Response to T New Dawn
Thank you, I’m glad you liked my article.
To your question: When you are told someone identifies as Irish, that means that’s an Irish person. When you’re informed a building is identified as a school, that’s a school. When you’re told a person identifies as a woman, that means that person is a woman. Just like you say, you don’t “identify as Black,” you ARE Black. When you claim to be Black, others may internalize it as, “T New Dawn identifies as a Black person,” but that’s just a circuitous, oddly long-winded way of says “he is.”
Would you introduce your kid with “this is Jackson, he identifies as my son”?
Do you see how the “she identifies as” adds a measure of doubt, of skepticism, to your statement? I read it as, “this person is saying something, but I’m not going to endorse it or stand behind it.”
The only time the “she identifies as female” is perhaps warranted could be when a person is beginning her gender transition and such an explanation might be needed, or during the first few stages of gender transition, during which their presentation might be ambiguous.
However, a much saner, much more logical approach (which is what younger generations do, is to say, “this is Jane, she’s a girl.”
The fact that Jane is transgender would only really need emphasizing at medical offices, because Jane may need a urologist rather than a gyno.
We’ve also moved away from using “MtF” or “FtM” as those are archaic ways to refer to medical procedures, not ways to classify humans. Parents of trans children may add, for clarity, that their daughter is AMAB (assigned male at birth) or that their son is AFAB (assigned female at birth), but again such nuance is most often unnecessary.
And in some cases such added personal information is actually quite intrusive. Outing a transgender person without their consent is a hostile act.
Imagine introducing someone as, “this is Albert, he’s uncircumcised,” or “this is my daughter Jill, she has irritable bowel syndrome.” Why would anyone disclose personal medical or highly private information like that?
So, in summary, you’re correct — I put up with people saying “she identifies as female” but inwardly I roll my eyes. I AM a woman.
One quick note: The word “trans” is short for “transgender.” It is its own word, used as an adjective, and does not get attached to nouns. It’s not “transpeople,” it’s trans people. It’s not transwoman, it’s trans woman — in the same way that it’s not Blackwoman, it’s Black woman, and it’s not tallpeople, it’s tall people. (The reason why this matters is that there is an extremely active hostile group constantly campaigning AGAINST trans rights (see theTERFs.com), and they make it a point to refer to us as ‘transwomen’ specifically as a political point, to separate us from women.)
