20 years ago, the worst thing I could say publicly was “I don’t believe in God.” Still, I said it because- after a lot of thinking about it, questioning it and laying it all out in front of me and looking at it logically- I don’t believe in God.
That pretty much sums up my thoughts on the matter quite succinctly. As a dyed in the wool atheist I would balk at the idea of a spirit, and would be in touch with like minded folk. Those very same like minded folk will quite happily go along with what appears to me (from the outside anyway) as a bizarre shared delusion. Scepticism and the glands that carry it... fully excised.
I don't understand how people insist that I must have this feeling that they have (the comment below is a prime example). It smacks of those religious types insisting "you might not believe you have a soul, but we and god see it". To make matters worse, there is a very clear push to obscure and obfuscate with poorly conduct pseudo-studies, inference based on lived experience, and weird correlations found or teased out of datasets that simply don't have the ability to support the claims being made. That so many are falling for it, just boggles the mind.
Believing in god is very different from believing that other people believe in god. Believing in gender identity is also not the same as believing in other people when they tell you they have one and it might be at odds with our others see them. I agree with Luna that there are lacks in your arguments on whether gender identity exists or not, but ultimately that's irrelevant, no one is asking you to believe in it, you are being asked to accept those who do and want to act according to their belief. During Ramadan, my kids' friends who are Muslim are allowed to take time off school to pray, for example. I don't need to believe in any god to be fine with that. If people who don't believe in gender identity don't get in the way of those who do to act accordingly, I don't think anyone minds your belief and you might even find yourself having some interesting conversations about it. But many non-believers in gender identity are against basic rights for those who believe and suffer from that, and that is where the problem lies.
I am being asked to believe in it- or fake a belief in it. I’m expected to say one thing when I see with my own eyes another thing. I’m expected to recite catechisms. I am expected to stay silent and never object when others force their beliefs on me. I don’t do any of that with religion. I don’t do any of that with pseudoscience of any type. If “accepting believers” means that I MUST do those things, then there is an issue that is unlikely to be resolved as long as the believers insist on the rest of the world engaging in their fantasy/delusion/psychological issue… Just as I don’t have to think someone who is a narcissist is actually “better than everyone else”. Sure, I will get tons of abuse from them for not engaging in their fantasy world, but it’s my life I’m living here. It isn’t my job to tiptoe around others because *they* refuse to do the tough psychological work to get them to a place where they no longer base their self-worth in what others think. Really that is not my work to do.
Your argument follows some logic and, if that is how you want to see things, fair enough, but from where I stand, there are other perspectives you could chose to consider on the topic.
Firstly, even if you think that gender identity is a "fantasy/delusion/psychological issue", you could choose to be kind about it. As I said before, I don't think it's that different from the attitude most half-decent people have in relation to religious beliefs, if you invite a Muslim to your home, by default, you're not going to feed them pork; if you enter a 'sacred' place, you respect whatever rules there are about it (speaking silently, not stepping here or there, etc); likewise, if a friend of yours has a very strong superstition, you might follow along when you are with them, even though it makes no sense to you; if you visit someone from a different culture, again you try to respect how they feel and act according to their values, even if it means doing things that don’t make sense to you. You don’t pretend to believe, but you respect the belief. You can choose to use the narcissist example, or you can use these kinds of examples where it’s not abo self-worth depending on what others think, but about courtesy and respect, and ultimately kindness. You look like a woman to me, but you want me to address you as a man, fine, I’ll respect that because it hurst me less to address you as a man than it hurts you not to see your identity respected. Of course, you can still argue that it is not your job to make anyone’s life easier or to accommodate other people’s beliefs (or just see them as delusions), and that is a choice you’re totally entitled to make, but you should own up to the fact that it isn’t a kind choice and if everyone was to choose to act like that, the prospects for society would be grim (or even grimmer), but if you’re happy with that, that’s fine.
Secondly, the categories man and woman (or male / female) have been set as identifying someone with a penis or someone with a vagina, with certain other physical and social characteristics attached to it. But concepts evolve, and there is no reason why these concepts can’t be revised, even if it’s still true that some individuals have penises and some individuals have vaginas (and a few others are not too clear and in most cases had to undergo surgery to fit neatly into one category or the other – but let’s not go there). It is entirely within our power to change these concepts if we want and to allow for a more nuanced interpretation of gender – as humans, we can organize our societies beyond strict naturalistic laws, in fact, we do it all the time. Hence, you don’t need to pretend to believe in anything, you can simply change your original concept of what a man or a woman is to incorporate men who were once women and vice-versa.
