ACKNOWLEDGING “TRANS” AS A COHERENT CONCEPT IS A FATAL OWN GOAL FOR FEMINISTS
June 14, 2021
Can everyone please stop saying “trans people?”
It makes no sense.
It’s a lie, and fighting self-ID is not enough to defeat it.
The entire edifice of “trans” is built on a capitalist enterprise to obliterate the material reality of sex, deprive all of us of our natural human experience, and center male sexual entitlement.
It may at first appear inconsistent to say that “trans” is all three things. But it’s true: “trans” is simultaneously incoherent, an outright lie, and an industry that viciously fights to destroy reality and sell a fetish.
For all three of these reasons, I want to make the case that use of terms like “trans,” “trans gender,” and “trans people” by feminists and other gender critical people is an own goal – a goal scored inadvertently when the ball is struck into the goal by a player on the defensive team. Use of this terminology is likely to destroy the movement to fight gender ideology.
(Please note that the image on this blog post is of OL Reign goalie Karen Bardsley fending off an own goal by soccer star Megan Rapinoe during a May 30, 2021, match against the Washington Spirit. Rapinoe has spoken in favor of allowing boys to compete in girls’ sports.)
“Trans people” as a concept makes no sense
Sex means the differentiation between male and female, determined by whether an X-bearing sperm or a Y-bearing sperm fertilized the X-bearing ovum, which determines the type of sexual and reproductive organs that develop, and the biological differences between females and males.
There is also, of course, the phenomenon of “intersex,” or “sex-linked disorders,” which are defined as “any disease or abnormal condition that is determined by the sex chromosomes or by a defective gene on a sex chromosome.”[1] The phenomenon of intersex is unrelated to the fight against gender ideology.[2]
None of this, however, tells us anything about what the word “trans” or “trans people” might mean. People are all always male or female – men or women, girls or boys – and sex is fixed in each human body. Ceding that “trans,” by any definition, even a definition that equates it with nonconformity with sex role stereotypes, is a thing at all, fatally denies the reality of sex. This is because sex and “transgender” ideology cannot be logically reconciled. Either trans exists or sex exists.
Take this piece by U.K. feminist Julie Bindel. The title is “The trans rights that trump all” and the subtitle is “Women’s rights were not considered in legislation that allows trans people to effectively decide their own gender.”[3] Throughout, Bindel uses terms like “trans people,” “trans men,” and “trans women” without once defining them. The closest she comes to a definition is this, describing the original framing of the U.K.’s Gender Recognition Act:
The law was framed thus: a transsexual person (the terminology used at the time by legislators and most trans people) must acquire a gender recognition certificate from a new gender recognition panel made up of lawyers and doctors.
But that explains nothing, because it still includes the phrase “trans people.”
It is simply not clear exactly what is even meant by the word “trans.” I have never heard a coherent definition of it, and I have been in the gender critical world for quite a few years now.
We can all conduct this experiment ourselves. Stop reading and ask yourself, “wait, what does ‘transgender’ mean?” Let yourself sit with the question.
“Trans people” is a lie and fighting self-ID is not enough
But, even though “trans” has no coherent meaning, it is also true that the entire gender identity industry is an abusive and narcissistic lie. It’s also a misogynistic and lesbophobic lie. These statements are not inconsistent. “A man is a woman,” like “an apple is a banana,” is simultaneously nonsensical and untruthful.
There appear to be three categories of phenomena that we see playing out on society today, each of which is frequently put forth to explain what the words “trans people” might mean:
People who take steps to physically modify their bodies using hormones and/or surgeries in order to appear to be more like the opposite sex (sometimes referred to as “true trans”); and
People who simply state that they are the opposite sex and/or adopt appearances and/or behaviors that are commonly associated with the opposite sex (typically referred to as “self-ID”).
