I have started to hate the term “identify as”

[TheletterZ]

“Identify as” is completely meaningless and is starting to really annoy me.

i don’t identify as a a white middle-aged straight woman with brown (ok greyish) hair and eyes. I simply AM those things. They are facts that are real and unchangable. (Well apart from the age thing and that only changes in 1 direction)

I can dye my hair but as I have to keep doing it, it just underlines the fact my hair is brown/grey.

“Identify as”implies choice. I didn’t choose my sexuality, it just is. No one does. My sister didn’t claim to be a lesbian (with all the prejudice that goes with that) she simply is one. No choice is involved.

There is a clip on twitter from Elliot Page saying ‘30% of young people identify as LGBTQ+’ which shows how ridiculous the statement is. From my limited understanding LGB is around 5-10% of a population. So who are the other 20%? People who just claim to be part of the ‘community’ to feel special.

Sorry for the rant, I use my name on twitter and as a teacher I have to keep my views quiet and bite my tongue.

Agree. Normal is defined by your population.

What are views on ostensibly white people who identify (at work) as black? Apparently if you challenge (or enquire politely) you could be accused of discrimination.

"I attended a neuro diversity webinar recently and one of the speakers introduced themselves by saying they identified as having ADHD"

Yes, this issues burns bright in ND circles.

I think it originated from the idea that autism and ADHD aren't 'disorders' but just reflect 'differences' that shouldn't be thought of as 'less than'. With this in mind, rather than autism and/or ADHD being something one has, or suffers from, it is simply something one is (I am autistic, rather than I have autism). There are some individuals who fundamentally disagree, and say that autism doesn't define them and they are a person for whom autism is a small and not defining part.

This debate was referred to as identity first or person first preferences. It was fierce, but at the time gender identity and trans activism came to the fore, the 'identity first' positioning was adopted by the ND activists and the 'person firsters' have been shunned for internalising ableism.

Once something becomes generally comedic it’s over. That point has now thankfully passed as far as “identifying as” goes.

I’m not British but I’ve never been happier I chose to make my life in this country. Thanks to all those wonderfully difficult and argumentative women in this country we are so far ahead on this!

Thanks for this - I've just seen it. Yes, it may well be. But if that's the case, then identity must remain undefined as it's continually in a state of flux. How can you then use "identity" as a way of establishing someone's position in society in respect of rights and obligations? How can you reliably ascertain the "degree of oppression" that any individual suffers? Any law requires some kind of objective tool for identifying people.

This may be the root of the misunderstanding of "protected characteristics" which are routinely misinterpreted as identities in certain quarters.

You want to be something but you don't meet the fundamental criteria to be able to say you are that thing

this sums it up for me. And I would say that in very many cases, it also means “and I demand you accept that I am what I want to be too, and grant me all the rights and privileges associated with the thing I want to be”

To put it simply, it just means 'liar.'

When someone says that they identify as something that is not held up by material reality, they are simply a liar.

"Isn't that just another way of saying that identity is co-created between who you are (your individual personality & characteristics) and when/where you're living in terms of what society values?"

Social norms are co-created in society (e.g what constitutes kindness, rudeness, femininity etc.) and this changes over time. Individuals make self-judgements and judgments about others relating to these norms. I might think I am very feminine, others might not, despite us both judging against the same social norms. I think both are entitled to their own judgment and neither should have to accept, or pretend to accept, the others. To me, this is liberalism. Being considered conservative for this is frustrating, I think it is very illiberal to have to affirm others self perception, but if I practice what I preach, others can hold the view that I should affirm, I'll just disagree!

"Identifying as" something, suggests that you are not that thing. It is suggestive of a performance or a role. If you have empathy or fellow feeling with someone or something you say you " identify with" them or with that thing.

'Identifying as' comes straight from post modernistic theories of the self - whereby all behaviour is a social performance that we enact.

Being gay or lesbian has also been co-opted in the service of trans ideology/ the politics of manufactured identity - so now people who are same sex attracted say they " Identify as queer".

Post modernistic theories of the self are very much part and parcel of our social media culture/age. Social media demands we assume personas, use avatars, make public statements about ourselves - by which we can be identified by people who don't really know us.

On-line we can create a character of our choosing, or express aspects of ourselves we usually keep more hidden. I think this also has something to do with the explosion in mental health issues that people, especially younger people, are now facing. Being in the actual world confronts us with our unvarnished self - and that can make us feel very fragile and very vulnerable. We are at the mercy of other people's perception of us. So people adopt roles and performances to hide behind.

I imagine that is partly why cos-play is now so popular - it enables people to continue to inhabit imaginary, on-line worlds taken from gaming, from anime, science fiction and fantasy and so on.

I work in engineering and thankfully this kind of nonsense (pronouns in emails, rainbow lanyards, my lived experience, queer theory, awareness days, I identify as) has been largely absent.

What Infuriates is that if you are a disabled person and are, say, a deaf person or a wheelchair user, then all the identifies clouds over real needs. My DD doesn’t identify as anything, she is and has to flag up v real areas where she does basic things v differently. She is v careful about what language she uses and it is noticeably direct and uses I statements. It is useful that being asked ahead what she needs is now standard most of the time but I always wonder what all the identifying as people do when asked the same question. Meanwhile as ever it is lesbians who vanish under the banner of queer.

