The Right to Have an Exclusionary Identity

[Purple Knight]

Question for Debate: Is it immoral to have an exclusionary identity?

Let's start with the premise that woman and man are (at least primarily) self-labeling identities which people should have a right to choose for themselves.

We've now established that people may self-identify.

Now, can I have an identity that is gatekept, either by myself or someone else? Is that permissible?

At first glance it seems mean to be so exclusionary, but the fact that Suzie is allowed to gatekeep the group identity of "people who are friends of Suzie" and this is accepted as valid by our entire social consciousness, suggests that yes, people may have exclusionary identities that are gatekept, either by themselves or others.

This may be confusing because words are not anyone's personal property and although I may identify as a gorp, and I may define that to exclude others, I can't stop someone else from identifying as a gorp and having it mean something completely different. But if I define gorp as "member of a group of people Purple Knight believes are gods" then as far as this describes my identity, it is just as wrong to impose on me to force me to acknowledge someone else as a gorp, as it is to force Suzie to acknowledge someone she does not like as a member of the group of people Suzie considers to be friends.

In other words, I can identify as a bat, and you can't stop me, but as far as other bats, if their identity includes themselves and not me, this isn't wrong either. I can't force other bats to accept me as a bat, because when they define that identity, for them, it means what they want it to mean and not what I want it to mean, and they can, if they wish, define it to exclude me. I'm still a bat as far as I'm concerned, but I can't force them to call me a bat as far as they're concerned. If I could, that would be trampling their identity.

So far so good?

If so, a group of people born with vaginas may call themselves women and define it to exclude other women. I don't see this as any more wrong for them to gatekeep that identity as far as they're concerned than it is for Suzie to gatekeep the group "friends of Suzie" as far as Suzie is concerned.

This does not mean policy should be written to placate Suzie and disqualify people who are not her friends from competing against those who are to earn real rewards like scholarships. Policy should be fair to all and should not concern itself with what Suzie wants or who she acknowledges.

This only means that Suzie has a right to say who the friends of Suzie are. And if she wishes her friends to be only those who were born with vaginas, and she wishes to call that group "women" then she can. It's only as far as she's concerned and it has no bearing on anyone else's identity or how policy should treat them.

[Purple Knight]

Thus if trans women want to be called women I don't see a problem with it.

I guess it's just my problem then because I do not regard trans women as women

And you don't have to. I demand that your definition scheme be respected the same as the definition scheme of trans people. Both definition schemes exclude people who don't want to be excluded. The biologically female definition of woman is very clear-cut, and I not only tolerate it, I fully endorse it.

and I don't think that simply applying self-identification is valid.

Why not? If I self-identify as a Star Trek fan, are you going to tell me I'm not? An even better example is "Christian" which is often a hot topic on this site. The fringe beliefs like JWs and Mormons have the canon more correct, but does that mean other denominations aren't "real" Christians?

The words aren't the real problem, it's the contrary nature of the whole idea.

I think there are some contrary parts of the idea. For instance, the idea that people should be able to self-identify and nobody should trample that, yet when someone self-identifies as a woman because they menstruate, that gets trampled.

[brunumb]

If I self-identify as a Star Trek fan, are you going to tell me I'm not?

I don't that is equivalent. If you self-identified as a Klingon, surely that is questionable.

The words aren't the real problem, it's the contrary nature of the whole idea.

I think there are some contrary parts of the idea. For instance, the idea that people should be able to self-identify and nobody should trample that, yet when someone self-identifies as a woman because they menstruate, that gets trampled.
[/quote]

Biological women do not need to self-identify as women. Perhaps the words for men and women should be left alone with their established meanings and completely new words made up for trans people. A large proportion of so-called trans women presenting on social media do not appear to be suffering from gender dysphoria and the word transvestite would be more appropriate. Figurehead Dylan Mulvaney has celebrated his bulge and seems quite comfortable in his male body. Is he just an effeminate gay man and are people like him muddying the waters for genuine trans people?

[Purple Knight]

If I self-identify as a Star Trek fan, are you going to tell me I'm not?

I don't that is equivalent. If you self-identified as a Klingon, surely that is questionable.

My point is that some things clearly are solely based in self-identification. So it is not automatically an invalid way to define a term. If the dictionary said this:

Woman:
1. Human adult with the biological sex female, usually possessing two X chromosomes and no Y chromosome
2. Person who self-identifies as a woman

...Would you be that upset? Or would it simply become obvious that these are simply two very different meanings of the same word?

Biological women do not need to self-identify as women. Perhaps the words for men and women should be left alone with their established meanings and completely new words made up for trans people. A large proportion of so-called trans women presenting on social media do not appear to be suffering from gender dysphoria and the word transvestite would be more appropriate. Figurehead Dylan Mulvaney has celebrated his bulge and seems quite comfortable in his male body. Is he just an effeminate gay man and are people like him muddying the waters for genuine trans people?

