Towards a Sensible and Compassionate Approach to Gender and Trans Issues
Towards a Sensible and Compassionate Approach to Gender and Trans Issues
A reply to Andrew Sullivan and Damon Linker
Today, I want to reply to two recent articles that talk about the current polarization on trans issues: The Queers Versus The Homosexuals by Andrew Sullivan, and Ten Theses for Liberals on Sex and Gender by Damon Linker. The current situation is unsustainable, and something needs to change soon, in order for people not to be harmed. Both the cultural systemist left and the culture warrior right are taking things way too far, and we need more voices to yell 'stop' at both of them. Which is why I am helping to continue the conversation, and hopefully amplify our concerns. I also have a few disagreements with both Sullivan and Linker that I will detail.
Democrats need a response that goes beyond doubling down on the maximalist position of activists and demonization of Americans who are troubled by it. They need a response that takes a strong stand against the most egregious moves being hatched on the right while also staking out a new position that’s more reasonable and closer to mainstream views on sex and gender. The effort to do so isn’t motivated by a cynical desire to triangulate politically between conservatives and progressives. It’s motivated by the desire to arrive at a more substantively defensible position.
-Ten Theses for Liberals on Sex and Gender by Damon Linker
I think this suggestion at the opening of Linker's article provides a very good foundation 'guidance' as to the direction that we, the moderates, should take on gender issues and trans rights going forward. We need to be critical of the activists, and especially of queer theory, but we also need to respond strongly to the authoritarian right.
I agree with both Linker and Sullivan that there are very real issues that need to be openly discussed in a rational way here. However, we need to create the environment to allow those issues to be resolved. I have been doing my part by taking a stand against cancel culture in the trans community, and insisting that there are real issues that merit real discussion. However, as I illustrated a few months ago, we can't get trans people on board a program of open discussion and compromise building if they are fearing a loss of their basic rights, particularly their right to trans medical care. Therefore, the authoritarians in the GOP also need to be resisted and ultimately defeated. Just blaming trans activists without also assigning responsibility of the current situation to the authoritarians is not fair, and will get us nowhere.
Ultimately, queer theory's unreasonable demands are going to cause people to push back. I'm part of that myself: I even wrote a whole book on The Trans Case Against Queer Theory, on how queer theory is hijacking the trans conversation away from actual trans people with gender dysphoria. I am fighting for the re-centering of gender dysphoria in the trans discourse. I understand that Sullivan in particular is very frustrated because as a gay man he is affected by queer theory activism. As a trans person I am even more affected, and even more frustrated. A lot of my opposition to cultural systemism, often known as 'woke', is literally related to my experience as a trans person suffering from gender dysphoria. I can proudly say that gender dysphoria, being trans, has made me anti-woke.
However, I should stress that no matter how much we push back against queer theory, it is still not right to link this kind of reasonable push back to the authoritarian agenda of some in the GOP, who are busily banning everything from books to drag shows, and making trans health care difficult to access for trans adults. These authoritarians need to be called out and opposed unconditionally, and outlets like the NYT are rightly doing so. When marriage equality was won, and the GOP was busily courting libertarians, the religious right was sidelined, but now they are back. We need to be able to face this fact, and gear up for the fight. We might wish the right didn't have a substantial number of authoritarians who hate us, but this is not the case, and we must be brave enough to acknowledge this, rather than blame it all on the far-left (even if we don't agree with them either).
I have also long been skeptical of the way language is being forcibly changed by postmodern queer theory inspired activism, and I fully understand Sullivan's frustrations here. Regarding same-sex vs same-gender attraction, it’s a complicated and difficult topic, and attempts by both the far-left and the right to politicize it aren’t helpful. Basically, I think both sides need to be able to describe their needs and wishes with their own language. There are people who are primarily attracted to biology (biologically male/female), and people who are primarily attracted to gender expression (masculinity/femininity). The latter isn’t a construct of postmodern ideology, but postmodern ideology is using the latter group to attack the former group. The fact that there was this whole woke wave of ‘if you aren’t attracted to x then you are racist/transphobic/whatever’ doesn’t help. We need to re-affirm that attraction is a natural thing, and not something to be 'examined' and politicized by the critical theory worldview. This, I guess, is another reason why I dislike the cultural systemist worldview so much.
