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Yes, but my point is that the definition that most people use is not the one that is being used when when people who claim to be transgender talk about gender identity. Similarly, in the vernacular, the term "nation" is used as a synonym for "country" or "state." But in the social sciences, and in the world of politics, it means something very different. If there were news articles about the demands of the "Basque nation" or the "Kurdish nation" or the "Uyghur nation" for X, Y, or Z, and someone here wrote a post saying, "these people are liars; there is obviously no such thing as the "Kurdish nation" because the Basques all live in different countries," would you not write to note that when used in that context, "nation" means something other than what he thinks it means.
As discussed in my response to another user above, that is a claim about race, not about racial identity. To use your porcupine example, if you tell me that you believe you are a porcupine, of course I can point out to you that you are not, in fact, a porcupine. But it is equally obvious that what I cannot do is tell the person, no, you do not believe you are a porcupine.
As I have said several times, the question of how others respond to someone's identity is a completely different question to whether that identity exists. If I tell you that I identify as a porcupine, you are able to accept it or not. You are able to let me use the porcupine-only bathroom, or not. You are able to tell me that my identity is immoral, or not. Those responses might or might not be moral, and might or might not be sound policy, but those issues are completely independent of the fact that identity is a subjective belief.
See, I don’t actually think that’s true, and I think that’s where the disagreement I have here lies. Gender theorists might use it in this sense, but this is certainly not what is heard by most when trans activists say “trans women are women”, or when trans activists assert that lesbians who aren’t attracted to be-penised peoples are transphobes. That, at best, sounds awfully like them trying very hard to conflate the motte of “identity”, as per your definition, and the bailey of “category”; or it is simply not understanding the difference between the two that trans activists should be more attuned to, not less.
Like, if gender identity is mere self-conception and could be anything from female to a binary star system, why are medical establishments bending over backwards to not refer to pregnant patients as “women” but as “people with uteruses”? That sort of usage has crossed the line from academic footnote to practical language a good while ago.
It could be that there is a principled stance of “we should just embrace the big lie to make them feel better” re: trans people, which can still maintain the distinction between identity and category, but that really isn’t what I hear when I listen to trans activists, or the new nonbinary/genderfluid/genderweird/etc people, and what they say would become much less internally coherent if we try to make the distinction.
That may even be true (trivially so given your definitions), but then why do we respect claims regarding gender identity but not racial identity? Society allows trans women to have the benefits and inconveniences of being a woman, why not trans-black or trans-white people? As above, I really think that the principled academic usage of “identity” spontaneously combusts when people, gender activists or otherwise, are faced with practical choices and policymaking.
If identity is such a thing that I can say to a porcupine otherkin that “clearly you are not a porcupine but I cannot deny that you identify as a porcupine”, that would actively convince me that “identity” is something pretty worthless to focus on, and that trans activism clearly has moved on from this definition (at least in a practical sense) for years, if not decades. I don’t think it would be wise, career-wise, for me to say to a trans patient that “clearly you are not a (woman/man) but I cannot deny that you identify as a (woman/man)”.
All of this is about how others do or should respond to claims about gender identity. The claim of some people that lesbians should be attracted to transwomen is also a claim about how others should respond. It is, at heart, an argument about whether and to what extent a person's gender identity should trump his or her sex when deciding how to treat them. Ditto the debates about bathrooms. As I have said repeatedly, I have not made a claim about that.
So when you say, "I really think that the principled academic usage of “identity” spontaneously combusts when people, gender activists or otherwise, are faced with practical choices and policymaking," that honestly makes no sense to me, because the practical choices and policymaking has nothing to do with what identity means. It is all about how to respond to those who claim to have an identity different from the sex assigned at birth.
As I noted earlier to someone else, ; Here is the definition of "gender identity" from the Open Education Sociology Dictionary:
Moreover, if you listen to what trans people actually say, you will see that in fact they use it in exactly that way: It is all about feelings: "I never felt comfortable in my body"; "I always felt that I was a girl inside,' etc, etc, etc, etc.
My point is that they can’t go “trans women are women” without conflating category and identity. “Trans women are women” is a categorical statement of whether “trans women” is a subset of “women”.
I appreciate that you draw the lines quite clearly and I think your position is fine in the abstract, if confusing when applied. I also think that under your definitions, you could plausibly provide a reading that trivially doesn’t conflict with any statement (e.g. the “makes no sense to [you]”). I do think you think you haven’t made a claim to how we should treat trans people, or otherkin, or the headmate people, or transracialists, or whatnot.
But I object to the idea that most other people use terms in that way. I really don’t think that people saying “trans women are women” are saying “trans women are men who have a self-conception of “woman” who we should treat as women” (e.g. your decoupling of “identity” with “how we should deal with divergent identity vs category”), they really mean “trans women are women”, even if the practice is identical.
My objection isn’t with your specific statements (when taken with your definitions in mind), it is with that I think most people - especially most activists - don’t use it this way in practice, except occasionally as a motte and bailey.
Edit: There is an alternate interpretation that makes sense of the trans activist viewpoint: that they are creating a new category “woman_2”, which but for a sleight of hand is different from “woman_1”, and “woman_2” refers to explicitly people who “identify as a woman”, all other categories be damned; and that we should migrate all our prejudices from woman_1 to woman_2 post haste. But I don’t think that is what they are doing, and if they are then I don’t have a disagreement with you. I think this makes much less sense than the other interpretation though.
This is increasingly not the case, what with the recent (few years) rhetoric about how transness doesn’t require dysphoria (which coincides with the increase of nonbinariness and all), and trans people who don’t agree with that as truscum. I don’t think truscum are the majority of the trans movement by far.
I will get this out of the way first: You are being rude. I know exactly what claim I am making. As it happens, I don't think transwomen should be allowed to participate in women's sports, nor use women's bathrooms. And, as someone who used to work with adolescents, I don't think that gender reassignment surgery should be allowed on anyone under 18. But none of that is relevant to anything I have said here.
Yes, you can. First, that is actually not a claim about definitions; it is a claim about how transwomen should be treated. I understand that superficially it might seem like a definitional claim, but it isn't; it is a claim about public policy. And it is, after all a slogan; "transwomen should be treated as women" is not nearly as catchy.
Second, even if it is a definitional claim, it is NOT a claim about the definition of "transwomen" (and even less the definition of gender identity") but rather a claim about the definition of "women." And not the female sex, because obviously the distinction between sex and gender identity is central to the entirety of their claims, but rather the definition of "women" as used in "women's sports" or "women's bathroom", etc.
Finally, you keep taking issue with my statement that identity in general, including gender identity, is a belief/feeling/whatever, and I have cited evidence that others use that term. But, I haven't seen you say what you think those terms mean, let alone that anyone uses them as you define them. So, tell me, what does "gender identity " mean, if the definitions from the Open Education Sociology Dictionary (and from the Human Rights Campaign and Planned Parenthood or the WHO or the Mayo Clinic or Merriam-Webster ) are wrong?
Well, I think I’ve tried to be as polite as reasonably possible, and since I don’t think we will ever agree, let’s call it off.
For what it is worth, in my opinion, those are the mottes that I alluded to before.
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