It is nothing short of shocking to see who has become the only group to fight against gender stereotypes. Read the linked article and then hold on tight for the last paragraph. This is what feminism used to be about but feminists have retreated from the battle against gender essentialism.
24 responses to “Against Gender Essentialism ”
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I know will regret opening my mouth on this issue, but here goes…
I am reading with horror the stories of prepubescent children and teens on puberty blockers, hormone injections, etc. and the resulting bodily malformations (e.g., due to incomplete development of genitals) that can never be fixed and that create lifelong medical patients of these young people. It also pains me to see rampant misogyny and homophobia internalized by young girls, who grow to hate their female bodies and what those bodies represent, and decide that those loathsome bodies could not possibly be associated with someone who likes math, physics, computer science, and eschews frills, so they must really be boys; or that the fact they are attracted to girls means they are not girls themselves.I do believe gender dysphoria is real, but I also believe it is rare. What I don’t believe is that the sizable percentage of kids at my Eldest’s high school (I kid you not) who claim to be trans really are trans; I guarantee for most of them it’s a phase or more likely following a fad. What is scary to me is how many people allow invasive procedures on their children, so I really hope most of these kids can work through whatever is happening and emerge on the other side with bodily integrity and health intact.
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I so agree! It’s a veritable crime to put adolescents on hormones. Instead of changing our attachment to gender stereotypes, we try to change human bodies. That’s deranged!
I also believe that gender dysphoria is a real affliction and believe that people who suffer from it deserve any kind of medical or other help they and their doctors decide upon. But it’s a very rare condition.
Being a geek doesn’t mean you need medication! It means you need to enjoy your geekness and feel comfortable in it.
So yes, we are in complete agreement here.
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I agree with you 100%, Clarissa. I want people (adults) to be able to do what they want with their bodies, and if they experience gender dysphoria, they should be able to get the medical treatment they want and need. But I still have a hard time (at the theoretical/philosophical level) reconciling my own anti-essentialist, feminist beliefs with some of the current views on transgenderism, although I personally support anyone who identifies as transgender.
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I support trans rights completely. But my acceptance stops at the point where people go from “this is who I am and I want to live my life this or that way” and move to “I want to define what it means to be a woman.” You can define what it means to you but not what it means to everybody. That I can’t accept.
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“I support trans rights completely”
I can’t help but admire the determination of those who undergo years of therapy (physical and mental) in search of self-fulfillment. One of the quintessential human characteristics is rebellion against nature through technology and bending it to the iron will of individual choice.
But some old guy who puts on a dress and says “I’m a woman!”….. eh, not so much.
Bruce Jenner is essentially a straight transvestite who’s found a new test for ‘passing’ – getting the public to accept his female persona.
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Jenner is just looking for new reasons to spend more money. But I support anybody’s desire to wear a dress or grow a beard as long as they stay away from speechifying on what it “means” to be a woman.
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Very much agreed! These are very bizarre essentialist ideas of what men and women are supposed to be, look, want, think, and feel. The phenomenon xykademiqz describes worries me for several additional reasons: (1) Adolescence is a time of profound biological changes. We have no idea what these hormonal treatments may do to a developing body and brain in the long run. (2) Adolescence is a time of identity development. Developmental scientists view identity development as comprised of cycles of exploration and commitment. Someone who is transitioning in adolescence makes an identity commitment with far-reaching and lasting consequences at an age where identity exploration would be key. (Erik Erikson would have called this identity foreclosure.) (3) Negative affect peaks in adolescence. So some amount of dysphoria (including gender dysphoria) is normative in adolescence. I think it’s actually a key driver behind the development of coping and emotion regulation skills.
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Telling the kids who are unhappy with gender stereotypes that the only thing that can be done is altering their bodies to protect the stereotypes is simply wrong.
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You’re right, alas. Claiming to be trans (or gay, or bi) has become fashionable nowadays, and idiotic, irresponsible parents and other adult authority figures are pushing malleable children in disastrous ways with permanent psychological and physical consequences.
Those adults are being “progressive,” of course — and if you question that, you’re a bigot.
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I saw on TV a mother who decided her 3-year-old is trans and is persecuting the poor, miserable tot with insane questions like “do you feel more as a boy or as a girl?” I feel deeply sorry for the kid.
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Yes. I agree with you, xykademiqz, and Anonymous. I have always considered myself supportive of trans rights and trans identities. But I am getting increasingly troubled by much of trans rhetoric and think it is setting feminism back.
I don’t think it it is productive for feminists and tran- activists to be at odds; but unless trans-activists acknowledge the reality of the feminine body (no: men cannot have abortions) and repudiate gender essentialism, I don’t know where we go from here. Sadly, fear that trans-activism is starting to splinter and minimize feminism. Sigh.
