Parable

[liv]

Imagine someone holds the opinion that people should not face prejudice and discrimination on the grounds of height. That's almost so obvious it's not worth stating, but what if instead of agreeing that it's completely obvious, people started arguing against our heightism activist by loudly declaring that of course height exists, there's no point being politically correct and ignoring the fact that some people are shorter than others!

Obviously, it's quite easy to argue against height-based discrimination without denying the existence of height as a parameter that we can quite easily observe and measure in humans! Even if the heightism activist quite correctly points out that the experience of being a particular height is dependent on society and cultural background (someone with lots of male Scandinavian or East African friends might think 5' 8'' was short, but someone with mainly East Asian women in their social circle would think 5' 8'' was pretty tall), that's not saying there's no such thing as height. Differences in cultural experience are part of reality, just as much as differences in physical bodies are part of reality. Noticing that height interacts with other characteristics like gender, ethnic background, social class and so on (a very tall, working-class African-American might be in demand for basketball teams, while a very short, middle-class white English guy might be encouraged to become a jockey, but probably not the other way round!) is not saying that height is a completely imaginary construct or denying the existence of professions where tallness or shortness could be a real, practical advantage or disadvantage.

Some people are attracted to short people, some to tall people, some don't care or base attraction on completely unrelated criteria. Nobody is criticizing anyone's individual preferences when they point out that tall men on average enjoy more romantic success than shorter men, while tall women tend to have a harder time finding partners than average height women. That's a small but measurably real phenomenon, and I have seen some stats indicating a similar trend regarding promotion and salary in the professional world: being taller than average is a slight advantage for men, but a slight disadvantage for women.

If a Little Person complains of social stigma they encounter, it's both illogical and unhelpful to say, oh, never mind, just wear platform boots and pretend to be "normal", height doesn't matter anyway. If they need treatment for some of the complications that arise from medical dwarfism, we wouldn't expect anyone to tell them, oh, you don't deserve any medical help, because you're reinforcing prejudice against short people by involving doctors in your situation.

In spite of the obviousness of this point, a lot of people seem to be confused on it when the issue is not height, but gender. I have seen a lot of fruitless arguments like this, even among generaly intelligent and sensible people:

Feminist: Don't discriminate based on gender.
Peanut gallery: But gender totally exists!
F: Our culture is often prejudiced against women.
PG: But gender is totally real and biological, not just cultural!
F: Sexism forces women into low-status roles.
PG: But gender totally exists, so men and women are suited to different jobs!
F: Everyone should be able to choose the path that best suits their talents and personality, regardless of gender.
PG: But gender totally exists!
Random Observer: I guess I must not be a feminist, then, because I definitely believe there are differences between men and women.
F *headdesk*

I think a big part of the problem is that people are unclear about what the word gender means. In some ways it was an unfortunate choice of term, because it already had a meaning referring to languages which have two arbitrary declensions, even for inanimate objects. But that's the word most commonly used to refer to the complex interaction between a person's identity and how they are perceived in society. Usually, but not always, the person's biological sex, ie their configuration of genitals, reproductive organs and possibly chromosomes, is going to be a major component of their gender identity. Now we have a big problem, because some people believe that sex and gender are absolutely congruent in all cases, and some people are embarrassed to use the word "sex" in formal situations (or confuse it with the other thing we call "sex", namely the act of having erotic intercourse). And some people have picked up the idea that "gender" is a more polite or more academic or more PC way of saying "sex", so they always say "gender" even if sex is what they mean, which is a bit like people thinking it's posher to say "whom" instead of "who" and overcorrecting.

Look, sex obviously exists. It's a (mostly) objective aspect of biological animals, including humans. No sane person is denying that the majority of humans belong to either the male or the female sex, and you can reasonably easily tell who is in which category. (You can get some problems when people insist that what is true for the majority must be true for everyone, but that's not my major point here.) It's also mostly trivial; there are circumstances for which it matters, such as pregnancy, and susceptibility to certain diseases. There are a few physical traits which are roughly divided along sex lines, such as height, muscle mass, fat distribution and so on. It would be extremely stupid to deny that these differences are real, physical differences, but it would also be extremely stupid to claim that all men are taller, stronger and leaner than all women; we humans just don't have that degree of sexual dimorphism.