Both sides need to respect the other side more. There should be a way to resolve this without turning it into a culture war. We really can't afford to allow the authoritarian right to come in and run a divide-and-conquer culture war within the LGBT community. There is plenty of evidence that this is what they have wanted to do for a few years now, we must not give them the chance.
It’s perfectly possible to believe that transgender people exist, but that children may not know who or what they are before they’ve even gone through puberty. I’ll defend the right of adults to define themselves as they wish and take irreversible medical measures as they please. I’d march in defense of those rights. I’m just saying something that we recognize in every other area: children are different. And children should not be self-diagnosing a medical condition.
-The Queers Versus The Homosexuals by Andrew Sullivan
The number of young people claiming to be trans is currently skyrocketing. Some of this increase may be driven by teens announcing their trans identity in public when in earlier generations they would have concealed their experience of gender dysphoria due to stigma. But others—those who claim to be trans for a while and then reaffirm their birth sex (and/or come out, instead, as gay, lesbian, or bisexual) after a period of months or years—appear to be taking part in a social contagion that encourages them to believe their experience of adolescent alienation and unhappiness arises from transgender tendencies and can be alleviated by initiating medical transitioning.
-Ten Theses for Liberals on Sex and Gender by Damon Linker
Now, this is a difficult issue where trans activists refuse to acknowledge the genuinely held concerns of many people, and I think that is a mistake. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging that kids are different from adults, and that there should be a more cautious approach when it comes to medical intervention in children. This position is not transphobic at all. I have long advocated for a more cautious approach when it comes to young people presenting with gender dysphoria.
However, I also have to say that the recent politicization of the issue by right-wing culture warriors is unhelpful too, and just makes the trans activists' refusal to deal with this issue even more entrenched. Compared to what is taking place in America (where Republicans enact blanket bans on medical transition for teenagers with basically all Democrats in opposition), there could be a healthier approach like what they are doing in Sweden (where guidelines have been released advising doctors on a more cautious approach towards medical intervention in young patients). The American approach pits one party against another, and threatens to jail doctors and take away parents' custody in certain situations. The same party that does all this is also sometimes making medical transition difficult for adults too, which just shows their extreme authoritarian intentions. The Swedish approach doesn't do any of that. Big difference here.
If we want to move towards the Swedish approach, to make it a viable option for reasonable people to advocate for, then we can't entertain the Republican approach at the same time. One is professional, the other one is politicized and authoritarian. This is why I agree that the Democrats should continue to oppose Republican efforts to legislate on this topic. This, of course, doesn't mean they can't entertain any concerns about the issue. In particular, I agree with Linker that Democrats should respect the wishes of parents, that parents who insist on not beginning medical intervention under 18 are not bad parents, and their decision should be thoroughly respected and upheld.
The Republican effort (recently tested in Missouri) to restrict gender transitioning by adults needs to be opposed, full stop. Conservatives have taken to describing such interventions as “mutilation.” Yet we live in a country and a culture in which adults routinely undertake all kinds of cosmetic plastic surgery: face lifts, nose jobs, breast enhancements, breast reductions, butt jobs, tummy tucks, Botox injections, and much else. It’s a multi-billion-dollar-a-year industry that enables individuals to bring their bodies into closer alignment with their subjective preferences and aesthetic vision of themselves. If conservatives want to begin describing all such efforts as forms of bodily mutilation and seek to regulate them more strictly, they are free to try it. What they can’t do is place pharmacologically and surgically facilitated gender transitioning for adults in a separate, restricted category by law. The attempt to do so is arbitrary and cruel, and liberals should be saying so loudly and without apology.
-Ten Theses for Liberals on Sex and Gender by Damon Linker
This part of Linker's article clearly illustrates how some Republicans are now enacting an extraordinarily authoritarian structure of legal restrictions around trans people and their medical care. I really agree with the part where he says 'liberals should be saying so loudly and without apology'. We liberals have been called fencesitters by the far-left and characterized as unwilling to oppose fascism if and when it comes. Well, this is the moment where we can prove them wrong. I have no problem with characterizing the effort to restrict gender transitioning by adults as fascist. If a state can do this, it can do anything to anyone. It is a test of our liberal and democratic resolve to take the strongest stance in opposition to this. If we fail to do so, then we unfortunately deserve the far-left's negative judgement of us as fencesitters. Please don't prove them right.
