dolorosa

Got caught up in more random TERF fragments and can’t let it go now until I’ve placed my response here outside me. Some troll argued that a sex definition based on identification is more complicated/cumbersome/unintuitive, my response remains it is justified because there is a need, when accounting e.g. for flourishing or lack thereof of trans people. But the implicit contrapoint goes back to those claims of transracialism from Rachel Dolezal, with those seen as some sort of absurdum this reduces to.

My contrapoint in turn – there would exist legitimate transracialism, in case of some transracial adoption or even those cases where someone is adopted into a tribe – Jewish converts come to mind also. We should recognize this just as we do adoptive parentage. And in all those cases, there may be degrees of trans identity. And those degrees depend on the depth and sincerity of the identification, the need of the identification. That is to say, our inclusive group definitions are indirectly intended to reflect need and depth and sincerity. And we can never gate criteria on that, can never assess it directly.

Which is why inclusive identity label definitions must be opt-out, opt-in; they build on external criteria but with further choices possible (did Michael Jackson eventually still identify as black?), and this is the only sensible way we can capture meaningfully underlying sincerity, which reflects need, which reflects something in our bodies (brains) which a non-harmful civilization should let be reflected in our definitions. In principle we can make mistakes – someone may claim opt-in insincerely – but this is a price we must pay, should pay.

That is not to say that discourse now benefits in practice from a transracial understanding any more (or less) than from a plural or otherkin understanding. It could be either way depending on whether there actually is such sincerity or not. If there is, who knows where discourse could go? But in the case of trans gender/sex alignment/modality, then yes, there is salient sincerity and need, so it is there clear that the loss of fidelity in an opt-out/opt-in approach is worth it. It is a rational, sensible and harm avoiding approach to keep definitions such. This does not mean the perhaps-absurdity that those other cases would need it, since the question of sincerity there is a separate one.