I'm about to send this message to one of my oldest friends, and am terrified. She is in Canada and is something of a trans rights activist (I'm in UK), and so far I have remained silent when the issue has come up... but its putting a strain on the friendship, so this feels a bit make or break (I'm not expecting her to come round to my way of thinking, but I want to be able to talk about it). Before I hit send, I thought I'd share it here, in the hope that I might get some feedback on tone and content... I found it very difficult to write.
I’m more than a little nervous about broaching this topic, knowing what a polarising issue it is, but increasingly my silence has felt dishonest so – in the hope that this might result in a stimulating discussion and frank exchange of ideas – here goes.
Gender ideology and trans rights activism. It is clear that it is a subject close to your heart, and it is evident that we have very different perspectives on the issue. Given that I think on most things our politics are pretty closely aligned and I know you to be intelligent, thoughtful and compassionate I am genuinely interested in understanding your take on what it means to be trans, and what that means for the rest of society (I’m thinking about the law here, but also things like the practice of stating one’s pronouns).
I’m struggling to succinctly sum up my own feelings on the matter, as there are so many facets to this and I don’t know where to begin, but I guess at root it boils down to the fact that I simply don’t believe we have an innate gender identity or that it is possible to be born in the wrong body, from which starting point much of trans rights activism (in its current incarnation) crumbles. In particular I find the notion of ‘trans children’ deeply disturbing, and cannot see how affirming gender non-conforming children as members of the opposite sex is anything other than sexist, homophobic and cruel.
So what do I think?
That one’s sex is fixed and cannot change. It is also, in the vast majority of situations, irrelevant and should have no bearing on how one is expected to dress or behave. Where it is relevant, though, it is reasonable to draw distinctions on sex based lines – I can’t personally get too worked up about toilets (you know me – I’ll piss anywhere), but in relation to prisons, sports and initiatives intended to counter the under-representation of women in specific arenas it is absolutely appropriate to exclude men, however they identify.
That gender is a useful theoretical tool for analysing how relations between the sexes are structured and behaviour understood. It is not a property of individuals and is not fixed. I would much rather work towards a society in which gender stereotypes are dismantled than one in which they are reified to the point that one’s ‘gender identity’ is seen as more authentic than one’s sex.
That there are people who feel very uncomfortable in their bodies, and dearly wish that they were the opposite sex. This might manifest as feeling that they are ‘really’ a man / woman despite their biology, but this doesn’t make it true – I don’t even know what it means to ‘feel like a woman’ other than by referencing my female biology. For some people the distress of having the ‘wrong’ body might be alleviated by presenting as a member of the opposite sex and modifying their body so it more closely resembles the body they wish they had, but ultimately it is incumbent on everyone to come to terms with the reality of who they are, and it is not reasonable to expect the rest of society to structure itself around maintaining a fiction.
As I said I’m nervous of saying this, and am well aware that attempts at frank and open discussion on the subject don’t always end well. But the more I read on either side of this debate, the more I feel that in many cases people are talking at cross purposes to each other, and that, if only we could get past the knee-jerk reactions and defensiveness on both sides, we may find there is more agreement than we realise. In that spirit, I would love to hear your perspective on some of this stuff.