Trans Issues, Radical Feminism and Critical Theory | TaraElla Report LvCT

Why critical theory inspired radical feminism is bad for trans people

Welcome back to TaraElla Report LvCT, Liberalism vs Critical Theory. In this new series, we will explore the differences between the critical theory worldview and the liberal worldview.

Today, I am going to take a look at why radical feminism has had so much difficulty with the acceptance of trans people. As we've examined before, radical feminists are currently deeply divided on their attitude towards trans people and trans issues, but neither side of the radical feminism coin has really come to terms with trans people as we actually exist in this world. Therefore, my view is that radical feminism as a whole is actually not quite accepting of trans people.

Let's start by defining 'radical feminism'. Different people define the term differently, but here, I will use a broad definition. That is, 'radical feminism' here will include all major branches of feminism that are not liberal or reformism orientated, including the second wave, third wave and postmodern influenced varieties alike. Since the middle of the 20th century, feminism has been generally divided into liberal feminism and radical feminism. In general, liberal feminists essentially extend the the liberal commitment to equal opportunity, equal treatment and universalist civil rights into the field of sex and gender. Thus, liberal feminism believes in ending all barriers and unequal access to opportunities and choices in life based on sex and gender. On the other hand, radical feminism doesn't believe in the liberal feminist vision. Instead, their view of gender relations is strongly colored by the common critical theory worldview of power dynamics between oppressor vs oppressed groups. Radical feminism essentially sees the world as fundamentally defined by unequal power dynamics between men, as a class, vs women, as a class. Furthermore, just like other critical theory type worldviews, radical feminism believes that the current system is unreformable, revolutionary change must occur if there is to be justice, and such change can only come with strengthening awareness of the power dynamics, which makes it essentially opposed to liberal feminism to a great extent.

As you can see, the difference between liberal feminism and radical feminism has strong parallels with the difference between liberal colorblind anti-racism and critical race theory. It is essentially a parallel that can be observed across a variety of progressive movements, with one side being rooted in liberalism, and the other side essentially rooted in critical theory thinking. It is what this series is all about. But let's return to radical feminism.

I believe the difficulty radical feminists have had with trans people is fundamentally rooted in their binary two-class worldview, seeing men and women primarily as two antagonistic classes rather than as individuals. The liberal model has had a much easier time accommodating trans people because it sees people as individuals rather than members of a group. Thus, it doesn't have as much difficulty in dealing with people who don't neatly fit into a group all the time. After all, the liberal demand for treating people equally regardless of sex or gender, which is basically sex-blindness and gender-blindness, is equally applicable even where the sex and gender of the person is mismatched, or otherwise unconventional. On the other hand, radical feminism requires first classifying people as 100% belonging to one class or another, and it is easy to see why it would have difficulty with trans people. The core divide within radical feminism is basically one of agreeing vs refusing to classify trans people with the gender they identify as. The bitterness of the divide, as it currently stands, demonstrates why the liberal model is better, in my opinion.

I think another reason why radical feminism has had difficulty with trans people is its a-priori ideological commitment of seeing gender as a social construct. As I've said before, gender critical feminists can't accept trans people because they believe that gender is a social construct, which essentially means that all non-physical differences between men and women are socially constructed. In this worldview, trans people can't logically exist naturally. On the other hand, while postmodernism-inspired radical feminists (sometimes called intersectionalists) might support trans rights superficially, they too can't truly accept most biological explanations of trans identity, because they too believe that gender is a social construct. This means that postmodernized feminism essentially sees trans identity as no more than a 'performance', or an aspect of personality at most. This actually amounts to a refusal to understand gender dysphoria properly, and is ultimately bad for trans acceptance because it perpetuates misunderstanding in the wider world. This is why I say that neither side of the radical feminist divide actually fully accepts trans people.

Radical feminism is committed to the idea that gender is a social construct, not because of clear empirical evidence proving so, but because of the strong influence of the critical theory worldview, which includes the view that the dominant cultural ideas of society are the ideas that uphold the dominance of the oppressor groups. In the radical feminist worldview, gender, i.e. any differences between men and women that are not physical, must be a product of the patriarchal system that benefits men and oppresses women, and hence must be abolished or at least revolutionized in some way. There is not much room for compromise here, because any compromise would essentially mean accepting oppression and giving up on revolutionary consciousness. This is why, if the theory of gender being a social construct comes up against the reality of trans people, radical feminism would essentially demand that reality yield to their theory. However, since trans people are real people, and trans lives are real lives, this is simply not morally acceptable!

