The REAL ME is fundamentally an illusion
There is no such thing as an “authentic self.” Arguably there’s not even any such thing as a “self” – there is instead an illusion of a self that keeps us somewhat organized. Louise Perry explains how the trans movement is chasing unicorns when it talks of transitioning to an Authentic Self.
The core idea of the trans narrative—that we are all possessed of a gender identity, which is more true and authentic than our physical bodies—depends on claims that do not withstand scrutiny. Not only is it unwise to write legislation based on incoherent principles, but it also does real harm to vulnerable people desperate to find themselves. We could spend the whole of our lives waiting for our true and authentic selves to come along. They never will.
The real me is fundamentally an illusion. For some people, it might provide a compelling way to understand certain thoughts and feelings and I don’t doubt that this is how Jazz Jennings sincerely conceives of her identity. It can be a comforting idea, particularly for people who live in oppressive environments that restrict their natural impulses. It is also a useful way of expressing your desires in a society that still holds strongly to the idea of inner authenticity. But it misrepresents the messy reality of our lives, and the ways in which our identities are constantly being shaped by the world around us. Although we all have some innate predispositions, the real me isn’t a fixed entity that we can discover if only we try hard enough. Searching for your true and authentic self is like chasing a shadow. You might focus all of your energies on trying to discover it, only to be ultimately disappointed. The trans narrative promises unhappy people the hope of self-actualisation: “stay true to who you are no matter what, then one day things will get better.” The trouble is, they might not.
There is unfortunately no conclusive evidence that the process of transition (either social or medical) actually alleviates distress in the long term. For some people, living as the opposite sex (or as some non-binary gender identity) can make them feel more comfortable in their own skin, and they should be free to make that choice without fear of stigma. But the increasing number of people flocking to the trans movement—many of them vulnerable young natal females—may well find that the promise of discovering the real me is an empty one. The growing community of detransitioners attest to the long-term suffering and health problems that can result from the decision to transition. Sometimes, searching for your true and authentic self can just make things worse.
What if, instead of obsessing over the search for the real me, we accepted that people are complex, imperfect and ever-changing? What if we faced up to the many and varied reasons why people might feel a desire to transition, and saw the trans movement within its historical context?
Then much foolishness would cease.
From the OP:
Is this a trick question?
Then we would have no problem with trangenderism, obviously. Because people are complex, imperfect and ever-changing, and that’s just a complex, imperfect change.
Seriously, where’s the problem, then?
Nicely written and very much to the point. Personally, insofar as I ever think about my identity, it’s about what I do and sometimes how I think people perceive me. That’s already enough nebulous bullshit without factoring in my inner feelz, which change all the time. Christ, I take medication every day to deliberately change some of my inner feelz.
Does that change my identity? I couldn’t care less providing I end up identifying as a person who isn’t depressed.
The sheer childish narcissism of people who are obsessed with their own ‘identity’ is just nauseating.
I’ve lost track of it, but some time back an essayist wrote: ‘I finally realized that I wasn’t a boy; I was a feminist.’
“Seriously, where’s the problem, then?”
The problem is taking such claims at face-value to the point where women’s rights to same-sex spaces and services are infringed.
@Morales:
I don’t think anyone here has a problem with people being transgender. Why would we and when has anyone ever said so? I expect you will be able to find quotes from pretty much everyone who comments here saying that they support transgender people providing they don’t fuck things up for women. That’s the point, here: that there’s a conflict between trans issues as stated by some people and womens issues as are plainly obvious and almost always ignored.
There’s a constant demand on women to accommodate other people’s demands. That is absolutely fucked up and if your trans activism does that, then it is simply and obviously wrong.
@ Morales #1;
I do think there is some underlying conflict between accepting the idea that people are “complex, imperfect, and ever-changing” and accepting the idea that people can be the “wrong sex” ( or in the wrong body.) If being a man is complicated and impossible to pigeonhole, then a biological male or biological female can’t point to anything and say “but that’s definitely not/ definitely is who and what I am.” At least, I’m not sure how they could.
I guess that transgenderism is a bit like religion in that objections can fall into two rough categories. There are the analytical objections dealing with truth — and then there’s the “I don’t care what people believe as long as they leave me alone” side.
The problem isn’t people’s subjective feelings of self.
The problem is that we are being told we must accept people’s subjective feelings of self as objectively true, despite objective facts like sex.
In the case of male people who identify as female, this leads to women being forced to accept males in women’s changing rooms, shelters, prisons, hospital wards, and sports.
It has also led to critics being harassed, no-platformed, lied about, and losing jobs.
It is also causing troubled young people, a large percentage of them autistic, to have their puberty chemically delayed, a treatment which may interfere with bone and cognitive development, and which leads to children becoming lifelong medical patients. (Did you know that girls as young as 13 have had double mastectomies in the name of their authentic “male” selves, John? Did you know that the head of the largest gender clinic in the country is on record saying, “If they want breasts later they can go buy them”?)
