Trans Psychiatrist Explains - Why gender identity is not a social construct.

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  • Опубликовано: 22 дек 2024

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  • @FrozEnbyWolf150-b9t
    @FrozEnbyWolf150-b9t 15 часов назад +30

    The way I understand it, gender identity is innate. Gender norms, behaviors, and roles are socially constructed. Identity is not the same thing as expression. I often run up against this as a nonbinary person, because of how heavily gendered everything is in our culture. There is no preexisting tertiary gender for me to model, so I have to figure it out on my own. If I go about my business as my AGAB, people just assume I'm not trans. If I were to feminize my appearance, people would assume I'm transfeminine. There are always the assumptions and expectations society places on me when I'm just trying to live my life. However, these expectations can change, because they have in the past, and that's the point of bringing up that it's a social construct. Society ought to change to account for and accommodate people who are different, not the other way around.

    • @DrJamieTalks
      @DrJamieTalks  15 часов назад +8

      Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I agree, gender norms, behaviors, and roles are socially constructed.

    • @ToddDouglasFox
      @ToddDouglasFox 15 часов назад +2

      Wolf, read my comment, maybe you’ll feel some support.

    • @DrJamieTalks
      @DrJamieTalks  15 часов назад +1

      Your comments and responses are really great today. You get the pin!

    • @whoviating
      @whoviating 10 часов назад +2

      The addendum I would make is that while gender identity is innate, it is not fixed at birth. Some functions of the brain keep developing for a time after that, raising the possibility that it can be affected by early experiences. That, however, does not change the agreed point that ultimately gender identity is innate, i.e., a result of the structure and functioning of the brain.

    • @ToddDouglasFox
      @ToddDouglasFox 9 часов назад +2

      @ Of course the brain keeps developing after birth and in fact the frontal lobe is not fully developed in males on average until 26 years. We continue making new neuronal connections throughout our lives while losing others. And indeed brain trauma can and quite frequently changes the brain so dramatically and immediately that there are distinct personality changes, memory changes, likes and dislikes change, the emotional base changes, the intellect changes, and on and on. You’re confusing neurology with embryology. Think about it and not just on the surface of what I’m saying. Of course we know that the embryological changes do NOT continue after birth, and this is not just semantics. Brain activity does. The frontal cortex prepares for the moment of birth by increasing activity, this is so that the “outside” world can be better absorbed and analyzed. All of this is to say that we have no proof that gender identity as a biological reality is NOT fixed at birth. We do know that there are a significant number of people recalling early on that they knew they were not “right” in their bodies and once discovering anatomical, hormonal, or other gender identifiers, realized that they were either the “wrong” gender in some facets or they did not belong to either gender or they belonged to both. This awareness can occur as early as a few months old, even before standing or walking or talking or grasping the concept of “the other” vs the self. That is how early on gender validation can occur or not occur. Thus it can occur before much of the bias of societal norms can set in. I personally recall that when I was washed at a few months old that my body felt good all over, including when washing genitalia (except my head and neck, where a birth trauma had occurred that I didn’t know about until much later in life). My body not only felt good, it felt “right” whatever that may have meant. As I grew, my body and gender continued to feel “right”. The vast amount of what we don’t know and what is so different between persons and over time is why I advocate for the individually lived experience rather than determining how we can “fit in” to any other person’s experience or a group experience. Yes, there are some basic generalities like males developing more slowly in the frontal cortex but mostly we are vastly different. This should amuse and excite us, not depress us and be cause for alarm. Throughout history, human rights has not expanded due to convincing others, it has been by living out life independent of what others think or want, unfettered by anything with only a moral/ethical awareness as a guide, knowing that one’s rights do not supersede the rights of others but they are also not less than the rights of others. This is what I advocate for each of us.

  • @whoviating
    @whoviating 13 часов назад +13

    Okay. Gender is _not_ a social construct. Gender _roles_ are. I expect there could be interesting explorations about how (and if) gender influences gender roles and expressions within a particular culture, predisposing people toward certain behaviors, but why is that basic principle so hard for so many to understand?

    • @DrJamieTalks
      @DrJamieTalks  12 часов назад +2

      In psychiatry, when we are constructing a biopsychosocial formulation of a patient we look at how biological, social, and psychological factors impact health and development. Within these categories we ask what factors are predisposing, precipitating, and perpetuating. It can be a helpful model when working with people with complex presentations or intersectionality. Humans are complicated creatures. :-)

    • @kamisakura568
      @kamisakura568 11 часов назад +2

      Darn, there's that realisation again. We don't have all the answers, we need to keep looking and try to avoid doing harm.

