No you’re not
Eneraldo is right. What a stupid slogan this is.
For the millionth time, it is not a rule that we have to believe whatever people tell us. It’s never been a rule, for reasons that ought to be obvious even for the very slowest thinkers. It ought to be obvious to Amnesty! Tyrants and torturers tell us they’re good people doing the right thing. They’re not automatically who they say they are. Look at Donald Trump – is he what he says he is? Of course not!
That girl in the shirt – if she tells us she’s Barack Obama, do we have to believe her?
Glinner nailed this three years ago.
Amnesty International has released a powerful new campaign called ‘I am who I say I am”. In it, they use several key trans voices to detail the empowering nature of self-declaration of identity. Here’s a preview.
Starring Aimee Challenor, Barbie Kardashian, Jessica Yaniv, Rachel McKinnon and more.
By weird coincidence I was just listening to the Romeo Void song “Your life is a lie.”. The chorus refrain is a repeat of “I am what I say I am.”.
Just a coincidence.
Interesting coincidence though.
Popeye wept.
Cue all those old cartoons about mental patients who think they’re Napoleon: “Yes, I DID command at the Battle of Austerlitz!”
And then there’s the fact that they can’t define what it is that they say they are.
A commenter makes good an omission from Glinner’s list:
I wasn’t aware till now of Montgomerie’s career as a metal guitarist. I found a regrettable track on YouTube. I did quite enjoy the last fifteen seconds or so, when a cat comes into view and tries to interfere. Go that moggy!
This slogan has never been true, and I’ll bet even true believers have gone against it when the context was not trans politics. We have all met people who have described themselves in perhaps too-flatting terms, and thought to ourselves “no you’re not.” We have also met people that describe themselves too negatively, prompting us to disagree with them in the opposite direction. Perhaps we have even voiced our various disagreements, to bolster or deflate the person describing themselves.
But when the topic changes to the politics of trans and alphabet people, the true believers forget that they know the slogan to be false, compartmentalising all the counter-examples they would otherwise easily bring to mind. Trans theory requires this willing doublethink.
I’ve always thought the slogan “I Am Who I Say I Am” had unfortunate connotations from the trans point of view, since it immediately conjures up the idea that being transgender is an entire persona, an invented character with backstory and attributes right out of a role playing game. It’s not so much “you see me as being one sex but I’m not that sex” as “I am a super kewl dude with a wicked sense of humor who can fix things and climb mountains.” You get the feeling that they don’t really fix things or climb mountains — but Noah does.
To take this to the logical conclusion would mean that Trump really is a very stable genius. I’m guessing few, if any, trans or their supporters would agree with that.
And if I say I’m a collie, who are you to judge?
Double think, self-censorship, constant translation and decoding, affirming obvious untruths. It must be mentally exhausting. It’s mentally exhausting just witnessing and responding to it. Lucky for them they don’t have to combine these gymnastics with any sort of coherence, consistancy, or intellectual rigour in their concepts and definitions.
@YNNB,
It must be mentally exhausting.
Only if you care about reality. My guess is that it’s not mentally exhausting to trans identified folks as it is to naive “allies” or even more to gender critics. Gaslighting is not mentally exhausting to abusers, only to their victims.
If there’s one thing I remember quite well, it’s that becoming gender critical was such a relief. It stopped overloading my brain and confusing my own thoughts over very tedious dissonant details at every step. The transition was immediate and at first sight, so my guess is that the whole thing simply reflects the fact that a dramatic majority of people is simply willing to abuse others if that fits their own political agenda or gladly accept abuse as a socially correct tool.
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Please tell that to Rachel Dolezal.