Gender

,

The politics of respectability

,

I try to stay out of discussions of trans-related issues, because it’s not my place, but also because most anti-trans or ‘gender critical’ arguments are shallow and bad faith – post-hoc rationalisations of bigotry. However, debates within the LGBT community are more interesting to me, because all the participants share an overlapping epistemic basis – they have experienced the same oppression, they share the same ‘lived experience’. So we come to a recent [unproductive] ‘debate’ on YouTube between, among others, Clara Sorrenti (a.k.a. keffals), a [controversial] transwoman and streamer, and Buck Angel, a [controversial] transman and well-known gender-critical conservative. In setting out his views (see below from 3:20), Angel essentially made two claims. Firstly, that social recognition of a non-cis gender identity should be contingent on putting in the effort to pass as a gender other than the one assigned at birth; to wit, Angel would use a male bathroom because over multiple decades he had extensively invested in ‘passing’ as a man. And secondly, that the thing that most alienated Angel and ‘ordinary people’ from the so-called trans movement was their authoritarian insistence on ‘compelling’ recognition of their gender identity.

Now, my first inclination was to dismiss all this out of hand. In the first instance, Angel is merely re-stating the well-trodden ‘transmedicalist’ position that what matters is ‘passing’ – that members of the trans community have to conform to stereotypes of the gender binary (to be more masculine than men, to be more feminine than women) in order to exist safely in mainstream society. And the accusation of leftist tyranny or illiberal progressivism is a veritably ancient right-wing canard at this point. But it occurs to me that in actuality these two arguments are the same argument. Moreover, this pattern of argumentation recurs over and over again throughout history – for example, among black communities in the US, among the indigenous community in Australia – and this recurrence of this divide among marginalised peoples reveals something interesting about how humans do politics. And perhaps in a contemporary Australian context, it might help illuminate why the indigenous community takes divergent views on a constitutional Voice, and why large chunks of potential voters find the prospect of a Voice referendum so off-putting.

Respectability Politics

To put it simply, Angel is arguing that recognition (of one’s gender identity) must be earned – mainly through compliance with social norms and expectations. And to put it somewhat uncharitably, progressives demand recognition of their identity, regardless of whether or not they comply with social expectations. It is fair and accurate to say that this dichotomy (spoiler alert, it’s false) is fundamental to the pursuit of social change. Even when progressive movements couch their demands in solid liberal terms of universal access to rights, much of the backlash against them comes from the centrist perception that to demand equality is somehow illegitimate. So, for example, large parts of the LGBT community believed that integrating into respectable society through adherence to monogamous models of marriage and family life were the key to acceptance; black conservatives think their community has to behave ‘respectably’ in order to cut down on police violence; and the modern welfare state makes recipients of state transfers demonstrate their ‘moral worthiness’ before providing them those critical economic supports necessary for their survival. In most cases, access to dignity is conceded upon performance of some ritual humiliation or submission – i.e. compliance with a social norm. For Angel, to demand equality on the other hand is to tacitly admit one has failed to earn it. Or to make an analogy, to ask for state support is to admit one has failed to earn a basic standard of living in the market; and to ask for cultural or linguistic diversity is to admit failure to integrate.

Now, one could argue that Angel’s argument – let’s call it the respectability position – is merely tactical. That members of oppressed minorities consider the most effective route to achieving political change and assess that social compliance is more likely to lead to the majority of the desired gains. And certainly, for trans individuals who can pass sufficiently well to go ‘stealth’, that may be true. But I don’t think that’s all that’s going on. The tactical explanation does not address why this is the dominant view of large swathes or non-minority populations – ranging from well-meaning cis liberals and centrists to right-wing libertarians and other persuadable groups with no stakes in reform. Respect for existing hierarchies is, after all, one of the foundational dimensions of human political personality. And individuals who lean more conservative on other issues are also more likely to adhere to the respectability position. In fact, the demand that liberal societies recognise the actual equal autonomy of all citizens to express themselves and be treated as full members of society regardless of their ethnic, religious, sexual or other status is in fact vanishingly rare.

