Logically, if men can identify as women and be taken seriously, then we must also accept people who identify as dragons or trans people, according to a controversial journal article.
So-called transableds are people who describe themselves as disabled, but are not.
A recent example is 53-year-old Norwegian Jørund Viktoria Alme, who was born a strong man but now identifies as a woman paralyzed from the waist down and therefore uses a wheelchair.
While otherkin are humans who identify as non-human beings, such as dragons, anthropomorphic animals, elves, vampires, or plants, or a combination thereof.
The author, who submitted her work to an academic journal under the name K. Whittaker, presented her argument as a ridiculous disparagement of the waking logic of gender identity politics.
They wrote: “Why wouldn’t LGBTQ+ add an ‘O’ for otherkin?
“Many trans allies will find the union embarrassing, but will find it difficult to distance themselves from the otherkin movement for a number of reasons.”
One academic contends that the same logic transgender people use to claim that they are exactly the same as their preferred gender could apply to groups like “Other”. A group of “otherkin” are called furries, people who identify as anthropomorphic animals, sometimes for sexual pleasure
Other examples of “Otherkin” include humans identifying as mythological creatures such as elves and dragons (pictured a dragon from the fantasy HBO show House of Dragons).
Whittaker, whose view was published in the Journal of Controversial Ideas, says one of those reasons is that, similar to transgender people, otherkin dismiss their biology in favor of their feelings.
They wrote: “You could say that they reject their ‘species assigned at birth’.”
Whittaker adds that some members of the otherkin community, like furries, people who dress up as anthropomorphic animals generally for sexual pleasure, are already mimicking the language of the trans rights movement.
“The furry fandom even has a counterpart to ‘transphobia’: fursecution,” they said.
People with disabilities also pose a different set of problems for the trans movement.
Like a trans woman who claims to be a woman based solely on her identity without undergoing surgery or dressing as a woman, Whittaker argues that a trans disabled person can do the same.
They then ask if society should make changes to accept trans people the way it accepts trans women.
Examples include offering the trans disabled severe spinal surgery or limb amputation to better reflect their identity, or giving people who identify as disabled the same right to priority parking as actually disabled people.
“Allowing anyone to identify as ‘disabled’ threatens to overwhelm those resources at the expense of those who need them,” Whittaker said.
Whittaker adds that allowing people to identify with the gender they like has real word consequences.
“Trans inclusivity requires that female athletes are willing to compete (or leave the field) against male competitors, and that women generally share (or otherwise vacate) formerly female-exclusive spaces with men,” they said.
“It requires that people of any gender refer to some males with feminine pronouns, occasionally using non-standard pronouns.
“Compliance with these language norms may seem like a trivial inconvenience, but it is sometimes enforced with consequences that are not trivial.”
In conclusion, they say that through the examples of trans and different people, they show the need for society to consider the wisdom of accepting a self-determined gender identity.
“The idea that we must fully accept transgender self-identification commits us to absurd consequences,” they said.
“Most of us recognize that there are limits to our first-person authority over our own identity.
“If what I’ve argued is correct, then we need to seriously consider that the same could be true of sex/gender: whether someone is a man or a woman is one of the things we have no authority over in the have first person. ‘
However, Whittaker adds that her work is not meant to imply that transgender people, trans-disabled people, or anyone else should be treated with only respect as human beings.