Go on then, define yourself as a tomato
It’s bizarre and alarming to see a whole generation of people (well, a big chunk of that generation) insisting on the magical idea that We Can Be Whatever We Choose To Be. No we can’t. Of course we can’t. We can’t be anything other than humans, for instance – we can’t be rocks or planets or buildings or flowers or lizards – there’s an infinite number of things we can’t be. (We can’t be a lizard, or two lizards, or…) It’s worrying to see so many people so bewitched by a stupid ideology that they think we can be whatever we decide to be – that they think it and say it aloud, in public.
No, we don’t. That’s not even close to true. We have the power to define ourselves in some quite limited ways, but that’s it.
Grandiosity is not healthy for human beings.
“The ridiculous notion that you can tell other people how to live their lives, or who they are, is so incredibly toxic, normative and conformist. We have the power to define ourselves, not other people.”
But apparently she has the power to tell people who they are — “trans lesbians, cis lesbians.” Is she not insisting on her own (inaccurate) definitions of other people, namely lesbians? Maybe she’s confusing descriptions with definitions. People can be described with *words that have definitions* but that doesn’t mean the descriptions are defining, despite however accurate (or not) the descriptions are.
People tell other people how to live their lives every day. Businesses do it, and when it’s their employees, they have at least some success. Churches do it. Laws do it. And trans activists do it – every day, some trans activist tells women how to think and who they must allow to share their spaces.
I envision some of the more vocal trans activists, such as Colin Montgomerie, waking up every day wondering what wonderful new shit he can throw at women today.
That could be a dangerous thing to do at a salad bar.
“I am Christian” is a description, not a definition. Funny how people get the two confused.
What defines me? Nothing in particular. I am not *an* atheist, but I reject theism. It’s descriptive, not defining.
It’s the same with “identifying as.” I can be identified by my passport, but it is not who I am.
The people who embrace the concepts of “identify as” and “defines me” are severely limited.
And I use severely limited as a description, not a defining characteristic, just to be clear. :P
I find the phrase “I identify as” so painfully useless these days. It only creates confusion and obfuscation. Someone using it is possibly describing a fact that is true (in which case the phrase is redundant), a statement that is false (in which case it conceals a lie), or a statement of belief (in which case it would be clearer to state “I believe x”).
However, it can be used to comedic effect to make a statement of belief that conflicts with the accepted aspects of that belief, for example:
I identify as a Christian, because my toaster died for my sins, and so I may have eternal life.
Arcadia, I think we should put “toaster” in any such statements somewhere…show how ridiculous they really are. I think I’ll start immediately.
Transwomen are toasters!