So this, I think, explains why radical feminism has had so much difficulty with trans people and trans issues. It is also an example that demonstrates why, compared to the critical theory model, the liberal model of social progress is much more adaptive, flexible and hence more useful for resolving many social justice issues.

Trans People Are Not An Ideology! | Trans Sandwiched #13

We need to talk about the dangerous trend of lumping trans people in with 'wokeness'.

Welcome back to Trans Sandwiched by TaraElla. Today, I want to talk about a worrying trend: some people are increasingly using trans people and trans issues to signal a rejection of the 'woke' or the postmodern agenda. And it often takes the form of a general rejection of the 'trans phenomenon' or the 'trans ideology', as if the existence or validity of trans people are inherently tied to excessive 'wokeness' or postmodern theory.

Let me say this: trans people have always existed in this world. We are simply a natural occurrence, we don't need justification from any academic theory. Indeed, many trans people like myself believe that the academic theories around gender are a distraction at best, and are harmful to proper understanding of trans people at worst. Needless to say, we are not fans of the academic theory at all. Which makes it all the more painful for us to hear descriptions of the 'trans phenomenon' or the 'trans ideology' lumped in, almost reflexively, with things like critical race theory, postmodernism, the 'oppression olympics', and so on, a practice that is increasingly common especially among conservative commentators.

I understand that there is a lot of frustration with postmodernism and critical theory driven cultural activism out there. However, please don't take it out on trans people. Please understand that many of us are also very frustrated about the cultural discourse around gender. Contrary to popular belief, not all of us agree with every radical idea around gendered language and norms out there, and we certainly don't have a collective agenda of imposing such ideas on the rest of society. The truth is, we are sick and tired of being used as a political football by people on all sides. All we want is to live our lives in peace. All we want from society is an understanding that we are human too. Like many other people, we have our own issues, and we transition and live the way we do because it is required for us to find peace in our everyday lives. Being trans is not inherently a political thing, and painting it as so is very unfair.

Some people say that they are able to separate what they call the 'trans ideology' (which is really gender theories invented by postmodern academics) from trans people. However, the problem with calling it the 'trans ideology' is that it creates the widespread impression that trans people are transitioning for ideological purposes. This idea has led some people to believe that they must 'stop' the so-called 'trans phenomenon', by opposing trans rights, and slowing down trans acceptance as much as possible. This means we don't even get a fair hearing from society. People are essentially conditioned to be biased against what we have to say even before they hear it.

I guess the best policy is, if you have an issue with something, just say what it is, directly and unambiguously. I understand that postmodernism often has controversial things to say about trans people, but that is not what trans people are, and not what trans lives are about. If you have a problem with postmodernism, just say so. If you have a problem with certain 'new norms' around gender proposed by activists, just say what you're concerned about. Perhaps you'll be surprised at the number of trans people whom you'll find common ground with.

And whenever you hear someone referring vaguely to something called the 'trans phenomenon' or the 'trans ideology', the best thing to do is to ask for a clarification. Because trans people are not a political phenomenon, and we are certainly not an ideology.

Why Trans and Queer Theory is Skewed and Unrealistic | Trans Sandwiched #12

A deep dive into why academic theories are biased because of the structure that produced them.

Welcome back to Trans Sandwiched by TaraElla. Today, I want to talk about what I think is the most important reason why a lot of the theory about trans and LGBT people, the theory used by the activists, is often skewed and unrealistic. I think it's a problem we need to remedy, because the trans conversation is currently being driven to a significant extent by theory that is not well grounded in reality, and this is not helpful for improving understanding about trans people and trans issues.

So why is this happening? I think it is actually rooted in the environment in which these theories originated. Many popular theories about LGBT people, the nature of gender and so on ultimately have their origins in the academic humanities, particularly philosophy, gender studies, and other related fields. As I have often said before, I believe there is some kind of imbalance in many of these fields, in that certain worldviews and assumptions are currently too dominant, to the exclusion of other useful perspectives. I am not saying that the currently dominant views are always wrong or worthless, but more diversity would be needed to produce a more complete and balanced picture of the truth.

