Is there anything about a person that lies beyond his power to self-identify, self-interpret, self-construe? Well, obviously, yes: that one is a person and a self in the first place with the power to identify as this or that is not a matter of self-identification. I cannot identify myself into existence or into selfhood. I cannot increase my powers by any process of self-identification. I may like the idea of being a necessary being, but I cannot slough off my contingent modal status by any self-construction. And of course the same goes for sex and race. Not even God could bring himself into existence by pretending to exist or by identifying as existent. And the same goes for the divine nature, unless you are a radical theological voluntarist who thinks that God is sovereign over his own nature.
And yes, Dolezal has been charged with welfare fraud if you can believe The New York Times.
Related:
Rachel Dolezal, The Black White Woman. I make a mistake at the end of this post that I will now correct. I represent Elizabeth Warren as the author of Pow Wow Chow when in fact she is merely a contributor to that by-now-famous recipe book. Her contribution, however, a recipe for lobster bisque -- Cherokees were into haute cuisine? -- was plagiarized!
Elizabeth Warren could be called the Rachel Dolezal of American politics. Never forget that Warren is a fraud. It is a known fact that she is not of Cherokee ancestry.
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