I stated publicly the other day that I think the distinction between sex and gender is not only a useful one, but a logical linguistic one: sex has to do with the body parts and gender with the roles one plays in society. I believe that while doctors can call the sex wrong at times (an infinitely small number of times, but the number shouldn't matter) one should know one's sex if faced with a cancer of the uterus diagnosis. As for gender, like with any other socially-constructed category, one needs to show flexibility. When things get political, I choose to reflect the view of most progressives who say, "I don't tell you whether you are trans or not; you tell me and I'll go along with you and try my best to support the way you want to live in the world." I can't repeat often enough that I think the goal in any discussion, whether you and others see you as an insider to the topic or whether you're just trying to become more informed on the issue so you can vote sensibly on issues affecting trans people, is how can we first do no harm, and second, make the lives of people suffering from gender dysphoria easier?
Note that I'm using the word "trans" here, and some people find that archaic and insist I should be saying "transgender." But I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll get to that directly.
I'm trying to tread softly here and acknowledge that I'm approaching this question as an amateur. I claim absolutely no expertise and tell myself I've got far more to learn than I have useful stuff to share. But I also believe it's useful to think out loud and let the world come down on you for your ignorance. It's selfish, but it's the best single way to learn things I know. I insisted when I was still in the classroom that there are no bad questions, and being mistaken is nothing to be ashamed of. Have at me with criticism for speaking too soon. If that's how you feel, you're quite likely to be right. I should probably have waited till I had more information to come forward with these questions. My only response is, "I don't have a lot of time left. People in my circle are dropping like flies. I have to take this learning route."
In the past few days I've been listening to a number of interviews with people who have been dealing with the transgender movement for many years and learning something about the extent of the literature out there. There is Janice Raymond's book The Transsexual Empire, which came out in 1979 and that's a lifetime ago. John Money and Richard Green's Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment, the first medical textbook to be published on gender dysphoria was published a whole decade before that, in 1969. There is Riki Wilchins' Read My Lips: Sexual Subversion and the End of Gender, 2015, Kara Dansky's The Abolition of Sex: How the “Transgender” Agenda Harms Women and Girls, 2021. Then there is Lierre Keith and her conviction that "(T)here's no such thing as a "transwoman." They are men. That's it. Men. And they don't belong in our word for ourselves or in our spaces."
And, please note, this is not a list compiled after doing a careful search of the literature; it's a sample I picked up from listening to just one trans person with strong views that differ from mine, somebody who uses "transgender" where I would advocate the use of "transsexual," and rolls her eyes at us pedants who still bang on about the distinction. Her name is Lily Alexandre and I know nothing about her other than that she has a vlog which apparently brings her $1,637/month. As I say, I have no idea how to judge the value of what she has to say other than that she sneers where I would expect her to argue.
And that brings me to my point. How are we to deal with people who find your views offensive? Do we back out of the dialogue? Nobody wants to talk with people who roll their eyes at your ignorance or naivete. I'm still smarting at the first trans person I engaged with who insisted gay men were their biggest enemy because they were trying to hold trans people back from becoming trans. The linguistic can get political at surprising speed.
I remember the first time I called a heterosexual friend a heterosexual. He rolled his eyes. "What do we need that word for?" he asked. The honest answer is we didn't need it back in the day when the universal social attitude was "We don't have people like that." That was Ahmadinejad, the former president of Iran, referring to gay people. If you don't have gay people, homosexuals, you have no need of the word heterosexual to contrast them with. Likewise, these days, I've seen more than one friend roll their eyes at the word "cisgender." Didn't need the word before transgenderism became the hot topic it has recently become. Before people started fighting over whether they should be used as a third person singular pronoun or whether people got to tell you what pronouns they wanted you to use when referring to them.
Here's my dilemma. I don't know this Lily Alexandre person and don't expect to meet her (them? - I don't know which pronoun she/they prefer(s).) What do I say to her if she uses transgender where I would prefer transsexual? Or, even worse, if she disparages my use of transsexual. My suggestion is we should both be allowed to continue to work within the framework of our own arguments.
But then that takes us to another question. She/they is/are a transgendered (transsexual?) person. Does that give them more rights? A stronger leg to stand on morally? Do I not get to call her on what I think is a linguistic issue (she's not a linguist.) I grant you that linguists are not a disparaged category, at least as far as I know, and racism and sexism only has meaning when it involves a person from the more privileged class coming down on a person from the less privileged class. Does that apply here?
So much more work to do. I'm not sure we've even gotten this plane off the ground yet. Something tells me we're still working on the checklist before even starting the engines.
Just one thing before I leave. I'm being too cute in pretending I have trouble with the she/they choice. I don't. I've already accepted that they should be used these days for the third person singular. So much smoother than "he or she." I made that decision back in the day when I first read that little girls, when asked to guess who the doctor was in a photo, almost always pointed to a man. I understand, on a practical level, the reason behind getting rid of the generic masculine - using he, as in Everybody should bring his own pencil to the test.
Everybody should bring his own bra, as well.
Keeping language apart from politics may be a lofty goal, but it's a battle nobody can win, in the end.
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