Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on It’s about an innate sense of self.

You may ask how anyone can assess the authenticity of somebody else’s “innate sense of self”. I haven’t a clue.

No one has a clue, because it’s inherently meaningless and impossible. Trans ideology is wholly dependent on the worship of a magical Self, but only for some people. Feminist women don’t get to claim any kind of magical self; we’re just a kind of donkey, or system of pulleys.

Nobody has direct, unmediated access to what is going on inside anyone’s head. There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical about people’s self image and self understanding. People suffering from anorexia. Rachel Dolezal. Donald Trump. To take them at their word, to accept their claims about themselves can lead to harm to those individuals, the people believing the claim, or both. Yet with “gender identity,” we are told that these claims are true, honest, and real. More than that, we are told that we must accept these claims without qualm or question. Failure to do so allegedly results (somehow) in harm to the individual claiming the professed “identity,” through self-harm, or through “marginalization” or “violence” by others. The online participation of a single gender skeptic will render zoom meetings “unsafe” for trans folk and their allies. A single gender critical professor can turn an entire university campus into a potential death-trap for trans people. Doubt=trans genocide. This isn’t even posited as a “slippery slope”, but as a sheer cliff off of which “vulnerable” trans people will topple if we misgender them or deadname them. This extreme “danger” of potential “harm” is supposed to justify the sacking, banishment, and de-platforming of such critics and skeptics. While the alleged “harm” to gender snowflakes is hypothetical transperbole, failure to submit and comply is harmful to those who question and resist. That’s okay, though: they deserve it.

Why is it the case that if I were to claim that I was Bill Gates, had surgery to make myself look like him, and dressed like him, I would be thrown into prison if I were to repeatedly demand access to his home, his private plane, or his bank account? What if I claimed I was better at being Bill Gates than Bill Gates 1.0? Why would nobody come to my aid if I said that the failure of anyone to acknowledge my Gates-hood was oppressive and discriminatory? Would I achieve greater success if I said that if anyone were to tell me I was not Bill Gates, or if they called me by the name bestowed upon me at birth, I would kill myself? No. I would be institutionalized, not lionized. Would I have governments, corporations and other authorities and institutions backing me up and paving the way for my claims of Gatesness? Would I have the police making threats to arrest anyone who questioned my claim, or who wrote a critical limerick against it? Would Bill Gates would be told to “be kind” and accept my claim? Would I be granted the access to his stuff that I demanded, with its denial penalized and punished? Again, no. Unless I had done something truly rash or violent, nobody would have paid me the slightest heed, because I would have been taken away and put into the mental health system, for my own good and the good of everyone else. Obviously. Unremarkably. All because my claims and actions were based entirely on stuff going on inside my head. My claims were unable to supervene on reality. I was unable to recruit support for these claims from anyone else because they were outlandish, unbelievable, and not in agreement with reality.

Using Bill Gates as my “target identity” is an admittedly extreme example intended to help me make my point. But my point would be as valid if the identity I claimed stole was of nobody rich, famous, or powerful. The crime of identity theft is not contingent upon the celebrity or privilege of the person whose identity is being appropriated (though someone rich and powerful is likely to have such issues resolved more quickly because of their influence). It is considered harmful and wrong regardless. It is a violation of the person, and an abuse of the institutions that rely upon open, plain dealing, and good faith claims of identity. If you aren’t who you say you are, then all bets are off. You are not to be trusted. You must have something to hide. Access and use of property, resources, positions, and facilities under the falsely claimed identity can be assumed to be for no good or honest purpose. This is bad enough in individual cases. A data breach within a company or government that exposes the information of millions is a scandalous disaster that is seen with a great deal of alarm, and rightly so. It can lead to identity theft on a huge scale. The intent of those causing the breach, or taking advantage of it, is unlikely to be benign. Fraud and confidence scams are built upon false claims of identity. They depend upon the acceptance of hidden untruths that victimize one party to the advantage and benefit of the deceiver. They are corrosive of the basic trust upon which societies rely, and are rightly punished.

So how is it that genderists have been able to pull off the identity theft of an entire sex with the blessing and vigourous assistance of governments and other organizations? How is it that men claiming to be women have been given access to women’s spaces, resources, facilities and positions without the bat of an eye of those so willingly handing it over? Why can we not assume, as we would with any other identity theft, that those so eager to lift or breach women’s boundaries are doing so for no good purpose? Women are already held responsible for their own assaults. “What were you wearing? Why were you alone? How much did you have to drink?” And here are some of the very same people and institutions removing the remaining barriers women have left to be safe from men. And just to crank up the gaslighting even more, women are told that they are supposed to trust these individuals because of the claims they make, based on stuff going on inside their heads. Accept the fraud. Play along with the con. There are five lights. Be complicit in your own victimization, or else. They’ll further punish any woman who dares question this, or who is rude enough to call these magically harmless individuals by their true sex. It’s the only instance I can think of of the deliberate, calculated erasure of men. Not for inclusion, but for camouflage. For invasion. It’s a war on multiple fronts. Rape shelters; sports; classrooms; awards and positions. Things are so fucked up that women aren’t even safe from men in a goddamn PRISON. It’s all mind over matter: men don’t mind, women don’t matter.

Okay, I was wrong. Turns out the crime of identity theft is contingent upon the identity that is being appropriated. You’re good to go if you’re a man pretending to be a woman.

You’re a woman? Great! Here’s your all-access pass. Don’t bother shaving; no-one will say a thing. Enjoy your self!