At 15
Uh huh, and the Washington Post would say the same if a boy of 15 said his “identity” was a tiger or a can of garbanzo beans or a daffodil or Peru or Mars.
Knowing what “sex” means doesn’t require knowing everyone who has one. Knowing that sex isn’t changeable the way a shirt or a name or a religion is doesn’t require knowing everyone who has one. Knowing which sex pushes out babies and which sex does not doesn’t require knowing everyone who has one or the other.
Slight tangent, I hope sufficiently relevant:
I saw a headline about the increasing discrimination against people who identify as Asian. Absolutely not the case. People are discriminated against because they are perceived by others as Asian. It doesn’t matter one whit how they identify.
It seems to me that this is a tactic lifted from the struggle for gay and lesbian rights and awkwardly shoved into transgender issues. Disapproval over homosexuality is and was based on disgust: the idea that same-sex attraction was a perversion, and something nice, normal people don’t do. One of the most important strategies for gay and lesbian strategies was the “Out” Campaign, where friends, neighbors, relatives, and coworkers discovered that someone they liked and respected was gay. It changed publi perception of homosexuality.
While there are certainly elements of disgust-based bigotry in conservative reactions to the transgender — men “ought to” act like men, not women — that’s not the issue for the pro-feminism, pro-gay rights, pro-gender-bending, and pro- social justice people who fail to get on the TWAW train. Finding out they can like, admire, and respect unknown transgender individuals if they just get to know them isn’t a hard sell. Sure. But Transwomen aren’t women.
I’m not sure if TRAs honestly believe that the issues are basically the same and they think the same approach ought to work, or whether they know gay rights are different than Trans rights but hope to delude the general public. Probably some of both.
I’m still surprised that nobody at all seems to have written anything at all in response to Amanda Gorman’s statement, on Inauguration Day, that we need to look forward to the day when “someone who identifies as a woman can be elected president”. The implication seems to be (at least to me) that women don’t really exist, except as an identity.
It left a strong distaste for me, but I don’t blame Amanda Gorman. She is, what, 22 years old? So she was born around 1999, and she was sixteen in 2015, so she has been hearing this shit since highschool, probably as gospel truth.
Although, on second thought, even highschool is rather old to be taught that everything that you knew about men and women is wrong. The kids that are in elementary school today — I really feel sorry for them and don’t blame them.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: there are two things going on here.
1) It has become politically trendy language to refer to demographics as identities. Why this is, one can only speculate. It probably has a lot to do with (2), but it’s not inconceivable that it’s partly due to the way we talk about survey and poll results, especially with respect to nonphysical traits, like sexual orientation, religion, and ethnicity. You know, when we hear that a particular answer is given by people who identify (over the phone) as straight, Catholic, and Irish.
2) Critical Theory is ascendant. Critical Theorists in general, and Queer Theorists in particular, reject the idea of reality external to that which is socially constructed. Every “fact” or “truth” is just an exercise of sociopolitical power. Identifying as something is constitutive of being that thing; being something just is to identify as that thing. Everything that is is as a matter of collective identification. Terms like “minoritized” exist precisely because there are no minorities; there are only groups that are made to be identified as minority by the exorcise of power. The CTs inherit this from the likes of Foucault. Recall the anti-age-of-consent view espoused by French philosophers back in 1977: sex with children is only harmful or wrong because we view it to be so. They meant that literally. This degree of hard social constructivism is hard to wrap your head around. The mind rebels, insisting that no one could possibly believe something so absurd, so obviously the CTs believe something else. They really do believe it, and they have written so at length for decades.
This article is full of tendentious dogma from start to finish. Why does everyone in the world have to go down the delusional rabbit hole with this poor kid. The same facts could support an opposite description.
For example, how about “Chloe could maintain the self-delusion that he was female, thanks to heavy drug use that has already castrated him and will likely cripple him eventually. But it can never be enough. Dressing up in women’s clothes, complete with fake breasts, allows Chloe to present a satisfactory visual facsimile of womanhood, but his bubble is popped when he hears his own, inescapably male voice. Then the sense of gender dysphoria all comes rushing back in. If only, he thinks, if only I could have kept up the voice lessons to make me sound more like a woman. And if only I could get surgery for breast implants, which my parents won’t let me get until I’m eighteen. And after that…
The sad truth is that nothing will ever be enough, and that the path Chloe’s parents have put him on only ensures he will never really get over his gender dysphoria, because there will always be something that could bring his castle in the sky all crashing down. Instead of getting him real help for his underlying issues, they have inflated him into a soap bubble in a world full of thorns. Not even by surrounding him forever in protective tissue like a fragile knick-knack can they keep this lifelong patient and invalid from shattering back into a traumatized adolescent for the rest of his now attenuated life.
