear of difference?

I think that the vast majority of people are happy to just leave people alone. Although it's not quite that simple, is it? The advocacy of "gender affirming care" for children is not just leaving people alone is it? The demanding of trans women to be allowed to compete in women's sports isn't fair on their competitors. The demanding of convicted male rapists to be accepted as a woman and put into a women's prison is not fair on the other women prisoners. We have gone well beyond just "live and let live".

[JackDaydream]

Tom Allan is one of the UK's bes tknow homosexual entertianers. He wears his effeminacy openly and is loved for his personality.
Article from The Guardian.

Tom Allen looks back: ‘One of my coping mechanisms was to create a fantasy life, pretending to be an Edwardian aristocrat’

Born in London in 1983, Tom Allen is a standup comedian and TV presenter. His comedy career kickstarted in 2005 when he was crowned the winner of talent competitions So You Think You’re Funny and the BBC New Comedy award. He has since hosted The Apprentice: You’re Fired!, Cooking With the Stars and The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice. His documentary My Big Gay Wedding is available on BBC iPlayer.

A friend took this photo of me before the start of the school summer holidays. I was 16 and standing in front of the sixth form centre with an expression that sums up what I was like back then: maudlin, but also quite precocious and pretentious.

As a teenager, I felt very unusual. I was burying the fact that I was gay, deep down in my psyche, and as a result I didn’t feel at ease with the world. My experience of school had been openly homophobic. There was a pain and longing in my life, which is all very normal when you’re a teenager, especially when it comes to fancying people. The difference was that my friends, most of whom were girls, could talk about it together and possibly tell the person, and maybe it would develop into a relationship. The idea that I could express my feelings to another man – while at a comprehensive school in Bromley – was absolutely unthinkable. I had to ignore it.

One of my coping mechanisms was to create a fantasy life, which largely involved pretending to be an Edwardian aristocrat, John Gielgud or someone from a Virginia Woolf novel. That’s possibly what I was trying to emulate in that photograph, particularly with the hand in the pocket. I also wanted to be Noël Coward. Sometimes, I’d get teased at school for losing my hair, so I’d slick it back with Brylcreem, because that’s what Coward did.

The way I styled myself had a sense of disobedience about it. Even though my dad, who was a coach driver, took a lot of pride in the way he looked, sometimes I’d get dressed and he would say: “No, no, don’t go over the top.” For a lot of parents, it’s important that your kid looks and behaves in a certain way so they fit in, and I certainly didn’t. It was the late 90s, the era of young people wearing tracksuits, and being scruffy and belligerent like the Gallaghers. I kicked against that by being smart and a favourite of the teachers. I saw working very hard and excelling as a little rebellion.

The music room was also a salvation for me. It was a way to hang out with the other gay teenagers who were too scared to come out. There, we were able to express ourselves in a way that the rest of school might not have understood, such as with niche jokes about the musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber. I liked to be funny, too, but my mawkishness was a little overbearing. I was far from being the class clown, which to my mind conjured the image of someone who was a bit bantery. I was never a fan of banter. I was much more of a fan of chatting in an unfocused way.

While I had lovely friends, the homophobia I witnessed at school and in the world in general was so insidious that I absolutely hated myself. Those views seemed to go unchallenged, and it all contributed to this feeling of repulsiveness. All the cultural touchstones about homosexuality were shrouded in tragedy and shame. There was never a happy story about an openly gay character.

The overlap between gender and sexuality is an interesting but complex area. The author you are quoting from, Tom Allan, is describing the way in which sexual stereotypes are often subverted by gay people. However, as I saw pointed out by Belinda in one post, it is unlikely that a person would have sex change surgery to make someone fall in love with them. There are often assumptions in social.discourse that gay people are really trans and, similarly, that people often change gender because they are gender dysphoric.

The area of gender dysphoria is often so misunderstood because it challenges biology..It could even be used for an argument to support past life existence because it challenges the biological assumptions of selfhood. I also notice that in a few posts there has been reference to the term.dysmorphia rather than simply dysphoria. This is interesting because it hints at another diagnosis of psychiatric disorder, body dysmorphic disorder. There is a certain overlap between body dysmorphia and gender dysphoria in the sense of discomfort about bodily appearance. The person with body dysmorphia may see themself as ugly of fat, which may be incongruent with the way others view them. Even if it the person is seen as unattractive it is often distorted to the point where it becomes an 'obsession' or focus to the point of interfering with life.

