You Think You Know Someone: Trans Identities and Epistemic Injustice

Abstract In this paper, I identify a distinctive type of epistemic injustice which I call “identification-based injustice.” In paradigm cases, a prejudiced interlocutor responds to a trans speaker’s gender self-identification (e.g., “I am a woman”) with disbelief or dismissal. This is an everyday form of injustice experienced by trans individuals, and frequently has severe practical consequences. It involves testimony with a particular kind of content, namely self-identification. I argue that because the relevant self-IDs express substantial self-knowledge, the injustice harms the speaker both in their capacity as a knower and in their capacity to be known, by themself and by others. This illuminates a distinctively epistemic obligation on the part of hearers to take trans speakers’ self-identifications seriously.