Thirdly, what you see it’s not always trustworthy anyway. From optical illusions to changes in scientific knowledge, we often believe things that go against our previous knowledge or even against what we see or experience. It isn’t at all unusual to see someone that you assume to be a man or that you’re unsure how to ‘classify’, until they tell you that they are in fact a woman or they go to the women’s toilet, or whatever - you don’t tend to ask to see their vagina to believe them or to just go with what you see, you simply change your initial perception of them based on the information received (as in many other contexts when our perceptions don’t match the information we receive). There are a lot of women who look like men but want to be women, there are a lot of men who look like women but want to be men, and there are men who want to be women (and in some cases you couldn’t tell that they aren’t just by looking at them) and women who want to be men (likewise). In these cases, if we follow your logic, you have to believe that trans-woman are women and trans-men are men, as long as that’s how you perceive them when walking down the street, but they aren’t such if your perception is different, as if their identity is dictated by your perception of them rather than their own (bearing in mind our perceptions fail us a lot).
I appreciate these are not fully development arguments and that each can have many ramifications and a number of weaknesses, but I think they are important aspects to consider in the debate because it’s just too easy to say it’s all biology, and “I’m expected to say one thing when I see with my own eyes another thing” – these are the argument that have always been use to keep things the same and usually to oppress groups with different expressions than the norm (after all, ‘I see with my own eyes that a body with a penis is a perfect match for a body with a vagina and you need one of each to bear children, hence being gay isn’t natural and at very least they shouldn’t raise children’ – easy).
This is just far too long a comment for me to read. I started and it was clear you are incapable of understanding anything I’ve said. Maybe start your own blog?
Thanks for the tip, but I prefer writing fiction and having these conversations in person. I just found your post in a moment of procrastination and your thoughts on people pretending they never had certain opinions caught my attention. I thought you made some good points there and because of that I felt compelled to challenge the rest. If you ever have a moment of procrastination to read my long reply, you're very welcome, and in some 20 years time I'd be interested to see what you make of your current opinion on gender issues ; ) Sorry for spamming your blog.
That pretty much sums up my thoughts on the matter quite succinctly. As a dyed in the wool atheist I would balk at the idea of a spirit, and would be in touch with like minded folk. Those very same like minded folk will quite happily go along with what appears to me (from the outside anyway) as a bizarre shared delusion. Scepticism and the glands that carry it... fully excised.
I don't understand how people insist that I must have this feeling that they have (the comment below is a prime example). It smacks of those religious types insisting "you might not believe you have a soul, but we and god see it". To make matters worse, there is a very clear push to obscure and obfuscate with poorly conduct pseudo-studies, inference based on lived experience, and weird correlations found or teased out of datasets that simply don't have the ability to support the claims being made. That so many are falling for it, just boggles the mind.
Thoughtful piece, and thanks for sharing it Gia.
Believing in god is very different from believing that other people believe in god. Believing in gender identity is also not the same as believing in other people when they tell you they have one and it might be at odds with our others see them. I agree with Luna that there are lacks in your arguments on whether gender identity exists or not, but ultimately that's irrelevant, no one is asking you to believe in it, you are being asked to accept those who do and want to act according to their belief. During Ramadan, my kids' friends who are Muslim are allowed to take time off school to pray, for example. I don't need to believe in any god to be fine with that. If people who don't believe in gender identity don't get in the way of those who do to act accordingly, I don't think anyone minds your belief and you might even find yourself having some interesting conversations about it. But many non-believers in gender identity are against basic rights for those who believe and suffer from that, and that is where the problem lies.
I am being asked to believe in it- or fake a belief in it. I’m expected to say one thing when I see with my own eyes another thing. I’m expected to recite catechisms. I am expected to stay silent and never object when others force their beliefs on me. I don’t do any of that with religion. I don’t do any of that with pseudoscience of any type. If “accepting believers” means that I MUST do those things, then there is an issue that is unlikely to be resolved as long as the believers insist on the rest of the world engaging in their fantasy/delusion/psychological issue… Just as I don’t have to think someone who is a narcissist is actually “better than everyone else”. Sure, I will get tons of abuse from them for not engaging in their fantasy world, but it’s my life I’m living here. It isn’t my job to tiptoe around others because *they* refuse to do the tough psychological work to get them to a place where they no longer base their self-worth in what others think. Really that is not my work to do.