I’m currently in the middle of researching my next project on the history of liberalism, so this pattern seems very familiar. There’s an inherent contradiction at the heart of liberalism, between it’s idealised expression of the universal equality of all mankind and the reality, which is that for almost the entirety of the liberal era some populations have been considered more equal than others. Thomas Jefferson, who famously wrote that ‘all men are created equal’, just as famously owned and abused slaves. But even beyond the individual hypocrites, just who is considered an ‘active citizen’, a member of the political community deserving of respect, and who forms part of the masses to be governed (‘passive citizens’) has long been contested. The history of progress is by-and-large a history of expanding the conception of what it means to be human. And a core part of that has been moving beyond mere legal or symbolic equality to ensure in Elizabeth Anderson’s phrase, equality of dignity. That includes, of course, the right to be heard and have one’s conception of self recognised as legitimate. By denying marginalised groups their own culture or individuals their right to self-actualisation, liberals require assimilation into the status quo prior to granting recognition of others as full citizens. This contradiction has been the motor driving social reform, while laying a seed of resentful instability that can germinate into fascism.

Recognition must be given – or taken

So here’s why the divide between earning and demanding rights is something of a false one. In both cases, recognition must ultimately be given by someone with power to someone without. I am not enough of a liberal to believe that rights have a transcendent quality that pre-exist social relationships – recognition and substantiation of rights requires collective, social action. Ultimately, respectability politics of the type advocated for by Buck Angel, or Thomas Sowell, or Noel Pearson, doesn’t work because the position of a plurality of opponents is driven by base disgust and fear of loss – particularly, an irrational fear of a relative loss of social position. Most gender-critical men and women will never tolerate trans people – not even within the prescribed margins tacitly conceded by the transmedicalists – because they view the existence of any trans person at all as a threat, driven by feelings of personal disgust, confusion and rejection. As keffals points out, throughout history minority groups have been met with both public and private violence, legal suppression and harassment. American conservatives have basically already conceded that bills banning trans healthcare for minors, or to ban trans individuals from sport etc., are the thin end of the wedge towards their complete removal from public existence. Out of sight, out of mind.  

But it’s not enough to merely demand recognition, either. And doing so, as we have seen, may alienate those liberals and centrists who resent any expectation that they have to act to improve society somewhat. The notion that they cannot be existentially secure in their [undeserved] social position until and unless marginalised people are also secure is a truth that threatens the very core of their immense self-regard. Until and unless minority groups have the power and organisation to take recognition by force – to seize influence over key institutions and win rights on their own terms – that recognition will continue to be withheld. And in all honesty, the trans community – and indigenous peoples here in Australia – probably lack the sheer numbers to prevail in that kind of political fight. I’m not saying don’t do it. Pressure needs to be exerted from all directions and coercion is an essential part of building any social norm. But galling as it may be, progress will probably be won when the vast body of self-satisfied liberals deign to grant recognition of minority rights ‘as a gift’. The act of charitable giving re-enforces the centrist’s own sense of moral superiority and generosity. So there must be a fine balance between bullying and cajoling; a battered liberal will just as easily become a fascist.

Politics as charity

Does this carry any relevance for the referendum campaign for a Voice for indigenous Australians? I’m on the record as supporting the Voice proposal as a route to political representation, but I’m afraid that the mood of the public is souring and the window to make a make a positive case for constitutional change is narrowing. But the motivation of the Voice’s non-indigenous but well-meaning supporters appears to be not constitutional re-design but recognition of colonised peoples as full citizens. For liberals, the symbolism of the Voice - including their ‘recognition’ in the constitution - is the point; it will cost the centre nothing in real terms. So I think the Prime Minister’s messaging about relying on Australians’ ‘best qualities’ is probably his best saving throw at this point. The referendum will get up if and only if the government is able to convince sufficient voters that they’re good enough people to make the most minor of symbolic concessions to a historically marginalised group of people, whose land and culture we stole. Some might think that’s an easy victory; for me, it appears to sit on a knife’s edge. The politics of this kind of political charity may be frustrating and insulting to genuine leftists - we don’t beg - but fortunately, it’s a skill at which most high-status liberals excel.

