Guardian Article - Close but no cigar

[Brainworm]

I found yesterday's article by Fin Mackay very confusing

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/19/gender-ideology-tories-ministers-schools-conservative

For those who don't want to read it, my synopsis is this:
-Gender and gendered expectations are bad and limiting and should be dismantled
-The government's draft guidelines for schools seek to uphold highly gendered roles - which she says is the real 'gender ideology'
-They are attacking trans people in order to conserve gendered expectations and norms
-We should abandon gendered expectations.

I can get behind the first and last point but the middle bits are completely misconstrued. Whilst that might reflect very conservative views and motivations, the guidance aligns with the views of very liberal people too, who are not in any way trying to uphold gendered expectations.

I think that FM is making these arguments in good faith, but I wonder what kind of steel-force psychological defence mechanisms are at play to enable her to ignore or misconstrue simple/accessible arguments showing how trans ideology is dependent on highly gendered norms.

I think that last point is such a significant battle field for bringing sanity back. I guess people like FM could flip this and say that enlightening people like me as to how transgenderism undermines gender norms is a key battle field - I would really welcome this. Even if I have psychological defence mechanisms of steel, I am really open to supporting others to break them. I want them ti come at me with sound, well reasoned arguments and to dismantle my own. I think this article provides a good starting point.

I'm with FM. Let's smash all prescriptive gender roles, norms and expectations.

Once we've done it though, we'll have to work out a way to tell which of the humans are man gender and which are woman gender - maybe by having everyone wear a little badge or something?

I'm sure I can't think of any other way of doing it....

Almost all of us will have been socialised on to pink or blue paths from birth, if not by our immediate family, then by the books, TV, toys, clothes and adverts that surrounded us in wider society. This socially prescribed gender informs our gender identity.

Does this mean if I don't like pink and I enjoyed playing with cars as a child, I have a man gender identity?
Am I trans?? 🤔

Finn Mackay is the author of Female Masculinities and the Gender Wars, and a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of the West of England in Bristol.

It's no surprise that it is an academic that has issued this misrepresentation of what the Conservative government is trying to do.
Yet another Trans Grifter writing books and academic papers about Trans- a failing currency at the moment - and the defence of their position seems to get more and more desperate and foolish. They just write off all their opponants as ultra Conservative 1950's throwbacks who hate all gender non-conformity and hope to return to a world of sex based steriotypes of male and female.
It is actually trans activism that is based on steryotypes of male and female- the GC position is to let boys play with girl toys and girls play with boy toys and don't medically or socially intervene.
It reminds me of Hilary Clinton when she called all Trump supporters a 'basket of deplorables' and I think that may have cost her the election.

To quote Kathleen Stock, "only a really clever person can be this stupid".

I think that FM is making these arguments in good faith.

Do you? I find it hard to believe that an academic is that dim.*

I imagine FM knows perfectly well that feminists opposed to trans ideology are doing their best to fight gender stereotypes, not reinforce them.

*Not really. If nothing else, the last few years have taught me that people who are paid to be clever are often extraordinarily stupid.

“Instead, it is used to imply that trans, transgender and gender non-conforming identities are a new fad,”

There is that tagging misinformation (or at best, redefinition of words) with truth to prop up that not quite true statement. Yes. Non-conforming identities are centuries old.

The current definition of ‘trans’ and ‘transgender’ not quite. Cross dressing men? Yes, absolutely around likely millennia, but certainly around for a very long time. Girls lining up to affirmed as the opposite sex and put on harmful treatment paths… not so much. And yet… according to extreme trans activists such as Fin, those girls have been ‘trans’ instead of the normal atrempt of girls hating puberty and society’s expectation of them.

And that is just in the first paragraphs.

I also found myself frustrated with the article. Why should names be associated with a sex...? Well true, but then why do most people who transition change their name, and why is it SO important to signal your gender that way, and usually with some gender thought about it? Was this author born Finn? Why is my cousin changing from a highly female-coded name to a highly male-coded one (they've actually changed twice so far)? Why not just keep the name you were given? Likewise, clothes have meaning, to trans people apparently more than anyone. There are very few true gender anarchists, in feminism or trans circles, but imo there are more of them in feminist circles than anywhere else.