TIMs sporting Long Hair On One Side now seems to be as predictable and cliche as head tilts, purple hair and anime avatars.
@Nullius #5:
First, love the Guts avatar… Secondly, critical theory is basically a meta conspiracy theory of everything then?
Any reading recommendations?
Well… yeah. If you choose to ‘identify as’ something you are not, you are setting up a conflict with those that adhere to reality. Declaring that a fictional thing is factual will do that.
I read the linked article and honestly felt bad for the poor kid. There is no malice there, just a very confused, sad person who hopes they’ve found the solution to all their problems, but they haven’t.
Abigail Shrier has suggested that kids naturally prefer to have some tension with their parents as they find their own identity, but now that parents are tripping over themselves to be accepting and affirming of any choices their children make things can spin out of control.
Not really related, but that makes me think of how many well-meaning progressives heard “defund the police” and instantly started calmly explaining what people were really saying was better train the police, reallocate some funding to more social services, etc. Well, no. There are different words for that, and “defund the police” were the correct words for what was originally being proposed.
Skeletor, a lot of people hurt other people without malice, because they are unable to see the needs and pain of other people, and cannot comprehend the pain that might be caused by their actions. Expecting other people to accept your delusions and live according to them is…problematic…at best. In this situation, it is destructive not only to the youngster, but to a lot of other people who are often as confused and sad as he is. I don’t necessarily see the kid as evil or malicious, but I do see him as centered so much in himself that he will sacrifice others for what he needs.
As a kid who grew up confused and sad myself, and remain so at the age of 60, I can sympathize. But I was able to remain aware that there were other people, and the world did not center on me, nor should it. And I knew that long before I was 15. He may not be fully responsible for the situation, but he does bear at least some responsibility. Not being able to recognize the real and rational fears of females when he shoves into their space is a sign of some sort of personality disorder.
Sounds to me as if “critical theory” is what you get when you combine solipsism with folie a deux.
Re #10, parents tripping over themselves to be accepting and affirming: I read recently of yet another case of a parent losing custody of a child because the parent refused to go along with the new pronouns and refused to allow hormones and surgery.
Re #8, BKiSA seeking reading recommendations: I recently read “Cynical Theories” by Helen Pluckrose* and James Linsday*, after it was suggested by someone else (Nullius?) here. I highly recommend the book; very clear and thorough introduction to Critical Theory, discussing the history, the mountains of problems, and the nuggets of useful ideas. There were a number of areas where I disagree with the authors, in some cases pretty strongly, but I think they did a superb job of providing sufficient background and making their cases for criticism.
* I think both were part of the bizarre “Sokal redux” incident being discussed here recently. People are complicated.
Iknklast, I am not doubting you knew at 15 that the world didn’t revolve around you, but that is honestly quite rare (I’m speaking as a reformed former 15-year-old). I agree there’s blame to go around in that story, but the villains are quite diffuse.
Sackbut, well, not every parent. I’ve read of several of those cases, and in most of them it’s divorced parents and one of them is doing the affirming and accepting dance.
I happened across Cynical Theories a few months ago and have found the half or so I’ve read of it to be very interesting (which reminds me that I need to get back to it; I got distracted by other books). I knew pieces of critical theory, but they draw it together as a complete story quite well. I don’t know what’s gotten into James Lindsay lately, and Helen Pluckrose has her moments as well, but it’s a really good book.
Re #14, “not every parent”
The point I was trying to make is that courts are removing custody over “failure to affirm”. I agree that some of the cases involve divorce. I’m faulting the courts severely, not trying to claim which kind of parent is more prevalent.
BKiSA @ 8: Others have suggested Cynical Theories, which is pretty okay. Ophelia recommended Theory’s Empire to me, and I found that quite good but more on the textbook side of things. For something aimed at more popular consumption, there’s Higher Superstition.
And I was wondering if anyone recognized the avatar. I’m actually decorating my sunroom with an art deco Berserk & Babylon 5 motif in neutral metallics and purple. :) Matches my new computer, because as Londo says, “In purple, I am stunning!”
Oh I’ve also recommended Higher Superstition – I think that’s one of the first things I did when B&W was born. It was an eye-opening book for me. See also the collection The Flight From Science and Reason, which was born from a conference of the same name inspired by Higher Superstition.