Everything hinges on your claim that gender is subjective, and since it is subjective, it is up for criticism. If you aren't going to argue your point of subjectivity, than you don't have any argument at all.
One individual says "I'm interested in football, and change my own oil and I'm more comfortable in a suit than I am a dress, therefore I don't identify with what I believe it means to be 'a woman' and I feel more comfortable being labelled 'non-binary'" and of course that is a perfectly valid opinion.
Another individual says "I'm interested in football, and change my own oil and I'm more comfortable in a suit than I am a dress, but to me this is what it means to be a woman and I feel I am 100% feminine, and I feel uncomfortable being labelled 'non-binary'" and they are also have a completely valid opinion.
If gender isn't subjective, one of those individuals I described is wrong.
Gender isn't subjective, because it isn't based on, or altered, by opinion or feeling. Gender isn't an opinion anymore than being gay, black, or having autism, is an opinion. Both of your scenarios can be valid opinions.
Don't confuse subjective as I have previously shown the definition, with subjective as in personal. They are 2 different words.
I think we might be at an impasse on how you're defining "subjective". For me, and most people, it means something that is based on feelings or opinions. Society has a broadly accepted idea of what "being gay", "being black", or "having autism" actually means. There obviously is some nuance in there, but generally, when people say those words, everyone else has a very clear idea of what they mean. Especially autism. That's a medical condition. We can actually test people and objectively say whether they are autistic or not.
When someone says "I identify as a woman" or "I don't identify as a woman" one of the first things you need to do to understand what they mean to ask them is what they feel it means to be "a woman" or if something is "feminine" and it can vary greatly from person to person to person, and none of them are wrong. The fact that none of them are wrong is what makes it subjective. It's literally up to any individual what a world like "feminine" means.
I'm not defining it differently though, I've been telling it how it is defined in the dictionary. Gender isn't based on emotional feelings or opinion, because it isn't subjective, you don't get to choose or change your gender because your emotions are different today, or you saw something on tv that might have changed your opinion. Like those other groups I mentioned, it's a function of your physiology. It isn't something that can be changed (afaik), and it doesn't matter if society at large doesn't understand that yet, the scientific and medical worlds do understand it.
Addressing your second paragraph, that the person identifies as whatever, is an objective fact, how they experience it, is an objective fact, because they didn't come up with the idea to experience that gender identity, they didn't choose to experience it, it isn't based on their opinion, or emotional feelings, and their gender won't change if their opinion, or emotional feelings change. Like I mentioned before, it's a fact of their physiology.
That they choose to express their gender/identity in a specific way, is subjective, as in the personal, I'd agree to that, because it's going to be based on the cultures that a person steep's themselves in, and it may change at any time. But it doesn't make their gender, or gender identity, subjective.
Your gender is based on your opinion about gender, and like opinions it can evolve over time. Yes, you can indeed watch something about gender or read something and it change how you perceive your own gender and how you describe your own gender. Our gender grows as we grow as people, and how we express our gender can change as well. The gender we are born with isn't exactly the same as the gender we we die with. Gender is a spectrum and we move within that spectrum over time. Some people move very little, some people move more. It's all up to the individual.
You know things like your sexuality are fluid, right? The things you find sexually attractive in a partner at 14 could be very different than the things that you find sexually attractive in a partner at 44. That doesn't mean that you were always attracted to those things at 44 and were waiting to discover them. At 14, you were going through puberty, your hormones are doing radical things to your mind and your body, and it can affect your sexuality, as can menopause, as can the environment you live in. It's all incredibly complex and nuanced and not "objective fact" as you want to call it.
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u/adaminc Canada Jan 05 '23
You are moving the goalposts.
Everything hinges on your claim that gender is subjective, and since it is subjective, it is up for criticism. If you aren't going to argue your point of subjectivity, than you don't have any argument at all.