Your argument follows some logic and, if that is how you want to see things, fair enough, but from where I stand, there are other perspectives you could chose to consider on the topic.
Firstly, even if you think that gender identity is a "fantasy/delusion/psychological issue", you could choose to be kind about it. As I said before, I don't think it's that different from the attitude most half-decent people have in relation to religious beliefs, if you invite a Muslim to your home, by default, you're not going to feed them pork; if you enter a 'sacred' place, you respect whatever rules there are about it (speaking silently, not stepping here or there, etc); likewise, if a friend of yours has a very strong superstition, you might follow along when you are with them, even though it makes no sense to you; if you visit someone from a different culture, again you try to respect how they feel and act according to their values, even if it means doing things that don’t make sense to you. You don’t pretend to believe, but you respect the belief. You can choose to use the narcissist example, or you can use these kinds of examples where it’s not abo self-worth depending on what others think, but about courtesy and respect, and ultimately kindness. You look like a woman to me, but you want me to address you as a man, fine, I’ll respect that because it hurst me less to address you as a man than it hurts you not to see your identity respected. Of course, you can still argue that it is not your job to make anyone’s life easier or to accommodate other people’s beliefs (or just see them as delusions), and that is a choice you’re totally entitled to make, but you should own up to the fact that it isn’t a kind choice and if everyone was to choose to act like that, the prospects for society would be grim (or even grimmer), but if you’re happy with that, that’s fine.
Secondly, the categories man and woman (or male / female) have been set as identifying someone with a penis or someone with a vagina, with certain other physical and social characteristics attached to it. But concepts evolve, and there is no reason why these concepts can’t be revised, even if it’s still true that some individuals have penises and some individuals have vaginas (and a few others are not too clear and in most cases had to undergo surgery to fit neatly into one category or the other – but let’s not go there). It is entirely within our power to change these concepts if we want and to allow for a more nuanced interpretation of gender – as humans, we can organize our societies beyond strict naturalistic laws, in fact, we do it all the time. Hence, you don’t need to pretend to believe in anything, you can simply change your original concept of what a man or a woman is to incorporate men who were once women and vice-versa.
Thirdly, what you see it’s not always trustworthy anyway. From optical illusions to changes in scientific knowledge, we often believe things that go against our previous knowledge or even against what we see or experience. It isn’t at all unusual to see someone that you assume to be a man or that you’re unsure how to ‘classify’, until they tell you that they are in fact a woman or they go to the women’s toilet, or whatever - you don’t tend to ask to see their vagina to believe them or to just go with what you see, you simply change your initial perception of them based on the information received (as in many other contexts when our perceptions don’t match the information we receive). There are a lot of women who look like men but want to be women, there are a lot of men who look like women but want to be men, and there are men who want to be women (and in some cases you couldn’t tell that they aren’t just by looking at them) and women who want to be men (likewise). In these cases, if we follow your logic, you have to believe that trans-woman are women and trans-men are men, as long as that’s how you perceive them when walking down the street, but they aren’t such if your perception is different, as if their identity is dictated by your perception of them rather than their own (bearing in mind our perceptions fail us a lot).
I appreciate these are not fully development arguments and that each can have many ramifications and a number of weaknesses, but I think they are important aspects to consider in the debate because it’s just too easy to say it’s all biology, and “I’m expected to say one thing when I see with my own eyes another thing” – these are the argument that have always been use to keep things the same and usually to oppress groups with different expressions than the norm (after all, ‘I see with my own eyes that a body with a penis is a perfect match for a body with a vagina and you need one of each to bear children, hence being gay isn’t natural and at very least they shouldn’t raise children’ – easy).
(sorry for the very long reply)
This is just far too long a comment for me to read. I started and it was clear you are incapable of understanding anything I’ve said. Maybe start your own blog?
Thanks for the tip, but I prefer writing fiction and having these conversations in person. I just found your post in a moment of procrastination and your thoughts on people pretending they never had certain opinions caught my attention. I thought you made some good points there and because of that I felt compelled to challenge the rest. If you ever have a moment of procrastination to read my long reply, you're very welcome, and in some 20 years time I'd be interested to see what you make of your current opinion on gender issues ; ) Sorry for spamming your blog.