Guest post: There’s a smuggle going on here

Written by

Ophelia Benson

in

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.

Comments

4 responses to “Guest post: There’s a smuggle going on here”

  1. maddog1129 Avatar
    maddog1129

    ” . . . only biological sex can determine whether someone is a man or a woman.”

    That’s exactly it. That’s what the Supreme Court said: the words “man” and “woman” in the Equality Act refer to biological sex. So-called “gender identity” has absolutely nothing to do with sex. In typical DARVO fashion, gender ideologues incessantly accuse their opponents of not knowing that sex and gender identity are different from one another, and that the gender critical side is constantly confusing or mixing up the concepts. To the contrary, however, it’s the advocates of gender ideology who deliberately equivocate sex and gender identity all the time, most notably by coopting the terms for a person’s sex — woman and man — as terms for “gender identity.” So, yeah, the words “man/boy” and “woman/girl” are the words that denote sex. T and their advocates can’t have those words. They need to get their own.

  2. Mike Haubrich Avatar
    Mike Haubrich

    I want someone who teaches evolutionary or developmental biology to explain how gender identity evolved. I mean, we can see that there is dimorphism in gender roles among the various primates based on their sex, but are there examples of primates that have gender identities in opposition to their sex? And how would we identify that? Using gender identity as the marker of who they “are” is hardly, to my mind, different from the concept of a soul that is separate from our bodies but encapsulates our sense of self and survives us after death.

    And maddog1129, when someone gendersplains that to me, I don’t know why they do, because that’s what I am trying to get through to them.

  3. maddog1129 Avatar
    maddog1129

    @Mike Haubrich, #2

    Just so. It’s the gender critical side that scrupulously keeps “sex” and “gender identity” separate from one another.

  4. Jim Baerg Avatar
    Jim Baerg

    This particular webpage which discusses the ‘terror’ post French Revolution

    https://terrorism.lawcomic.net/what-is-terrorism-page-7-state-terror-and-orthodoxy/

    includes a point relevant to the who Trans Ideology. (Near bottom of page)

    The justification SELF-DEFENSE. To a committed ideologue, a challenge to his or her orthodoxy can seem far worse than a mere difference of opinion. It’s felt as a personal, existential threat.

    “My Beliefs are a major part of who I AM. If they’re destroyed, then so am I! Contrary views are a personl attack on me!

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