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No, It does not make sense to say that someone "has" a gender in that sense, because, as I said, gender is a set of norms, etc. You can conform to the set of norms assigned to your sex, or not, and based on gender norms, you can identify with your sex, the opposite sex, or in the case of those who identify as nonbinary, neither.
Identity is, by definition, an inner feeling. Whether a given identity should be recognized by others is a different question, but even ethnic identities are manufactured to some degree and are a function of beliefs/feelings. See, eg, the literature on the development of Scottish ethnic identity, and of course arguably almost no one identified as "Palestinian" pre-1948, but plenty of people do today.
I realize that this is a popular claim on the left. I reject it, and this is one of the central points of debate between the woke left and everyone else. You do not get to assume your preferred conclusion and get away with it.
Certainly, everyone has a self-conception, which generally is highly colored by feelings. But everyone also has a social identity, which is separate. The claim on the left is that this social identity is subordinate to self-conception--that you have some right to dictate how you are perceived by others. You do not. You may, through your actions, influence how others see you--and everyone does this--but that identity is...socially constructed.
I think you are conflating two different things: 1) whether identity is an inner feeling; and 2) how others must respond to that identity. Although there are disputes between left and right re #2, I do not believe that #1 is a claim of the left; white identity is a thing, after all, and of course immigration issues are tied to claims about identity.
Your comment looks confused to me, and not particularly related to what I wrote.
A person has what might be termed a "true identity." This is an objective list of that person's qualities, experiences, associations, everything. Examples are hard because objective accuracy is hard.
He also has a "self-conception." This is his own perspective of his true identity, and usually is flawed in various aspects--perfect self-knowledge isn't really a thing people do well, though some self-conceptions are closer to truth than others.
He also has a "social identity." This is an aggregate of what other people think his qualities, experiences, associations, etc. are--it is literally a social construct. It can and does vary by context--my family have a particular view of me derived from years of personal interaction, but the posters on The Motte likely have a different view of me derived from the posts that I've written.
Nothing that I've written here has anything to do with "how others must respond." I am not conflating anything; I am distinguishing various aspects of what someone might mean when he's talking about a person's "identity."
Edit to add: It only occurred to me after posting, but there's a local term for what I'm doing here--"tabooing your words." In this case, I'm tabooing "identity" in order to tease apart the various mottes and baileys people use around the word. I am trying to rigorously define terms. If you don't like my definitions, propose your own.
Well, then, I was referring more or less to what you call "self-identity," which others here seem to think does not exist. However, I don’t agree that it is helpful to say that people can be "wrong" about that. What group a given person identifies with is an empirical fact. How others should respond to that, including whether that identification is delusional, harmful, etc, is a different issue.
Best guess is you meant to say "self-conception"? Because "self-identity" is not one of the terms I laid out.
Got any links to support this? That's a pretty extreme claim.
"I think of myself as [x]" can be a true statement for any value of x. "I am [x]" may be true or false, in various cases. Generally speaking, when someone says, "I identify as [x]" they are playing motte and bailey between the two.
A comedian does not need to "identify as" funny. He's funny; it's his job; people give him money for it. A liar may be self-deceptive enough to think he's an honest man, but that doesn't change the underlying reality.
So, a person may think of himself as part of a particular group; that belief is an empirical fact. He may also be a part of that particular group; that is also an empirical fact. Those are two separate facts, however, no matter whether anyone thinks it is "helpful" to conflate them.
Yes, sorry I meant self-conception. Was rushing to movie.
I'm not sure I understand the comedian reference; "funny" is an adjective. I don't see how one can "identify" as an adjective; one identifies, in the sense that we have been discussing it, as a member of a group.
Moreover, unlike funniness, which can at least in theory be objectively measured by a laugh-o-meter, or lies, which can also be objectively measured, identities are in fact often self-defined. Eg., national identity is generally seen as an "imagined community" of people who "a body of people who feel that they are a nation." So, that is the conception of identity that I am coming from. Given that, the idea that one can tell someone "your identity is wrong" (as opposed to, "I refuse to recognize your identity") seems quite suspect.
This is incorrect. I specifically stated a definition of true identity that includes both qualities and associations. In fact, the whole sex/gender discussion that sparked this is about both, since that concerns membership in a group that is defined by a quality.
Is Rachel Dolezal black? If I assume charity, that she was being honest about her own perspective (as opposed to lying in order to enable a grift), her self-conception includes "I am black" (quality) and "I am part of 'the black community'" (group/association). And yet, I can say with confidence that her first belief is wrong, and to the extent that the second belief depends on the first, it is also wrong.
Ok, then your concept. "self-conception," is not the same as "identity." Yes, people can conceive of themselves as smart, or funny, or a good person. But that is different than the concept of identity in terms like "gender identity" or "ethnic identity", which refer to group membership.
First, I think that those two claims are actually two ways of saying the same thing, unless you mean "I am part of the black community" in the much different sense that a person can be part of any community if he or she lives among them, etc. But that of course is not what we are talking about.
Second, when you say "I can say with confidence that her first belief is wrong," what you are actually saying that there is a commonly accepted definition of "black" in the US (very roughly, that you have at least one ancestor who was living in sub-Saharan Africa at some time in the relatively recent past) and she does not meet that definition.
And that brings me back to the same point I have made over and over: The different meanings of "sex", "gender" and "gender identity." There is a difference between Rachel Dolezal saying "I am black [under the US definition thereof] and "I identify as black [despite not being genetically black]." The term "wigger," after all, has been around a good 30 years. Obviously, she was making the former claim, but that just points out the irrelevance of her as an example. People making claims about gender identity are doing just that: making claims about gender identity, not about sex. If Rachel Dolezal said, "I am of the male sex" you could prove her wrong by pulling down her pants. But if she said, "I identify as the male gender," you can't, because, again, an identity is an internal belief.
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