An interesting article. They are openly soliciting for responses of up to 300 words. I am sure many of us could write one. My thoughts (which I am happy to be incorporated into any article that anyone chooses to submit)

I agree it's a confused article OP, directly contradicting itself because if gendered and sexist expectations are abolished (which is what Feminism.has been fighting for all these years) then it's impossible to be trans because there's no such thing as a gender role that doesn't (or does) match ones birth sex.

Schools should have no expectations of gender whatsoever. Where male and female are treated differently it should be solely for reasons that are intrinsic to their sex, such as that it would be dangerous for post-pubescent boys and girls to do contact sports together, and girls dealing with periods need single-sex loos. Anything to do with gender does not belong in a school environment. School uniform policies should not be proscriptive on who gets to wear skirts and who gets to wear trousers.

There should be a single blanket policy on whether children can choose to be addressed by teachers as something other than their legal name. If the general policy is that the name on the register must be the pupil's legal name as per their birth certificate then that policy should apply to everyone. If Algernon is allowed to be known as Micky because he hates his given name then Michael can be allowed to be known as Daisy.

It should be easy enough for teachers to avoid using any singular person pronouns at all in the classroom.

Thus school should be a total refuge from all the sexism that society still enforces. A pupil who is "questioning their gender identity" should find school a totally comfortable environment because the school is placing no expectations of gender upon them. However it should also be acknowledged that the very concept of "questioning ones gender identity" is part of a specific belief system which not everyone shares, and no one should be expected to behave as if they share a belief system that isn't theirs. The belief that sex is factual, real and sometimes important and gender is an unhelpful construct that an enlightened society should abolish such that there are no different expectations for men and women other than those based on biological function, is a valid belief that has been upheld in court as worthy of respect. Policies need to be constructed such that those who hold that belief are not compelled to act as if they are believers in the unscientific idea of gendered souls.

@Brainworm OP, I suspect you're wrong to say this is 'a good starting point'. Actually @Xoxoxoxoxoxox is right; the defence of the position offered by Finn Mackay is 'desperate and foolish'.

Two things we might disagree about:
(1) Humans cannot change sex.
(2) No human is born, has, or is, any particular gender. Gender is not something anyone can have or be; it is a set of sex-related stereotypes mostly used in the oppression of women.

OK? Finn Mackay, it seems, wants to disagree with both these claims. But there are no sensible or rational arguments against. So FM muddies the waters by equivocation (yes, if 'gender' means 'sex' then a human can have or be a gender. But here it doesn't ...) and other 'desperate and foolish' ploys.

Such arguments as Finn Mackay offers can seem complicated on first reading. As with other queer-theoretical writers, neophytes or non-initiates may think there is something complicated and difficult going on. There isn't.

This article looks like waffle because it is waffle. Why do certain academics produce such waffle? Why so muddy the waters (we must suppose deliberately) if you have a good argument to advance? (Left as an exercise ...)

@negeme
I think it's a good starting point as some of my views overlap with hers.

I didn't read the article as being indicative of her being a sex denialist, but rather she failed to disclosed what sex is. She misinterpreted/misrepresented concerns about social transition by ridiculing ideas that non sentient objects have a sex, but didn't pick up on anything about sex in humans being or not being binary and immutable.

She did say,

The real gender ideology is the binary sex and gender system that requires all of us to be either male-masculine-heterosexual or female-feminine-heterosexual; and which attaches harsh penalties to those who deviate from this script.
When I was growing up there really weren't harsh penalties when deviating from the gender script, sadly, there was for the sexuality script. I think gains have been made in the sexuality script but we have regressed with the gender script BECAUSE of transgederism.