I think this imbalance of perspectives, the superficial cause of the skew in the theories, can be traced to an even more fundamental cause. That would be the split of science away from philosophy. Historically, the roots of what we would consider science today was part of philosophy, called 'natural philosophy'. But by the 19th century, the scientific method had become very well developed, which meant that scientific inquiry became a specialized pursuit, with its own epistemology, its own defined methods of acquiring knowledge and its own standards of required proof for validation of hypotheses. This meant that it no longer fitted well within the broader and more open field of philosophy, therefore the split.

Don't get me wrong, I have always been a big fan of the scientific method, and its arrival had been responsible for many key advancements that we now take for granted. However, the divorce of science and philosophy has gradually produced a skew within philosophy, in that it has moved further and further away from empiricism, objectivity and logical reasoning with each generation. It looks like philosophy is missing a particular perspective because it has been taken away by the split with science. As one might expect, the continued absence of an important perspective has led philosophy to grow further and further skewed in the opposite direction. The split has had many important downstream effects. For example, one might lament the lack of great liberal (as opposed to criticalist, structuralist or postmodernist) political philosophers in recent decades. However, if you look at the historical cannon of liberal philosophers, many of them were actually committed empirical thinkers. The same kind of thinker would be more likely to be found in the sciences, or even in economics departments, than in philosophy today. In other words, the kind of minds who came up with the classical liberal cannon probably wouldn't be doing philosophy at all today, because their interests would have brought them to other fields of study in the first place.

Which brings me onto the next problem. In the age we live in, academia is highly specialized, and knowledge is highly compartmentalized. This is actually a relatively new development if we look at it in the timeframe of the entirety of Western history. And I think its downsides are just beginning to be realized. One major problem with this specialization is that those who work with one perspective are often missing another. Therefore, not only has philosophy grown to put less and less emphasis on empiricism and objectivity, those working in philosophy are also unlikely to interact too much with ideas from the sciences, the new home of empiricism and objectivity.

There has been much talk about the need for 'multidisciplinary' intellectual work, but the real 'multidisciplinary' intellectual, i.e. one that is well versed in all the subjects that used to be considered part of the unified category of philosophy in classical European culture, is a rare thing today. There is at least a good reason that such an intellectual would be rare: to specialize in one field of study itself would already take about a decade (if we count undergraduate plus postgraduate study). To then study the other fields probably wouldn't take as long, because the common foundations of academic training would already be there, but I would estimate that it would still take until at least 35, even for a very dedicated and very talented individual. And most people probably couldn't afford to stay at school full time until 35 or older, even if they wanted to! I actually have a proposed solution for this problem: the few individuals with the talent and interest to do this should be identified early on (perhaps in high school), and they should be given the opportunity to undergo this kind of training, like how there are scholarships for doctors who want to pursue an MD/PhD combined course of study, which is very costly in both time and monetary terms, but very useful for society. I think society would benefit much from having an adequate number of truly 'multidisciplinary' intellectuals, because it would prevent individual fields of study from skewing further and further away from each other.

Anyway, let's return to theories about trans and LGBT people. In the current highly specialized academic landscape, these topics mostly belong with philosophy, sociology and other parts of the humanities. The sciences (physics, chemistry etc.) usually don't find this a relevant topic, so there isn't even much in terms of 'counter-argument' theories to what is being offered in the humanities. The exception is clinical medicine, but even there, the amount of attention devoted to trans and LGBT issues is less than what is available in the humanities. This, I think, explains why much of the theory currently out there about trans people is not really empirical, that is, not really based in observable, objective reality. This really frustrates me, as someone who believes in moving towards a more empirical understanding of trans people and trans issues.

How Trans Activism Limits our Models of Possibility | Trans Sandwiched #11

Today, I want to talk about the concept of 'possibility models', popular among some parts of the trans community, and use it to examine how the current dominant discourse of trans activism limits the models of possibility available for trans people, and hence are actually harming the trans community.