However, bringing this back to the issue of the innate sense of gender, the development of gender identity involves issues issues related to the body and identity. Social ideas come into this, including stereotypes and the media. One area of this in the twentieth first century is more openness about 'girls wanting to be boys'. It could be a social.development which may be replacing anorexia. Bodily identity issues are socially generated and cannot be separated from the nature of gender identity. This may be where the connection between gender and sexuality arises in the nature of perception of body and sexual.expression. That is because sexuality involves expression of self partly as and beyond the nature of reproduction.
.

[Sy Borg]

Gender identity definitely exists. Don't believe the postmodernists. Check out the tragic case of John/Joan. You cannot push a gender onto a person to whom it's not suited without doing damage, no matter how strong the attempted conditioning.

If I don't believe gender identity exists, why would I attempt (or advocate) to "push it" on anyone?

It seems clear to me that gender identity is a social construct which is the only explanation that makes sense as to why people believe they are (or want to be) the opposite sex/gender that their chromosones dictated.

You know something else that isn't real, that is a mere social construct? Money.

If you think social constructs are not real and without power, please PM me to arrange transfer of all of your money to my accounts. Since the money is just a social construct, it doesn't matter ...

A always, thought experiments can yield interesting results, when it comes to putting oneself in another's shoes. To imagine how it might feel to have to live in an unsuitable gender, what if you had been forced by circumstance be a member of the National Front? You would need to pretend to go along with other members to avoid trouble, but that doesn't mean you'd find the situation tolerable. You might only last a while before feeling you have to "come out".

This analogy doesn't even make any sense. No one is forcing me to be a man, I simply am because that's the way I was born. What constitutes forcing me to accept my gender by society? The denial of access puberty blockers when I am still a child? Not given access to cross sex hormones or actual surgery to alter my body to mimic the typical characteristics of the opposite sex?

Are you capable of empathy, putting yourself in another's shoes?

Most people take gender identity for granted because they are masculine males and feminine females. Can you imagine what its like to not like as you are? Can you empathise?

However, given the history of people adopting variant gender roles in indigenous societies and the intractability of genuine gender dysphoria (not the modern non-binary phenomenon), it's clear that there is reality to at least a percentage of claims that brain gender does not always match society's traditional gender demands. The situation, in practical terms, is not black & white.

Gender dysphoria is surely more than one feeling at odds with "society's traditional gender demands". It is feeling at odds with one's actual sex/gender (as dictated by their chromosones). In many ways, modern western society we have never been so free of traditional gender demands (some would argue too free). What we are still not free of is the physical constraints of our own bodies although modern technology is increasingly now finding ways to overcome those constraints.

No, if there is genuinely something real in the idea of being gender dysphoric (i.e. not merely a social construct), it must come from something physical. We know that our brains are "sexualised" by exposure to hormones (controlled by our hormones) just like the rest of the body. Perhaps then gender dysphoria might sometimes be indicative of a mismatch between the sexualisation of the brain and the rest of the body? And if so, perhaps this can then be detected somehow?

Clearly your claim that modern society is "too free" in its gender norms is off, given the many thousands who experience gender dysphoria - people who find living in their physical gender so disturbing that some commit suicide. Transpeople have a ridiculous suicide rate, that would be a national scandal if it applied to a group of people that society cared about.

The brain may well be impacted during gestation. Logically, I can see a survival advantage in highly stressed pregnant women giving birth to less masculine males.

In the end, I think society should just leave people alone and let them be the gender they feel themselves to be. I don't understand why people have such a problem with it. Religion, intolerance/fear of difference?

I think that the vast majority of people are happy to just leave people alone. Although it's not quite that simple, is it? The advocacy of "gender affirming care" for children is not just leaving people alone is it? The demanding of trans women to be allowed to compete in women's sports isn't fair on their competitors. The demanding of convicted male rapists to be accepted as a woman and put into a women's prison is not fair on the other women prisoners. We have gone well beyond just "live and let live".

