Can You Be Whatever You Want?

Are there limits to what self-identification we should accept?

Can you identify as whatever you want and what are the limits to expecting others to accept your identity? This is a difficult question. It is tempting to say, “You are allowed to identify or act in any way that makes you happy as long as you don’t hurt me or violate my rights”. However, is there a limit beyond which you should no longer be accepting of a person’s choice of identity?

One part of a person’s identity is the self-identification. In other words my own view of who I am and who I want to be. The second part is how other people view me and what they think I should be. There will always be tension between the identity I want to have and how other people identify me. Just as there is always tension between my dreams and the harsh factual reality of my actual life with its limitations.

The videos bellow gives some ridiculous examples of self-identification taken to the extreme. Should we accept a 5'9 white guy claiming to be a 6'5 Chinese woman? Should we accept that a grown white man calls himself a Filipino woman? Should we accept that a 20 year old woman identifies as a 5 year old child?

One could say, that all of these are beautiful examples people living up to their inner full potential and expressing their own truths. Or one could say that these people have misguided understandings of their own identities which are delusional and should not be encouraged.

Personally I have quite a lot of sympathy for transgender identity dysphoria. There is quite substantial biological evidence suggesting that the gender development of the body and the mind does not happen in parallel and that one can have different mental gender characteristics than ones physical (a deeper dive into the evidence behind this will come in a future post). However, I think that there should be a limit to how absurd we allow people’s self-identification to become.

Some of the videos bellow are satire, some are real interviews and some are from real documentaries. I think that they highlight the extreme sides of the self-identification argument and how it tends towards the ridiculous.

My open questions to you are the following:

• Should we going along with ridiculous self-identification that is not rooted in facts or biology in order to protect people’s delusions?
• Is it fine that a person identifies as another nationality?
• Is it fine that a person identifies as an animal?
• Should we go along with a person identifying as another age than their own age?
• Is it reasonable that a person identifies as another height than their real height?

Furthermore, what are the limits to this acceptance? If I identify as being of old age, does that qualify me as having a right to social security? If I identify as being a toddler, does that mean that I can enlist myself in day-care? How can you fully accept my interpretation of my own identity if you are not willing to grant me the associated rights which comes with them?

In my opinion a person’s identity is formed through the tension between ones desired identity and how the world identifies you based on the facts associated with you. Identification is not up to free interpretation, getting things right is more important than a persons emotions and there are actual limits to what you can be. This might seem somewhat harsh but it is not the end of the world.

If you have another point of view, feel free to present your own ideas in the comment section.

Sincerely,

Bright Blue Dot