Comments on gender ideology
Letter submitted by JK
In this letter I'll be expressing some concerns about the rise of so-called 'gender ideology' (the idea that everyone has something called a 'gender identity', and that this identity is more important than one's biological sex).
In the last 10 years or so, gender ideology has gone from being a relatively fringe cultural and academic idea to being completely dominant in almost every global and Western institution. Many people from across the political spectrum see this as an alarming development. From my own perspective this is just one aspect of some larger and equally alarming trends, but in this letter I'll focus exclusively on gender ideology.
For many of us who've generally thought of ourselves as being left-leaning, watching the rise of gender ideology has been a bizarre and perplexing "emperor's new clothes" experience. How did an obviously regressive ideology that celebrates the medicalization of healthy bodies, harms women, children, and the LGB community, and is fully embraced and supported by the entire mainstream corporate/capitalist establishment become the newest left/liberal/progressive cause du jour? Although I have some hypotheses on that, I'll leave that question for the reader to consider.
Some say this is just a generational issue, that "young people get it", and that eventually resistance to gender ideology will fade away. It's true there's a generational aspect to this, and it's possible gender ideology will 'win' because of it. However, I think history shows that not all change is necessarily good, and that sometimes societies do in fact go off the rails, sometimes with young people taking the lead. Young people are impressionable and extremely susceptible to social contagion. Throw in the unprecedented effects of social media, and it's not surprising that younger generations might uncritically embrace a misguided ideology such as this one.
Related to this is the misconception that gender ideology is 'progressive'. I've moved towards the center politically and no longer think 'progressive' is always good, but that's not even relevant, because gender ideology isn't progressive. The idea that 'woman' and 'man' should be thought of as social categories and not simple descriptors of biological reality is fundamentally regressive and sexist. Undergirding gender ideology's central concepts - 'gender identity', 'non-binary', 'gender-fluid', etc. - is, ultimately, sex-based stereotypes. Progressives have been trying to de-emphasize these stereotypes for decades, but now gender ideology is emphasizing and reifying them all over again.
I also want to mention that although the debate over gender ideology is often framed as being left-vs-right or liberal-vs-conservative, this framing could not be more wrong. In fact, much of the most robust criticism of gender ideology is currently coming from the gender-critical left.
Despite my reservations regarding the medicalization of healthy bodies, I recognize that adults are free to make their own decisions, so I'm not focused on adult transitioners here. That said, here are some of the concerns I and others have about this ideology:
- It leads people who are very young, mentally or psychologically unstable, and/or under considerable social pressure to make permanent, irreversible changes to their bodies, to make themselves into lifelong medical patients, and to introduce a wide range of possible or certain health pathologies and risks, including sterility and loss of sexual function.
- Whatever one might think about the concept of the patriarchy, gender ideology seems like a clear patriarchal win. Just as women were making real progress in securing safety and equality, men figured out a way to jump ahead again, counterintuitively capturing the mantle of 'most vulnerable and oppressed group' and inserting themselves, to the fawning approval of the liberal establishment, into women's spaces, from athletics, to changing rooms, to prisons. That this is viewed as progressive and not an anti-feminist assault on women and girls is not something I can make sense of.
- Same-sex attraction has been reframed as bigoted and problematic (look up 'the cotton ceiling', if you dare), much to the detriment of lesbian and gay youth in particular. We went from "born this way" to "same-sex attraction is transphobic and you need to unpack that" in about a decade. Remarkable.
- Adherents of gender ideology often deny, in various ways, the concept of biological sex. I'm fine with postmodern deconstruction, and I understand that systems of categorization can be challenged and interrogated, but it's clear to me that biological sex is an important concept that has real, material implications for humans (especially women and girls), and that the concept should not be discarded or replaced with amorphous, subjective ideas like gender identity.
This is in no way a complete list of criticisms of this ideology, but it does highlight some concerns.
As a traditional liberal, I'm aware that society changes, and I support people's personal autonomy, self-expression, and right to pursue their own happiness and well-being. At the same time, it's clear to me that something has gone wrong here, and that this particular social phenomenon is proving to have real material costs (in addition to frequently being, quite frankly, insufferable). At the very least, governments should not be building policy around gender ideology, but unfortunately that's exactly what's happening throughout the West and elsewhere.
If you're a progressive or liberal-minded person who's adopted the more or less default mainstream position that this is all good and progressive and brave and should be met with nothing but support and affirmation, I urge you to set your biases and preconceptions aside and try re-engaging with the topic from first principles, as it were, and see what you think. If you're on the left, know that you can be skeptical of this ideology and still be on the left. There might be a cost, to be sure, given the current climate, but ultimately, if enough people are willing to stand up and acknowledge that the proverbial emperor has no clothes, we might be able to get things back on the tracks and move forward with a more balanced (and truly progressive) approach to these issues.