I can see how the use of the term is intended to help in some ways. Some people may have experienced dv, for example, but whether or not they choose to 'identify' as a 'victim' is an attempt to offer them a modicum of control of the experience, or at least the idea that they are able to exercise control over how they perceive it.

Having a term applied to you if you don't want it, as in that instance, does seem unfair.

But it depends not so much on the term as the motivations behind it and context. The word 'victim' isn't the problem in itself, it's attitudes towards victims and arguably the initial offense that created a victim that are the problem.

I suppose it's an attempt to right wrongs by the use of language.

Language is used as a tool, therefore the idea is that we can use it deliberately and consciously to try and effect change.

Feminism has a history of being involved in this. Perhaps sometimes it's somewhat effective, or has an effect.

I had interesting conversations with disability rights activiss in the early 00s over whether 'a disabled person' or a 'person with disabilities' was better - the former implying that the person had been disabled by an ableist society, the latter putting the 'person' before the 'disabilities'. And other perspectives that for example the word 'crip' should be reclaimed.

I could identify with a packet of crisps doesn't mean people have to address me as Walkers

It feels like a progression of the growing focus on individualism in the UK . As a nation there is a culture of ‘me’ - my needs, my identity, my wants etc.

Im in my 60s and identity has been something that has taken on an identity of its own. I’m not a black and white thinker but I can’t understand how you identify as something. You are or you aren’t something . I don’t identify as a 63 year old, white, straight, Jewish, disabled female. These are all facts. I can change religious affiliations and decide to go to worship at a Buddhist temple, but it doesn’t alter what I identify as. It feels very self-Important and self-indulgent to be drawing attention to what you want others to accept you as.

Annoys me too. I'm no radical and quite happy for men to have female names and wear dresses, whatever but I draw the line at identifying. I am a women, end of, I have two X chromosomes. I wasn't assigned either, just am.

As I say I don't have issues with those who desire to dress up or have surgery even, I can't begin to understand why anyone wants surgery but as I said, their life, just don't say I identify it was assigned.

My DD uses ‘crip’. If she had a theme tune it would be Ian Drury’s Spasticus Autusticus. She is at times v outspoken but it’s hard work, she gets chastised at times by able-bodied people for using the disabled toilets as she is not an in your face crip. But last time it happened she had the guts to complain to customer services in the store she was in.

The best way to deal with this bollocks is the reductio ad absurbum.

If asked what you identify as, whatever answer you give, make sure you change your mind 30 minutes later. And immediately contact the appropriate people.

If you experience any pushback then you SCREAM about your oppression. I mean really SCREAM. If you can cry so much the better.

And woe betide the first person who dare suggest you aren't taking it seriously. As you unburden you lifes struggle to be recognised as (say) a Chippendale Chair. And now these fascist bastards are going to erase your identity with their "rules".

If you are really luck you will spend more time correcting your pronouns than actually working. Which you thank your ever supportive employer for.

Bloody love Ian Dury!

When I hear "identify as" I immediately jump to "pretend to be".

In this oddly-written story about the Miss USA pageant that leaves me none the wiser about much, the contestant involved "self-identifies as Mexican Indian".

As pp have already said, it just makes you think that perhaps she... isn't? Or there'd be no 'self identify' about it?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-68982769

This wording is on the rise because of the increased visibility of transgender people, as in 'a trans woman is a man who identifies as a woman'. This is unique to trans because the 'positionality' depends entirely on the belief and not on any independent verifiable facts.

If you're thinking 'but this applies to religion too, as in 'a Christian is someone who believes in the risen Christ '', then no. The belief identifies them as a Christian but says nothing about the existence of the risen Christ.

Because of this, some trans people read this wording as transphobic. The ones that might not are the ones whose view of their transness is easier for the rest of us to grasp (like Debbie Hayton with the you know what and Andrea Long Chu with the ahem playful sex fun approach).

I've been reading about the 20th century history of transsexualism and it's given me an alarming new (to me) insight into how the campaigners for the GRA saw things, and how some still see things now.

In short, these TW believe that they really are women (I might do a separate post about this but not here because this is too long already). They think that GRCs and the GRR are othering and that they should instead be able to correct their original birth registration as was possible before the April Ashley case in the 60s. They think that intervention at puberty is as vital as for any (other) DSD. And if they're willing to cede space to women, it's not because they are biologically male. It's because they are women with a body type that for example might give them an unfair advantage.

This leaves a lot less psychological room for negotiation than I thought (and explains why some of my conversations with trans friends go as badly as they do) but maybe I'll save expansion on that for another post too.

Apologies if this was obvious to everyone except me! I really didn't know it.

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!

It has got to the point where hearing it is provoking a visceral reaction in me!

Luckily I identify as a placid person so the urge to throw things never manifests itself into reality!

In Another Corner Of The Internet where some of us used to hang out, there was an acronym, SAFC (Shit, And For Cunts), "Identify as" is firmly in that bag.