Round 11:55 pm on Saturday, November 19, 2022—simply moments earlier than midnight on Nationwide Transgender Day of Remembrance—someone walked into Club Q, a queer nightclub in Colorado Springs, and opened fire. The shooter killed 5 individuals and wounded at the least 19 others earlier than being bodily overpowered by membership patrons, particularly army veteran Richard Fierro and an anonymous trans woman.
A number of days later, the brutality of the capturing, the heroism of the patrons, and the vicious queerphobia implicit in a lot of the general public response had been all briefly overshadowed by an attention-grabbing headline: in a court docket submitting, the shooter’s authorized protection workforce claimed that the shooter was nonbinary and used they/them pronouns.
This declare was met with suspicion. Many LGBTQ of us had been fast to level out that the shooter had never publicly claimed nonbinary identity or used they/them pronouns before. In addition they famous that the shooter had a record of expressing homophobia and anti-queer rhetoric. Some advised that the identification declare was an try and keep away from costs of a hate crime. Others, comparable to trans scholar Noah Zazanis, argued that it was an try and “prove a transphobic point.” All appeared to agree that the shooter’s identification declare was to not be trusted.
In response, some raised charges of hypocrisy. The suitable to self-determination is a central precept of trans-positive methods of doing gender. Trans and nonbinary individuals famously defer to 1 one other about identification claims. For instance, we frequently say that anybody could be nonbinary—that you don’t have to look or act a certain way to say a nonbinary identification. On a really skinny interpretation, these statements advocate for blanket identification validation: they recommend that any nonbinary identification declare needs to be instantly and uncritically accepted. If that is proper, the argument goes, then trans rights advocates would don’t have any grounds on which to query any nonbinary identification declare—together with the shooter’s.
For nonbinary individuals, this dialog is exhausting. As we course of the concern and grief that observe a(nother) brutal public assault on queer and trans individuals for having the audacity to exist, and grapple with the queerphobia and transphobia that makes these assaults doable, we’re reminded that, paradoxically, our existence itself is persistently erased, the truth of our lives denied. In the meantime, to query a declare to trans or nonbinary identification—even a transparently ill-intentioned one, made by somebody who actually massacred us—might sound to cede floor to those that assault our legitimacy. I’m reminded of the previous transphobic Web meme: “I sexually identify as an attack helicopter.” This sort of declare doesn’t goal to precise a real identification, however reasonably to power trans individuals right into a catch-22: both settle for this patently absurd identification at face worth, and thus settle for an equally absurd view about what gender is, or reject it, and abandon the stance that individuals’s claims about their very own genders needs to be taken significantly.
It is a false dichotomy. To take somebody’s claims significantly isn’t the identical as uncritically accepting something they are saying. Relatively, the alternative: taking somebody’s claims significantly entails holding them accountable for what they are saying. Talia Bettcher has argued that trans communities goal on the preferrred of first-person authority about gender. As an moral precept, first-person authority means treating somebody because the authority about their very own values and attitudes. This entails having sure rights, but additionally having sure obligations; it entails owing issues to others in a single’s group. Persons are accountable for the claims they make about themselves, together with claims about their gender. They need to not make inappropriate, irrational, or insincere claims, and they are often known as out in the event that they do. In flip, others ought to deal with them as having the authority to make these sorts of claims. Individuals have a proper to self-determination—they’ve a proper to inform us who they’re reasonably than be informed who they’re—however, in flip, they’re held chargeable for what they are saying.
On this view, saying “I’m nonbinary” is a bit like saying “I’m your good friend.” If I say “I’m your good friend,” I’m claiming to have some values and attitudes. Different issues being equal, we deal with individuals because the authorities about their very own values and attitudes. Nevertheless, we are able to additionally maintain them accountable if they are saying issues which are inconsistent or inappropriate. If I say “I’m your good friend” however I’ve just lately been telling lies about you, you may fairly reply that the values and attitudes I’m claiming are inconsistent with my conduct.
Individuals additionally generally make claims for the unsuitable causes. When you and I are arguing as a result of I’ve lied about you, I’d say “I’m your good friend!” in an try and derail your reliable factors about my dangerous conduct. You may problem my declare on numerous grounds, together with my timing in making it. Discover, nonetheless, that your problem is suitable with my declare being honest. I’d actually imply to be your good friend, and nonetheless fail, for causes that don’t have anything to do with my values or intentions. To find out that, we would wish to know loads about my inside ideas and emotions—data that is perhaps troublesome or unimaginable to return by. However that’s not the purpose. The purpose is about what my declare is doing.
In 2017, throughout the early days of the #MeToo motion, Anthony Rapp publicly claimed that Kevin Spacey had sexually assaulted him when he was fourteen years previous. Spacey’s response first distanced himself from Rapp’s declare by embedding his apology in a conditional: “if I did behave as he then describes, I owe him the sincerest apology.” Spacey concluded with a press release popping out as homosexual.
As within the case of the Membership Q Shooter, Spacey’s identification declare acquired widespread condemnation from LGBTQ folks. Nevertheless, in contrast to the case of the Membership Q shooter, little if any of that criticism expressed doubts in regards to the legitimacy of Spacey’s identification. Relatively, the responses criticized his timing. For instance, Wanda Sykes tweeted that he was utilizing this revelation to “hide under the rainbow.” That’s, nobody questioned whether or not Spacey’s declare was true, and even whether or not it was honest. They solely questioned what he was doing in making it.