Yes, it's gone too far. Anyone with a functioning penis could be a danger be in a women's prison. Logically, anyone convicted of rape is not trans, only pretending to be or insane. Also, due to pubertal growth, its unfair from transpeople to engage in professional women's sport.

Otherwise, Lagaya is right, as transpeople will be very much needing people to live and let live, especially in today's hostile climate.

[Sculptor1]

Tom Allan is one of the UK's bes tknow homosexual entertianers. He wears his effeminacy openly and is loved for his personality.
Article from The Guardian.

Tom Allen looks back: ‘One of my coping mechanisms was to create a fantasy life, pretending to be an Edwardian aristocrat’

Born in London in 1983, Tom Allen is a standup comedian and TV presenter. His comedy career kickstarted in 2005 when he was crowned the winner of talent competitions So You Think You’re Funny and the BBC New Comedy award. He has since hosted The Apprentice: You’re Fired!, Cooking With the Stars and The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice. His documentary My Big Gay Wedding is available on BBC iPlayer.

A friend took this photo of me before the start of the school summer holidays. I was 16 and standing in front of the sixth form centre with an expression that sums up what I was like back then: maudlin, but also quite precocious and pretentious.

As a teenager, I felt very unusual. I was burying the fact that I was gay, deep down in my psyche, and as a result I didn’t feel at ease with the world. My experience of school had been openly homophobic. There was a pain and longing in my life, which is all very normal when you’re a teenager, especially when it comes to fancying people. The difference was that my friends, most of whom were girls, could talk about it together and possibly tell the person, and maybe it would develop into a relationship. The idea that I could express my feelings to another man – while at a comprehensive school in Bromley – was absolutely unthinkable. I had to ignore it.

One of my coping mechanisms was to create a fantasy life, which largely involved pretending to be an Edwardian aristocrat, John Gielgud or someone from a Virginia Woolf novel. That’s possibly what I was trying to emulate in that photograph, particularly with the hand in the pocket. I also wanted to be Noël Coward. Sometimes, I’d get teased at school for losing my hair, so I’d slick it back with Brylcreem, because that’s what Coward did.

The way I styled myself had a sense of disobedience about it. Even though my dad, who was a coach driver, took a lot of pride in the way he looked, sometimes I’d get dressed and he would say: “No, no, don’t go over the top.” For a lot of parents, it’s important that your kid looks and behaves in a certain way so they fit in, and I certainly didn’t. It was the late 90s, the era of young people wearing tracksuits, and being scruffy and belligerent like the Gallaghers. I kicked against that by being smart and a favourite of the teachers. I saw working very hard and excelling as a little rebellion.

The music room was also a salvation for me. It was a way to hang out with the other gay teenagers who were too scared to come out. There, we were able to express ourselves in a way that the rest of school might not have understood, such as with niche jokes about the musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber. I liked to be funny, too, but my mawkishness was a little overbearing. I was far from being the class clown, which to my mind conjured the image of someone who was a bit bantery. I was never a fan of banter. I was much more of a fan of chatting in an unfocused way.

While I had lovely friends, the homophobia I witnessed at school and in the world in general was so insidious that I absolutely hated myself. Those views seemed to go unchallenged, and it all contributed to this feeling of repulsiveness. All the cultural touchstones about homosexuality were shrouded in tragedy and shame. There was never a happy story about an openly gay character.

The overlap between gender and sexuality is an interesting but complex area. The author you are quoting from, Tom Allan, is describing the way in which sexual stereotypes are often subverted by gay people. However, as I saw pointed out by Belinda in one post, it is unlikely that a person would have sex change surgery to make someone fall in love with them. There are often assumptions in social.discourse that gay people are really trans and, similarly, that people often change gender because they are gender dysphoric.

The area of gender dysphoria is often so misunderstood because it challenges biology..It could even be used for an argument to support past life existence because it challenges the biological assumptions of selfhood. I also notice that in a few posts there has been reference to the term.dysmorphia rather than simply dysphoria. This is interesting because it hints at another diagnosis of psychiatric disorder, body dysmorphic disorder. There is a certain overlap between body dysmorphia and gender dysphoria in the sense of discomfort about bodily appearance. The person with body dysmorphia may see themself as ugly of fat, which may be incongruent with the way others view them. Even if it the person is seen as unattractive it is often distorted to the point where it becomes an 'obsession' or focus to the point of interfering with life.