Sex is real. So is gender. The anatomy of propaganda.

I’ve tried to resist entering ‘the discourse‘ when it comes to analysing whether famed author JK Rowling is a TERF - a ‘trans exclusionary radical feminist’. For the record, Rowling’s actions suggest those of a TERF. Kat Blaque’s video embedded below addresses this better than I ever could:

Instead, I want to turn a critical eye to one element of Rowling’s now-infamous January tweet about a UK employment discrimination case that can teach us a useful lesson about how propanganda works.

Sex essentialism 101
I’m not going to go over all the myriad ways Rowling’s tweet oversimplifies and misrepresents the details of Maya Forstater’s failed legal challenge - the full text is available here and I recommend everyone take the time to read it. This was clearly a test case intended to set a legal precedent, and it fell over at the very first hurdle. Instead I want to focus on the line ‘sex is real’ because it’s a slick and in my opinion powerful bit of disinformation. The idea that gender critical feminists - and from hereon out I will try to use their preferred terminology - are simply defending the empirical proposition that ‘sex is real’ (and are not just, say, disguising anti-trans bigotry) is likely to become an enduring feature in this little culture war.

The phrasing demonstrates how propaganda can simultaneously set up a straw man about the position of so-called ‘gender theorists’, while obscuring the true position of the sex essentialists. No one of any consequences who supports trans rights says that sex isn’t real. The default position - accepted by academics, activists and, I would dare to add, broadly understood by the lay public - is that sex and gender refer to two separate English-language concepts and that which one to use to depends on the context. Gender typically refers to socially-constructed rules, norms and expectations which attach to categories of people on the basis of their behaviour and appearance. Sex, on the other hand, refers to bimodally distributed clusters of biological traits which are usually - but far from exclusively - linked in some way to reproductive function. It’s not that sex isn’t real, it just that it isn’t meaningful in many social contexts. When I listen to or read the works of trans people, they constantly and repeatedly emphasise that they are keenly aware of the ‘reality’ of biological sex. For many, though not all, trans and non-binary people, this reality is the cause of significant distress and their experiences are to a significant degree shaped by the effort it takes to manage the incongruence between their sex characteristics and gender identity.

Here’s the thing. The true position of gender critical feminists is in fact that gender isn’t real. That’s what they won’t - or can’t - admit, because it’s so extreme. They either believe that a social construction can’t be ‘real’ (at all!); or that any incongruence between sex and gender is the result of mental disorders deserving of sympathy, but not respect; or that the only relevant social category in (almost) all circumstances is sex. Either way, references to a person’s gender in ordinary English usage can refer to their biological sex and only their biological sex. As self-proclaimed critics of gender, they’re attempting to argue that socially constructed categories aren’t or shouldn’t be real, and that therefore attempting to modify or reform them in any way impossible and perverse.

If gender critical folks had their way, it would be linguistically impossible for anyone to identify with a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth, and their personal identification and social role would have no consequences. A trans woman would be treated by society for all intents are purposes as a man and a trans man as a woman. The medical, psychological and social evidence is that this position - long the historical default - causes harm to trans individuals, and enforces hierarchical and rigid notions about gender relations that end up also causing low-level anxiety for the vast majority of cis people. In the words of the British judge, it is a belief incompatible with the rights and dignity of other citizens.

By obfuscating their true position, gender critical feminists are attempting to hide the absolutism inherent in their nugatory beliefs. They’re sex essentialists in exactly the same way that self-proclaimed hereditarians are ‘race essentialists’ and the Stalinist/nazbol crowd are ‘class essentialists’. It’s a neat dogwhistle, because the lay reader (perhaps including JK Rowling?) is unlikely to recognise the trick being played on them. And it’s also a perverse bit of psychological projection, because they end up portraying their opponents - not themselves - as the defenders of an indefensible, unscientific position.

When does sex matter?