People who claim to “be a gender” that is neither male nor female (so-called “non-binary,” “agender,” and “demi-gender” would seem to fit into this category, whatever any of those terms may mean).[4]
In the end, none of this really amounts to much, because at the end of the day, every single person who has ever been born is either male or female. However, because we are dealing with an industry that is pushing us to believe that “transgender” is real, because society has largely accepted that as truth, and especially because many people who claim to be either gender critical or gender abolitionist (or both) use words and phrases like “trans,” “trans people,” and “trans gender,” we have to deal with these phenomena straightforwardly.
Many feminists rightly take issue with self-ID. It is patently absurd for society and the law to accept that men can be women simply on the basis of their say-so or because they don a dress and lipstick. Accepting self-ID represents a complete redefinition of the words “women” and “woman,” and many people, especially feminists and our allies, find that concept to be deeply troubling. On what basis, after all, have we been fighting for our rights all this time if sex does not exist?
Many feminists also rightly dismiss the third category because it is nonsensical on its face.
But there is something much more deeply sinister going on here, which appears to be some feminists’ (and our allies’) acceptance of the notion that there is a coherent category of people who are “actually trans.” If “trans” is a lie, then anyone who uses the term is, logically, lying.
“Trans people” is being sold to us as a socially acceptable form of male sexual fetishism
Still, even though “trans” is both nonsensical and untruthful, we must acknowledge that an industry exists to get these concepts enshrined in law and accepted by the larger culture. This industry has seen a tremendous amount of success in the U.S.
“Trans” is the commercialization of a fetish that objectifies women’s biology to further male sexual entitlement. And it should go without saying that furthering male sexual entitlement is fundamentally anti-feminist. It is not possible to both advance the goal of feminism (women’s liberation via the enshrinement of women’s sex-based rights) and champion the commercialization of men’s entitlement to female sex. Using phrases like “trans people” sets us back, if our goal is to liberate women.
So-called transgenderism is the branding of a fetish, at the heart of which is owning women’s biology. Through “trans,” women’s objectification is sold back to us by branding it as progressive. This includes not just men pretending to be women, but also the recent phenomenon of the spike in young women reporting to “gender clinics” for double mastectomies and testosterone. These young women are seeking to escape the male sexual entitlement that they encounter all around them – from street harassment to pornography to the everyday sexual exploitation of women in advertising.
Using phrases like “trans people” makes people think that we (feminists and gender critical men) think that “trans” is a coherent category, and it makes line-drawing impossible. If we are honest with ourselves, all of us know that none of us know who fits into the category of “trans people.” Is it people who sincerely think that they are the opposite sex? Is it people who claim to be the opposite sex because they are aroused by the idea of being the opposite sex? Mainstream society, including the media, consistently uses phrases like “trans people,” “trans athletes,” “trans students,” etc., as though those words have some meaning that everyone understands. But in reality, no one really knows.
If “trans” exists, there is no logical reason not to enshrine it in law or to sell it through products and packaging. If we are going to accept the phrase “trans people” as a coherent category, why not go all the way? Why not give up women-only spaces? Why not fully embrace the castration of children? If we are going to accept the phrase “trans people,” what are we even doing as a movement?
When feminists and our allies use the language of the gender identity industry, we give credence to the nonsense, we give credence to the lie, and we perpetuate an industry that sees women’s bodies as a commodity.
Defeating self-ID is worth celebrating, but it is not enough. Acknowledging “trans” is an own goal, and while own goals are always embarrassing, this one is going to be fatal.
(By the way, Rapinoe’s May 30 own goal was, in fact, fatal. Her team lost by a point.)
[1] “Sex-linked disorder,” Mosby’s Pocket Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing & Health Professionals, 7th Ed. (Mosby 2014).
[2] DSD Families, a U.K.-based charity, has numerous resources available online that explore this phenomenon.
[3] In this piece, Jennifer Bilek explains why of course women’s rights weren’t considered in legislation that allows men to claim a legal female sex.
[4] According to this source, “[t] here are at least as many genders as there have been humans who have lived.” This claim is so patently absurd that there is not much to say about it, other than to note that there is no such thing as “being a gender.” As noted above, either trans exists or sex exists.