Fascinating logical error.
So then,
To BE a man, you must NOT identify as a man.
I like to understand people’s mental models. Since the logic being expressed is nonsensical, it can only be concluded that they are operating on a different mental model. I’m going to give my best-guess interpretation of their thinking, which would be required for this conversation to go any further.
[Redacted]’s mental model (my interpretation):
Commenter is using their words not as a tool or even a weapon, but a shield to protect a ‘feeling’ about how things and people 'ought' to be. In that framework, the logic doesn’t technically matter—they are fashioning whatever syllables they can grab hold of into a weapon, and swinging wildly to ward off the reality that the world and other people can be different than they want them to be.
So let’s get to work, here...
*puts Patronizingbastard brand reading-glasses on
My read on the commenter’s mental model of what “identifying as a man” means:
A person theatrically demanding recognition, inserting identity into every exchange, and treating social compliance as proof of reality.
Under that model, then yes, “identifying as a man makes me suspicious of you being one” becomes less insane. Still sloppy, but less insane. It becomes something like:
“A person who compulsively performs an identity probably does not naturally inhabit that identity.”
That version is at least arguable. Not automatically true, but structurally legible. I see this all over in online “conversations”, and I like to call it attacking a target in a bottle.
Target in a Bottle: Compressing a complex group, concept, or position into a vivid, preselected example—usually the most annoying, egregious, or extreme one—and then treating that example as the entire category.
Example: When discussing cats, grabbing a feral alley cat hissing and clawing at everything, holding it up by the scruff of the neck and saying, “This is what cats are.”
If you’re anything like me, and I know I am
I’m going to take myself as an example.
Yes, certainly, ‘myself’ is an anecdotal sample-size of 1. But TO me, I am the whole of my internal reality. To ME specifically, there is no better evidence possible about how I feel my own self-testimony of me to me.
Also, I happen to be what the kids these days (and medical science) call cisgender.
Additionally also, I identify as a man.
Do I HAVE to identify as a man?
Well, sort of...
but that’s only because I do.
Do you believe you live on Earth?
Do you HAVE to believe that you live on Earth?
Does a fly HAVE to identify as a fly to be a fly who can fly?
I formally identify as the formerly unidentified entity who will have had written this writing on entity identity identification
“Identify as” can mean several things. It can be performance, a demand, a description, a category-fit, a social request, a political posture, or a simple self-report. You do not get to collapse all versions into the most annoying one and then rail against identity as a concept.
When I “Identify as a man”, I am not making a declaration about what bucket I BELONG in. I’m looking at what our general societal picture of traits and statistical norms we label as a “man”, and seeing that as a described category of gender, that one is describing how I happen to see and feel about myself internally as a person.
So, if you ask me “Hey - what gender do you identify as?”, I IDENTIFY as a man.
I HAVE to.
The only way I could NOT identify as a man, is if I identified as something else or identified as no gender at all, which I don’t, so I do, because I am.
I got here only because of your shameless and annoying self promotion on ACX. It worked and I do it too, so ... "Well done". :)
But I think you are totally missing the point with this post. The OP wrote "If you HAVE TO identify as a man..." The HAVE TO was load bearing. You failed to engage. Try harder next time.