I would like her to explain how transgenderism is benign - or progressive, if this is what she thinks, in relation to the problems she outlines in relation to gender

if gendered and sexist expectations are abolished (which is what Feminism.has been fighting for all these years) then it's impossible to be trans because there's no such thing as a gender role that doesn't (or does) match ones birth sex.

This perfectly sums it up, in a nutshell, Yireo. Sadly, I don’t think the Guardian will print such a neat and accurate statement of reality.

What we might be left with then, is a return to the issue of gender dysphoria, whereby a small number of people experience distress because of their sexed bodies and this being understood as a mental health condition that requires treatment to reduce the distress

I'm sorry, I think you may have swallowed too much of the waffle.

Talk of the 'binary sex and gender system' looks innocuous, but may be misleadingly taken to entail that sex and gender are similar categories. They're not (unless we take them to be coterminous, which they're not in this context): sex is something we have, or are; gender is a set (of stereotypes).

As regards your 'sexuality script' etc: If a man sincerely says he feels attracted to other men, then it is true by definition that he is gay. To feel attracted is to be attracted. But if a man says - however sincerely - that he feels he is a woman, it nevertheless remains false that he is a woman. To feel one is a different sex (whatever that might be) is not to be a different sex.

Can you make this come out any differently by talk of 'gender' instead of 'sex'? No. No-one can change gender, because no one is a gender to start with. To say I have a certain gender (or that I am such-and-such gender) makes no sense.

So, if I understand your talk of 'the gender script', comparison with sexuality is invidious. ('T' really doesn't belong with 'LGB', as many have pointed out.)

Transgender ideology requires what it cannot have - a sense of 'gender' which is at the same time the same as 'sex' yet different to 'sex'. I suspect Finn Mackay knows this all too well. Hence the tergiversation and waffle. Or maybe not; perhaps Finn Mackay is just a fool. No reason for you to follow, either way.

About 5 years ago Finn was much more reality based. Someone who could have joined the fightback. I suspect it would have been difficult and career damaging to do so.

The real gender ideology is the binary sex and gender system that requires all of us to be either male-masculine-heterosexual or female-feminine-heterosexual; and which attaches harsh penalties to those who deviate from this script.

Giving a child drugs to stop their mental and physical growth, then following up with genital surgery. I’d call that a pretty harsh penalty for not conforming.

I suspect that there is confusion in the minds of gender ideologues: confusion between the idea that sex based gender expectations are culturally formulated and that they can be rejected in favour of a more authentic self expression ( which is totally in accord with GC standpoints) -and understanding that there are actually some sex based differences which are real and valid and which is why we have sex based categories in some circumstances.

The gender ideologues ( in line with some feminists, I'd say) believe that there are no real differences between the sexes - and that all is socially constructed gender. In their mind gender has nothing to do with sex - it is just to do with individual personality - even though this is contradicted by assigning male and female ( which are sex based categories) to certain types of style or expression.

You can see how gender ideology was borne out of certain strands of feminism - the idea that women are created and not borne - but now tailored to fit in with a post modernistic, consumeristic and pharmaceutical age.

Gender ideologues and some feminists have an issue with the idea that are some essential sex based differences which go beyond individual personality preferences.

It is all terribly confused

Okay its hard to respond to this seriously, and she has written other waffle like this for the Guardian,

But many will just feel really sad that someone who made her name as a grassroots feminist that started the London Feminist Network that was so popular it was able to hold a well attended conference within a year has (was going to use the word transed) morphed into this ivory tower word mangler.

As someone who joined that Network and took it at face value, definitely radical feminist with not overly overt, but obvious GC beliefs, many were dumbfounded to find that its instigator apparently hadn't ever believed any of it but had had a change of heart.

Anyway it all fell apart in acrimony, but Finn was able to use the reputation of LFN to move up in the world, and become a commentator and academic.

So have to say I take anything she says as being just convenient sophistry for her career.

