We Must Not Let Gender Abolitionism Hijack the Trans Conversation | Trans Sandwiched #22

Welcome back to Trans Sandwiched by TaraElla. Today, I want to talk about the elephant in the room that really needs to be addressed: the attempt by some people, who have gender abolitionist ideology, or gender abolitionist-adjacent ideology, to repeatedly insert themselves into the trans conversation. As I often say, the trans community is a small community, and our voices are easily drowned out by bigger forces with their own agenda. It's something people really need to talk about more.

Let's talk about gender abolitionism first. It is the ideology stating that, firstly, gender is a social construct; secondly, it is a product of oppressive social relations and hence harmful; and thirdly, it can and should be deconstructed and/or abolished. Gender abolitionists often literally believe there are no differences between men and women except for the physical differences, and all non-physical differences between men and women can and should be abolished. Gender abolitionism should not be confused with reasonable attempts to free people of gender stereotypes, which I strongly support as a liberal. Gender abolitionism has no scientific basis, in fact, it goes against the fundamental logic of biological science. This should not come as a surprise, because it came from parts of the philosophy landscape that are not well informed by science. I believe gender abolitionism needs to be decisively rejected, because it can lead to cruel and misguided stances, as I will illustrate.

What is commonly called gender critical feminism, otherwise known as 'trans exclusionary radical feminism', is fundamentally rooted in gender abolitionism. Gender critical feminists believe that gender is not inherent to the individual, and can be abolished with social and political action. Therefore, they see trans people's claims of an innate gender identity as invalid, and an obstacle to their political goals. This largely explains their attitude to trans people and trans issues. I believe the view that gender can be abolished through social and political action is a dangerous one, because it can essentially be used to justify everything from trans non-acceptance, to deliberately making trans people's lives harder, perhaps even trans conversion therapy. After all, if gender is a harmful social construct, shouldn't society hold the line and refuse to entertain trans people's claims of an innate gender identity? In this mode of thinking, the cruelty of denying trans rights becomes justified as the necessary path to a utopia, where trans people won't exist, and trans rights won't matter anyway.

While gender critical feminism, which is rooted in the old-school version of gender abolitionism, is well known for its anti-trans stances, postmodernist gender deconstruction ideology is no less harmful to trans rights, in my opinion. Gender deconstructionism continues to hold that gender is a social construct, but rather than choosing to outrightly deny gender identity, it aims to use postmodern philosophy to deconstruct gender. From what I see, it is basically gender abolitionism by another method, because at the end of the process, if the concept of 'gender' still exists, it certainly wouldn't look anything like our traditional understandings of it. Gender deconstructionism uses trans people as the 'exception' case to help deconstruct the 'rules' of gender, in the aim of making such rules unstable and untenable. It is more interested in using trans people to wage language wars than to find practical solutions for the accommodation and integration of trans people into society. Meanwhile, trans people are left to suffer the backlash.

As you can see, there is really no form of gender abolitionism that is good for trans people in any way. This is only to be expected, because trans people are living proof that gender identity is innate, and this is not compatible with gender abolition. Therefore, I believe the firm rejection of gender abolition in all forms is required for the progress of trans acceptance and trans rights.

Campaigning for Trans Rights Under the Liberal Social Contract | Trans Realist #5

Welcome back to Trans Realist, a project where I have a conversation with my fellow trans people, about what could be done to make our lives better in the real world.

Today, I want to respond to the accusation from some people, that I am unwilling to upset conservatives, and recognize the religious right as the enemy of trans rights, for example. I want to start by saying that these accusations are totally groundless. I helped campaign for gay marriage for many years, and I have certainly done more than my fair share of upsetting conservatives. Even today, I continue to have very heated debates with conservatives, including those who insist that gay parenting is morally wrong, or that Caitlyn Jenner shouldn't be allowed to run for governor because she's trans. I don't shy away from taking a strong position against these frankly unreasonable stances. And I have always been highly skeptical of the religious right, ever since they supported the Iraq War in 2003, and whipped up hysteria over gay marriage the next year to save President Bush.

I guess the problem some have with my approach is not that I am unwilling to upset conservatives per se, but that I am unwilling to disrespect the social contract of liberal democracy in the way I campaign for trans rights. This social contract is the long-standing foundation of the Western world. It is widely upheld by people across the Western world, and is rightly the standard by which people will judge us to be reasonable participants in society or not. I also believe the fundamental pillars of this social contract, including free speech, freedom of conscience, free debate in the marketplace of ideas and so on, is a good structure on which to make the case for minority rights in general, and trans rights in particular. Besides, it is clear to me that respecting and working within the system we have still represents the quickest and least painful way to get trans rights done. Marriage equality was done this way, and there is no reason why trans rights can't be done this way.

