Comparing trans identity to identifying as a table
Andrew Gold said:
“People who are confused about their sex exist, absolutely. But I could identify as a table.”
The reductio ad absurdum lands because it sounds like a logical parallel: if identity is self-declared, why can any claim be ruled out? It flatters the intuition that there must be a limit somewhere.
The analogy only works if you accept, before you start, that gender identity is as arbitrary as claiming to be furniture, which is precisely what is in dispute. Gender identity is a documented human characteristic: it shows up consistently across cultures, across recorded history, and across a substantial body of psychological and neurological research. A table has no inner life, no experience, no distress when misidentified, and no history of existing across every known human society. The comparison sounds like logic, but it is a way of refusing to look at the evidence, and every time it lands unchallenged, it gives people permission to dismiss something real and to ignore the genuine harm that follows from doing so.
What I said at the time:
“Well, table's not an identity. Why not? A table is an inanimate object.”
Trans people seeking recognition, because the argument is used to dismiss their identities as absurd without engaging with the evidence that gender dysphoria is real and clinically significant.