Rea on a Self-Conferred Identity

2023-2 Metaphysics of the Self Segment 2 (M. Rea, "Gender as a Self-Conferred Identity")

 

Q) What does M. Rae mean by gender being a self-conferred identity? What motivates this account?

The self-conferred identity account suggests that genders are socially constructed and is determined by an individual’s autobiographical identity. The self-conferred identity account is thus a realist, social constructionist, and anti-essentialist theory of gender. Its most valuable advantage is that it can offer a foundation for giving both epistemic and ethical first-person authority to people’s judgments about their own gender. Therefore, it would be a most accommodating framework for explain trans and nonbinary gender identities.

 

Q) When social and autobiographical identity conflict, which one should weigh more, according to Rae?

According to Rea, there are two kinds of representational identities: autobiographical identities and social-representational identities. While an autobiographical identity is related to the self-conception, a social-representational identity is connected to the collective representation. Rea claims that one’s true gender is one’s autobiographical gender. This is because autobiographical gender is a person’s own internal interpretation of their inner experiences, and all of us are in a better position to interpret our own inner experience than anyone else will be.