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that trans-activism is starting to splinter and minimize feminism
Unfortunately, you are completely correct. Have you heard of the derogatory term TERF? It stands for trans-exclusionary radical feminism (or feminist). But when I read some of articles that are supposedly very radical and inflammatory, they are basically discussing things along the lines we brought up here (anti-essentialism). Here is an article that was my first exposure to the term TERF some months ago, and it links to a number of articles, some of which I found very informative:
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Yes. I love the essay you linked to. I think maybe Clarissa might have linked to it once a while ago? At any rate, I think the essay is wonderful. This quotation sort of sums it up for me:
“No-one should really be offended by the factual statement that vulvas are female, and we should all be deeply suspicious of the notion that brains are sexed.”
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The “female brain” idea was finally getting put to rest, and it’s unbelievable that it should get revived again.
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I used to comment here under my real first name, but you keep hitting topics that I dare not touch…
I support the right of anyone to use the bathroom that they are most comfortable in because–certain paranoid fantasies of social conservatives notwithstanding–bathrooms aren’t hotbeds of rape by people of various transgender/transsexual identities. People pretty much go to the bathroom to take care of business with as little exposure as possible. If anything, forcing people to use bathrooms that don’t match their presentation will cause more problems, not less.
But I see no obvious solutions for locker rooms, where exposure is inevitable. When it comes to teenagers undressing in front of each other, I don’t care how enlightened and egalitarian and non-traditional we want to be, teenagers are still learning how to behave. I don’t fear transgender people using locker rooms to assault people. They’re a vulnerable population, and even if they wanted to hurt someone there are too many bystanders in a locker room. What I do think is that the masses of teenage boys (and all too many popular girls as well) would behave regrettably when possibly unpopular and possibly confused members of the opposite sex are taking their clothes off. In an ideal world everyone would get an individual changing room. Until that massive school construction budget arrives, I think that the question of locker rooms is just a big mess. Sending the transgender kid into the locker room of the opposite gender/same sex seems like a bad idea. Sending them into the locker room of the same gender/opposite sex also seems like a bad idea.
I…I just don’t know what to do. Maybe that makes me a bigot, but when we’re talking about teenagers taking off their clothes in front of the most assholish males and the queens of the girls’ social circuit, I think some caution and practicality are more important than egalitarian ideology.
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In terms of locker room, that school in Chicago, I think, that offered the transgender student a separate, discreet place to change was absolutely in the right. And if the adults in this kid’s life were more caring and less self-involved, they would have been able to tell the kids that it’s a great thing. (“You are like a movie star, you get your own dressing room!”) But the kid was used to create needless drama. And that’s regrettable.
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I believe gender dysphoria is real and I think a larger number of people experience it than is realized but I also think it’s mostly a temporary thing (even if it’s felt deeply while it lasts). The early acquired lifelong variety is, I think pretty rare.
I also believe autogynephilia is real as are some conditions that we don’t have names for yet. I’ve seen the theory that hormonal changes (combined with steroids) are behind the phenomenon of very masculine men who ‘transition’ late in life.
It’s also been clear that the current no-questions-asked-or-answered blanket acceptance at face value of anyone who says they are trans is a poison pill that will destroy feminism (the pathetic remnants that are left, that is)
Gender Identity Watch was a good source for a lot of this stuff.
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Blanket acceptance is precisely the problem. At least, in scholarly communities there should always be questioning. But did you see what happened to the academic who studied autogynephilia? The poor guy was pilloried. And for what? He’s a scholar, it’s his job to study and analyze.
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A trend I’ve observed on tumblr and in a few minor celebrities is calling oneself “agender”, “genderfluid”, “nonbinary” and stuff like this when one doesn’t conform to traditional gender expectations. Most of these people are not trans and don’t intend to transition.
What the hell went wrong down the path of dismantling gender essentialism, I don’t know, but now we have this clusterfuck.LikeLike
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So true.
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It’s interesting to me how fundamentalism and trans-ness dovetail in their strict limning of gender performance as an indicator of actual sex. I’ve had both fundamentalists and trans women tell me in not so many words that math is masculine.
Not feeling at ease in your body is terrible. But people don’t want to interrogate why that is, instead preferring to go towards medical essentialism.
Poor David Reimer was a victim of this mentality imposed by him by his parents and the medical establishment who decided that because of botched circumcision his gender identity needed to be changed.LikeLike
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Have never thought the Russian propaganda of “gay propaganda will mentally damage our kids” will come true in America, in a way.
Yes, I know it’s not really gay propaganda. Still, Russians would have a field day with it.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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