Empiricism and Transgendered Identity

Apparently Bruce Jenner has, somehow, become female, and we have to call Bruce "Caitlyn" and "her". Let's talk about this.

You may be trans.

You may be biologically male, but think you're a woman -- identify as a woman -- KNOW you're a woman.

How will you prove this truth to anyone else? How can we know, with the same certainty you have, that what you believe is true?

And most importantly, in the absence of such a proof, what right do you have to DEMAND that we believe -- and communicate -- an empirically false proposition?

I cannot say whether society benefits when we are compelled to lie, when we are compelled to place some other principle above what is true.

But then, I'm not sure that I have to.

The pencil felt thick and awkward in his fingers. He began to write down the thoughts that came into his head. He wrote first in large clumsy capitals:
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
Then almost without a pause he wrote beneath it:
TWO AND TWO MAKE FIVE

George Orwell, 1984