People do not “identify as” a gender. They ARE that gender.
The one person was going on about how I “identify as a woman”.
I don’t “identify” as a woman, I am a woman! (I think. Honestly I’m still figuring that one out!)
The whole “identifies as” thing comes off to me as “Oh sure, we’ll TOTALLY acknowledge you’re true nature!” in this backhanded compliment type of way.
Nobody goes “I identify as straight.” or “I identify as 143cm tall.”
And nobody goes “I identify as female.” except for the occasional misguided queer.
It’s almost exclusively someone else who does the “%s identifies as %s” thing.
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yes it’s highly offensive, it is a still-acceptable form of othering of usually trans women that needs to be stamped out
My transphobic uncle literally corrected me using this shit when I came out as trans.
“I am trans.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m a woman.”
“You mean you identify as a woman.”
I would have been on the news
Every now and again I see something like “women and people who identify as women”. Absolute load of garbage.
Maybe this is just autism but I don’t really understand “identifying” with stuff in general? Like- I am a leftist. An atheist. A white American. A reptile lover. The closest I can kinda come to is where I prefer describing myself as gay rather then lesbian, but both words describe me and I “am” either. I’m just listing factual statements. I don’t really understand how I’m “identifying” as those things. They are just literally true.
“women and people who identify as women”
holy fucking shit i absolutely loathe this phrase, id rather be called a slur than basically have been called a slur but in a “woke” way
“Women and people I don’t recognize as women despite what they say”
You’ll have well meaning people say stuff like “female presenting people” and I’m just like “Just say "women". You won’t offend the queers. Stop worrying and go have a cookie or something.”
If you say presenting does that include crossdressers?
I have no idea.
Idk that one at least feels like it’s trying to recognize that gender isn’t binary
This is true. Still feels weird though.
Gender is real as a social construct but fake as an actual thing. Nobody is any gender. Except for trans people, they paid the iron price so they get to have gender. If you want to have gender you have to earn it.
Yeah. Sex is the only actual thing, as it’s completely material, not psychosocial. Not that psychosocial things aren’t real, but as Butler said, no one’s a woman/man, one performs as one or another. But what one is, is a male or female, in the sexual sense (you’re of the male or of the female sex). Sex is binary or, more precisely, bimodal. Gender is just an arbitraty tag on top on that.
well that depends on what the definition of is is
I identify as therefore I am
Not disrespecting, but as someone who changes their mind a lot, I personally feel differently. Gender is a part of identity, and one’s identity is in large part, well, what one identifies as. I am a communist because I identify as one. I was a man when I identified as one. I now have no gender because I don’t identify as one. Similarly, I do say that I identify as my sexuality.
Being written off as a ‘misguided queer’ for that is rather frustrating, I must say.
You raise a good point.
OOOOOOO right there with you. It really takes less effort to not use the phrase ever too, and I can never think of a time that I heard it where “but they /are/ X” isn’t just as if not more respectful (provided that mentioning someone being trans is a respectful/necessary detail to include within context).
“They were born as a boy but they’re a woman now.” Vs “They’re biologically male but identify as female.” Like you can practically FEEEEEL the calipers in someone’s hand when they say the second thing.
Fuck even just “well my sister /used/ to be my brother” in casual conversations where that detail is relevant (and she’s out btw) communicates the information just fine (and also it’s a little funny every now and then when it takes someone a second to put what I’m saying together imo lol).
On official forms in the UK now, they ask what you identify as so I guess everyone filling out forms now says they identify as whatever. For example it will say:
Do you identify as:
Man
Woman
Other
Prefer not to say
If you wanted to try and take a positive from it, that could be one way to get around the bullshit the government have been trying to push lately. No no we are not recording their genetics, we are just recording what they want to be identified as.
Its not a female toilet, its for anyone who identifies as a woman. Or if you wanted to be more literal by the normally used icons, skirt or trousers. Not sure where that leaves men in kilts though.
agender people are taxonomically nonbinary and most nonbinary people are trans (except for maybe some of the handful of kids raised by tryhards, but that’s probably rarer than the people who had an error on their birth certificate that turned out to be prophetic)
we identify as the more specific labels because they’re useful.
when i hear that construction i assume there’s a little more to it if you were the person’s close friend but it’s not practical to go through a whole dissertation on microlabels and exceptions or qualifiers when we’re just passing acquaintances.
I don’t know. I have some alterhuman identities, and I don’t think I physically am those things. But also I have been trying to figure these things out mostly without access to communities or other people who have been in these worlds longer than I have. I find myself saying “identify as” a lot diplomatically too, but that’s probably something I shouldn’t cede.
How about people who are gender fluid? They might identify as a man, woman, or neither, depending on the circumstances.
How do people feel about the “i use x pronouns”?
To me it gives a similar energy. Even though I think most people say that because others do.
it became the convention but it always seemed a little weird way of phrasing.
i don’t use my own pronouns, i ask that others use them when referring to me.
Yeah it’s just what someone’s pronouns are. Even if they change them later they still are whatever that person says they are at that time.
I don’t personally do it quite in that manner, but think it can be useful.
Honestly having pronouns listed is really useful. I do it myself.
