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Just how far does agreeing to respect someone's identity go? Let me introduce you to a strange case that I read about over the weekend, of a Jewish woman named Daryln Madden. Darlyn is much more violent than the typical woman, having murdered at least three people, with the most recently discovered one being the horrifying cold case of Bill Newton:
Now, if dismembering gay porn stars doesn't really sound like the sort of thing that you typically expect Jewish ladies in Southern California to get up to, there's certainly a good reason for that, and you've probably already guessed the explanation - Daralyn was Darrell at the time that "she" was gruesomely butchering men for fun and profit. Here's where things get weirder though:
...
Indeed.
So, which of Ms. Madden's identities are to be respected? Is "she" truly an Orthodox Jew, entitled to the superior kosher diet instead of standard prison slop? Well, if a man can become a woman, surely a Nazi can become a Jew, I suppose. Still, even by the standards of trans-in-prison debates, the level of cynicism or true belief (there can't be any in between, right?) to acknowledge Ms. Madden as an authentic Jewish woman boggles the mind. Point deer, make horse.
The counter argument here is rather simple. Edge cases don't need to be the basis for how we construct our society.
Yeah, it's hard to even imagine a more fitting example for the case against 'respecting someones identity' than what you just gave. But if we contrast that with the case of a harmless shut in depressed teenager who has tied their ego to their identity... What's the argument? Are walking contradictions like Madden's more or less common than the teenager? Obviously the teenager is more common and drastically so.
It's not a bridge too far to say that we can respect people on the basis they wish to be respected. We do that all the time. Baked into your example is a whole bunch of protected identities. Jew. Woman. Gay. How far should we go to respect those? And what is the view people generally have towards those identities, and why? Well, the punishment for not respecting these identities is jail time. On the flipside there are special events to celebrate them and belonging to them can offer a variety of special privileges. I mean, women who torture and kill children get a comfy womens prison to go to. Men who can't pay child support get locked in a cell with an AIDS riddled rapist.
If you don't like trannies just say that. Because respecting someones identity goes all the way and no one disagrees with the notion that their ingroup should be respected and protected. If you want to engineer a social norm that says trannies are not kosher, then talk about that. But currently the powers that be are working overtime making trannies into a protected identity just like jews, women and gays are. One schizophrenic jew is not going to stop them. We've paved over far worse to get to where we are today.
They are, on the other hand, excellent tests for how we think about things.
The most plainly I can state my position on the matter is that I don't think I should feel morally obligated (less still, be legally obligated) to respect people's stated identities. Instead, I think my obligation to respect someone's identity extends as far as that identity is reflected in the actual reality of the individual and what they seem to wish to gain from using that identity.
I don't have a generalizable problem with trans-identified individuals. I know trans-identified individuals that are personally pleasant, have made an honest attempt to appear to be their chosen gender, and that require nothing onerous from anyone. As the saying goes, they just want to be left alone. I'm more than happy to provide them with the respect and decency that they want (and in my opinion) deserve.
My point is not that no one should have their stated identity respected, it's that there are examples of people who clearly have fake, illegitimate identification, and that this demonstrates that not all stated identities need to be respected by either individuals or the state. Where that line is will be a matter of legal wrangling and personal inclinations, but I reject the frame that allows a literal Nazi human-butcherer to convert to a Jewish woman when convenient.
Explain to me how this affects me? Like all the dudes around me pretend I am gay and thus? The ladies all pretend I'm gay even though they know I am not, so they accept my dates and then make out with me at the bar anyways until the best one "pretends" her way through our wedding and kids and we die together as a totally gay man has totally tricked himself into living like every happy straight man ever. Except he lived life on easymode because he could hang out with any woman at all times (even those with boyfriends which he then could steal away if he so wanted because the delusion only can be maintained up until the boner is in your vagina). What is this burden?
Gay men can't marry straight women?
I was alive in 1999. A person who acted entirely like a straight man, but there was a weird conspiracy theory that predominated that he is secretly gay wouldn't be that badly off.
But this isn't a consistent analogy at all. Trans women who are treated like men aren't worse off than normal men, except when they lash out and act crazy in the face of equal treatment.
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