AN ARGUMENT FOR GENDER IDENTITY
P1. If some people do not identify with their sex assigned at birth then we should not legally classify people based on their sex assigned at birth
P2. Some people do not identify with their sex assigned at birth
C. Therefore we should not classify people based on their sex assigned at birth
CONSERVATIVE COMMENTARY
Michael Mascolo Ph.D. lays out the issues with self-identification of gender replacing biological sex:
I do not and cannot create my identity by myself. Identities are created in interactions that occur between people using public as well as personal criteria. Like it or not, I cannot establish an identity by myself; it must be negotiated with and validated in my relations with others. This does not mean that I have no role in establishing my identity—it simply means that I cannot and do not do so by myself.
Let’s take a relatively simple example of the formation of a social identity. Let’s say that I identify myself as a Liberal Democrat. When people ask about my political affiliation, I say “Democrat,” “liberal” or “Liberal Democrat.” However, when I am engaged in a political conversation, I talk about state’s rights, the need for reduced government, the desire to conserve traditions, the need for an unfettered market economy, and so forth. Imagine further that I have never voted for a Democrat, and instead have voted Republican all of my life. Under such circumstances, you would be quite right in questioning my self-identification as a Democrat. Either I am lying, delusional or I simply don’t know the meaning of the term “Democrat.”
The point here is not that one’s personal experience is irrelevant to one’s identity—it is indeed foundational. The point is that it is simply not sufficient. We need more than what someone says in order to establish and verify an identity. We need to be able to point to public and shareable expressions of the person’s experience in order to verify the person’s identity. A person can claim an identity as a Democrat, but without voting for Democrats, espousing Democratic principles and acting on those principles, a person’s self-identification has no warrant.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/old-school-parenting-modern-day-families/201909/gender-why-self-identification-is-not-enough