However, bringing this back to the issue of the innate sense of gender, the development of gender identity involves issues issues related to the body and identity. Social ideas come into this, including stereotypes and the media. One area of this in the twentieth first century is more openness about 'girls wanting to be boys'. It could be a social.development which may be replacing anorexia. Bodily identity issues are socially generated and cannot be separated from the nature of gender identity. This may be where the connection between gender and sexuality arises in the nature of perception of body and sexual.expression. That is because sexuality involves expression of self partly as and beyond the nature of reproduction.
.

Well yes and no. IT seems to challenge an outdated biology, yes. But for biologists that have taken the trouble to look into the details,no. There is not doubt that it challenges a commonly conceived view of high school biology, but the science itself has made interesting inroads into understanding the fluidity of gender. Lot's od intereesting avenues for thinking about it.
The first thing to challnge is the simple equation of XX means female and XY means male. Though this is a common configuration it is not always adhered to. As well as XXY people there are also XYY people with consequent differences in gender expression. Sometimes XX and XY do not express as predicatble. But chromesomal determination became part of the cannon of biology long before genetics was understoon. Chromesomes are observable with light microscopes before genes were known.

All foetuses are born female and the formation of male characteristic requires the dissolution of primitive female organs to transform ovaries into testicles, and the clitoris into the penile glans.
This process is can be delayed in some populations where all children are born as girls and do not differentiate until puberty.

There is also the appearance of true hermaphrodites; with examples of megaclitoris or micropenis depanding on which side of the gender the individual lays.

I think you are wrong to imply that gender "problems" are determined by social influences. Though social influences can give licence for young people to discover themselves, unless there is an underlying physical determinate these are just not going to stick. You can't force it. And equating it with anorexia has no legs as an argument. It is patronising.
Society is ihypocritical to castigate people who wish to change sex, but all to happy for people to midify their bodies in other ways such as boob jobs and the plethora of plastic surgery.

[Consul]

While the nature of intersex and transgender or transsexual have such important areas of variance it does show that gender is a spectrum or continuum.

If gender = sex, you are a plainly wrong. If gender ≠ sex, please tell me what gender is! For if I don't know what gender is, I can't tell whether it's a spectrum or not.

There is a transbinary plurality of differences both within the male sex and within the female sex, but there are no sexes other than these two ones.

[Consul]

All foetuses are born female and the formation of male characteristic requires the dissolution of primitive female organs to transform ovaries into testicles, and the clitoris into the penile glans.
This process is can be delayed in some populations where all children are born as girls and do not differentiate until puberty.

Your description of the process of sex determination (not to be confused with sex differentiation as a post-sex-determination process!) is completely false, because at the beginning there are sexually undifferentiated gonads, which then develop into ovaries or testicles. Ovaries never become testicles, or vice versa!
We were all sexless (neither female nor male) at the beginning of our lives in mother's womb!

"The chromosomal sex of the embryo is established at fertilization. However, 6 weeks elapse in humans before the first signs of sex differentiation are noticed. Sex differentiation involves a series of events whereby the sexually indifferent gonads and genitalia progressively acquire male or female characteristics. Believed initially to be governed entirely by the presence or absence of the SRY gene on the Y chromosome, gonadal determination has proven to rely on a complex network of genes, whose balanced expression levels either activate the testis pathway and simultaneously repress the ovarian pathway or vice versa. The presence or absence of primordial germ cells, of extragonadal origin, also has a sexually dimorphic relevance. Subsequently, internal and external genitalia will follow the male pathway in the presence of androgens and anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH), or the female pathway in their absence.

Genital sex differentiation involves a series of events whereby the sexually indifferent embryo progressively acquires male or female characteristics in the gonads, genital tract and external genitalia. Sex development consists of several sequential stages. Genetic sex, as determined by the chromosome constitution, drives the primitive gonad to differentiate into a testis or an ovary. Subsequently, internal and external genitalia will follow the male pathway in the presence of specific testicular hormones, or the female pathway in their absence. Since the presence of the fetal testis plays a determining role in the differentiation of the reproductive tract, the term "sex determination" has been coined to designate the differentiation of the gonad during early fetal development.