To understand this debate better, I think we should look at the broader context. In recent years, there has been a faction of the far-left that is intent on challenging, and tearing down, the long-standing social contract of Western liberal democracies, via the promotion of alternative worldviews rooted in critical theory and postmodernism. Instead of respecting free speech and the democratic process, this movement aims to convert people to the view that all this is an exercise of oppressive power, and the solution is not to participate, but to 'tear the system down' in various ways. This movement has attempted to attach itself to the LGBT community and LGBT causes, causing a shift in the Overton Window of LGBT activism. Hence, radical alterations of mainstream culture and habits became commonly accepted demands within the world of LGBT activism, and deplatforming people who disagree came to be seen as OK by more and more people.

Meanwhile, the fact is that, we still live within a system of representative democracy, where any policy changes, including trans rights, need to win over a majority of the public. Demands and actions that are widely seen as unreasonable will generate backlash, which makes winning over majority support much harder. It is therefore a fact of life that unreasonable demands move us further away from trans rights, and makes trans people's lives more difficult in the real world. Hence, caring about how we are perceived as a community is a logical part of any constructive campaign for trans rights, it is not 'respectability politics'. Dealing with arguments from all sides in good faith, even if it might not be what we want to hear, is part of being a reasonable participant in the discourse. It is not giving in to the enemy, or 'repeating their talking points'.

Of course, compromises are often not satisfying, and can sometimes be painful. Hence radical activism's suggestion that we need not compromise on anything, that we need not work to look reasonable in the eyes of the public, are naturally going to be attractive to some people. However, this approach defies the reality that we live in, and is only going to lead us over a cliff as a community. And this should be the last thing that we want.

A Needs Based Model for Trans Accomodation | Trans Deeper #4

Welcome back to Trans Deeper, a show where we take a deeper look at what people are saying in the trans conversation, and whether their claims are valid or not. 

 

Today, I want to look at the issue of how trans people can be accommodated in society, while the needs and concerns of various stakeholders are all taken into account and addressed. Right now, a healthy conversation around this is largely absent, unfortunately.

I think the biggest problem we have right now is, there are not enough people who are committed to a what I would call a needs-based model for trans accommodation. As with other social issues these days, too often, the conflicts between different stakeholders are highlighted, and people are pitted against each other. The broader culture war atmosphere means that people on both sides tend towards digging into their positions, and fearing that giving anything up to the other side would be an admission of defeat. However, this is actually not a good way to resolve problems, since it would just lead to perpetual stalemate and increased polarization. We really need some fundamental change in the discourse.

I believe the best way to get the change we need is to start talking about a 'needs based' model for trans accommodation. In this model, we need to be committed to being truly compassionate and considerate about the needs of everyone in formulating policies and solutions. The actual needs of people also need to come before philosophical or political commitments at all times. Whenever there is a conflict of needs, there has to be a discussion rooted in compassion, where everybody's needs are taken care of. And we will usually find that such conflicts are very resolvable, with some reasonable compromise, as long as everybody is willing to be considerate.

I think those of us who want a good resolution to the current culture wars over trans issues should actively push for a needs based model. We should do it at every opportunity, especially when others are seeking to inflame the conflict on either or both sides. We need to do our best to remind others a better way is possible.

When Trans Culture Clashes With Mainstream Views | Trans Realist #4

The trans tipping point happened too quickly, and now we need to clean up the mess.

Welcome back to Trans Realist, a project where I have a conversation with my fellow trans people, about what could be done to make our lives better in the real world.

Today, I want to explore further what I call the 'trans philosophy problem': the persistent focus on the philosophical questions of gender in the trans discourse, which is creating hurdles for the advancement of trans acceptance and trans rights. As I previously argued, it is counterproductive to base the case for supporting trans people on agreement to philosophical questions like 'what is gender', 'what is a woman', 'what is a man', and so on. These philosophical questions are inherently divisive, and can serve to derail the argument for trans acceptance rooted in practical reality, which is why opponents of trans rights like them so much. I mean, even trans people ourselves can't actually agree on the philosophy of gender a lot of the time. I believe the argument for the acceptance of trans people should instead be based on practical reality: some people are born this way for whatever reason, gender dysphoria is a real condition that people are suffering from, and society should aim to accommodate and integrate people so that they have an equal opportunity in life, so that they can contribute to society.