But the point is that we live in a culture that has collectively decided that differences in somatic characteristics aren't important outside these narrow, mostly medical contexts. Most people having these debates broadly agree that it's wrong to treat people differently based on differing appearances, especially if the treatment is favourable to one kind of appearance and hurtful to the other kind.

However, gender is a different thing. I don't know why gender identity often goes along with physical sex; could be something that has evolved in the way human brains work, could be a consequence of the human tendency to divide people into categories based on superficial but immediately obvious traits, like sex in fact. It doesn't really matter; gender identity is clearly real as well, and the fact that it is psychological and social rather than physical doesn't make it any less so! It's also obvious that lots of people become very unhappy if the social rules for how they can express their gender identity are too rigid. Although in general in our society, having a masculine gender and a male body are relative advantages, men are just as likely to be miserable if they have to behave in ways they find completely unnatural and uncomfortable in order to get those advantages. That's sexism, in a nutshell (and it possibly should be called "genderism" according to the argument I've just made), and I'm against it because it makes people unhappy, it's an inefficient way to run society (putting effort into making people conform to generalized expectations instead of changing the model when it doesn't match reality), and most importantly because it's unfair.

One of the ways that sexism is unfair is that it severely and unjustly punishes people for having a gender identity at odds with their physical sex. That can be men who are effeminate or women who are butch, or it can be people who have such a strong sense of non-congruent gender identity that they experience dysphoria about their bodies. Now, if you knew nothing at all about gender dysphoria, you might hypothesize that undergoing surgery to bring one's body in line with one's gender identity would be totally useless and probably harmful. However, if you look at the actual empirical evidence, it turns out for some such people, no amount of counselling or brainwashing, and no amount of rejecting sexism and gender essentialism does any good, whereas reassignment surgery is pretty much curative. For others, simply behaving in ways typically associated with the opposite sex is not enough to make them feel right, but getting other people to acknowledge them as the sex that matches their gender, for example with names and pronouns and legal certificates with the appropriate sex category on, is enough. Again, you might not think this would do any good, but for some people, it does.

I have little respect for people who cling to their first assumption when the empirical evidence overwhelmingly contradicts them, and I have even less time for this attitude when it involves expecting other people to live their lives in misery in order to better suit the disproven theory. I suspect that the number of people who can get such major (and unexpected based on pure thought experiments) benefits from reassignment surgery or non-surgical transition is probably quite small, but there is absolutely no call to punish this small group for all the social ills related to sexism (which in fact has little to do with their unusual gender status anyway!)

That was an aside, really, or rather an extreme and topical example of the kind of question it's hard to have a useful, communicative discussion about, because every time someone brings up the issue, it devolves into an argument about whether gender exists. This argument is stupid and unhelpful! Gender exists, duh. Also, sexism is bad, duh. And trying to do something about the latter is in no way contradictory to the former. Just because gender exists, doesn't make it ok to force people into a really narrow set of behaviours based on their physical sex (or even to argue that biological sex doesn't matter, as long as people stick rigidly to one or the other set of gender rules). Just because gender exists, doesn't make it ok to discriminate against people based on their gender, or treat things and people regarded as "feminine" as inferior to things and people regarded as "masculine".

Disclaimer: I have a really weak gender identity myself, so a lot of my ideas about gender are quite theoretical, and I've never been strong at social science anyway. And my take on trans issues is going strongly for the basic human decency angle, based on what I've picked up from friends and reading, but I am in no way an expert. Check out auntysarah or lisaquestions for much more in depth information.

Comments

[rho]

Very well said.

[lavendersparkle]

I think I remember as a teen not understanding why people would physically transition and thinking that the potential damage to the areas being operated upon wouldn't be worth it etc. Then I met people who were transsexual and they clearly thought that the whole thing had been worth it and I thought "well they're in a better position to know than me, so I must have been wrong".