    • @whoviating
      @whoviating 8 часов назад

      @@DrJamieTalks So there can be interesting explorations. 😀

  • @EricaJoy4444
    @EricaJoy4444 11 часов назад +8

    Thank You for your work Jamie, you are a blessing to all of us. Please take good care of yourself because we love you and want you with us and need you to keep on with this great work.

    • @DrJamieTalks
      @DrJamieTalks  9 часов назад

      @@EricaJoy4444 You’re welcome! ☺️

  • @BobbiJean655
    @BobbiJean655 Час назад +1

    I was one of those born intersex, multiple corrective surgeries, and raised very strictly to be male. You are spot on with this one.

  • @DrJamieTalks
    @DrJamieTalks  15 часов назад +6

    Hello TGD Peeps & Allies. To see all the comments be sure to Sort by 'Newest' RUclips is buggy 😅

  • @MaskedImposter
    @MaskedImposter 11 часов назад +4

    Great video. It is kind of scary the history of how we end up learning lots of medical info, whether phycological or otherwise 😳. I just hope we learn from those mistakes and make the right decisions moving forward!
    An upcoming top 100 video!? I sure hope it includes your favorite RUclips commenter! 👀😜

    • @DrJamieTalks
      @DrJamieTalks  9 часов назад +1

      @@MaskedImposter Haha! I have so many great commenters, it’s to hard pick favorites. 😉

  • @JosephRochefort-g1l
    @JosephRochefort-g1l 14 часов назад +6

    Dr. Jamie, very important content. I regret hearing it though because I had forgotten about the past history of the doctors doing those surgeries and ruining those children's lives. I used to get upset reading about those bad old days so I guess I did my best to forget about them. Your video did remind me though of having my first awareness of being born different. When I tell people that I knew at age 3 1/2 that I was different they don't want to believe me. But I know what I felt.

    • @DrJamieTalks
      @DrJamieTalks  14 часов назад +3

      Transphobes try to link these past atrocities to modern gender affirming care. It's important for people to know the actual history and the implications of that history.

    • @ToddDouglasFox
      @ToddDouglasFox 13 часов назад +1

      @@JosephRochefort-g1l Yes, that is why I wrote my original comment on here today. Children know what they know. You may want to read my comment if you haven’t done so.

    • @bobpeters61
      @bobpeters61 12 часов назад +1

      Yeah, I remember at some pre-school age hearing a girl who wore shorts under her skirt so she could climb trees lika a boy called a tomboy. I said I must be a tomgirl, then. But was immediately "corrected" that the word for that was a sissy. And it was OK for a little girl to be a tomboy but shameful for a little boy to be a sissy.
      Not sure I ever got over that double-standard.

    • @ToddDouglasFox
      @ToddDouglasFox 12 часов назад

      @@bobpeters61Bob, I’m so sorry that this happened. I’m going to call you a tomgirl with admiration and honor, if that’s okay.

    • @DrJamieTalks
      @DrJamieTalks  8 часов назад

      Sorry.

  • @dmonee6196
    @dmonee6196 5 часов назад +1

    I’m mixed on this as I think it is, while an academically useful thing to discuss, it’s missing the mark when it comes to colloquial use.
    Yes gender itself is more than just a social construct, BUT the way we perform gender is based largely on social constructs and that is often over simplified as “gender is a social construct”. If that makes sense.
    It’s basically more complicated, but as with most things we simplify for communicating with those not as versed.

  • @Chloedawnknauer
    @Chloedawnknauer Час назад +1

    Yes yes yes your content is outsiding bla bla bla 😁🥰🥰
    Let's talk about the important things. I love your sweater, and your looks awesome.❤❤❤
    Merry Christmas to you and your family, and let's make sure our hearts and doors are open to all.

  • @mudkip_btw
    @mudkip_btw Час назад

    I think that while gender is something innate, _perceived gender_ is in part socially constructed. There are physical differences that cue how an individual is gendered, but many cues are not (strictly) biological. Think of gender presentation, voice, behavior etc. These things can be changed to a degree that often crosses gender lines

  • @widicamdotnet
    @widicamdotnet 2 часа назад

    On a purely technical note: your audio sounds really muffled, making it quite hard to understand. Could be the mic you're using (or how you're placing it, although it doesn't look like it's obstructed), or accidentally lowpass-filtering it during editing...?

