All aspects of character, personality or preference have been turned into discrete identities. 'Identities' are labels which people now use to signal belonging to particular social groupings. This most likely stems from the social media habit of listing one's allegiances and so on at the top of the personal bio. Everything must be signalled and openly advertised so that others can identify whethere they might be interested in you or not.

Psychologically speaking the identity is the core and stable sense of yourself - which holds it all together. It is an integrating factor, not an add on or a costume. Identity evolves with time and experience.

Identifying with something or someone implies fellow feeling, empathy or alignment; whereas identifying as something suggests that one is playing a role, performing something.

I haven’t read all the posts, but this is a great, grown up discussion, which is refreshing.

Maybe “I identify as” should be changed to, “I have chosen to be….”

I also think there needs to be some acceptance around the idea that in some instances there may be different options for language, that different individuals prefer, but that doesn't make the ones they don't prefer offensive. And it's not necessarily appropriate to correct people when they use a work that is in general use but isn't the one you personally use.

But what does it mean?

I am also really uncomfortable about groups seeking to reject the term disabled, especially when they are offended by the use of the term. This implies that there is something bad/wrong with being disabled. I honestly don't think disabled people are 'less than' and would prefer people worked together to change perceptions than try and distance themselves from the notion of disability

Is it though? I cannot for the life of me see where it is more useful than just "disabled" or whatever other team people use at a given time.

People might not "feel" like they are disabled, but for the purposes of the communication, they are or are not needing or entitled to some kind of special provision.

If there is a need to clarify something like a legal recognition of disability we can just say that - are you legally disabled, have you been assessed as x, y, or z, etc.

So part of me wonders if the disability self-ID approach assisted in normalising all these other 'identify as' statements.

I think its more a case that it was co-opted. Its a useful term when its used correctly, and if there was a better an alternative the big companies would already be using it.

My key take away from this thread is that the crux of the trans debate sits with categorisation.

Our starting point is that we are all humans (this is the universal set in Venn diagram terms). There are countless ways of grouping the universal set. We might not like some sets being named or created as we would belong in them and don't want to think of ourselves, or others think of us, as belonging to that set (or vice versa). We might feel passionately about the creating of sets as they might have significant benefits for us.

Essentially, within this debate, people hold different views about which sets are important. The GC versus TRA debates on FWR often focus on the utility of gender identity sets and sex based sets.

Sometimes, when the utility of a set is clear, and people are concerned about who the set includes or excludes, some people obfuscate and make communication unclear, ambiguous or hard to grasp in order to try and change the inclusion/exclusion criteria. I think that this is done consciously by some (who are fully aware of what they are doing and why) and unconsciously by others (who have complex mental health issues).

All those arguing that it is incredibly complicated are overlooking the bigger picture that the starting point is a universal set of people/humans. The complexity comes when you start to create or propose sets that are poorly defined, the utility of such sets will always be questionable. Perhaps individualism will suffice in such instances.

I expect humanity would benefit from all of us paying greater attention to our belonging to the universal set of 'humans' and applying critical thinking to when our belonging to subset should hold significance. Having said that, subsets are incredibly important for a multitude of reasons - but context is everything!

Yes, I think it did.

A lot of this was around the idea that we need to accept a person's own feelings about their relation to a category. SO - maybe they don't feel "disabled", or handicapped, or differently abled, or any of the other words that have been suggested to try and encompass these groups.

Which is all well and good. But in the end, most of the conditions that fall under these terms are objective, and there needs to be some common accepted term if they are going to be referred to at all. And in so far as we recognize them in places like schools, workplaces, or policy creation, is because they represent some kind of problem that needs to be accommodated or addressed. Discussions about someone's needs are usually around some kind of provision, and if they want to insist that they don't feel "disabled" and don't want others to view them that way, it raises the question why they need a special accomodation in the first place.

It used to be the far right that was obsessed with identity. Now the Blue Fringes do it and claim it's progressive.

As per PP I agree it is now commonly used to mean something that you are quite clearly not, but perhaps would like to be.

’Can you afford those new shoes Janet?’

’It’s ok, I identify as rich’.

’Are you old enough to have that pint of beer?’

’Yes, I identify as age 18’

This all counts as a win in my book.

Before this particular question cropped up I would have interpreted the personal 'identify as' to mean 'feels strongly about that true aspect of the person's life or characteristics'.

For instance, two legally British people might consist of one who thinks of being British as just a fact, with no great importance and another, who 'identifies as British' and thinks of it as one of the central and important aspects of that person's whole life.

But in that interpretation the underlying assumption was always that the two people actually both are British. Now it would be possible for a person who has no ties the Britain to assert identification with the concept.

The problem, then, is how others should react to assertions of identity. Sometimes what a person asserts can be seen to be true by others, sometimes not, and in the latter case it may be a fact not observable by others or it might not be a fact at all. But when it comes to gender, we are expected to accept all assertions of identity.