[naath]

Me too!

I mean, I have a very waffly gender identity, and sometimes I think transitioning would be a good idea (and sometimes I don't) and generally I think that the physical process is insufficiently clever and generally Fail. But it's very clear that some people have a much much stronger gender identity and are much clearer that transitioning is what they want to do, and also very clear that the process of physical transition as it is currently offered whilst possible non-optimal is a HUGE improvement on not having it. And I reckon people should get to make those choices for themselves, based on their own needs, rather than having someone else make them.

It really pisses me off when people try to make trans people go away because they don't fit into some Theory Of Gender that those people have. If trans people don't fit into your theory then YOUR THEORY IS WRONG, and you should get a better one. That's, like, how science works dammit.

[azurelunatic]

One of the roots of the problems in the conversation with the peanut gallery is that too many otherwise reasonable people have been taught/brainwashed that in order to not discriminate, one must genuinely or affect to not even notice obvious differences, and the only possible means of non-discrimination on any count is to become x-blind. (Colorblind, gender-blind, etc.)

One of the missing links in the conversation is "You know, you can still acknowledge people's differences and not discriminate: you just don't treat them worse or prohibit them from doing things simply because you have noticed that they're not a white man."

[403]

Applying the peanut-gallery's model to somone with a disability will show exactly why it doesn't work. If you're walking with a wheelchair rider, it's ridiculous to expect them to follow you up a flight of stairs. Failure to acknowledge someone's differences in a humane manner is discriminatory.

[liv]

That's an argument against something, but I don't think it's an argument against my imaginary peanut gallery. What I was trying to convey is that most feminists know perfectly well that gender exists, and are trying to address gender inequality, sometimes by making specific provisions for women that men already have or don't need. But the Peanut Gallery are not making the argument, or at least I wasn't intending for them to make the argument, that you have to treat everybody exactly the same in order to be fair. They were supposed to represent the point of view that says that feminism has "gone too far" because it asks people to deny that gender or gender differences exist, and anyone not slaved to political correctness can obviously see that men and women are different. So therefore feminism is wrong or a waste of time, because you can't ever give people equal rights if they're actually different from eachother.

[liv]

This is a useful point, and my guess is that it's particularly relevant to the US situation. I was trying to avoid the whole "colorblind" thing because some people think it's ableist, and I think they have a point. But yeah, it can in some circumstances make sense for a process to be gender-blind, such as hiring people or deciding salaries, but it's a terrible idea for people to (pretend to) ignore gender. It is quite possible that the people who keep loudly protesting that feminism is wrong because there is such a thing as gender are not just being willfully stupid, they are arguing against a badly skewed interpretation of a position that really is out there.

[sunflowerinrain]

Excellently-made points.

We could do with more education in the appreciation of Difference, too.

[syllopsium]

I agree in general, as someone that has thought somewhat about their own gender identity.

The key fact I've taken from thinking and reading around the subject is that you should go as far as you need to be happy in your own identity, but :

This may or may not mean you are 100% happy with your identity, but neither is everyone always happy with themselves. I think it's better to be slightly too short of your ideal than too far.

It would help if not only was society more permissive about non rigid gender, but also if the general populace understood just how wide the range of happy cisgendered people is rather than falling back on stereotypes (something various trans people are inclined to do when adjusting their gender) it might help people with issues with their gender.

It's also worth understanding that people's gender identity isn't logical, or has so many underlying issues that the logic (flawed or otherwise) takes too long to figure out. That applies to both cis and transgendered people, as you're inferred above the way cisgendered people see the world is not necessarily valid.

It isn't universal behaviour, but unfortunately there are various people who tend to, if we're offering the charitable viewpoint, omit to supply a degree of context when arguing against the existence of gender.

In other words, whilst acknowledging that there is wide diversity in gender they fail to mention that it's probably some form of bell curve and there needs to be some form of compromise between how people at different points on that curve are treated by default - and - in the absence of clues, someone will get it wrong at one point. If that key point is missed their argument ('no gender') is compared to reality ('strongly gendered') and the remainder of their arguments probably ignored.