The essence of any good faith debate over the relevance of sex and gender centres around identifying the contexts in which each system of categorisation is most relevant. The progressive position, which I hold, is that for most social purposes gender is the most relevant categorisation, and that therefore there is wide scope for this system to be critiqued, challenged and reformed - or even abolished if we chose to. The reactionary position - shared by conservatives and gender critical feminists alike - is that sex is the most relevant categorisation more often than not, and that as a result that options of critique, challenge and reform are limited. Instead, (cis-) women must organise on the basis of sex in order to achieve social power and status equal to (cis-)men.

The first, and far and away most significant, context in which sex is the most relevant category is when it comes to health and medical treatment. A trans man may need to see a gynaecologist, and trans women may need to check for prostate cancer. Many diseases and health conditions affect sex characteristics differently, and it is in everyone’s self-interest that trans individuals, though socially and culturally of their chosen gender, receive medical treatment and advice best suited to the biological characteristics they actually possess. A menopausal cis woman, an intersex individual and a trans person may all require hormone treatment. In this way, “Good morning ma’am, have you experienced any discomfort in your penis?” is a perfectly logical English construction.

Secondly, we should recognise that romantic and sexual attraction is built in complicated ways on both sex and gender. Most people describe being attracted to some weighted combination of social performance and sexual characteristics, and some people are highly attracted to combinations of traits that are uncommon or transgressive. Some people may be highly motivated by the opportunity to reproduce and limit their choice of partners to those they can produce viable offspring with - ending relationships with infertile partners who they are otherwise attracted to. Some may be attracted to a person of the opposite gender but draw the line at same-sex genitals. But others may be totally comfortable with a feminine penis or male vagina. Many people will believe that what matters most is chemistry, personality or some other abstract quality. Since every adult human is entitled to full and absolute autonomy in their choice of partner - and to interfere with that choice is a crime - then people for whom some arbitrary sexual characteristic is a deal-breaker will always be able to act on those desires with any adult human who’d have them! Plenty of people have sexual desires that are considered socially questionable in some form or another.

Finally, we come to the vexed issue of sports. Sport is segregated in the interest of an abstract social goal of ‘fairness’. Sex and gender are merely being used as proxy variables for this goal. Defining what does, and does not, constitute an unfair competitive advantage is a complicated sociological question and by a process of trial-and-error most societies with professional athletics have prohibited a variety of chemical interventions while allowing unlimited funds to be spent on training, facilities and athlete development. Whether sex or gender, both or neither, are relevant to fair competition is as yet an open question. One trans athlete may outperform a cis person, but how much of that advantage is due to their biochemistry and how much is due to the social encouragement and development opportunities they might have received pre-transition? The burden of evidence is heavy, given both the statistically tiny number of trans athletes and the general physical exceptionalism of most athletes. Even if trans women were shown to have longer bones and wider shoulders than cis women on average, we would have no statistical reason to believe this difference would also exist among professional athletes. It’s also hard to avoid the impression of racial bias in these discussions, as many of the most exceptional trans- and intersex athletes (including notably Caster Semeya) have been non-caucasian.

The most plausible resolution to me right now seems to be a convergence on testosterone standards (in some sports) under which both trans- and cis- women can compete fairly, while excluding most cis-men, doping (cheating) athletes and athletes with rare medical conditions that might give them an unfair advantage. The widespread availability of hormone treatments also means any excessive innate biochemical advantage can be treated and reversed, if desired. Such tests would be simple for professional sports to apply, while amateur sports (where widespread blood testing might be infeasible) could continue to rely on gender as a low-cost proxy.

Gender rules

Once we accept the proposition that ‘gender is real’, we can subject it to serious criticism and debate. Many people - both cis and trans - are at ease with their gender roles; others think gender hierarchies should be deconstructed and rebuilt in more fluid or egalitarian ways; others are simply gender abolitionists, believing that all social norms, rules and behaviours based on stereotyped characteristics should be abolished entirely. All of these arguments and propositions are prima facie valid, because social structures can be remade by social beings however we’re able. Sex essentialists would take all these options from us, because they reduce behaviour to fixed biological traits that cannot be changed.

