Something intensely personal
The BBC starts with a man who says he is a woman.
The diamond grass of Cathkin Park is glinting in the winter sun as Ellie Gomersall reflects on something intensely personal – her identity. It is a bitterly beautiful December day on the south side of Glasgow and Ms Gomersall, 23, is telling us about “coming out” as a woman.
You can’t “come out” as a woman. Coming out is a lesbian/gay thing, and that in turn is because being lesbian or gay has not always been socially acceptable, to put it mildly. It’s also, I suppose, because the majority is straight, so the working assumption about people is generally that they’re straight, so “coming out” is making it clear to that majority that the person doing the out-coming is in the not-straight minority. Other categories of people don’t have to come out because their category is obvious, written on their bodies.
But of course the priests of trans ideology like to call it coming out because that assumes it’s real. “Here is the hidden truth about me, that you didn’t know because I give every appearance of being a man. I’m not a man, I’m a magic special unicorny WOMAN. There, now I’ve come out.”
Ms Gomersall is currently president of the National Union of Students Scotland, although she is speaking to BBC News in a personal capacity.
But the fact that he is currently president of the National Union of Students Scotland is probably why the BBC chose him to talk to. What they talk to him about is how hard it is to get a gender recognition certificate.
The Scottish government – led by the Scottish National Party but also including ministers from the Scottish Green Party, of which Ms Gomersall is a member – wants to remove some of those hurdles, making the process quicker and easier.
The process, that is, of making it official and a matter of law that this man is a woman.
Ms Gomersall is a strong supporter of the legislation, which she says would make her life easier and more dignified.
But it would make the lives of countess women harder and less dignified, but Gomersall cares about Gomersall, not all those stupid pesky women.
She argues that gender identity should not be a matter for the state.
“I think ultimately the only person who can really describe my own identity, my own gender is me,” she insists.
That’s the ideology, but it’s bullshit. One, it’s a Cheats’ Charter; two, it’s not true – people are not always right about themselves.
It’s unfortunate that this fad is so narcissism-friendly. All it has, literally, is this bone-headed clueless idea that people are infallible about their own “identities” and self-awareness. We’re not! We can’t be, because we can’t see ourselves except through our own eyes. That’s a bias. We favor ourselves because we are ourselves. We can’t help it, although we can try to correct for it, mitigate it and so on. Pro-self bias is absolutely built in, so the fatuous claim that “ultimately the only person who can really describe my own identity, my own gender is me” is the opposite of the truth. Ultimately you are the last person who can be trusted to give an honest account of yourself; we all are.
He said, while backing legislation that makes man or woman a government designation.
Ya well it shouldn’t be a matter for the state except when the state decides it the way I want.
Genderists are fighting a war on all fronts, and doing so surprisingly well. They have to fight off any and all other identitarian declarations, in favour of the acceptance of their own, narrow claim to infallibility. Trans-racial claimants, like Rachel Dolezal must be dismissed out of hand as being entirely “wrong” and “different” without going into detailed arguments about exactly why and how they are wrong and different, because the arguments against Dolezal’s “identity” are identical to those against TiM identities. In fact TiM arguments are weaker; it’s not obvious that any given “trans racial” claim can be dismissed, as the range of physiological manifestations of biogeographic ancestry is very wide, with people at either end of this actual spectrum being able to “pass” as an individual with more homogeneous “racial” origins.
Without the testimony of Dolezal’s family, combined with a longer genealogy, it is possible that Dolezal might very well have had Black ancestors, but with the developmental lottery having given her a mix of features more typically considered “White.” There’s no way to know for certain, in advance. Each case is different. In contrast, no TiM has ever been, nor will they ever be, a woman. That is 100% certain. Unlike claims of racial origins seemingly at odds with outward appearance, TiM claims are exactly like claims to be Napoleon, a Cocker Spaniel, or the planet Jupiter can (and should) be dismissed immediately. The latter are all equally impossible. That anyone, anywhere gives TiM claims to “womanhood” any attention at all is an indication of both the success of their campaign of propaganda and intimidation, and the pre-existing background radiation of misogyny without which their pretense would get nowhere.
Like all poorly-thought-out popular positions, there’s a lot of concept-sliding going on. When terms are fuzzy we tend to mentally substitute something more familiar that sounds like it, or resembles it in some way. “ I think ultimately the only person who can really describe my own identity, my own gender is me” seems a bit like “I’m the only person experiencing what I’m thinking and feeling right now” — which is fairly indisputable.
Likewise, we have firsthand knowledge of how we see ourselves, and how we want others to see us. That’s less controversial than knowing whether it’s accurate from a more objective standpoint. But “identity” and “gender” are vague enough that they can look a lot like preferences. “I want to be called “Flash.” I prefer to wear dresses with cowboy boots.” “It’s she/her.” “Now agree Im a woman.” I am who I say I am = I am what I say I am. Slide, slide, slide.
For sure it’s not surprising that people think “I know more about Me than anyone else does.” In a lot of ways that’s true.
It would be nice if people were taught about self-serving biases…
It’s the demand on others to participate, whether they agree with you are not, that’s the step too far. That trans activists have been able to immediately bend the machinery of the state (including the POLICE FFS!) to enforce that demand is still amazing to me. It’s a nightmare mashup of Kafka, Orwell, Lysenko, and Bozo the clown all rolled up in one horrible, inescapable bad joke.
(“countless women”)
Yes. No, nobody’s counted them, and it’s certainly been made clear that they don’t count.