It can be argued all day about how diverse gender is; the key points are acknowledging there is some diversity, and trying to treat people appropriately when they inform you of their own gender.

The one point I would nitpick on is that saying that fitting people into certain boxes is inefficient for society. It certainly isn't nice, but being objective about it, I suspect that fitting certain people into certain boxes is considerably more efficient than catering to their needs. There's always a level of compromise. Whether this applies to gender or not, I don't know.

[liv]

I really appreciate this, thank you. You have a real knack of bringing thoughtful critique to my political rants, and it makes my journal a better place.

I do think you're right that most people of any gender can't expect to be fully happy with themselves in every way, and I have occasionally seen people with an unusual gender identity using that as an excuse for all kinds of antisocial behaviour. But I'm also aware that I'm less likely to question it when cis people use an argument that is essentially to do with their gender identity to justify weird and unkind behaviour, even if they don't put it in those terms.

Similarly overly binary and rigid gender ideas are a problem for society as a whole, and it's foolish to blame trans folk for that problem. They are often at risk of being forced into gender extremes by external pressures and the need to get the treatment that will make their life bearable. But the fact that trans people exist is not itself a threat to those who want to discourage gender stereotyping! And goodness knows there are far more cis people who are absolutely obsessed with enforcing gender norms.

Also, yes, people do make honest mistakes about gender like anything else. I agree with you that the boxes thing can be efficient even if not morally desirable, but only up to a point. I mean, it's efficient (though possibly annoying and unkind) to assume that if someone has long hair and breasts, and wears dresses and makeup, then she's reasonably likely to behave in feminine ways, or if someone has a beard and prominent muscles and wears trousers he is probably likely to be somewhat masculine. When it gets inefficient is when you start panicking if someone has some characteristics from one list and some from another. Being horrible to the person whose gender isn't what you expect is pointless, broadening your expectations of how gender works is much more useful.

I am not convinced

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not convinced you have the relation between sex and gender quite right.you write:

Look, sex obviously exists. It's a (mostly) objective aspect of biological animals, including humans. No sane person is denying that the majority of humans belong to either the male or the female sex, and you can reasonably easily tell who is in which category. (You can get some problems when people insist that what is true for the majority must be true for everyone, but that's not my major point here.) It's also mostly trivial; there are circumstances for which it matters, such as pregnancy, and susceptibility to certain diseases.

I think that is okay, except for a quibble about "mostly". It seems to me a purely objective category and you're confusing vagueness with subjectivity. The hackneyed example of a vague concept is baldness. It is a purely objective matter of fact whether or not someone is bald of course we can't always tell. I think the only reason to think that such a concept are only mostly objective is a commitment to Verificationism plus or minus physics envy.

However, you also write:

However, gender is a different thing. I don't know why gender identity often goes along with physical sex; could be something that has evolved in the way human brains work, could be a consequence of the human tendency to divide people into categories based on superficial but immediately obvious traits, like sex in fact

you sensibly don't think that because gender is a social concept that it is any less real (and I hope you don't think it makes any less objective) but I think your puzzlement about the way gender and sex line-up is because you fail to realise that the two concepts come together and in a sense gender is more primary.

Because we live in a gendered world we have the medical concepts that we do. that doesn't make sex any less real or force gender and sex together. the former would be a form of idealism and the latter a form of transphobia. now, it might be that sex is a useful medical concept and if one wants to tell just so stories about the origins of our language and culture then maybe we can appeal to childbirth and some of the other stuff you point to explain the origins of our concepts. but the point is we can only see sex differences because we can already see gender differences. you might want to ask yourself why we think that birds, insects and mammals have the same two sexes. in a similar way, we see skin tonality differences because we see ethnic differences. And we no longer really see handedness differences now that we don't think left-handed people are evil.

