IDENTITY LIBERTARIANISM
Prioritizing freedom of identity over all other objective qualifications for membership in a class of people is a political ethic that I refer to as “identity libertarianism.” It manifests as an unyielding insistence that we accept anyone into any social group, no matter what. Platitudes about an unconditional right to self-definition and entitlement to corresponding in-group membership are uncritically accepted in many progressive activist circles.[xiv] Dissent is silenced. “Identity libertarianism” often feels as if it’s been elevated to the status of moral obligation. But applying this ethic to classes that are constrained by institutional oppression fails on at least three accounts.
First, it trivializes the experiences of oppressed people by allowing external observers of disadvantaged groups to demand acceptance into the group, and then, to speak from a place of personal authority on behalf of the group (e.g., transwomen are women). This creates false equivalency between unwilling, lifelong members of an oppressed class and those who have consciously and deliberately identified into it—after having a chance to understand what they are getting into. The condition of being oppressed as a member of the class becomes the same as not being oppressed as a member of the class.
Along the same lines, if the political fashion of “identity libertarianism” dictates that all social groups must be open to all individuals at all times, there is nothing to prevent a member of the oppressor class from seeking entrance to the world of the oppressed for nefarious purposes.[xv] In fact, any attempt to impose reasonable safeguards against such possibilities is faced with vehement opposition. In this way, “identity libertarianism” bypasses the experiences of oppressed people, dismissing their needs and voices.
Second, by reducing the substance of group membership to nothing more than self-definition, those who support “identity libertarianism” also seem oblivious to the fact that one cannot leave an oppressed group as easily as others seem able to join it. Applied broadly it should be clear why “identity libertarianism” is bad theory. For example, “identity libertarianism” would suppose it was possible for a female-bodied person to fend off a rapist by informing her attacker she identifies as a male. Or possible for a person of color to defend himself against racial profiling by saying he identifies as white.
If life were as simple for the oppressed as “identity libertarianism” pretends, we could end oppression yesterday. The reality is that people who are oppressed on the basis of an immutable physical characteristic such as sex cannot escape their oppression merely by changing their self-perception.
Third, the application of “identity libertarianism” theory to oppressed people results in victim-blaming. By focusing all of its attention on individual desires and self-perception–rather than acknowledging the systemic forces of oppression– “identity libertarianism” infers that the oppressed are in control of their own destinies. If one is unhappy in her current social role or identity, she need only find her “true self” among the many prefabricated social roles now open to her. There is no critical examination of the roles themselves.
Instead, “identity libertarianism” frames social distress as a personal problem that is best resolved on an individual level without any regard to enforced patterns of social stratification and cumulative socialization that demoralize entire groups of people. This is an unforgivable oversight. Poor decision making by oppressed individuals is not the cause of class-based oppression, nor is it the responsibility of the individual to escape the system that oppresses them. We must deconstruct the system itself.
CONCLUSION
Failure to permit individuals to craft their own identity-realities is not the cause of oppression. Colluding with individuals who craft their own identity-realities in the image of existing social constructs is not the solution to oppression.
The point of radical political analysis is to locate and attack the root of structural oppression. We cannot achieve liberation by simply reshuffling individuals between classes, while leaving the current social norms and hierarchies in place.
“Identity libertarianism” is an immature and ineffective ideology on which to center a political strategy for social justice. It offers women no explanation for or relief from the gendered constraints that shape the lives of female and girl-socialized people. At the same time, “identity libertarianism” places responsibility for social change on the individual—as if women’s social status were caused by nothing more than a series of bad personal choices.
This shallow and one-dimensional worldview must not displace material feminist analysis of the collective female social condition. Acknowledging the existence of a sex-based power hierarchy that is global in reach and deadly in consequence is foundational to feminism.[xvi] Acknowledging the process and negative effects that compulsory feminine socialization has on children who are not born with phalluses sufficiently large enough to classify them as “boys” is essential to the work of feminists. As a result, male-socialized people simply cannot be considered “women” the same as female-socialized people without making invisible the entire structural process that gives rise to gender and gendered inequality in the first place.
“Identity libertarianism” prioritizes the feel-good simplicity of in-group entitlement over responsible political analysis. It has no place in our movement.
Celtyradfem 