Also, as already mentioned above, taking a strong stance against the authoritarian right's effort to restrict trans medical care also contributes to building an environment where trans people are more willing to come onboard open discussion of certain issues, and proposals for compromise to resolve them.
Negative polarization means that each extreme, on right and left, can get away with stuff previously unthinkable — because the alternative is the evil other. To be a gay person and dissent from this assault on homosexuality means brutal personal attacks, social media pile-ons, violence, de-platforming, and cancellation. And the homophobic and transphobic right is on the other side in many ways, with some eager to whip up hatred of gays, so we dissidents have to steel ourselves for the usual claims of treason and hate. In this culture war paradigm, I have almost no hope that gayness, and especially gay kids, can survive both the queer and the Republican onslaught.
-The Queers Versus The Homosexuals by Andrew Sullivan
Here, Sullivan expresses the pessimistic view that there is no way for rationality to prevail in this time of culture war polarization. However, I don't agree. We can resist the culture war, if we try hard enough. After all, polls suggest that most people aren't into culture war stuff. As people often say, Twitter isn't real life. Those who can't see this reality often feel like they have to pick one side or the other. This is what has led some in the LGBT community to go all the way with queer theory activism, and it is also what has led some to embrace the authoritarian right to 'counter woke excess'. In reality, there is no need to pick a bad option to avoid the other bad option. We can just say no to both.
I also want to point out that the two 'onslaughts' actually mostly operate in different spheres of life anyway. Queer theory is philosophy, and its effects on society are cultural. Sullivan talks a lot about linguistic changes, the way gay institutions operate, and so on. In a liberal society these things are outside the scope of government. We can argue against queer theory in the philosophical and cultural sphere, and it shouldn't affect our politics. Opposing the 'queer onslaught' is mostly a cultural thing. On the other hand, the 'Republican onslaught' is entirely about politicians whipping up a moral panic and following it up with authoritarian legislation. Some who support this agenda have even made it clear that they want to eradicate transgenderism and/or homosexuality from public life, naming certain Eastern European countries they would like to emulate. Legislation like Don't Say Gay, drag show bans and bathroom bills have been passed, which clearly contribute to this goal. Therefore, opposing the 'Republican onslaught' is a political thing, that must be done in the political arena, by getting the authoritarians politically defeated wherever we can, and getting their policies reversed as soon as we are able to.
Should this person have access to women’s bathrooms? Be admitted to a sorority? Or placed in a women’s prison? Should a trans woman with a physique on the large size of normal for a man but a far outlier for a woman be allowed to compete in sports as a woman?
These are challenging questions. Some will answer them one way. Others will answer another. Some will consider them easy calls. Still others will find them extremely difficult. On such controversial issues, a broad-based political party will make room for as many people as possible by not staking out a strong position on one side or the other of the dispute. The Democratic Party would be wise to remain as agnostic as possible on such issues, which means the party should welcome inside the tent people on both sides of these debates.
-Ten Theses for Liberals on Sex and Gender by Damon Linker
Finally, while I agree with this proposal from Linker overall, I think it is still missing something. While it is important to let all voices be heard, and respect everyone's position, I don't think evading the topic will be a viable strategy for the Democrats. Rather, I think we need a proactive stance that is big enough for all the voices to be respected. Something like having a goal of being compassionate and accommodating towards trans people while respecting the needs and concerns of different stakeholders. This principle would build a big enough tent to include good-faith people on both sides of the debates. It would also exclude bad-faith people, whose intention is to 'eradicate transgenderism from public life', for example.
Note: The articles quoted above do not necessarily reflect my views, and I do not endorse their arguments outside of what I have specifically agreed with.
TaraElla is a singer-songwriter and author, who is the author of the Moral Libertarian Manifesto and the Moral Libertarian book series, which argue that liberalism is still the most moral and effective value system for the West.
She is also the author of The Trans Case Against Queer Theory and The TaraElla Story (her autobiography).