The Unjustifiable Foundation: Why "Gender Identity" Fails the Test of Conceptual Validity

It's not "bigotry", "erasure", "transphobia", or a denial of anyone's existence to say so

There are several common refrains from those who defend rights claims based on "gender identity”. While these phrases may make their proponents feel virtuous, they have no argumentative or persuasive power. The most frequent include:

• "You are denying my existence."

• "You are a bigot."

• "You hate trans people."

• "You are denying the 'lived experience' of trans people and therefore, you are a transphobe."

These accusations conflate philosophical disagreement with a denial of a person's existence or their "lived experience." This is a fundamental category mistake. A person who doubts God exists doesn't deny that theists exist or "erase" them. Nor is there any reason to think non-theists hate or fear theists. When someone says, "I don't believe you have adequately justified your belief in X," they aren't saying, "You don't exist" or "I hate or fear you." They are simply expressing a philosophical difference of opinion. Just because some people consider these to be claims about their “identity” doesn’t give them any epistemic privilege—truth claims must always stand up to sceptical inquiry, regardless of who is making them or the implications for the claimant.

So why am I skeptical of the concept of "gender identity"? Primarily because I've spent my life studying philosophy, and the central question of epistemology—the theory of knowledge—is: "How do I know the thing I believe is true?" The motivating assumption of epistemology is that people frequently hold false beliefs. Descartes would never have got the project of modern philosophy off the ground if he had merely looked inside himself and said, "I believe, therefore it's true." But this is precisely what believers in gender identity demand: that we accept their beliefs entirely on their say-so.

While we can all agree that some people feel dysphoria related to their sex, this feeling is a subjective state. It does not, on its own, imply the metaphysical reality of a "gender identity," any more than the body dysmorphia of an anorexic implies a "thinness identity." In this piece, I want to outline the non-bigoted reasons, rooted in empirical philosophy and social science research methods, for why "gender identity" lacks a coherent basis for justified belief, let alone for contested rights claims.

Concept Validity: Why "Gender Identity" Is an Incoherent Concept

As someone trained in the analytic philosophical tradition, I take seriously the ways we turn claims into truth through reference to the real world. During my doctoral studies in Business Ethics, I was required to take a rigorous course in Research Methods, which examines this topic in the context of the social sciences. When you want to study a concept, you must ensure it's coherent, that it makes predictions about the real world, and that it can be operationalized into measurable terms.

The first principle you learn is concept validity or conceptualization—the process of precisely defining an abstract idea. It's the intellectual work of moving from a vague notion (like "happiness") to a specific, theoretical definition. Without a clear conceptualization, it's impossible to know what you're even trying to measure. Herein lies the first reason we have no basis for believing in "gender identity"—it has no concept validity.

This idea of "gender identity" as a free-floating, self-authenticating concept is not only deeply problematic but also intellectually vacuous. When we demand concept validity, we are asking: Does this concept reliably and meaningfully refer to something in the world? Can we operationalize it? Can we demonstrate its coherence and predictive power?

Postmodernists and adherents of Critical Theory, of course, scoff at such demands for rigor. They've long since abandoned the project of truth and reference, preferring instead the play of signs and the performance of language. For them, "gender identity" is merely another linguistic artifact, a discursive construction with no necessary tether to biological reality or stable psychological states. They see it as a powerful tool for deconstruction, a way to chip away at the "heteronormative matrix."

But let's examine this concept in the light of our requirements. What, precisely, is "gender identity"? Is it a feeling? If so, how can we access and measure it? Feelings are notoriously subjective and fickle. To build a fundamental category of human existence on a feeling is to build your house on sand. Is it a belief? If so, what is the content of that belief? "I believe I am a woman."? What does that mean, divorced from the biological and social realities traditionally associated with being a woman? The concept lacks validity because it lacks a clear, consistent, and independently verifiable referent. It's an exercise in nominalism, where naming something is supposed to bring it into being. It’s a conceptual shell game, and serious philosophers aren't taken in by it.

"Gender Identity" Cannot Be Operationalized: It Measures Nothing.

To operationalize a concept is to translate an abstract idea into concrete, measurable variables. This process is fundamental to empirical inquiry, as it allows us to move from theory to observation. A concept must be defined by the specific, repeatable procedures used to measure it. The quality of this operationalization is assessed by its reliability (the consistency of measurement) and validity (whether it accurately measures what it claims to measure).

The concept of "gender identity" struggles at every stage of this process, which is why it is not a philosophically or scientifically sound construct.

The Problem of Indicators

Because the concept is so ill-defined, any proposed indicators are similarly flawed. The primary way to measure "gender identity" is simply by asking, "What is your gender?" This is not a measurement; it is a declaration. A declaration is not subject to validation. I can declare myself a king, but that doesn't make it so. Behavioral indicators, such as clothing or mannerisms, are also unreliable. A man who enjoys wearing dresses does not necessarily "feel" like a woman; to use these as proxies is to confuse a dispositional property with a supposed internal essence.

Issues with Reliability and Validity

How could we test the reliability of "gender identity"? If an individual's "internal sense" is their sole identity, could it change tomorrow? If so, the measure is unreliable. If it cannot, how do we demonstrate that? We are left with an a priori dogma, a statement that is true by fiat, not by evidence.

The concept completely lacks validity. It cannot be shown to measure what it claims to because what it claims to measure is an unverifiable metaphysical assertion—a subjective sense of being. It's like trying to operationalize the concept of a "ghost" by asking people if they believe in ghosts. Their belief is real, but the idea of the ghost remains without a valid empirical referent.

In short, "gender identity" is a conceptually absent foundation. It lacks the rigor to be a meaningful subject of empirical research. It's a linguistic tool for a particular ideology, not a substantive concept for serious philosophical or scientific inquiry.

When advocates of "gender identity" accuse others of "bigotry," "transphobia," and "erasure," they only demonstrate a lack of knowledge regarding how philosophers and social scientists justify their ideas. They can't imagine that anyone could disagree with their ideological priors, which are rooted in a postmodernist social construction of reality. Those of us with a scientific and empirical perspective have many good reasons for not believing these claims. These reasons have nothing to do with ill will toward trans people or doubting their existence. We simply hold a very respectable, widely-held belief in the need for adequate justification for our beliefs—a justification that the concept of "gender identity" does not possess.