But this takes the biscuit:

Trans people didn’t create “gender ideology” and should not be blamed for somehow making gender visible. Rather than pathologising a stigmatised minority, we need to focus instead on the gendered majority. Gender criticism should start at home. If there is no gender, and there is only biological sex, why are so many of us spending so much of our hard-earned time and money on gendering ourselves? How are the fashion and beauty industries sustained, if not through the pressures of gender conformity on women and men to be appropriately feminine or masculine? How might all of us do gender differently, or, even, not at all?

Which neatly side steps the fact that trans people ideology isn't being criticised for gender stereotype but the nonsensical belief that you can change sex.

Not surprising that the Guardian should publish something that is in total denial of what trans activism is in practice.

My only regret is that all my life I have thought that due to my lack of education, etc., I could never be an academic because you need to think things through and be sure of your facts. Now it seems being an academic is just a platform for individuals to say I believe this so everyone else should.

Thanks Iwanttoretire. I wasn't aware of her previous prominence in feminist organisation.

It is hard to understand how she sees her disjointed views as coherent enough to write an article - I'm now surprised The Guardian published it, the bar is low there!

It's strange to me how she can disconnect gender norms from trans identities, but maybe your point about her aspirations mean that it is a formulation of convenience.

I'm now surprised The Guardian published it

Well for them its a double victory, a once grass roots feminists is writing the sort of trans nonsense that they peddle.

I am sure they feel totally validated.

And Owen Jones will be happy!

(I suppose what I am saying is you took it all as genuine and wondered about it, should it be challenged. But for me it is just part of the fraud of so called "news" papers. Unfortunately)

This is what the guidance says about social transition:

Social transition: is a term often used to refer to a process by which people change their name, pronouns, clothing, or use different facilities from those provided for their biological sex.

Finn's comment about this:

What all of us should read here, not in between the lines so much as actually in the lines, is the bizarre claim that things like this have a biological sex in the first place. How can names, the fabric of clothes, or the porcelain of toilets possibly have a biological sex?

How can an academic have such poor reading comprehension skills as to think that the guidance says that these things have a biological sex?

Seems that Finn has 2 websites:
https://finnmackay.wordpress.com/about/
https://www.drfinnmackay.co.uk/about

London Feminist Network was part of a documentary about Women Activists, which doesn't seem to be available via the BBC at the moment https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rm4j3

There's a short extract here https://www.vanessaengle.com/women
The 3rd one called Activists.

The whole documentary may be available here if you have a UCL registered email (I think) https://resources.clie.ucl.ac.uk/home/series/114926/1

Anyhow, out of all the angry arguments and accusation of betrayal in LFN etc., some good did come, eg Nordic Model Now, Get the L Out and others.

The glaring mistake, in my view, is that sex and gender are spoken about as if they're the same. So gendered clothing and hair are lumped in with sports and spaces. I assume from this that Finn believes biological sex is a social construct. I don't think that idea is a total nonsense, for middle class women in the developed world we have come a long way to distancing ourselves from the reality of our sexed bodies.

Finn doesn't locate her piece in time/ place. Would she write the same about women in afghanistan? It would be good to have her perspective on the gendered culture our children are growing up, which seems more restrictive that when I was a teen in the lates 70s early 80s. My experience of talking to people who believe sex is a construct is that the social construct is the same all over the world/ culture. which makes no sense but is the only way for them to believe TWAW.

She seems to say that gender identity is imposed by society. The solution to this is to take on board that we internalise that gender identity and we should then take responsibility for over turning it. It makes individuals responsible for dismantling the "gender binary" rather than society.

It would be good to read this article with another on the opposite page giving the opposing view.

This is the one letter in reply that the Guardian saw fit to publish. It's so nonsensical it's hard to refute 😕

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/24/gender-is-a-social-matter-not-a-biological-one

This is the one letter in reply that the Guardian saw fit to publish. It's so nonsensical it's hard to refute

Or just possible that they go so many letters saying what nonsense the article was that they had to use the only one that was in any way supportive.

Even though its claim about what is feminism does as always ignore the basic fact that discrimination is because of their sex class1

Yes. The idea of putting the patriarchy cart before the sexed-body horse was particularly weird.