If people didn't want to give special treatment to people because they are trans, it wouldn't be a problem. But because the special treatment is there for the taking, some people will lie to receive it. Dylan Mulvaney isn't as big an issue as young girls who are bullied wanting not to be bullied, and because trans people can't be safely bullied, there are surely some girls who suddenly identify as boys and have their tits cut off because it's the only way to a respite from systematic torture.

[boatsnguitars]

Question for Debate: Is it immoral to have an exclusionary identity?

Let's start with the premise that woman and man are (at least primarily) self-labeling identities which people should have a right to choose for themselves.

We've now established that people may self-identify.

Now, can I have an identity that is gatekept, either by myself or someone else? Is that permissible?

At first glance it seems mean to be so exclusionary, but the fact that Suzie is allowed to gatekeep the group identity of "people who are friends of Suzie" and this is accepted as valid by our entire social consciousness, suggests that yes, people may have exclusionary identities that are gatekept, either by themselves or others.

This may be confusing because words are not anyone's personal property and although I may identify as a gorp, and I may define that to exclude others, I can't stop someone else from identifying as a gorp and having it mean something completely different. But if I define gorp as "member of a group of people Purple Knight believes are gods" then as far as this describes my identity, it is just as wrong to impose on me to force me to acknowledge someone else as a gorp, as it is to force Suzie to acknowledge someone she does not like as a member of the group of people Suzie considers to be friends.

In other words, I can identify as a bat, and you can't stop me, but as far as other bats, if their identity includes themselves and not me, this isn't wrong either. I can't force other bats to accept me as a bat, because when they define that identity, for them, it means what they want it to mean and not what I want it to mean, and they can, if they wish, define it to exclude me. I'm still a bat as far as I'm concerned, but I can't force them to call me a bat as far as they're concerned. If I could, that would be trampling their identity.

So far so good?

If so, a group of people born with vaginas may call themselves women and define it to exclude other women. I don't see this as any more wrong for them to gatekeep that identity as far as they're concerned than it is for Suzie to gatekeep the group "friends of Suzie" as far as Suzie is concerned.

This does not mean policy should be written to placate Suzie and disqualify people who are not her friends from competing against those who are to earn real rewards like scholarships. Policy should be fair to all and should not concern itself with what Suzie wants or who she acknowledges.

This only means that Suzie has a right to say who the friends of Suzie are. And if she wishes her friends to be only those who were born with vaginas, and she wishes to call that group "women" then she can. It's only as far as she's concerned and it has no bearing on anyone else's identity or how policy should treat them.

Used to be, Black men weren't considered Men with respect to joining a Men's Club, or Golf Club. Black people were excluded because the members determined they weren't "Men" in how they defined Men. Surely, the Black men considered themselves Men. Today, some people still don't think Black men are really human men, but something else.
So, the scenario exists already.
Mensa only allows people with a 140 IQ or higher, which they term geniuses. This, despite experts saying that "genius" can include other people who don't have a traditionally high IQ.

There are some people who society calls "women" even though they have an x and y chromosome, because they look a certain way (long hair, lipstick, fishnet stockings... you know, whatever makes a person a "Woman.")

This categorization issue is intriguing. On one hand it is used by people to exclude others, on the other "side" it's used for a minority or disadvantaged group to gain something. A man identifying as a woman to get better car insurance seems to fail the smell test, but anti-Trans people argue that is what many Trans people are doing.

To me, this is a societal discussion that needs to be had on a broad scale, and won't be solved for 100 years. In the end, I suspect the Trans issue won't be a problem as we will have worked out exactly who, how and when we can discriminate against some person of group - as we always have done. At some point, like we did with Women's Suffrage, Slavery, Black people in sports, etc - we'll all find another minority group to blame our problems on. Maybe it will be the Jews again?

The arc of Justice is long, and we are generations from society being able to see people as the individual they are, and afford everyone the proper space in which to live their life to the fullest without impinging others rights.

Through heroic efforts on the part of Liberals, we have progressed but the entrenched old guard is difficult to move. They see the world in terms of race, gender, status, bloodline, wealth, Nationality, political affiliation, etc. And, because of this, that is how our laws have been written, and society has been structured.

At some point, I imagine we will shed the idea that our entertainment must be divided by genitalia - or if it is, to make it expressly about genitalia. Perhaps they will be an NFL Conference only for Natural-Born Pensises vs Surgically Altered Genatalia vs. Naturally Born Vagina's vs Intersex.

You know, to keep it fair and rational...

[Purple Knight]

Used to be, Black men weren't considered Men with respect to joining a Men's Club, or Golf Club. Black people were excluded because the members determined they weren't "Men" in how they defined Men. Surely, the Black men considered themselves Men. Today, some people still don't think Black men are really human men, but something else.