  • @jennpage3976
    @jennpage3976 13 часов назад +4

    Great video!
    You look absolutely lovely today Dr. Jamie!!!

    • @DrJamieTalks
      @DrJamieTalks  12 часов назад +1

      @@jennpage3976 🥰😊🤗💕

  • @cathnbabs
    @cathnbabs 16 часов назад +4

    I love your content!

  • @davefisher1840
    @davefisher1840 13 часов назад +5

    This was so educational. I learned a lot. I’m so glad that I have listened to each of your podcasts. Thank you so much for all of your helpful information! 🫶🏾🌻🦋

    • @DrJamieTalks
      @DrJamieTalks  12 часов назад +1

      @@davefisher1840 You’re welcome! ☺️

  • @CatherinePoulin-p7k
    @CatherinePoulin-p7k 16 часов назад +5

    thank you!

    • @DrJamieTalks
      @DrJamieTalks  16 часов назад +1

      @@CatherinePoulin-p7k cheers 🥂

  • @MissInformedYT
    @MissInformedYT 10 часов назад +3

    Hi Dr Jamie. So I think maybe my understanding of social construction is just wrong or something because, and I know this isn't how you're meaning to come off but, this kinda sounds like it almost leans towards trans medicalism. Like I think about this one doctor who I thought was actually validating in my early transition and he talked about there being sexually diphorphic characteristics of "men" and "women" and that for trans people, their brains, when examined, will conform with the gender they say they are rather than what they were assigned. This sounds validating and great but it very quickly becomes a problem for anyone who believes that and then learns that no actually, their brain physiology doesn't "match" the gender they say they are which runs the very real risk of making those people feel like they're "fake" trans.
    So I agree with everything you say about John Money's experiments and all the others being disgusting and wrong, but if gender identity was not a social construct, it almost implies that I should have "known" that I was trans when I was young and that because I didnt reject the gender I was assigned at birth until later in life, that makes me illegitimated. I hope I'm making sense. I know that isn't the viewpoint you're trying to communicate here but that is kinda how I felt listening to this. I would love to hear your thoughts on my perspective. Keep being an amazing voice for positivity and education in these darker times.

    • @DrJamieTalks
      @DrJamieTalks  9 часов назад +2

      Thanks for your question. At the heart of transmedicalism is the view that experiencing dysphoria is required for ‘legitimate’ trans identity. I do not believe this to be true. I know a number of people who don't experience gender dysphoria, but do experience gender incongruence. Bottom line--anyone who identifies with a gender different than the one assigned at birth is trans (dysphoria or no dysphoria).
      Let's use sexuality as another example of a trait that is largely biologically determined. There are a broad range of sexualities: heterosexual, gay, bi, asexual, etc. In most cases, people consider their sexualities to be innate; however, sometimes, under certain conditions, other innate sexualities may emerge. There is no single gene or brain region that determines sexuality, but for most of us it doesn't feel like a constructed reality.
      Gender is similar. There is no single gene, hormone, or brain region that determines gender. Yet, many of us have an innate sense of our gender. For some of us (including myself), it takes us a long time to figure out our genders. This may be because of internalizing symptoms, a lack of language to describe our gender experience, a lack of mirroring objects (others to whom we share a similar experience), and other environmental/social variables. I suppose what I'm getting at here is that authentic gender is always there, but for some of us it takes awhile to uncover.

    • @ToddDouglasFox
      @ToddDouglasFox 8 часов назад +1

      @@DrJamieTalksI also think it changes for some people, in other words, not due to societal pressures or any particular event or series of experiences, but due to something as ethereal as not having a neurological, physiological, genetic or other basis for gender or sexuality, the lived or felt experience can change. Uncovering what was there all along is your experience and the experience of many but it’s not everyone’s experience. And finding similarities while it can be unifying and comforting is pedantic when life is taken as a whole. I celebrate our differences. Would we ever want our child to be a repeat of ourselves? Only when we feel we need affirmation of ourselves in order to be ourselves.

    • @ambientjohnny
      @ambientjohnny 3 часа назад

      How are boys/men or girls/women "supposed” to think or feel, want to dress like or act? You must be able to provide specific standards for each sex for what you are contending to make any sense whatsoever. If there is no correct way of being a man or a woman, then how can there be a "mismatch" between what they are and how they feel?
      This is fundamental to the entire issue, yet no one seems capable of answering it. Why is that?

