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The "signing up" requirement does not strike me as particularly significant. It seems indistinguishable from saying I am a woman for the purpose of playing women's sports if I 1) identify as a woman; and 2) sign up for the woman's team. The difference, of course, is not the signing up, but the underlying public policy behind allowing someone to be a Democrat by simply declaring his identity and filing a form, and the underlying policy behind not allowing someone to be a member of the women's team simply by declaring his (her) identity and filing a form. Please note that I am not arguing one way or the other re who should be able to be on a women's team, nor who should be treated as a Democrat for purposes of voting in a primary. My point is simply that, sometimes, self-identification is all that matters.
Note that I referred to it as an example of group identity, not individual identity. If a group defines itself as "Ryukyuan" rather than "Japanese," then the Ryukyuan nation has sprung into being, at least under some definitions of "nation."
That's the point: For the purposes of providing services, it is perfectly possible to define "rape victim" as someone who feels they have been raped, regardless of whether they had sex or not. Again, the definition depends on the purpose for which it is being employed.
Yes, exactly. You can get services regardless of whether you meet objective criteria. That is the point: It is sound policy, in the view of those who provide the services, to define "rape victim" as anyone who subjectively believes they are a rape victim.
That's the point:
Teacher: "Let's review by playing Jeopardy, boys versus girls. Boys, move to the left of the class; girls move to the right"
Student: "But, what is the definition of "boy" and "girl."
Teacher: "For the purposes of the game, if you identify as a girl, you are a girl."
It is when you're talking about definitions, because it provides a referrer external to the definition itself. If there's no political party that you can sign up for, "a Democract is anyone who identifies as a Democrat" becomes meaningless.
This is like the goth example I used in the other comment - In practice there will have to be something that sets the group apart from others, or the word will lose it's meaning.
Ok, but all you're doing in those cases is saying "a rape victim is someone who wants to use these specific services" and "a girl is anyone who wants to play on Team A rather than Team B", you're not actually defining either of these groups through self-ID.
I you want to claim that the definition of gender identity does not depend on the team I want to play, you actually have to answer my original question in a non-self-referential way: what is a woman? I cannot know if I identify as one, unless I know what a woman is.
But we are not talking about in practice. We are talking about whether the definition is irrational. . Besides, the whole claim of transgender advocates is that that which truly sets "women" apart from "men" is shared by both ciswoman and transwomen, and that the differences between them are unimportant. That is obviously debatable, but they actually agree with you in principal. And note that, in regard to national identity, debates about what similarities and differences are relevant (and hence whether claims to national self-determination should be recognized in practice) are commonplace.
No, I am not. For example, re the classroom teams, if Pat identifies as a girl, she is assigned to the girl's team, regardless of whether she wants to be on that team or not. Because the only criterion is her gender identity.
But we're living in the real world, and we're subject to it's constraints. A definition might make sense in a parallel universe where our constraints do not apply, but using it here makes no sense.
In any case after giving it more thought, like your other examples, this is just playing word games to hide the fact that definition is not self-ID. Yeah, people can get together, form a group, and put whatever label they want on it, but the group is defined by it's members, not by it's label, which is why you cannot suddenly identify yourself into being Japanese. Trying to sidestep it with "oh, I was talking about collective self-ID" doesn't work either, because from a collective perspective one nation cannot relabel itself to lay claim to being another nation. China is sort of trying to do that with Taiwan, but no matter how many declarations are issued that there is only one China, everybody knows that the entities are separate. The opposite wouldn't work either, if PRC relabeled itself to ROC to lay claim to Taiwan, it would be no different than PRC just declaring war and laying claim to Taiwan.
Except you explicitly specified the definition is only for the purposes of the game, and within the game there is no way to tell whether or not someone identifies as a boy or girl except for which team they chose to play on. So you are doing that.
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