I agree with Cori that these ideas should apply equally to both sexes, i.e. about natal females in male only spaces. My “trans” identified 21 year-old daughter is on a men’s college crew team and lives with male roommates in a male dorm. I think that is wrong. Not just for her own safety, but also for how her physical attributes might negatively impact the team’s performance (thankfully, she has not medicalized). Loosely related, when she was applying to college, she was considering a few all women’s colleges, and I also thought that was wrong. If you opt out of a female “identity,“ I don’t think you deserve to have a spot on a campus reserved and fought for by women.
Really enjoyed it. (Yes TERF Island is still OURS. Hands off!)
More seriously, gender identity can be easily defined as the gender label a person applies to themselves (either internally or through some sort of declaration like pronouns in your bio). This can be male, female, both (nonbinary), or neither (agender).
Asserted gender identity may or may not be the gender label that others would reasonably give to this person given their sex characteristics / gametes etc.
Since it is just an asserted gender label, gender identity has no objective reality outside of what is asserted, which is why laws cannot be based on it. So the objective unreality of it is a product of what it is, not part of the definition itself. That is the problem with the word salad of the executive order.
Gender is always about labelling. It's the language we use to make connections between things and the two sexes (either, both, or neither).
Yes people use gender identity to mean all sorts of nonsense, but these other things are not genders. To be useful, and to matter for sex-based rights, gender identity cannot be just anything. In practice even if a person identifies as an attack helicopter, that helicopter will still be conceptualised as male, female, neither or both.
I agree with Cori that these ideas should apply equally to both sexes, i.e. about natal females in male only spaces. My “trans” identified 21 year-old daughter is on a men’s college crew team and lives with male roommates in a male dorm. I think that is wrong. Not just for her own safety, but also for how her physical attributes might negatively impact the team’s performance (thankfully, she has not medicalized). Loosely related, when she was applying to college, she was considering a few all women’s colleges, and I also thought that was wrong. If you opt out of a female “identity,“ I don’t think you deserve to have a spot on a campus reserved and fought for by women.
Cori you have a fantastic voice for radio! I could listen to you all day.
Great job. I've added ypu to my rolodex for next time I need an executive order read out.
Really enjoyed it. (Yes TERF Island is still OURS. Hands off!)
More seriously, gender identity can be easily defined as the gender label a person applies to themselves (either internally or through some sort of declaration like pronouns in your bio). This can be male, female, both (nonbinary), or neither (agender).
Asserted gender identity may or may not be the gender label that others would reasonably give to this person given their sex characteristics / gametes etc.
Since it is just an asserted gender label, gender identity has no objective reality outside of what is asserted, which is why laws cannot be based on it. So the objective unreality of it is a product of what it is, not part of the definition itself. That is the problem with the word salad of the executive order.
Gender is always about labelling. It's the language we use to make connections between things and the two sexes (either, both, or neither).
Yes people use gender identity to mean all sorts of nonsense, but these other things are not genders. To be useful, and to matter for sex-based rights, gender identity cannot be just anything. In practice even if a person identifies as an attack helicopter, that helicopter will still be conceptualised as male, female, neither or both.