No.152443
There are at least two different types of people who are called "transgender". The first are those who strongly recognize themselves in the opposite sex (or do not recognize themselves in either sex). The second are those who find that the social expectations assigned to their sex does not accurately reflect their self-identity.
For the first type of transgender person, the use of the word "gender" in the word "transgender" is more or less synonymous with sex. For the second type of transgender person, the word "gender" has a much weaker relationship with sex.
For the first type of transgender person, the second type deflates the legitimacy of their struggle, since they do not experience dysphoria with direct regard to their sex, and are therefore not transgender at all. For the second type of transgender person, the first type are gender essentialists who are gatekeeping the definition of "transgender".
We see similar divides on the use of the word "gender" outside how it is used by different kinds of transgender people. In plenty of scientific papers, and among most ordinary people, gender is synonymous with sex. For many intellectuals and social scientists, and among the extremely online, gender is distinct from sex (though there isn't a consensus on the distinction is). This divide is the source of many a misunderstanding on discussions and debates regarding transgender people, and is abused for political gain.
I claim that the materialist conception of gender is that it is a pattern of behaviour that emerged from a sex-based division of labour, and is therefore a prehistoric cultural tradition formed by sex. In the environments where humans survived under primitive conditions of production, labour was typically divided along the lines of sex. This is because, on average, males are physiologically suited for hunting and combat, and females likewise for gathering and homemaking. Such is the result of evolution and other forces, though this is topic that I don't want to delve too deep into here. In short, femininity and masculinity are informed by the social role that each sex performs best in based on their average physiology.
However, there were times when there was a scarcity of members of a sex in the tribe, or the physiology of a member of the tribe did not align neatly with their expected role, or external conditions disproportionately demanded one role over another, and so on. For example, suppose that a lot of the males didn't return from their last hunt. In this case, there was a necessity for at least some of the females to take on the role of hunter-warrior until the missing males returned or were found, and if they were discovered to be dead, such Amazons would likely have to grow accustomed to their new role. Still, while there was no reason why a male couldn't be feminine and a female couldn't be masculine, they were typically encouraged to stick to their assigned gender due to forces outside of one's control.
However, under modern conditions of production, the division of labour is continually becoming more independent of physiological difference. The average female might not be able to fight in a suit of armour, armed with sword and shield, like the average male can (sorry, Joan of Arc). But she certainly can aim and fire a gun just as well, if not better according to some anecdotes. The average physiology of a male might be more useful than that of a female on an oil rig, but it is likely that in the future a similar situation will arise on the oil rig as well - if it isn't completely automated by then, in which case gender will be absent from the job entirely.
From this materialist perspective, the word "transgender" takes on an entirely different meaning. Not only are most people not quite their assigned gender in some way or another, but the two types of transgender people discussed before are not really "transgender" to begin with. The first type is actually "transsexual" rather than merely "transgender", and experience "sex dysphoria". The second type are actually "postgenderists" who reject such sex-informed roles, creating and assuming ad-hoc roles instead, though failing to break from the tradition entirely. From this we can also derive the following insights:
1. Gender is a "spectrum" in way similar to how there are partially fixed states of matter with intermediary phases; one cannot simply create new genders at will.
2. Transsexual people are usually transgender, but the converse isn't true.
3. Gender may be a "performance", but transsexual people are not merely being "performative" in the specific way that they assume their gender.
4. There are different types of nonbinary based on the presence of sex dysphoria: non-sex-binary and non-gender-binary (for lack of better terms). Both are unique categories of their own, related to but distinct from transsexual or transgender/postgender.
5. In most cases, it is fair to assume that the only people who medically benefit from hormone replacement or a sex change are pre-treatment transsexuals.
Yet, an unfortunate result of the pseudo-political desert which we are forced to wander is how the misunderstanding of gender is twisted and abused. The postgenderists are caught in the trap of identity politics, being manipulated and coerced into supporting their liberal "allies" - supporting them rather than the other way around, since it turns out that such an alliance allows their own position to be colonized and corrupted by bad-faith actors, creating perverse incentives and censoring open discussion. Even worse, the struggles of "transsexual" people are often mangled and obscured entirely, setting them at odds with people who they would have never antagonized in the first place.
Whether they are aware of it or not, liberals enforce their ideology by cherry-picking the positions that are most convenient to their mode of politics, promoting misconceptions in order to artificially construct a marginalized identity group to rally around, tokenize and exploit. Their strategy is to impose a false unity by presupposing a dominant identity group and then asserting its negation. They use hyper-moralization to bully others into submission, and when they have exhausted the value extracted from the existing identity groups, they attempt to expand those horizons by any means necessary. What do "people of colour" actually share in common other than being "non-white", and what does "white" even mean? Are Slavs people of colour? Are Jews white? What do gay and lesbian people actually share in common with those who are intersex or identify as "two-spirit"?
Conservatives (really, fundamentalists) are not merely a reaction but a reflection of this absurd state of affairs, who mirror the same strategy but for the dominant identity groups instead, thus reinforcing the ruling ideology and the dominance of identity politics. They commit the same crime of cynically smelting the transgender identity into an obscene monolith, only to bludgeon their counterparts with it rather than hiding behind it as a shield.
