Quote:
Originally Posted by sesame
What do you mean by physicality? External physical appearence?
By biological differences you must include the internal organs and the hormones secreted or ingested; Because that can radically modify the physiological mechanism of a human being.
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BY physicality I'm talking about the differances in the body between men and women. Physical strength, Pain threshold, body hair, body fat distribution. The things that can be measured happening within the body. These differances are easy to see and understand - and sometimes modify by varying hormone levels.
The question being posed by some scientists is if gender identity has a physiological componant. It is hard to determine because we can only express identity in emotional or psychological terms "I FEEL like a woman", "I have never been COMFORTABLE as a man", "I don't RELATE to my body". The words sound subjective because science has not determined if, in fact, men and women are actually fundimentally different mentally and emotionally, or if our ideas of what it is to FEEL like a man/woman are purely artifical and used to prop up gender roles and "appropriate" gendered behaviors.
So far the best evidence is saying that our gender identity can be influenced by hormone levels in the womb, and also by post natal hormone levels. An example (that fits with the theme of this site) would be a Thai Ladyboy who identified as male, but due to economic reasons started to take hormones to make money as a "bar girl". Estrogen will affect us physically and emotionally and over a few years some "male identified" ladyboys will honestly say they "Feel like women" and some even opt for sex reassignment surgery or stay as a ladyboy long after their profitability as a "bar girl" is long past.
Still other (like myself) simply never considered that we were male. I'd tell everyone I was a girl, I'd get in arguements with adults who'd call me a boy. This was happening in very early childhood - before age 5. My mother even wrote my first teacher to warn her that "He sometimes thinks he's a girl". So, simply from my own history, the idea that high levels of estrogen were present as my brain was forming makes sence. Essentailly that Gender Identity as a physical/biological cause.