Gender Identity
Discussion
A "gender identity" that depends on universal affirmation isn’t just fragile—it breeds anxiety and tyranny
Tara Van Dijk:
"Any identity built entirely on the recognition and affirmation of others is inherently unstable. This reliance exposes the Subject to constant vulnerability because affirmation from the Other can never be guaranteed nor verified. Even when given (or performed?), it is never enough to resolve the underlying lack at the core of this identity.
This immutable lack generates anxiety—a persistent unease born from the impossibility of achieving a stable and fully affirmed gender-self. Instead of confronting this internal void, the subject projects their anxiety outward, seeking to control the behavior and beliefs of others. When affirmation is withheld, or when the affirmation received fails to satisfy, anxiety transforms into compulsion. The demand for recognition escalates into coercion, and coercion into tyranny.
This tyranny manifests in the suppression of dissent and the erosion of freedom of conscience, as others are forced to affirm what they may not believe or recognize. But no amount of enforced affirmation can fill the lack or calm the anxiety. Instead, the cycle repeats, deepening the subject's dependence on external validation and intensifying their efforts to control the Other.
What begins as a plea for recognition ends as an imposition of domination. The pursuit of affirmation becomes a weapon, turning personal insecurity into a collective problem, and the promise of liberation into a new form of oppression.
This is why, after the Marxists who avoid critiquing the political economy of the Gender Industry, my ire is reserved for the Lacanians. How can they miss the gaping lack at the heart of gendermentalism—a lack that fuels its anxiety and tyrannical demands for affirmation?
Bespoke gender identities, disconnected from the body, live on external validation. When that validation is withheld—or inevitably fails to satisfy—many spiral into coercion, demanding not just recognition but submission. Your silence or complicity is noted."
(https://x.com/TaravanDijk7/status/1874101039546200245)
Some unforeseen issues around the primacy of subjective gender identities
Helen Joyce:
"The idea that everyone is born with a “gender identity”—an innate sense of being a man or woman that usually, but not always, aligns with biological sex. If the two are in conflict, the person is “transgender” and it is their gender identity, not their biological sex, that indicates who they truly are. The theory has been expanded to include people who regard themselves non-binary, “agender,” gender-fluid or a host of other terms, meaning that they belong to neither sex or feel located at some indeterminate (and possibly shifting) point between the two. According to this theory, no one can determine a person’s gender identity except that person, and no one else can challenge it. As with religious belief, it is entirely subjective. A simple declaration—“gender self-identification”—is all it takes to override biology.
One consequence is a huge increase in the number of people who say they do not identify with their natal sex. In Britain, for example, since the GRA came into force, just 5,000 people have used its provisions. Now the government reckons that approximately 1% of the population is transgender—around 650,000 people.
Another consequence relates to the question of who is permitted to use single-sex facilities. What Americans call the “bathroom wars”—between liberals, who have embraced gender self-ID, and conservatives, who have largely resisted it—in fact goes far beyond public toilets. Changing rooms, school residential trips, rape and domestic-violence refuges, and prisons are going self-ID. So are electoral shortlists and even sporting competitions.
Redefining what it means to be a man or woman redefines what it means to be gay. Depending on how they identify, people with male bodies who prefer female sexual partners may regard themselves as either heterosexual men or lesbian women. It also affects women’s political activism, since defining womanhood as based on a feeling rather than anatomy is incompatible with the feminist position that women are oppressed because they are physically weaker than men and bear the entire burden of reproduction. And it affects education: Many schools now tell children that being a boy or girl is not a matter of what it says on their birth certificates, but what they feel like. Since that is a circular definition, lessons quickly degenerate into endorsing sex-stereotypes: If you like trains and trucks, maybe you’re a boy. If you like pink chiffon, a girl." (https://quillette.com/2018/12/04/the-new-patriarchy-how-trans-radicalism-hurts-women-children-and-trans-people-themselves/?)