  • @madeline_alice
    @madeline_alice 16 минут назад

    dr. money definitely did some awful things in service of a theory and research agenda. his work did open the door to the idea that natal sex is not determinative of gender identity. however, in swinging from one extreme (biological determinism) to the other (pure social constructivism), we missed the more accurate middle ground. as much as we want to simplify for explaining ourselves to ourselves and to others, I don't think it is simple. we went similar places with sexual orientation and finally settled somewhere in the middle. I think once the pressure is off politically, as a community we will settle somewhere in the middle as well.

  • @MiddleAgedMartianDog
    @MiddleAgedMartianDog 15 часов назад +2

    While impossible (and unethical) to do IRL, I often wonder how gender identity (cis or trans) would be expressed by someone who had no prior gendered socio-cultural exposure until maturity (including at the level of language acquisition, concept categorisation or even interactions with other people). But somehow was not otherwise mentally developmentally negatively impacted. Sort of the growing up on a desert island raised by robots speaking a rigorously gender neutral language thought experiment, to get at the essence of what gender identity IS and how it maps to the socio-cultural aspects.
    Like while many have a hunch it might be rooted in physiological mapping in the brain to the body layout it expects (and social stuff sort of connects from that at a young age as a person then maps themselves against the external categories society has for things), the fact that some people have a clear gender identity but not dysphoria or euphoria related to primary and secondary sex characteristics or changes thereof suggests that can’t be it for everyone.

    • @DrJamieTalks
      @DrJamieTalks  15 часов назад +2

      Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I suppose one could say biology > environment > social where there is a gene environment interaction. Androgen exposure (or the absence thereof) at certain points in development appear to have a role for some. For example, androgen insensitive XY's are phenotypically female and most often have the gender identity of a woman, yet they are genetic males.

    • @MiddleAgedMartianDog
      @MiddleAgedMartianDog 14 часов назад +2

      Certainly that hierarchy feels logical, in my own descriptions of gender identity for myself I talk with others of autonomic > subconscious > conscious gender identities within myself all a bit different (which roughly corresponds to genetic+fetal and later hormonal et al changes > socio-cultural exposure at a young age > personal intellectual reflection as one gets older).
      I guess I am musing on what identifying as a woman(/man/…) in practise is in the absence of any connection with cultural associations of women or social connections with those who adhere to them. Then again my conversations with many other autistic women (cis and trans) may give me a sense of what this might look like given the widely held autigender experience of disconnection from societies’ predominant concepts of gender, albeit possibly complicated by disconnection from some of the physical stuff too (like comfortably self identifying cis autistic women who want optional hysterectomies and/or mastectomies for practical sensory reasons and not gender identity related dysphoria).

  • @Zoey_the_Rat
    @Zoey_the_Rat 9 часов назад +1

    I don't think you're arguing against something real. Gender IS fully socially constructed, but identity is still innate, at least mostly innate

    • @DrJamieTalks
      @DrJamieTalks  8 часов назад

      Thanks for sharing your opinion.

  • @Jaimie-jk1hf
    @Jaimie-jk1hf 10 часов назад +2

    ☺️

    • @DrJamieTalks
      @DrJamieTalks  9 часов назад +1

      @@Jaimie-jk1hf 💕🏳️‍⚧️☺️

  • @vanessamonster5038
    @vanessamonster5038 8 часов назад +3

    Thank you for posting this. It drives me crazy when people say gender is a social construct. It's innate the same way handedness or sexuality is.

    • @DrJamieTalks
      @DrJamieTalks  8 часов назад

      I use sexuality as an example in my response to @MissInformedYT Check it out

    • @Stardipped_Paws
      @Stardipped_Paws 7 часов назад

      As someone who has done a bit of research on trans identities in my free time and has seen that it's both a social construct and psychological, I have a genuine question. What about other/third/trans genders in other cultures and societies throughout history, such as Native American Two Spirits, Mexican Muxes, and Indian Hijra?

    • @ambientjohnny
      @ambientjohnny 3 часа назад

      How are boys/men or girls/women "supposed” to think or feel, want to dress like or act? You must be able to provide specific standards for each sex for what you are contending to make any sense whatsoever. If there is no correct way of being a man or a woman, then how can there be a "mismatch" between what they are and how they feel?
      This is fundamental to the entire issue, yet no one seems capable of answering it. Why is that?

  • @jarodcarnarvon5198
    @jarodcarnarvon5198 6 часов назад

    So cute 😊😊😊

  • @DjangoAV
    @DjangoAV 8 часов назад

    This video is gonna get you a lot of unhinged backlash from the paraphilic disorders haha. Stand strong.