There are various essential variations between these instances. For instance, it’s been suggested that Spacey’s sexuality was an open secret in Hollywood, whereas there’s significantly much less proof for the shooter’s gender. (Not too long ago, after costs had been filed, the shooter’s authorized workforce started utilizing he/him pronouns.) Nevertheless, the response to Spacey’s declare might help us see the best way to deal with the latter case. Official doubts in regards to the sincerity of a declare to nonbinary identification may, within the unsuitable arms, be used to undermine the best to self-determination. Furthermore, attempting to find out whose identification is actual or honest is unsure floor; we don’t have dependable entry to individuals’s inside ideas and emotions. However we don’t must play that recreation, as a result of that’s not the purpose. What issues to our analysis of an identification declare is what the declare does.
Not too long ago, Quill Kukla and Mark Lance have argued that gender ascriptions—e.g. statements like “I’m a person” or “They’re nonbinary”—perform as performative utterances. Performative utterances are statements that, in being mentioned, carry out actions. If I’m your boss and I say “You’re fired,” I’m not stating a reality. I’m doing one thing; I’m firing you. This isn’t the sort of speech act that may be true or false. Nevertheless, it might probably nonetheless be evaluated on different grounds. Do I’ve the authority to fireside you? Is my utterance acceptable? Kukla and Lance argue that gender ascriptions goal to place somebody inside gendered social norms. To say “I’m a person” is to request or demand that others view and deal with me as a person, apply masculine norms to me, grant me entry to gendered social areas like males’s restrooms, and so forth. If that is proper, then statements like “I’m a person” shouldn’t be evaluated as true or false, however on different grounds. Do I’ve the authority to try this? Is my utterance acceptable?
The suitable to self-determination tells us that individuals ought to have the authority to ascribe gender to themselves; they need to have first-person authority over their gender. Nevertheless, trans individuals’s self-ascriptions of gender are repeatedly and systematically handled as inappropriate as a result of we’re not handled as having first-person authority over our genders. Evaluating a declare about trans or nonbinary identification is due to this fact a fragile enterprise. It’s not sufficient to say that the Membership Q shooter’s declare is inappropriate. We want to have the ability to say what would make such a declare acceptable or inappropriate. On what grounds can we are saying that some self-ascriptions of gender are higher or worse than others?
The reply just isn’t buried within the recesses of particular person psychology. Relatively, it lies within the moral relationships between a person’s claims and their group. The precept of first-person authority just isn’t about particular person freedom and self-expression. It’s about being handled because the sort of ethical agent who can arise for their very own commitments, values, and actions. To make claims about one’s gender is to invoke a set of rights and duties relative to different individuals, and to take duty for the implications of that declare.
Trans and nonbinary gender identities don’t come up out of nowhere. They don’t seem to be ahistorical anomalies, nor are they private emotions which are disconnected from social actuality. Our genders are embedded in wealthy histories and linked to complicated communal practices and norms. When trans and nonbinary individuals declare sure gender identities and ask to be seen and handled in sure methods, we’re not making issues up—any greater than anybody claiming or doing any gender is making issues up. We’re drawing on the social actuality of trans historical past and group. That historical past and group prioritizes the best to self-determination and the precept of first-person authority. However these aren’t skinny slogans that confer legitimacy on anybody claiming any gender for any motive. They’re strong rules that information our lives and our actions.
“Assault helicopter”-style jokes, due to this fact, fail as self-ascriptions of gender as a result of they act as if these histories and social practices don’t exist. Given a minimal understanding of trans existence, the joke falls flat. There are merely no actual social practices on which “assault helicopter” means something; there aren’t any values and commitments hooked up to that identification; and, so far as I can inform, nobody is definitely working to construct them.
The Membership Q shooter’s declare was barely totally different. “Nonbinary” does have an actual social which means. However that which means arises from communities the shooter has actively tried to destroy. The shooter’s assaults on queer and trans individuals create an unbridgeable hole between the identification declare and the social practices which might make that declare doable. Suppose that, as I’m actively attempting to homicide you, I shout “I’m your good friend!” You may fairly take exception to that. It’s powerful to declare allegiance to one thing one seeks to remove.
Robin Dembroff argues that nonbinary is a political identification; to be nonbinary is to reject the necessary two-gender system. However “political” doesn’t imply “insubstantial.” Relatively, the alternative; because the previous feminist slogan goes, the non-public is political. Politics entails each values and actions, and, sadly, generally actions battle with professed values.
As famous above, trans and nonbinary individuals typically say that anybody could be nonbinary—that you simply don’t need to look or act a sure method to declare a nonbinary identification. Like gender ascriptions, these claims are performatives. Particularly, they’re invites. There are communities exterior of colonialist gender binaries, and you’re welcome to return and see if they’re best for you. There are (ideally) no costume codes for entry; that’s sort of the purpose. However being a member of a group means standing in sure sorts of ethical relationships to others. It means being accountable for the values you declare to carry. And a few actions are incompatible with the values that make nonbinary identification doable.
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Rowan Bell
Rowan Bell is a postdoctoral scholar in Philosophy on the College of Missouri, and in the summertime of 2023 they’ll take up a place as Assistant Professor in Philosophy and Genders, Sexualities, & Social Change on the College of Guelph. They work primarily in feminist and trans philosophy, metaethics, and social epistemology.
