First-Person Authority over Gender: Metaphysical, Ethical, and Epistemic, but Nonabsolute

Abstract

Suppose I say, “I am a woman.” Many people agree that in almost all cases, it is wrong in some way to challenge this claim because I have some kind of first-person authority over my own gender. Being able to recognize this first-person authority is a key desideratum for accounts of how gender claims function in trans-inclusive contexts. However, there is disagreement about exactly what kind of first-person authority needs to be recognized. Talia Mae Bettcher argues that we should recognize ethical rather than epistemic first-person authority over gender. Critics argue that ethical first-person authority, as generally understood, is not enough. I argue that Bettcher’s influential account of gender claims as acts of existential self-identification has the resources to recognize nonabsolute metaphysical, ethical, and epistemic first-person authority over gender. Moreover, I argue, this kind of nonabsolute metaphysical, ethical, and epistemic first-person authority is exactly what we should want an account of gender practices to recognize. It gives plausible results about tricky cases and enables us to clearly identify the ways in which someone is wronged when their gender claim is wrongfully challenged. I identify the features of Bettcher’s account that enable it to recognize this first-person authority and Graham use Bex-Priestley’s account as a model to show that we can identify these features in other promising accounts of gender. I finish by discussing the implications of Bettcher’s recent monograph, in which her earlier arguments are situated within an account of interpersonal spatiality.