Nowhere is the debate between sex essentialists and gender realists less productive than when it comes to ‘women’s spaces’ such as bathrooms, refuges and prisons. The radical argument that everyone with a penis poses a threat to everyone with a vagina at all times makes sense within the gender critical framework, but appears puritanical and impractical as a guide to public policy to most people. On the other hand, gender realists argue that violence against women is a product of patriarchy - toxic socialisation which causes male-identified individuals to feel entitled to have access to or control women’s bodies. Whenever people in womens’ spaces - either cis or trans - are identified as predators then those individuals should be treated as the criminals they are, and sanctioned on the basis of their behaviour, not their identity or gender performance.

These are sometimes difficult questions. But when lay people appear uncertain or uncomfortable about these issues, and become susceptible to gender critical propaganda, it’s likely not because their instinctive beliefs about sex and gender are being called into question. It’s because they don’t know - and likely have never even thought before - about how those beliefs should apply in particular edge cases. That’s totally normal. But the propagandandist exploits that ambiguity and uncertainty to drive a wedge between people and their beliefs, whereas the activist is there to help and guide the public through unfamiliar terrain.

Book Review: "Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism"

Steve Silberman's award-winning 2015 book "Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter About People Who Think Differently" is well worth your time, even if its 520 pages are nearly as dense and unwieldly as its mammoth title. Neurotribes is a comprehensive history of the emergence of the modern understanding of autism spectrum disorders. Silberman is an excellent storyteller, and this well written book is filled to the brim with compelling individual narratives with an enviable capacity to suck the reader in. 

Despite its marketing as a pop science book, the strength of Neurotribes lies not in its presentation of the science of autism (which is disappointingly superficial), but by placing the discovery of the autism spectrum in its historic and social context. Through the lens of autistic individuals and their families, we witness the trials and tribulations of the psychiatric profession over the twentieth century; watch with horror as the Nazis rise to power in Europe, and read about the disturbing links between fascist and liberal eugenic beliefs; we see the origins of science fiction as popular literature, the heady early days of the internet, as well as the origins of gay conversion therapy. Neurotribes, in this sense, joins the genre of 'hidden history' now common in the queer community, in which well-known history is re-interpreted and re-experienced through the lives of minorities we now recognise were there in the shadows all along. 

For those unfamiliar with autism, Silberman's main aim is to walk the reader away from popular misconceptions about the disorder rooted in the initial scientific description (a single syndrome, causing unique and devastating impairment in early childhood, that is relatively rare) to the modern consensus. The new understanding is embodied by the clinical description of autism as a spectrum of diverse conditions, which appears in the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). Silberman attempts to resurrect figures unknown to the general public who were ahead of their time in advocating the spectrum concept, such as Soviet psychologist Grunya Sukharaeva, German pediatrician Han Asperger and British psychiatrist Lorna Wing. Given widespread panic over the modern prevalence of autism and its cause, Silberman's history is a necessary and laudatory corrective. 

The author, though, is not a disinterested chronicler and his biases slip into the writing throughout the book. Silberman is writing a story, and he's clear who his heroes and villains are. He valorises certain characters in questionable circumstances and demonises others unfairly; the venom in his prose sometimes detracts from the broader analytic point he's trying to make. The truth is, all real humans are flawed heroes whose individual prejudices reflect the broader historical patterns at play in their time and who cannot be judged sensibly by the standards of a different time - a trap Silberman repeatedly falls into. 

Why a spectrum?

Ultimately, the concept of variance as a spectrum is vastly more useful than the formerly dominant scientific (and neo-Platonist) tendency in which every category is represented by an single ideal type. What's the scientific value in defining separate historical species of human when we know they coexisted and interbred with one another? What's the utility of a binary categorisation of sex when we know that even biological sex characteristics are multifaceted and rarely perfectly correlate with one another? And now that we understand that autism is a cluster of interrelated developmental variations, with potentially hundreds of possible genetic loci and scores of possible environmental triggers, the spectrum model helps us see the similarities beyond the superficial differences: more of the signal and less of the noise. 