All of this leads to a complete breakdown in even our ability to understand reality at even the most common sense level. When we get caught up in debates over who is allowed to go into which washroom or compete in which sports league, we seem to ignore the uniqueness of what it means to be trans. We seem to ignore what sex or gender means in everyday life, to ordinary people. In the analysis that follows, I will focus on transsexual people to make this point.
From a strictly biological perspective, transmen can never be males and transwomen can never be females. I think it's fair to take on this perspective as truth, because what's also plainly evident here are the very categories being used - females can be transmen and males can be transwomen. All we have to do is ask why these words exist and what they mean. They have the power to point to something that is distinct from both man/woman or male/female, to something which exposes the core of what it really means to be trans.
Hasan Piker gave the following argument in favour of the trans cause: imagine what sort of reaction ordinary people would have if they saw Buck Angel entering the women's restroom. Even if each restroom had an officially licensed penis inspector posted nearby, and they loudly declared that Buck Angel is to go to the women's restroom after confirming that he possesses lady parts, it would be outrageous (actually, it would be even more ridiculous if there really were a "penis inspector" present). To ordinary people, Buck Angel is effectively a man, and even if they knew that he had female genitals, the only reasonable reaction would be to treat him like a man regardless, no matter how bizarre the situation might be, because there is no way to treat him like a woman without violating the most basic standards of polite society.
Yet, there is more than mere appearances at play here, because the meaning of Buck Angel "passing" as a man is that he has worked hard to ensure that his physique conforms with that of the surrounding men, despite his female genitalia. In other words, his appearance conforms with the tradition of gender, a tradition with its origin in sexual difference. The cultural traditions that form the ground of our everyday social life affirm the identity of Buck Angel as a transman, though not quite as a man per se.
What of the transmen and transwomen who do not "pass"? It's important to remember that there are also certainly men who look somewhat feminine and women who look somewhat masculine. What it means to "pass" is somewhat murky, but the point is that transmen and transwomen have to make a serious effort to "pass" in order to be accepted. But this isn't a problem because they often do, with many going so far as to surgically alter their genitals! For example, male cannot simply declare themselves to be a woman if they don't make any effort at all to "pass", because there is no way to distinguish between such a person and a cis man who is simply declaring to be a woman in order to violate the standards of polite society. Furthermore, there is no reason why we cannot accommodate for those who for whatever reason struggle to "pass", or for those who do not intend to "pass" as either a man or a woman. A relatively simple solution would be to have a separate toilet that anyone could use, and some places have even done away with sex-assigned washrooms entirely in favour of individual toilets (which, as a very introverted and socially anxious cis man, I can appreciate as well).
Continuing on from the above, should transwomen be allowed into women-only groups, as the TERFs are so violently opposed to? Certainly, transwomen share some of the same struggles as women, and even just looking feminine as a man comes with a whole host of problems; at the same time, they certainly do not share the same struggles, incapable as they are of having periods or being pregnant. What is the solution? Create transwomen-only groups that collaborate with women-only groups, create transfeminist organizations that collaborate with feminist organizations. We should go even further and expect both of these organizations to collaborate with "masculinist" and "transmasculinist" organizations too!
Should transwomen be allowed to participate in women's boxing? No, for obvious reasons relating to sexual difference. But by that logic, transwomen shouldn't be allowed to participate men's boxing either, because to be a transwoman means that one has put great effort into modelling their physique to be different from that of men, and this counts for something even if they cannot fully escape the inherent physiological traits of sex. Therefore, transwomen and transmen should each have their own boxing league.
(For those interested, it's not like co-ed boxing is pure fantasy, but matching by weight class will never allow for a fair fight. There are several sanctioned instances of female fighters defeating their male counterparts, though none of them reached a high level of notoriety and there were usually problems with how the fighters were matched. I don't think a viable co-ed boxing league is impossible, but it would take serious thought and lots of trial-and-error to figure out a safe arrangement - not to mention the cultural backlash that will almost certainly arise from seeing a man punch a woman, no matter how built she is. Regardless, I've still met women who could beat my ass into paste if they really wanted to.)
What underlies all of these arguments is the politics of difference, founded on the assumption that accepting and working with difference is central to a just and equitable arrangement. The enemy of the politics of difference is the politics of false unity, in whatever form it takes - whether it be obscuring difference in order to manipulate and control, or by erasing difference through brutal and violent means. We cannot simply presume that men and women can live in harmony. To the contrary, we must recognize that men and women are literally by nature trapped in a deadlock. But, it is also human nature to adapt and overcome nature, and only by understanding this can we create an egalitarian system that dissolves that deadlock into polite society.
Therefore, we will not be doing trans people justice by presuming a false unity, whether between trans and cis, or between different definitions of trans, or between trans and lesbian and gay and so on. The only way to establish equality will be to accept and work with difference. The only way to liberate trans people will be to recognize the truly mundane uniqueness of the trans condition.