No sexual difference can be observed in the gonads until the 6th week of embryonic life in humans and 11.5 days post-coitum (dpc) in mice. Undifferentiated gonads of XX or XY individuals are apparently identical and can form either ovaries or testes. This period is therefore called indifferent or bipotential stage of gonadal development."

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK279001/

To clarify the distinction between…

"Sex determination versus sex differentiation

A distinction is often made in the biological literature between sex determination and sex differentiation. The former is meant to designate the developmental step at which an individual fate is irremediably directed towards either the male or the female condition, whereas the latter describes subsequent steps in developmental pathways, during which the male and female phenotypes are progressively built up, according to the initial decision.

The scope of sex determination is sometimes restricted to the action of the initial trigger (e.g. Sry activation in therians), whereas the subsequent development of gonads into testes or ovaries (or of floral meristems into carpels and stamens) is referred to as ‘primary sex differentiation’. This strict definition of sex determination and delimitation of its occurrence underlies the classical dichotomous view of sex determination, according to which sex is determined either by genes or by environment. Accordingly; differences in the timing of action of the initial trigger has been proposed as a criterion to distinguish GSD from ESD: in the former, sex is determined by genes at conception, while in the latter it is determined by environment during a sensitive period of embryonic development (…).

…[W]e think there are good reasons to reject this dichotomous view, which fails to account for the many complex systems of sex determination where both genes and environment contribute to the final outcome; this view also fails to account for the fundamental similarity in the downstream molecular and physiological mechanisms that lead to the production of males and females, whatever the initial trigger termined by genes at conception, while in the latter it is determined by environment during a sensitive period of embryonic development (…).

…[W]e think there are good reasons to reject this dichotomous view, which fails to account for the many complex systems of sex determination where both genes and environment contribute to the final outcome; this view also fails to account for the fundamental similarity in the downstream molecular and physiological mechanisms that lead to the production of males and females, whatever the initial trigger[17](…). On the same reasoning, there are good reasons to reject a fundamental distinction between sex determination and ‘primary sex differentiation’ (i.e. gonad development), if we want to understand the evolution of sex-determination systems. In all vertebrates, the same genes are involved in the cascade leading to gonadal development, sometimes with different timing of action and localization in the pathway. Dmrt1, for instance, takes a role of downstream effector in most lineages, but has moved up the hierarchy in some of them to occupy the top of the cascade; it does not make much sense to consider Dmrt1 as either a sex-determination or a sex-differentiation gene depending on lineage.

In line with Uller & Helanterä (2011), we define sex determination as the whole process that leads to the development of differentiated reproductive organs (e.g. either testes or ovaries in animals). In vertebrates, the process starts when the precursor cells from the genital ridge develop into either Sertoli or granulosa cells; the timing and molecular processes are similar between ESD and GSD species. Along the same line, we think the concept of sex determination should not be limited to organisms with separate sexes, but also applies to hermaphrodites. Too strict a definition of sex determination fails to account for sequential hermaphroditism or mating-type switching, where a redifferentiation of sexes or mating types occurs, triggered by epigenetic cues (environmental or social information). Other epigenetic cues (positional information) are similarly used in simultaneous hermaphrodites to trigger the development of distinct cell lineages along either the male or the female pathways, based on the same gene networks and molecular cascades as in species with separate sexes. This is also a form of sex determination.

Sex is never determined at conception. Sex determination is a complex and dynamic process, starting with one or a series of initial cues (genetic, epigenetic, or often a mixture of both), and ending with the commitment of undifferentiated gonads into either testes or ovaries (or of undifferentiated meristems into either stamens or carpels). This commitment may be temporary and reversible (as in sequential hermaphrodites), and the initial decision potentially affected by mutations or environmental effects at any step along the sex-determination cascade (…)."

(Beukeboom, Leo W., and Nicolas Perrin. The Evolution of Sex Determination. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. pp. 16-7)

[Consul]

We were all sexless (neither female nor male) at the beginning of our lives in mother's womb!

"The chromosomal sex of the embryo is established at fertilization.…"

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK279001/

Speaking of "chromosomal sex" is misleading, because biologists don't define an organism's sex in terms of chromosomes. In humans XX and XY chromosomes play a sex-determining role but not the sex-defining one. There is nothing intrinsically female about XX chromosomes, and there is nothing intrinsically male about XY chromosomes, because a nonhuman organism's femaleness or maleness can as well be determined in other genetic ways or even non-genetic ones.