This problem is made worse by the redefinition of concepts in such a way that it becomes possible to identify into them when it wasn't possible under the old definition. That's how 'woman' became an open-doors-all-are-welcome group, when it used to refer only to adult human female beings. And because it no longer even includes all female adults it is becoming impossible to discuss sex-based oppression and the group it targets.

True. And also wouldn't be putting their parents/friends/partners through hoops because they can only eat macaroni cheese made in a certain way, and the peas have to be bloody square. See that going down well in 1870!

You are so right it does mean that

I just all seems so narcissistic to me.

"I believe it so everyone else has to or else" That's what it feels like.

And if you don't comply and accidentally mis gender someone or have a different view but are still respectful but maintaining facts then it's literal violence and hate speech.

I honestly didn't think we would ever reach this place. When I first started reading about it all on mumsnet I was of the opinion of well if they say they are women then let them be. How my views have changed!!! I am the total opposite now.

Sometimes I watch tik tok and the debates on there are wild. Anyone who doesn't agree just gets cut off and blocked. It's crazy to watch.

😁

You know... that 'Miss Gerbil 2024 winner' image would look great on a T-shirt. 😉

Someone who tells you they identify as male, though to you they look female, perhaps do them the common courtesy of believing them. You have no idea of the person your eyes are beholding. If they tell you they are a unicorn then take that with a pinch of salt.

I have no problem believing that an obvious woman in front of me telling me she identifies as a man or a unicorn is being truthful to herself. If that's the way she identifies then that's the way she identifies.

She can identify until she's blue in the face (which works if she identifies as a Smurf I suppose) but it's not true in any meaningful sense is it?

She can identify as much as she likes, but if she tries to make other people collude with her new chosen identity and tells me that because she identifies as a man or a unicorn I must believe she is a man or a unicorn then that's when it becomes a problem.

And there is no difference whether it's man or unicorn, the woman identifying as a man or unicorn is mistaken if she actually believes it.

So I stand by what I previously said:

For me "identify as" alerts me to the fact that either a lie or absolute word salad is about to come out of the mouth of the person who said it.

Just because someone believes something about themselves doesn't mean it's the truth.

Forget who wrote this, but IMO they nailed the implications.

Yes that's funny. Unfortunately this version also exists.

Identifies as = is not that thing and knows it, but really really wants to be as they have watched too much porn, and has a fetish about it.

The best description I ever saw was:

Identifies as = is not that thing and knows it, but really really wants to be, and has a sad about it.

"Exactly. Everyone knows this and I am increasingly using it as a "joke" to make the point. Eg "This is a cupboard identifying as a meeting room", "yes please, I'm on a diet, but that biscuit identifies as a piece of lettuce".

I think this taps into an interesting point, as well as the point that there is a difference between affirming, not challenging and challenging a person's espoused identity.

Different people hold different ideas about what is socially acceptable. For many, mocking people's belief about the significance of identity would be deemed to be unnecessarily unkind. For others, it's fair game. For some, side stepping someone's gender identity by using their name rather than their preferred pronouns is deemed the best way to handle things, for others it in unacceptable not to make a point of challenging the preferred pronoun use.

I think the majority of posts on AIBU tap into the above - people asking for others views on what they should do or should have done in a given situation. Rarely is there a consensus....often there are opposing camps with some people taking more moderate positions at either end.

Someone who tells you they identify as male, though to you they look female, perhaps do them the common courtesy of believing them.

Courtesy, in this case, is not contradicting them - unless they're in a situation where they're about to endanger themself or others. Eg, the transman with abdominal pains who wasn't aware of being pregnant, and because no medical staff felt able to ask the right questions, the baby died. Or the clearly male swimming official about to go into the girls' changing rooms at a swimming event. He was furious, but brava to the women who didn't just ditch all safeguarding because the man in question was wearing a dress.

Courtesy might include a certain amount of benignly playing along up to a point and no further; it certainly doesn't include believing a statement over your lying eyes.

If you identify as something then, by definition, you are not that thing.

Exactly. Everyone knows this and I am increasingly using it as a "joke" to make the point. Eg "This is a cupboard identifying as a meeting room", "yes please, I'm on a diet, but that biscuit identifies as a piece of lettuce".

No need to even talk about gender politics, I'm just using the phrase to make the point about how ridiculous it is.

"So part of me wonders if the disability self-ID approach assisted in normalising all these other 'identify as' statements."

I think the 'identify as' turn reflects the rise of post modernist thinking. The idea that reality is created by thought (e.g autism wasn't discovered it was created at the point it was named and described) has really grown in popularity.

I think the rise in centring identity relation to disability and gender activism is to do with the wider context rather than either one being accountable for the other