Well, they weren't what those clubs wanted. Whether they are defined as "human man" or not slightly misses the issue. As you point out, Mensa does this exclusionary thing too, and people may say they want to be in, deserve to be in, may even make a good case, but Mensa says too bad. And the weird thing is, it has never been a huge issue. They're doing exactly the same thing - excluding people by a quality they possess or don't possess, which may or may not affect anything, much like presence or absence of certain genitalia - but it seems like, in some cases of people being exclusionary, a few people grumble and groan and society at large tells them to get over it and let Suzie say who her friends are, but in other cases, society at large will blame and shame Suzie until she lets people in who she does not want in.

This categorization issue is intriguing. On one hand it is used by people to exclude others, on the other "side" it's used for a minority or disadvantaged group to gain something. A man identifying as a woman to get better car insurance seems to fail the smell test, but anti-Trans people argue that is what many Trans people are doing.

In some cases, discrimination happens as a result of people being illogical and biased, but in other cases it seems it happens as a direct result of real differences. Men have more car accidents. If I were lord and dictator I would simply make the car insurance companies assess whether trans women have similar levels of risk-taking and the commensurate accident-causing to men, or to women. And I would keep a sharp eye on whether they are being fair. But if they are, and if what determines your risk-taking is something about being biologically male, I'd have to allow them to raise the rates of trans women, and give them the rates of men, unless I want to really bring the boot down and say they can't discriminate at all.

This is another case of discrimination being okay, until it isn't. They discriminate every day, against everyone. Why does no one care that just because men have more accidents, they pay higher rates? Joe has never had an accident in his life. Why is it okay for them to discriminate against males, but not Blacks? I remember reading that despite the stereotype of bad Asian drivers, Asians have the fewest accidents they cause, while Blacks have the most. (This is probably because, when a risk-taker looks at someone he sees as being overly cautious, he naturally assesses that as a bad driver. And since there are 20k crashes per day in the US, most people fall in the category of over- rather than under-risking. So the overall bias will be the reverse of what it ought to be.)

To me, this is a societal discussion that needs to be had on a broad scale, and won't be solved for 100 years. In the end, I suspect the Trans issue won't be a problem as we will have worked out exactly who, how and when we can discriminate against some person of group - as we always have done. At some point, like we did with Women's Suffrage, Slavery, Black people in sports, etc - we'll all find another minority group to blame our problems on. Maybe it will be the Jews again?

To me, we have to pick what kind of society we have, and the answer must be always or never. Do we really want a society where private businesses can choose not to serve people, overcharge some people while sweethearting others? If we just say no, we have to serve the Nazi. We even have to protect him until he breaks a law. He already must serve the Jew he hates, but making the same go in reverse gives people feelbads. So we have this fiasco of society not moving forward at all because everyone wants that sweet, sweet protected status, but everyone protected also wants as few other people protected as possible, to maximise the resources they get from the protection. And this is all society can think about until it solves the problem, because it's a fundamental one when we've decided there are special rights for special people: Who gets them and who does not?

Through heroic efforts on the part of Liberals, we have progressed but the entrenched old guard is difficult to move. They see the world in terms of race, gender, status, bloodline, wealth, Nationality, political affiliation, etc. And, because of this, that is how our laws have been written, and society has been structured.

When my neighbour has special rights I do not, it's hard for me to be blind to that. Because I'm rational and I see that even if those special rights disadvantage me, they're ultimately in the service of equality, and I can see that even if I get hit hard, I think this is too big an ask for normal people.

In fact, normal people ought not put up with it. Imagine if Black people had been told, immediately after slavery, no you're not disadvantaged, shut up, you're biased because of what happened to you individually, but it's not the big picture. For the big picture, we are acting in the service of fairness and equality.

Nobody can ask that they swallow that. If their personal experience is inequality, they should be allowed to stand up for themselves. And when many are standing (or kneeling, as the case may be) the world will just have to notice. When someone tells you to ignore what happened to you because the big picture is fair, your response should be an insistent no. And if you really are an outlier society will see that. But if there are a lot of you standing up and saying no, that is the level at which it is proper for the analysis of whether the big picture is fair should happen.

At some point, I imagine we will shed the idea that our entertainment must be divided by genitalia - or if it is, to make it expressly about genitalia. Perhaps they will be an NFL Conference only for Natural-Born Pensises vs Surgically Altered Genatalia vs. Naturally Born Vagina's vs Intersex.

You know, to keep it fair and rational...

Sports was never fair and I always saw it because I wasn't any good at sports. I was called lazy. I was told, if you aren't improving, that means you're not training. I was told, if someone is better than me, it's because of effort. It's because of hard work.