First, let's look at the idea of 'possibility models'. This term was popularized by trans actress Laverne Cox (from Orange is the New Black), who used it in an interview back in 2014. "I hate the term 'role model'. I think it's presumptuous to think anyone should model their life after me, but I do like the term 'possibility model' and thinking about what's possible," Cox said. Hence, a 'possibility model' is basically a trans person living out a model of life that can inspire other trans people to realize the possibilities about how their life can be like. In the case of Cox, the 'possibility' is that a trans person can aspire to be a popular actress, for example.

I think the idea of 'possibility models' is important, because it encourages trans people towards self-actualization, which would also be important for our mental wellbeing. In a world where trans representation remains limited, the availability of a wide variety of 'possibility models' is especially important for trans people who are at the stage of life where they need to figure out where to take their lives.

In my view, individual 'possibility models' (embodied by specific people) can be further grouped into what I would call 'models of possibility' (more generalized forms). For example, Cox showed trans people who wanted to get into acting that they can be successful too. Nowadays, there are many more successful trans actresses. Together, they show that being a successful actress can be a 'model of possibility', a general goal to aspire towards, for trans people who are interested in acting. Other common 'models of possibility' for trans people include being successful in fields like academia, journalism, computer science, or even being a successful YouTuber, just to mention a few areas where prominent trans people have found success in.

I also think that 'models of possibility' are not necessarily limited to careers, because careers are not the only thing people define their lives by. For example, there are plenty of trans women who are very feminine, and plenty of trans women who have a more tomboyish or gender-neutral presentation and lifestyle. These 'styles' represent a spectrum of 'models of possibility' for newly out trans women still discovering their style.

This brings me onto the most important point I want to make here. In recent years, the dominant trans narrative, heavily shaped by the actions of certain activists, paints a 'picture' of a typical trans person as being constantly in intense conflict with various parts of wider society. To be fair, this is not entirely the fault of the activists, because trans issues have indeed (unfortunately) become a culture war football. However, activists have often sought to highlight and heighten those conflicts, contributing to the 'picture'. One thing we need to understand is that it doesn't have to be this way, and it hasn't always been this way. For example, when I first came out as trans, back when I was in college, the common 'picture' of a trans person was someone who was singularly focused on their transition, to the point where they often didn't care about much else happening in the wider world. I'm not saying that this was better, it's just that the 'picture' changes depending on the times.

The problem with the current 'picture' is that it is effectively suppressing certain 'models of possibility' for trans people. For example, there are many people who are inherently conflict-averse, who prefer to use more peaceful and diplomatic means to resolve our differences. Given the random distribution of gender dysphoria in the population, logically speaking there must be plenty of trans people who are like that. Yet, given that almost all of our community representatives and icons tend to be on the loud and argumentative side, the 'model of possibility' of being a diplomatically inclined trans person is effectively suppressed and not readily available to those who would find it relatable. This is why many diplomatically inclined trans people have said that they don't feel like part of the community. Something really needs to change here.

I also want to briefly talk about what we discussed in the last episode, the strong influence of the ideas of the mid-20th century critical theorist Herbert Marcuse, and the resulting conflation of liberation from oppression with liberation from repression. The problem is that, while everyone of us would like to be treated fairly in society, not everyone of us would like to be 'liberated' from all forms of Freudian repression. By upholding the Marcusean anti-repression ideal as an integral part of their version of trans liberation, the activist establishment is effectively suppressing other 'models of possibility' that many trans people would find more relatable. These include, but are not limited to, the possibility of being a traditionally modest trans woman, the possibility of living a community-oriented life in the suburbs, and the possibility of being a religious trans person. These 'models of possibility' might not be for everyone, but true trans justice and liberation would require that they be readily available for those who want them.

I guess, just by using my voice to provide my perspective, an alternative trans perspective to the dominant 'picture' out there these days, I am also providing a 'model of possibility' in the process. I am trying to demonstrate that it is possible to be committed to trans rights and still embrace a more diplomatically inclined method of resolving differences. I am also trying to demonstrate that, if you reach out to people who might not be entirely in agreement with you, you might still find plenty of common ground and even some friendship. Above all, I am trying to demonstrate that the world doesn't have to feel like a hostile place for trans people, if that's not how you want to see the world. I hope my work can inspire more trans people to embrace the complete picture of who they really are, rather than just accepting what the activist establishment and some parts of society think we ought to be like.