Can I Identify As a Different Age?

Every few years, the Right chooses a new scapegoat to blame for all of the world’s problems. It prevents them from actually having to do any real work and come up with policies or content that is relevant to their voters and audience. Outrage motivates people like critical thinking never will.

Currently, the biggest threat, as far as they’re concerned, seems to be trans people, more specifically, trans athletes. They don’t want to talk about that in-depth, mind you. They never ask whether segregating athletes by gender is still relevant today, or how important biology actually is when it comes to physical competitions. It’s not about dialog; it’s about the dog whistle and whipping people into a self-righteous frenzy.

The most recently recycled argument from one of the so-called “Right-Wing Power Houses” (and that is poisoning my feed everywhere) is the following: if you can identify as any gender, why can’t you identify as any age?

The best course of action when arguments so empty of substance are thrown into the conversation is to force them back to the issue at hand. We’re not talking about age, we’re talking about gender and why the concept of a spectrum makes you so uncomfortable to begin with.

Unfortunately, that is not how the conversation goes. Trying to stay on topic only makes it look like you’re running away from the fight and anything else you say after that will be misconstrued as deflecting from a very good point. On top of that, this is the kind of argument that is meant to take us off guard because it almost sounds like the same thing. Why can’t we identify as a different age? If everything about our identity is a choice, why not age?

I’m not an expert on the topic of biology or even sociology, but I suppose neither are most people who are faced with these questions. Therefore, here is my laywoman’s argument on why comparing age and gender is pointless and disingenuous.

Why does age matter?

Age is an important legal marker that decides when we are allowed to drive a car, drink alcohol, use licit drugs, and even be left unsupervised. Age determines those who can sign a contract, acquire property, get married, and consent to sex. We place markers on people’s ages with the aim of protecting them and society from their own immaturity, and even these markers can change from one legal system to another.

For example, if you look at the United States and Canada, countries that are geographically and culturally similar, there are differences in how they approach age. In the US, you can’t drink until you’re 21, and the age of consent is left for different states to decide. In Canada, the legal age to drink is 19 and the age of consent, according to the RCMP, is as follows:

The legal age of consent in Canada is 16 years old.

Exceptions: Persons under 16 years can have consensual sex with someone close in age.

• 12-13 year olds (two-year age difference)
• 14-15 year olds (five-year age difference)

These exceptions only apply if the older person is not in a position of authority or trust and there is no exploitation or dependency. (source)

Whether these markers make sense to us as a society depends on our collective values, and these can shift to get on with the times. As we stand right now, though, age is a relevant way to separate people and make sure they’re safe.

Why does gender matter?

With the advent of feminism and women’s rights, it is easier to find laws that protect people from discrimination on the basis of sex and only a handful of rules and laws aimed at segregating gender. To name the most commonly cited: gendered bathrooms, gendered sports, gender-based violence laws, and maternity leave.

Do these have the same function as age markers? Well, if age markers aim to protect people and society, we need to look at these through the same lens if we wish to make a comparison.

If a 14-year-old decided to identify as 21 in the US or Canada, they’d be allowed to drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes, which would have a negative impact on their body. If they wished to identify as 16, they’d be allowed to get a driver’s license, possibly putting other people at risk. They’d be easy prey to predators and pedophiles who, in turn, could very well identify as underage and take advantage of children with impunity. Similarly, a neglectful parent could say their 9-year-old identifies as 12, thus making it legal to leave them at home unsupervised.

With this understanding of age, biological sex does not have the same function in society. Identifying as a different gender does not grant you special rights that are otherwise denied to you on the basis of biological sex.

The idea that bathroom and sports segregation is for the protection of “women and little girls” is a strawman argument that doesn’t survive scrutiny. If that was the case, places with unisex bathrooms would have a higher rate of sexual assault than those with gendered bathrooms, let alone higher rates of assault perpetrated by trans and non-binary individuals. As for sports, there’s definitely a discussion to be had on whether a separation by gender is even relevant today, but better researchers than me have put out articles and videos on that subject that I recommend you look for.