Seriously, where’s your brain? I know you have one.
I’m uncertain how to respond, because I’m not sure of your motivation here. So what are you getting at?
Are you implying that the writer has a moral objection to transgenderism per se? That seems an odd tack when the piece is about letting people be “free to make that choice without fear of stigma.”
Nullius in Verba,
Um, I tried to be straightforward. I don’t see a problem.
Try this: What if, instead of obsessing over the unchangeableness of someone’s real gender, we accepted that people are complex, imperfect and ever-changing?
(Still no prob)
Lady Mondegreen, those are consequential problems, but this post is about a philosophical objection which I don’t think works. And that is where I see no problem.
But it is transgender dogma that insists on such a thing as real gender–and to the point of making lifelong medical patients of children.
You really don’t see the problem?
John, I think the point is most people aren’t obsessing about their identity; they just have some vague notion that’s probably wrong. And obviously wrong to others.
A noisy few are and they are writing legislation to make everyone indulge their (innaccurate) obsessions. They’re railroading children into costly medical interventions and associated iatrogenics. They’re getting people fired. They’re giving themselves a free pass to commit actual gendered violence against actual women.
That’s the thing, though—the article is not at odds with accepting that people are complex, imperfect, ever-changing creatures. So I’m still left scratching my head at what you are trying to get at. Are you registering a disagreement? Are you expanding on the author’s point? Are you attempting some sort of prose poetry?
All the article suggests is that concern with “real gender” may be itself a distraction from more fundamental issues that prevent people from freely living their complex, imperfect, and ever-changing lives. That the concept of an authentic self per se causes existential angst. (God, I hate Kierkegaard.)
What Nullius said. What feminists have been saying for even more decades than have contained me.
Lady M’s post at #7 lays it out as plain as day.
@John, you seem to be insisting that “philosophical” problems are necessarily abstract and distinct from tedious everyday reality. That is very obviously not true and the “consequential problems” are the whole point rather than something to be airily dismissed. Things are happening to people. Things such as women being edged out of sport. Things such as women being forced to share spaces or wax sex organs when it makes them uncomfortable and/or unsafe.
Are you really as blind as you make out to these “consequential problems”? Because I’m calling bullshit.
Nullius in Verba,
0. The core idea of the trans narrative—that we are all possessed of a gender identity, which is more true and authentic than our physical bodies—depends on claims that do not withstand scrutiny.
1. The real me is fundamentally an illusion.
2. There is no such thing as an “authentic self.”
3. Sometimes, searching for your true and authentic self can just make things worse.
Basically, the thesis is that gender identity is illusory, since so is a true self identity.
So, if it’s only illusory, changing it is only changing something illusory, no?
So where’s the (philosophical) problem with people who change their gender identity?
(It has other problems, for example, under that position it is incoherent to insist someone should accept their assigned “true gender” based on their genitals — after all, there is no such thing)
—
latsot:
Nah, there are times when an appeal to consequences is not fallacious.
Point being, there’s no logical incompatibility with accepting a change to an illusory attribute under the featured thesis.
Um… yes. This is one of those times. Which is what I said. The consequences are very much the issue, but you dismissed them in your post @10.
@John:
Your exercise in rhetorical wankery goes nowhere and helps no one. We could also say “if there’s nothing to change, how can it be changed?” and it would be as pointless and meaningless as your… well, I hesitate to call it a point.
You seem to be demanding that we view something with consequences as though it were consequence-free then firing off a gotcha because it has consequences after all.
It’s just nonsense. The “philosophical” (whatever that even means) issue is that people – individually and as a class (women, that is) – are being harmed by a movement that wants to force everyone to accept a fantasy. Everyone is welcome to their fantasies, the more the better, but nobody else should be forced to accept them, especially to their detriment.
I don’t understand why you think that a dubious logical gotcha is relevant when what people are actually upset about is real harm being done to real people.
A lot of the real world problems come from sex, not gender, which tends to get confused in these arguments. Women of the female sex have real world consequences when women of the male sex insist on playing sports against them, changing in their changing rooms, and being housed in their prisons, all of which are set up to protect the female sex from larger, more aggressive members of the male sex.
Sex is a biological thing, and is not illusory, though it is subject to some variability (such as intersex). Women are being oppressed because of their sex. Gender is an illusory construct built up to aid in that oppression. Now there are people with male bodies claiming that their gender is female, while insisting on being included in female sex segregated spaces. And insisting somehow that their male organs are magically female organs, thus conflating sex and gender.
John, the article itself addresses that. The problem, as we’ve been saying here, is that there are social and political consequences to current trans ideology.
There it is.
If I’m reading you right here, you’re all wrong. The gender critical position does not require anyone to accept/conform to “gender” (defined as society’s notions of what is appropriate or “natural” for one sex or the other.) What we insist on acknowledging is sex–which is observed, not “assigned”, at birth.