Autism is characterised by both positive and negative traits, but these traits should be seen as part of the psychological whole of an individual, whose life outcomes will depend on whether or not they receive the material support and social environment they need to flourish. From an evolutionary perspective, autism and autism-like cognition are precisely the sort of neurological variance we might expect to see persist in a population, and which highlights the inherent flaw in seeing our biological legacy as perfectly adapted. Autism-related polymorphisms might convey enough of an advantage to some individuals to offset the fitness loss caused by its more extreme manifestations. As might have been predicted by Dual Inheritance Theory, cultures which are 'pre-adapted' to recognising and employing the skills of the neuro-diverse may be better off in the long run than those (horrifically catalogued in Silberman's book) that treat the disabled or different as a burden to eliminated.

Manufacturing Normality

Autism, alongside other mental disorders once considered nearly fatal diseases, is increasingly being recognised as a diagnosis that is socially disabling only for a given social context. No one should downplay the immense challenges that serious mental disorders confer on those diagnosed and their families. And yet, Silberman's book argues persuasively that both the long-term prognosis of those affected and the severity of their symptoms is in large part a function of the understanding and support offered by their carers. There is some truth to the observation that institutions create madness, especially when used by society as an instrument to control those it can't - or won't - otherwise accommodate.

Silberman is particularly astute on the issue of toxic parenting, and its roots in the way society positions parents as the "middle managers" in a vast authoritarian enterprise aimed at producing 'standardised' or 'normal' children. The social pressure place on parents to do their duty in producing perfectly conformist consumers manifests itself as a laundry list of detrimental practices, not least is the vulnerability of parents to fraudsters who promise a quick fix to problems parents don't have the resources or understanding to cope with. Silberman rightly skewers Andrew Wakefield (the promotor of the myth that vaccines cause autism), the anti-vaxxer movement and those peddling 'cures' for autism ranging from homeopathic placebos to potentially tortuous regimens. But he makes the point that the real blame lies with a culture that places unrealistic and impossible duties on parents without providing them the necessary time or resources to perform them.

I hate to sound like a social constructivist unnecessarily, but the boundary between disease and merely odd or unusual observations is often socially constructed: what some parents or doctors will fret over, others will shrug off as normal variation. There is a definite risk that that spectrum model of autism could lead to the medicalising of otherwise benign variance, much as the increase in screening for breast cancer in healthy individuals has led to an increase in medically unnecessary and occasionally risky surgeries.

However, given the current model of funding for social services, Silberman gives voice to the many parents and practitioners that support maintaining the disorder as the only way to ensure continued funding for autism healthcare. In this way, autism appears in the same awkward positions as gender dysphoria: it probably can't be completed demedicalised in the same way homosexuality was in the 1960s. Like trans-identified individuals, people with autism need special assistance and adjustments to manage what might otherwise become crippling social disabilities. Analogies between autism and gender dysphoria litter Neurotribes and in fact support one of its key messages: societies tend to behave as if it's easier to (coercively) change the individual to fit society than expect the whole of society to adapt around them. 

The geek disease

Silberman gestures repeatedly towards the aphorism that autism is more than just the 'geek disease', but as a tech journalist he's a tad too indulgent towards Silicon Valley and more than a little in love with the supposed genius of his chosen subjects. The book is overly prone to performing remote diagnosis of historical figures in science and technology  - a dicey proposition at best - and he obscures the stories of those diagnosed with true autism by mixing them rather freely with the narratives of "(male) engineers with autistic traits." It is generally recognised today that autism does not discriminate: that it affects the gifted and ungifted in equal measure. But the connection between autism and genius is a sexy story, and Silberman is perhaps more of a good story-teller than he is a journalist of science. 

Neurotribes is at its best when the author simply lets people with autism tell their stories in their own words. Situating the autism rights movement and the argument for greater recognition of neurodiversity in the context of earlier reforms opening society up to greater racial, sexual and gender diversity is the right approach. While I would have appreciated a greater emphasis on actual research into the causes of autism, it's true that we don't need to understand the biological roots of variance in order to adjust our societies to it (see also: gender identity). Intersectionality means, as I have mentioned before, letting minorities tell us what changes they need from society in their own voice: in giving voice to perhaps one of the largest minorities in the world, "Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism" thus performs a valuable service.