The Standing of Self-Identity

Abstract I identify as a philosopher, as cisgender, as an American. But are these identities secured merely by my claiming them, and what is the broader significance of our self-identification? Here, I argue that self-identifying secures the standing to participate in an ongoing process of determining the membership of the group with that identity. Using resources from political philosophy, I show why groups are entitled to revise the criteria for group membership, how having a stake in the group entitles one to be a part of this process, and that self-identifying as being within the group demonstrates having the relevant stake. After showing how this follows in the case of self-identifying as being within a demos, I argue that these claims hold generally across other kinds of identities, despite important differences between identities and contexts of oppression.