When it comes to maternity leave, that is not based on gender identity, but rather on the fact that the person has a uterus. Changing the language would actually allow for the law to be applied more equally. If that sounds ludicrous to you, I’d like to add that many countries already have parental leave that can be applied to biological children as well as adopted ones, making the parent’s genitalia utterly irrelevant.

Finally, there is the case of gender-based violence and laws and services that are put in place to prevent it, which can be a little more complicated. Language in these laws isn’t incidental and is there to point out a bigger problem, i.e. violence against women. Recognizing the struggles of women in a patriarchal society and the relevance of gender differences when we’re talking about violence perpetrated on the basis of gender cannot be ignored. However, being too caught up in the terms “men” and “women” purposefully excludes the LGBTQ+ community from essential services that could save their lives and doesn’t allow for intersectionality. Even if we chose to keep the language as is, these should be extended to victims of abuse regardless of their gender identity and sexual orientation - and if the language stops this from happening, it should be reevaluated.

How many women must suffer before you give a damn?

Not uncommonly, an argument that I usually hear by now is “how many cisgender people need to be assaulted in bathrooms before you give a damn?” or “how many female safe spaces are you willing to sacrifice to look woke?” and on the surface, these look like poignant arguments. As someone who cannot stand “not all men” as an excuse, I would hate to be a hypocrite and say “not all trans people” in response to a serious assault, thus minimizing what might be a real issue. Once we look more deeply into this, however, the argument falls apart, just like the rest of it.

People who oppose trans rights would have you believe that they want to keep women and girls safe. Usually, looking into the way they vote and the policies they support often destroys this argument, but we don’t have the time to look into everyone who comes across your social media feed. Instead, we need to look at this for what it is: not protection of those cisgender, but an outright assault on trans rights.

The question isn’t how many women need to be attacked before I care. I already care. How many women need to be attacked before I am willing to penalize every single trans person for the odd case you can cite? Well, quite a few, actually. Any attack on a person is severe and should be lawfully punished, but you’re not asking me to protect the marginalized. Instead, you’re asking me to forbid an entire group of people from accessing basic human rights - such as peeing in public spaces - because you saw a post on Facebook saying a particular cis person was attacked by a particular trans person. If you want me to take away human rights from an entire group of people, then you need to show me a real threat beyond an isolated event.

Whenever I call men out on perpetuating abusive institutions and behaviors that harm women, that’s because every woman I know (me included) has been sexually harassed from the age of 12 (on average) until adulthood and because male and conservative politicians keep trying to restrict our rights. Can I find an example of a trans or non-binary person being harmful to a cisgender person? I can. Can I compile a long list of events that are going to survive scrutiny and make it clear that trans people are a threat to cisgender people, especially women and children? I cannot. Can I find examples of transphobic laws actively harming the trans community and contributing to hate crimes? Too many to count.

You can choose your gender and you can’t choose your age - get over it!

I don’t see how holding on to our natural breasts and functioning uterus makes us better feminists or better women, so I simply don’t. I can’t say that I chose to be female. I was born this way and it is an important part of my identity. However, womanhood has often felt limiting to me because gender roles have always been oppressive to my size, my interests, and my ambitions. My trans sisters, brothers, and siblings have never caused me to question gender the way that heteronormativity did and still does.

Like every teenager, I did push the boundaries of what my age would let me do. Most of my friends started drinking before the legal age. My dad started driving when he was 8 years old. My mother smoked her first cigarette at the age of 13. None of these made me want to identify as a different number, though, because age is not a number; it is a set of socially acceptable behaviors that are more easily measured by a number.

You cannot compare age and gender without admitting that you believe men and women are socially different, or that society should treat us differently based on our genitals. Are we biologically different? Yes, maybe not as much as some people would like to think, but different enough that we need to be having these talks. We have different levels of hormones that affect our bodies in complex ways that can’t be quickly summarized in a laywoman’s article. Should these grant us different rights? Only when we’re trying to suppress a natural disadvantage.

If your version of protecting women is throwing a fit every time you see a boy in a dress and grasping at straws so you can stop a trans person from using their bathroom of preference, then biology is not your problem.