Welcome to the third part of my response to the recent ContraPoints video titled Gender Critical, in which she addressed some of Gender Critical Feminism's talking points about the trans community. In my original response, I criticized Natalie for arguing her points in the ground that gender is a social construct, something that I have always vehemently disagreed with, because I think it erases the lived reality of trans people.
"But some trans people agree that gender is a social construct too. Basically, it is a foundational idea of radical feminism. Besides, people who believe that gender is a social construct are not always transphobic. Believing that gender is a social construct is not the same as being a TERF."
Yes, I get that. I guess our difference has come from the historically different ways the trans community and the feminist community have defined gender. For the trans community, up until very recently, gender has meant something like brain sex, and this is the view of gender I sought to explain in my video for gender dysphoria. It is under this definition that I began the exploration of my gender issues two decades ago. It is this definition of gender that I used when coming out to people. On the other hand, for the feminist community, gender means something like the gender norms and expectations of society, hence their wish to 'abolish gender'. This is just another example of a word being defined very differently in two different communities.
Therefore, I can accept that gender is a social construct, if it is agreed to be defined as social norms and expectations. I also have nothing against moves to critique and abolish unfair gender norms and expectations. However, this would be very different from the way gender is traditionally used among trans people, and we at least need to agree that there are two different things we're talking about here. Perhaps it's like ministers of religion vs ministers of government departments. To use the feminist definition of gender to talk about gender dysphoria makes no sense, like to use church law to talk about political ministers makes no sense.
"But if we accept that gender is a social construct, it means we can work to abolish it. Some feminists believe that if we abolish gender, then gender dysphoria won't exist anymore, because trans people would be able to express whatever gender they like."
I think Natalie actually addressed the 'abolish gender' idea, saying that because gender cannot be abolished anytime soon, feminists won't be able to help trans people anytime soon with this. But I would go further. Even if we abolish all gender norms and expectations, gender dysphoria would still exist, because the 'gender' in gender dysphoria is not the feminist type of gender. From my experience, gender dysphoria is basically dysphoria about the body, how it is seen both subjectively and objectively, plus dysphoria about the gender role taken in romantic relationships, and as you can imagine, these things are all closely related to each other. I cannot see how the abolition of gender norms and expectations can solve the problem of dysphoria.
"I have heard that some trans people have decided to reclaim the word transsexual for themselves, as that would end the confusion. Besides, bodily dysphoria can be more accurately termed sex dysphoria, right? So what do you think about that?"
I personally don't support this. Yes, it would end the linguistic confusion, but then the word transsexual has never been an accurate one, because human beings cannot physically change their sex. To identify as a 'transsexual' is basically to identify as something that is beyond the possibilities of reality, and therefore is like identifying as a 'unicorn' when unicorns don't even exist. It opens us to attacks that we are living in fantasy land. Therefore, I guess we are just stuck with being 'transgender people', and we are also stuck with the language of gender. As a result, I think we will just have to continue to uphold the 'brain sex' definition of gender, at least as one of the ways the word is used, and to prevent its confusion with the feminist definition of gender.