Thinking about it, I think the 'trans philosophy problem' could actually be rooted in the history of the rapid collapse of the 'wall' between the trans community and mainstream society. Not that long ago, actually less than a decade ago, the 'trans' world and the 'mainstream' world were firmly separated, even on the internet. You had to go to trans websites to talk about trans stuff. Back then, the trans discussion was basically something only trans people took part in. We developed one or more 'trans' ways of seeing certain things, which helped us make sense of our lives, and in many cases, deal with our dysphoria. This included ways to understand the relationship between our brains, bodies and social roles, as well as ways to justify our view that we are the gender we identify as. The outside world didn't talk about these things, so we had to do it all on our own. Sometimes, there were divisions between two or more factions of the trans community, such as between social constructionists and transmedicalists, and there might even be heated intra-community arguments. But overall, this culture provided what us trans people needed, and it really made our lives better. Even today, I still think it's important for us trans people to have a trans culture to serve our particular needs.

And then, the 'trans tipping point' happened. Everything after that happened in a blur, and things changed so fast. It was only in mid-2014 that I remarked to a friend that I was seeing trans people in mainstream news every three months in the past year, which felt really weird for me, having grown up in a world that was absolutely silent on trans issues. By mid-2018, trans related discussions were everywhere, and some non-trans people, including both pro- and anti-trans people, were talking about trans issues like every week. The wall between trans culture and mainstream culture was knocked down almost overnight. Views of gender that came from trans culture came face to face with views from the mainstream, and also views from other minority factions, like gender critical feminists. These views naturally clashed with each other, given their inherent incompatibility. Trans people, who have long relied on trans culture to help us make our way through life, were deeply unsettled by this clash of views, which, in the minds of some of us, amounted to an 'invalidation' of our identities. The unspoken problem here is that this clash and 'invalidation' probably also triggered a deep dysphoria within many of us. Many of us were confused, and didn't know how to respond. Feeling a deep sense of hurt, some trans people lashed out at the other sides, which only made the whole problem worse. I think this was how the whole 'trans philosophy problem' came to be.

I think that, on a public level, we need to recognize that we all have our own right to free speech and freedom of conscience. It's part of the social contract of Western liberal democracies, and I believe we should all uphold it. During the heated debates, we might forget this, and as a community, we have to acknowledge that it doesn't make us look good. If we are reasonable citizens of a liberal democracy, there is no excuse to 'deplatform' views we don't like, or cancel people we don't agree with, no matter what. The only acceptable path to winning an argument is via reasonable debate and persuasion. Moreover, to win broad based support in the community, we must be able to appeal to people via common reason and decency, using shared values like freedom, compassion, needs based accommodation, mutual respect, equal opportunity, and so on. Given that ideas from the trans culture are often not generally accepted in the mainstream, arguing from those grounds distracts from our goal of broad based acceptance, and is counterproductive.

I also acknowledge the pain trans people, particularly those with severe dysphoria, have to go through in dealing with a public that often thinks differently. My advice for those who find it all too painful is to take care of themselves first, and disengage from the public trans discourse if that is what is best for your mental health. I also believe that there still needs to be a trans culture that is sort of separate from the mainstream trans discourse. This is where we will talk about our ideas of gender, and reaffirm our gender identities, not necessarily limited by what are commonly accepted views. The goal here would be not to find common ground with non-trans people, but specifically to make sense of our own lives and take care of our own needs. We need to acknowledge that there is a need for this kind of space to allow us to deal with the reality of our lives and our gender dysphoria. This, I believe, should be clearly separated from the way we deal with the mainstream trans discourse, because the goals of intra-community affirmation vs finding common ground with non-trans people actually require different mindsets and values. Getting this clear could help us chart a more productive path forward.

Rethinking Gender Performativity While Listening to Torrey Peters | Trans Sandwiched #21

Perhaps we can speak of Gender Role Performativity instead?

Welcome back to Trans Sandwiched by TaraElla. Today, I want to explore the concept of gender and gender roles, partly as a bridge building exercise with people who are sympathetic in some way to the concept of gender performativity. As I have said in the past, I reject the idea of gender performativity, and I actually think that it is anti-trans. However, I also like to build bridges with people who see things differently, and find out where we might have common ground. I believe it is always good to build bridges.