"…Sex is never determined at conception. Sex determination is a complex and dynamic process, starting with one or a series of initial cues (genetic, epigenetic, or often a mixture of both), and ending with the commitment of undifferentiated gonads into either testes or ovaries (or of undifferentiated meristems into either stamens or carpels).…"

(Beukeboom, Leo W., and Nicolas Perrin. The Evolution of Sex Determination. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. pp. 16-7)

"The chromosomal sex of the embryo is established at fertilization.
"Sex is never determined at conception."

There seems to be a contradiction, but there isn't really any, because by "sex" Beukeboom&Perrin do not mean "chromosomal sex" but "gonadal sex", the latter of which is "the sex-defining sex". That is, no organism is female or male prior to gonadal differentiation into ovaries or testicles.

[Consul]

That is, no organism is female or male prior to gonadal differentiation into ovaries or testicles.

The gonads of male (parts of) plants aren't called testicles/testes but stamina (singular stamen).

[Consul]

The argument is often on the basis of transgender women not being 'women' and a very clear binary categorisation of gender distinction.…

Give me a (non-circular) definition of "woman" that includes transwomen in this category!
(Note that the following is a circular and hence inadequate definition: "x is a woman" =def "x identifies as a woman")

[Consul]

How do you define "gender"?

Well... exactly.
I see it as a multifaceted set of spectra.
Imagina sphere whose poles are physically male and female; yet another set of poles at 90 degrees represent mental attractions.
Each of us can exist at any point within the sphere having variable attractions and degrees of masculinity and femininity.

"Gender is a term that has psychological and cultural rather than biological connotations. If the proper terms for sex are 'male' and 'female', the corresponding terms for gender are 'masculine' and 'feminine'; these latter may be quite independent of (biological) sex. Gender is the amount of masculinity or femininity found in a person, and, obviously, while there are mixtures of both in many humans, the normal male has a preponderance of masculinity and the normal female a preponderance of femininity."

(Oakley, Ann. Sex, Gender and Society. 1972. Reissue, Abingdon: Routledge, 2016. p. 116)

Okay, but my point is that a spectrum of masculinity/femininity is not to be confused with a spectrum of maleness/femaleness as a "sex spectrum" or a "spectrum of sexes".

Moreover, Oakley's conception of gender isn't the only one available:

"'Gender' doesn't pick out any one thing; it equivocates among many.
…
To illustrate the problem better, let's consider some oft-repeated claims about what "gender" is:

Problematic Slogan 1: Gender is the social interpretation of sex.

Problematic Slogan 2: Gender is an oppressive system that ties certain behaviors and characteristics to sex.

Problematic Slogan 3: Gender is a performance of the role prescribed for one's sex.

Problematic Slogan 4: Sex is female, male, etc.; gender is feminine, masculine, etc.

Problematic Slogan 5: Sex is female, male, etc.; gender is woman, man, etc."

(Briggs, R. A., and B. R. George. What Even Is Gender? New York: Routledge, 2023. pp. 5-6)

"What are these alternative senses of 'gender'? There are four: gender as femininity/masculinity, gender as sex-typed social roles, gender as identity, and gender as woman/man."

(Byrne, Alex. Trouble with Gender. Cambridge: Polity, 2024. p. 36)

As far as I'm concerned, I agree with Byrne that…

"Using 'gender' to mean anything other than sex is to obscure important issues for no good reason."

(Byrne, Alex. Trouble with Gender. Cambridge: Polity, 2024. p. 195)

"[S]ex is binary. There are exactly two sexes, female and male, and everyone (or very nearly everyone) is either one or the other. Sex ist not 'a vast, infinitely malleable continuum' or socially constructed in any interesting sense. …[W]omen are the mature females of our species, men the mature males. Orthodoxy in feminist philosophy and gender studies is tragically wrong. …[C]ore gender identity, 'the sense of knowing to which sex one belongs', is universal. It is not, however, gender identity as it figures in the received account of being 'trans' or 'cis': that kind of gender identity is a myth."

(Byrne, Alex. Trouble with Gender. Cambridge: Polity, 2024. p. 195)