I should qualify a little, of course in some sense we would see that people have different skin colours without having our cultural background. But what we see would in fact be different. There is no experience that is not meaningful and importantly there doesn't have to be some underlying unmeaningful plenum to enable us to have any experience at all.

just be clear. I think there is good reason to pull sex and gender apart to some extent. We have sex as a medical/ biological concept and discoveries in those fields should shape our thinking about sex. One hopes that feminism and queer theory might also help develop our ideas of gender so that we understand the phenomenon better and start to get it right.

Are you my brother?

[liv]

I feel silly asking this, but you sound a lot like him! In any case, thank you for your very interesting comment!

a quibble about "mostly"
Yeah, I see what you mean. I was thinking of people who are intersex in some way; I suppose you can tell objectively what their chromosomal arrangement is, but people mostly don't look at chromosomes, and even then it's a subjective question how you classify karyotypes other than the standard XY or XX. But in fact what happens is that a subjective judgement is made, based on whether someone's genitals and body look more like the typical male or female configuration. Your analogy with baldness makes a lot of sense; it's objective, but there are intermediate positions in between bald and not-bald, and different people will draw the line in different places.

we can only see sex differences because we can already see gender differences
Aha! That explains a lot. I think you are possibly tending a little much towards that whole strong Sapir-Whorf thing of assuming that people can't think of something at all unless they have a single word for it, but I do definitely see what you mean, and I think it's a really useful addition to my post.

[blue-mai.livejournal.com]

you are familiar with the Randy Newman song "Short People"?

[nanaya]

Disclaimer: I have a really weak gender identity myself, so a lot of my ideas about gender are quite theoretical, and I've never been strong at social science anyway. And my take on trans issues is going strongly for the basic human decency angle, based on what I've picked up from friends and reading, but I am in no way an expert.

Yes, that's very much me as well. Sp unsurprisingly, I agreed with a lot of what you said.

[helenic]

Good metaphor!

I wonder how much of the anti-surgery ideology comes down to the idea of the sanctity of the body? I mean, tattoos and promiscuity (male and female) and abortion have all been blasted by various conservative camps in the past - I wonder how much of this sort of specific transphobia is a hangover of the "the body is a temple" idea.

I mean, I'm not sure what gender is, but I defend people's right to self-expression as it relates to their own body and presentation, and I respect people's right to be treated as the gender they identify with. (I wonder if people would find this easier if we had different pronouns for gender and sex? It occurs to me that transphobes might be twitchy about the idea of saying "she" of a woman with male genitals because they're used to "she" meaning "a person with female genitals" rather than "a person with female gender". Not that I'm trying to excuse transphobia, but language both reflects and informs culture.)

I will confess that a small part of me is tempted by the idea that if everyone was able to present as their chosen gender without hindrance or discrimination, fewer trans people would feel the need to surgically transition, because body dysphoria is less common than being transgender. But I know this kind of speculation is not only hurtful, it's also privileged and bollocks, and anyway as soon as I catch myself thinking it I tell myself "why does it MATTER if people want to transition? What's wrong with it? If it makes them happy, they have the right to do it!" I'm uneasy about gender reassignment surgery while it's this imperfect, but as a cis person I have absolutely zero right to make the qualitative judgement about whether the down sides are "worth it" for anyone else.

[liv]

This is somewhat the sort of thing I mean by saying that a hypothetical thought experiment might lead you to conclude that surgery was either a bad idea, or a consequence of social sexism, but empirical facts show that this is not really the case, medically speaking.

Very good point about concepts of sanctity of the body. It's tied up with weird ideas about what is "natural" and that comes up a lot in second-wave feminism as well as in some conservative circles. Thank you.

Interesting argument about pronouns, too. I think in fact when people say "she" they almost always do mean "a person with female gender" because nobody ever goes around checking the genitals of people they meet! They just assume that genital sex and gender must match up, or they think that the dictionary definition of "she" means someone who is female-bodied. OTOH there is the whole concept of "assigned at birth" which many trans activists refer to; a person who has female genitals is likely to be put under considerable pressure to express a female gender as well, and only if he has a very strongly male identity will he reject that assignation.