(And more than 99.98% of the time the observation is correct.)
Gender critical feminists are not opposed to men wearing makeup and dresses if it suits them. We’re opposed to policies that compel the rest of the world to privilege their “gender identity” over their sex.
Lady Mondegreen:
But the OP featured an article whose nub was “Sometimes, searching for your true and authentic self can just make things worse.”, on the basis that it is futile as there is no such thing and therefore cannot ever be found. Nothing about social and political consequences, all that stuff is in the background, but again (this being the place that it is) no bones are made about it in the comments.
So, if the OP featured an ostensibly well-meaning philosophical essay on the futility of transitioning, and I responded in kind, if a bit obliquely, because a major concession was made in the process.
Therefore, if trans people act otherwise to society’s notions of what is appropriate or “natural” for one sex or the other, there is no problem, right? It’s mere non-conformance. Still can’t see the problem.
(For you, gender (you just noted it’s but notional) must accord with sex; for others, it’s a different thing to sex.
—
iknklast @18:
Pretty sure most trans* people don’t deny their biology — but that’s their sex, not their gender, right?
Wouldn’t want to conflate them. I mean, man-boobs don’t indicate femaleness. ;)
(Are public facilities gender or gender-segregated? Or are they both?)
PS Ophelia, why am I in persistent moderation? It’s not like I am a wildcard.
Just tell me to go away if that’s what you want, or set strictures, or transparently edit/delete my comment(s) at will, and I won’t complain. But right now, it’s a bit of an impediment to timely convo.
Are you expressing displeasure towards me, or being pragmatic? I can’t tell.
[necessary erratum]
→ (Are public facilities gender or sex-segregated? Or are they both?)
John Morales @ 22 – you wouldn’t complain if I transparently edited or deleted your comments at will? Well I don’t believe that, for a start.
I put you in permanent moderation awhile back (I don’t remember when) because I got tired of your games, especially your game of being somewhat civil here but then expressing your contempt for me elsewhere (which people would tell me about, so I would become aware of it). But I also don’t like your cryptic, elusive, difficult-to-follow style of pseudo-arguing. I felt the duty to open dialogue made it not quite right to ban you altogether, but I wanted to pre-check what you said.
That’s pragmatic. I don’t feel any need to express my displeasure towards you, because we’re not close.
Do by all means feel free to go away.
For heaven’s sake, John, I WAS QUOTING FROM THE ARTICLE. The article in the OP.
Did you read the article we’re talking about?
Right.
Right. Gender non-conformance is not the problem.
No. I defined gender, and said gender identity is not the same thing as sex. You JUST QUOTED what I said about it.
In fact many do. Even among those who don’t, dogma has “gender identity” privileged over sex. As I said.
Currently they are gender-segregated. “Woman” is defined as a “gender identity,” and gender identity is a matter of self-declaration.
If you would read the comments you are responding to (and the trans activists you apparently support), maybe you would have a better understanding of the issues we’re talking about.
Thanks, Ophelia. Commendable.
Ophelia, I hope he doesn’t go away. This is fascinating. I’m finding this fascinating.
And since I apparently have to spell everything out very carefully–
No, John. No I do not think “gender” has to accord with sex. I think I said that clearly.
As for “gender identity”, I avoid that phrase because I think it’s vague and ill-defined. [It’s a bit like the word “God” in that respect.] But, again, I don’t give a shit how people dress or what they subjectively feel about their identities.
Ophelia, apologies for all the comments. But I’m really sort of gobsmacked. Am I stuttering? Seriously, am I not being clear here?
#9 John
But if people are complex, imperfect and ever-changing… why bother with the notion of there being a real gender in the first place? People being complex means there will always be friction between themselves and the expectations placed on them for their sex… so do away with the expectations.
#21
Dear god, why are you persisting with this as a summary of our position? I’m pretty sure I pointed out to you just how inaccurate it was when this was raised over at Mano’s blog recently.
Here I disagree with Iknklast’s #27: by design, they are sex segregated. This is why the men’s facilities have urinals – a device intended for those bodies in possession of a penis. It is also why combined facilities are called ‘unisex’. Legally however, it varies.
This of course is muddied by the fact that in general english, sex and gender are often used interchangeably.
@John Morales, #9.
Gender Identity, is an illusion. Sex isn’t.
So problems arise when measures to protect/help women, based on sex, are being questioned based on gender identity. Especially when that gender identity is just accepted on say so.
It would be like if people of 40 would be able to have sex with childeren of 10, based on age-identity, because they both identify as 25. The fact that age-identity would be an illusion, doesn’t make the real age an illusion.
Lady M @ 30 – well quite. That’s why I find him more frustrating than fascinating.
Holms, you’re right of course, historically public restrooms have been sex-segregated, and they’ve been designed that way.
I just meant that, currently, trans-activism has them gender-segregated (in many if not yet all places).