The modern crisis of identity

Apr 11, 2016 by Jill

by Glynn Harrison, Jubilee Centre:

It has never been easy to answer the question ‘Who am I?’ but increasing social pluralism, the fast-changing world of social media, and easy access to cosmetic surgery make it more difficult than ever. The resulting confusion may undermine wellbeing and threaten social cohesion. The biblical view of human identity as ‘given’ in Christ, worked out imaginatively in relational communities, can potentially buffer these harmful consequences, defend against narcissism and help cultivate personal resilience.

Introduction

According to the New York Times, 2015 was the ‘Year We Obsessed Over Identity’.[2] In June 2015, the parents of Rachel Dolezal, a 37-year-old white civil rights activist, reportedly ‘outed’ their daughter for falsely portraying herself as black. She refused to back down, maintaining she still ‘identifies as black’.[3] A few months later, a transgender father of seven children reportedly left his wife and family in Toronto to start a new life as a six-year-old girl.[4] And the concept of ‘species dysphoria’ entered many people’s vocabulary for the first time when they read about a 20-year-old Norwegian woman who claimed to have been ‘born in the wrong species’.[5]

These extreme examples are subject to sensationalist reporting and we do not know the complex personal realities that lie behind them. They are cited, however, because they illustrate one of today’s most influential ideologies: the repudiation of ‘given’ identity in favour of self-identification.

We see this commonly in public discourse around the nature and meaning of gender. A questionnaire designed for use in British schools posted[6] recently on the website of the UK Government-appointed Children’s Commissioner, offered young people aged 13–18 the choice of self-identifying in terms of 23 different genders, including ‘bi-gender’, ‘tri-gender’, ‘demi-girl’ and ‘genderqueer’. The experience of gender dysphoria (a term that denotes the persisting discomfort of those whose gender at birth is different from the gender they identify with[7]) is a complex area calling for empathy and understanding. Those who struggle in this area are often confused, frightened and humiliated, and it is not possible to consider this issue in detail here. But regardless of this specific issue, whereas perception of gender (what is meant by male and female) was previously determined by biological sex (physical characteristics, hormones, and chromosomes), it is now becoming widely accepted that sex should be interpreted by the individual’s perception of gender. Further, in today’s world (as the above examples show) the logic of self-identification is now being applied well beyond gender.

Read here

Ian McEwan Notes That 2 + 2 = 4 — Horrified, the LGBT Orwellians Make Him Take It Back, by Brendan O’Neill, National Review