Recently, I watched an interview by the American Library in Paris with trans author Torrey Peters, most well known for her novel Detransition, Baby. Peters, who I think is sympathetic to gender performativity, explained that if gender was just defined as being a man, for example, it would be missing a lot of the nuances. She gave the examples of being a woodsman, a lumberjack, and a father, as different ways of doing a gender. She also said this was a trans insight, in that trans people who transition have to find a gender role that works for them, and actually be a gender within a gender. This insight, however, is applicable to non-trans people too.

I actually found her explanation interesting. I can't accept that being a woodsman, a lumberjack or a father is a 'gender', because that would be against my understanding of science. According to my scientific understanding, gender is basically the neurological part of biological sex, and I believe that diluting this understanding is harmful for trans people who suffer from gender dysphoria. On the other hand, if you substitute 'gender' with 'gender roles', what Peters was saying makes perfect sense to me, and I find it a genuinely interesting and useful insight. This shows that we do have plenty of common ground here after all. Indeed, if we speak of 'gender role performativity', then I can certainly support the idea, because I would honestly find it useful.

I also suspect the reason why they don't call it 'gender role performativity' is because 'gender roles' have a long history of being considered inherently oppressive and limiting in feminist theory. I mean, radical feminists traditionally call for 'gender abolition', something which I believe is misguided and misses the positive aspects of having gender roles. Historically, gender roles were indeed rigid, and placed unfair limitations on what women could do for a career, for example. However, society has since progressed, and we should not be forever condemned to that kind of worldview. In today's context, embracing a gender role that feels right for you can be liberating and empowering. This, I believe, is actually a core trans insight, because as part of transitioning, many trans people have found meaning and confidence in adopting a gender role that they like. I think this part of the trans experience definitely deserves further exploration.

Radical Dreams vs Trans Integration | Trans Realist #3

We need to break the vicious cycle that is keeping trans lives marginalized.

Welcome back to Trans Realist, a project where I have a conversation with my fellow trans people, about what could be done to make our lives better in the real world.

Today, I want to talk about how we can break free from what I see is the vicious cycle of rejection by mainstream society, escaping into radical utopian dreams, acting out the radicalism, which then only serves to generate even more rejection by mainstream society. I know this is an emotionally difficult topic, but I believe it is the right thing to do to help get our community out of this vicious cycle. As we have seen with the gay community, the marriage equality campaign allowed them to do just that, and gay lives have been much improved as a result, with acceptance and opportunities that were almost unimaginable just a generation ago. I want the same for the trans community.

But let me explain what I see as the vicious cycle. Marginalized people, like trans people, are often rejected by mainstream society as a default position. This leads some members of the community to escape into radical utopian dreams. They might even rationalize their suffering and alienation from society by upholding the romantic ideal of being outsiders who can 'tear the system down'. The trouble is that, if these beliefs are acted upon in the public, they might lead to actions that are considered unreasonable by most people, and further tarnish the reputation of the community in the mainstream. Reactionary politicians who hunger for a culture war will also seize on these actions to justify withholding civil rights from members of the community. This contributes to even deeper rejection and marginalization by mainstream society. From here, the cycle can then repeat itself, condemning generations of the community to live marginalized lives.

Therefore, if we care about our future, as trans people living in a world that is not always accepting, and especially if we care about those who will come after us, it is important to find a way to break this vicious cycle. Given that we don't have much influence over how the mainstream will interpret what they see of the trans community, and we certainly have no control over reactionary politicians and culture warriors, the only place we can act is within the trans community itself. This is why I have been challenging problematic philosophies and theories that I believe are contributing to the radical outsider revolution mindset. This has made me unpopular with some activists, but I have to do it because I believe it's the only way to save the future of the trans community. By doing what I do, I believe that there is still hope that we can turn the tide against the current backlash, and stop our rights from being attacked at least. Sometimes, the correct choices aren't the easy ones.

The truth is, if we want to build bridges with mainstream society, we have to be seen to act reasonably by their standards. I acknowledge that the judgement from mainstream society is not always fair, but it's still the test we need to pass, and that is just reality. No amount of philosophy or political theory can imagine away this reality. Therefore, to encourage each other to act reasonably, and present ourselves well in the cultural and political discourse, is to do your part to advance trans acceptance and trans rights. It is perhaps more important than any advocacy.

The Problems with Debra Soh's The End Of Gender | Trans Deeper #3

Welcome back to Trans Deeper, a show where we take a deeper look at what people are saying in the trans conversation, and whether their claims are valid or not. Last time, we looked at the reaction to Debra Soh's The End Of Gender among gender critical feminist circles, and what we can learn from that. This time, I want to look at what is in the book itself.

