Originally a comment by Artymorty on Is versus labeled as.

Gender identity is a term used by some people to describe their sense of who they are.

But where did this term come from? When did it emerge? And what material thing does it point to, if anything?

Thetan is also a term used by some people — namely, Scientologists — to describe their sense of who they are.

Indigo Child is another term used by some people to describe their sense of who they are.

I could pick out a thousand terms various cults use to describe their deeply felt inner sense of self. The whole fucking point of religion is that it gives people deep feelings about their inner selves. How does anyone not already know this?

Just because there’s a group of people who have a term for something they feel doesn’t mean that thing has any fucking credibility in the secular world.

Some people do not accept the concept of gender identity and argue only biological sex can determine whether someone is a man or a woman.

It’s not so much that we don’t accept the concept but that we disagree about what the concept is, what it means, what it refers to. I don’t disbelieve that trans-identifiers believe they have a gender identity. I disbelieve that their sense of gender identity points to any kind of innate, material, natural kind of thing, and I certainly don’t believe that one’s sense of a gender identity points to an innate, material, natural thing that is so profound that I should be compelled to pretend I can’t see people’s biological sex because of it.

But wait, let me revisit that quote again:

Some people do not accept the concept of gender identity and argue only biological sex can determine whether someone is a man or a woman.

There’s a smuggle going on in there. They’re not denying that people have biological sexes; they’re slyly insinuating that some people — i.e., good people — have been trained to act like they can’t see biological sex when they’re prompted to — i.e., when they’ve been cued about someone else’s beliefs about his or her gender identity. And some other people — bad, suspicious people, outsiders, boo hiss — haven’t learned the rules.

This isn’t about truth, it’s about social rules. In other words, it’s a new religion.