I now relish the opportunity to spit that back at conservatives who now admit (grudgingly) that some people do have biological differences in physical ability. I hope they get angry. I hope they on the side of fairness now stop deluding themselves and see: Some people really are just better, without having worked harder. And if we want fairness we can't exalt Michael Phelps because of how hard he worked at swimming. We have to understand what we are doing. We are praising pure genetic advantage and nothing else. Sports = Covert Nazism. That's why we don't let people take steroids. We want to praise biological ability: The genes to have a lot of that chemical naturally in the first place, not just putting it in unnaturally.

In fact, I think real Nazis would be kinder. They have no reason to hide what they are doing and if a person with low biological ability worked hard and became useful, they would probably praise him. They would praise him and then nod their heads to one another about why genetic engineering is so great, and how unfair it is for someone determined to be trapped in a body that limits their output to society. They wouldn't call him lazy because he did not achieve as highly as someone with high ability, because if they're open about what they are and what they think, they don't need to.

[AgnosticBoy]

Thus if trans women want to be called women I don't see a problem with it.

I guess it's just my problem then because I do not regard trans women as women and I don't think that simply applying self-identification is valid. The words aren't the real problem, it's the contrary nature of the whole idea.

Perhaps plenty of cases of transgender may involve self-identifying, which based on how the OP describes it, makes it seem like a simple choice. But I think if someone shows a consistency in behaving as a gender that is different than their sex, then I see no problem referring to them as the gender they are expressing. Of course, a trans woman is not a biological woman. But I think in this case, there's no harm in adding to the definition of women. I only say this because of the trend of medical research as opposed to just to simple choosing of what to identify as.

Maybe if they strengthened the criteria for what would count as transgender, something that does not rely on flimsy evidence (like Johnny painting his nails one day), then you'd be able to accept that more.

[Purple Knight]

But I think in this case, there's no harm in adding to the definition of women. I only say this because of the trend of medical research as opposed to just to simple choosing of what to identify as.

The harm is that no one is content with simply adding to the definition. They wish to take away the old usage, cancel it, make it morally wrong to use.

Basically, using morality to monopolise a word and tell people they can't have their own definitions, because only their definition is moral. Their definition alone does not dehumanise anyone.

I don't see how definitions can be moral or immoral. To me they're just categories. And if someone says I'm not human because their definition requires some thing which I do not have, then I'm not human according to them. Why should I care?

I do care when people restrict language, restrict possible categories, monopolise words, because that's an objective impediment to what I can do and what I cannot. It restricts and blocks possibly valid reasoning.

[AgnosticBoy]

But I think in this case, there's no harm in adding to the definition of women. I only say this because of the trend of medical research as opposed to just to simple choosing of what to identify as.

The harm is that no one is content with simply adding to the definition. They wish to take away the old usage, cancel it, make it morally wrong to use.

Basically, using morality to monopolise a word and tell people they can't have their own definitions, because only their definition is moral. Their definition alone does not dehumanise anyone.

I don't see how definitions can be moral or immoral. To me they're just categories. And if someone says I'm not human because their definition requires some thing which I do not have, then I'm not human according to them. Why should I care?

I do care when people restrict language, restrict possible categories, monopolise words, because that's an objective impediment to what I can do and what I cannot. It restricts and blocks possibly valid reasoning.

I agree with your point in some cases, but not in all. It has a relativism feel to it that I just can't bring myself to accepting completely. The only reason I accept a trans woman being defined as a woman is based on science. I wouldn't be okay with the self-identification you are describing if or when it's random, leads to confusion (also refer to Diogenes's post), or if it goes against logic and science.

In other inconsequential matters, like someone just inventing a new word/concept or something along those lines, then fine.

Other than that, this was an excellent topic though. It brought out a lot of good thinking posts!

[brunumb]

Of course, a trans woman is not a biological woman. But I think in this case, there's no harm in adding to the definition of women. I only say this because of the trend of medical research as opposed to just to simple choosing of what to identify as.

From a scientific perspective, what has medical research established that is contrary to the distinction between males and females, men and women, based on biology? The so-called trend you mention is the outcome of the aggressive and oppressive way in which transgender ideology is being being imposed on people. There is no need to add to the definition of woman. The majority of the world has no problem with the established definition. If something is needed, it is a new word for biological men who are expressing themselves as women.

[brunumb]

The only reason I accept a trans woman being defined as a woman is based on science.

Interesting. The only reason I don't completely accept a trans woman being defined as a woman is based on science. If someone clearly expresses themselves as a woman then I will treat them as such. I have a problem with those men who do nothing to express a female identity (like the Canadian rugby player) or do little more than put on some makeup, paint their nails and otherwise appear with masculine traits. To me they are transvestites and not genuinely transgender people as the result of severe dysphoria.