The End Of Gender claims to debunk 'the myths about sex and identity in our society' in a way that is 'backed by science and facts'. This alone had got me excited, because I believe the current discourse around sex and gender has too much unscientific philosophy and theory, and too little reference to the facts of biological science. However, when I actually got the opportunity to read the book, I was left a little disappointed, to be honest. The book emphasizes the need to do good science and resist unscientific biases and social pressures throughout, but I don't think it has lived up to this promise in reality. In particular, as someone with both undergraduate and postgraduate academic training in the medical sciences, I found plenty of things to be concerned about in the book.

Firstly, let's talk about the style of writing. The book mixes scientific findings, anecdotal information, and the author's own opinions throughout. The latter two are clearly not scientific, but the book does not clearly enough demarcate what is and isn't of scientific standard, in my opinion. An even bigger problem is that it mixes plenty of culture war stories in with descriptions of the science. These culture war stories are particularly familiar to those of us who follow right-leaning news media regularly (I follow news media from across the political spectrum regularly, because my political views don't fit neatly into a box, and because I want to hear all sides of the story). I mean, if I had wanted a greatest hits of conservative culture war stories, I would have read Dave Rubin's books instead. I really think it is inappropriate to include culture war stuff in books supposedly about the science, because it could bias the overall impression readers get, even if the science presented is otherwise sound.

The problem with casually mixing scientific findings and anecdotal information is that readers can get confused about what is fact, and what is merely opinion. This is especially problematic since the book covered plenty of areas where research is currently relatively lacking, including gender dysphoria in childhood and non-binary gender identities. For example, Soh offers a lot of thoughts on why people might be identifying as non-binary, but this is not backed by any vigorous research data. She even suggests that trans people who subsequently switch to non-binary identification sound 'like they are experiencing transition regret', a statement not backed up by any solid evidence, and also not consistent with what I have observed about such people in the trans community. Later on, Soh states that 'gender identity is flexible in children', even though this is by no means scientifically established to be true for every individual. I personally have had gender dysphoria since before age 3, and my own gender identity has been stable since the beginning, for example.

The book also presents highly controversial theories as if they were fact. The biggest example of this is the Blanchard typology of trans people, which has been repeatedly challenged and debunked. As a trans person who has seen the whole range of the diversity in the trans community, I definitely know that there are plenty of trans women who don't fit into the two boxes prescribed by the Blanchard typology. Proponents of the Blanchard typology have never satisfactorily addressed this problem, and this book is no exception. Soh also states that biological sex 'is defined not by chromosomes or our genitals or hormonal profiles, but by gametes'. However, this view is not universally accepted by scientists, and as Soh later illustrates, there are plenty of exceptions to this 'rule', which means that it is not a better way to define biological sex compared with chromosomes, for example. The fact remains that the commonly accepted ways to define biological sex (chromosomes, reproductive organs, gametes, and so on) all have 'exceptions to the rule', and they don't 100% line up either. Soh's rejection of this area of ambiguity is not good science, in my opinion. This is actually not directly related to trans issues, because we are talking about ways to define biological sex and not gender here. However, there is currently a wish by some people for a simple rule to reliably classify every individual on Earth by biological sex, usually to serve trans-skeptical political agendas, and I am worried that the way Soh rejected the gray areas in biology could fuel this unscientific sentiment. Good science should be upheld, even if it does not deliver what some people want.

There is also an outrightly incorrect statement. Soh says that transmedicalism is 'to question whether nonbinary people are the same as trans people'. In reality, the defining belief of transmedicalism is 'one needs gender dysphoria to be trans'. Transmeds have a variety of views on non-binary people, and many actually accept non-binary people with dysphoria as fulfilling their definition. While this is not a major theme in the book, it just shows how Soh has an inadequately clear understanding of the trans community, and the different stances of the various 'factions' within the community. Given this, I think it is legitimate to question the soundness of her commentary on the state of the trans community.

Don't get me wrong. I think it is still a good thing that Soh has promoted and emphasized the need to take a science and facts based approach in examining issues around gender. There are still plenty of things in the book that are actually scientifically sound, and this is more than can be said for many opinion pieces about gender issues these days, for example. However, if we want people to adopt a more scientific approach in their views of gender, we must start by doing good science in a consistent way. Using my academic training in the medical sciences, I judge that this book has failed to do that.