5 ms·
Up front - I don't think that the concept of "gender identity" is required in order to have basic courtesy and respect toward people, which is what this discuss
by dTal 5y ago
Up front - I don't think that the concept of "gender identity" is required in order to have basic courtesy and respect toward people, which is what this discussion about TikTok is about.
However, I'm not at all convinced by the concept of "gender identity" and I think it warrants open debate. Unfortunately, voicing such an opinion is liable to get one lumped in with the more loudmouth transphobic crowd, and so it makes such discussion very difficult. I know from private conversations that many people you would not expect have their doubts as well, but they keep it to themselves. I think it's therefore all the more important for people who aren't loudmouth transphobes to weigh in on it.
My issue with it is this: is the concept of "gender identity" separable from gender stereotypes? What does it mean to "identify" with this or that? If men and women are both permitted to wear whatever they like, date whoever they like, arrange flowers or race dirtbikes as they see fit - then what does "identity" capture? Doesn't it privilege some kind of essentialist view - that there is some fundamental, immutable characteristic that is not captured by personality or preference, that girls are girls and boys are boys regardless of how tomboyish or flamboyant they are? Isn't this basically self-contradictory, or at the very least regressive?
This isn't neccesarily to say that "gender identity", as a preference, isn't real in some sense - we should always be careful to distinguish the inconvenient from the untrue, and some people (certainly not everyone) feels a powerful sense of "gender identity". But it may simply describe a strong preference for how society views you, given the stereotypes that society has, rather than any kind of essential characteristic. And perhaps - just perhaps - we shouldn't be regarding it as a reflection of a healthy and accepting society, but as a hint that society still discriminates heavily on the basis of sex.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> I'm not at all convinced by the concept of "gender identity" Gender identity is a readily observable fact. It’s sources and influences may be a subject of factual debate, and how society ought to respond to it might be a subject of normative debate, but the fact that people have an internal concept about where they belong relative to the social construct of gender (including beliefs that align fully with ascribe gender, views that diverge from ascribed gender but align with another popularly ascribed gender, and views that go beyond the categories typically ascribed in their social context) is, I mean, the whole reason any of those other things are hotly debated. > My issue with it is this: is the concept of "gender identity" separable from gender stereotypes? That's a question of sources and influences, not existence. Also, not relevant to any real current society, since gender stereotypes are omnipresent. > Doesn't it privilege some kind of essentialist view No, it doesn't (the popular conception that whether something is innate has very strong relevance to whether it is Constitutionally and/or should be protected legally from discrimination overly centers debate around essentialist concepts of the sources and influences of gender identity, but the concept of gender identity itself is orthogonal to essentialism.)
- dTal 5y agoIt seems that we more or less agree on what gender identity is. The trouble is that that's not how gender identity is treated in the mainstream. It's treated as an intrinsic property, not a mere social construction or preference. That is, if you "identify" as a particular sex, then you "really are" that sex, in some essential sense. The idea entered the mainstream as a framework into which transgender people could fit alongside cisgender people so that nobody would have to be "abnormal". After all, if a man is "really" a woman "on the inside", then why wouldn't you treat them as one? This essentialist usage is different from the purely descriptive usage that we agree on, and it's not so much a descriptive tool as a political one - an intuition pump designed to get people to treat transgender people in line with their preferences. While this is a worthy cause, I question the collateral damage to the larger discourse about sexism.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> That is, if you "identify" as a particular sex, then you "really are" that sex, in some essential sense. I think you critically misunderstand, the view is not primarily that gender identity is an essential fact (that's not uncommon, but not central), but that ascribed gender (including “sex” categories, but not the multidimensional variety of combinations of sex traits) is not essential, just a socially constructed designation tied to gender stereotypes, thar, when it is not based on gender identity of the subject (no matter where gender identity comes from), is an intolerable hostile imposition.
- DoctorOW 5y agoYou can absolutely ask questions about the concept of gender identity without misgendering, deadnaming, or promoting conversion therapy. You ALSO don't have to wait for the comments section of the next post you see with "gender" in the title. There's a lot of information out there.
- dTal 5y agoI am not asking a question, though I do invite commentary or rebuttal. I am making a point, based on my own observations. I am also not making this point because the post has "gender" in the title, but because the discussion has rapidly converged on this topic already. Do I detect some suspicion towards my motives? I took some care to make it clear that I do not endorse any of the disrespectful practices that TikTok has banned.
- DoctorOW 5y ago> My issue with it is this: is the concept of "gender identity" separable from gender stereotypes? What does it mean to "identify" with this or that? This section right here is the start of a paragraph of almost exclusively questions. I suppose I did assume you wanted at least some of these questions answered. It seems kinda strange that you didn't.