Some thoughts on 21st Century Gender Theory

[Raphael]

EDITED TO ADD: After having read the first couple of responses to my initial post here, I have, now, somewhat moved away from what I say in that post, and am closer to Dune's first post in this thread.

This is something I've been thinking about for a while, partly for personal reasons. Fair warning: at some points, I might, for a moment, if you don't read on, sound like I'm moving dangerously close to some TERF positions. So, just for the record, TERFs are complete shitheads. More on that near the end of this post. For now, all I'm asking is that, if you don't like some of my points here, please read to the end, and form your opinions about this post based on the whole post, and not just based on the first line that rubs you the wrong way.

Now, my discomfort with what I understand about some of the gender-related theories of our time is that I think they often simply don't go far enough. Gender theorists do a great job fighting back against the attitude among conservative supporters of restrictive gender roles where those people try to tell everyone, based on the gender they were assigned at birth, what their personality is supposed to be. The gender theorists are completely right to do that. But they themselves sometimes seem all too eager to tell people, based on their personality, what their gender is supposed to be. And while that's not nearly as wrong as the culturally conservative position, I don't think it's right, either.

I'd say that what you might call "the whole gender thing" has three main components: First, there's genitals, and other physical features. Second, there's gender identity. And third, there are personality traits, psychological features, and cultural expectations about behavior.

Now, traditionally, in many parts of the world, those three things were expected to always go together, and the demand was that the first component had to determine the other two components. If you were born with specific genitals, you were supposedly "required" to belong to a specific gender, and to become a specific kind of person. Today, that's still the stance of conservatives, fascists, and their various charming friends.

It's great that gender theorists fight against that mindset. But their chosen method for that is apparently to cut off the first component from the second and third components, while keeping the second and third components as a "package". That is, genitals and other physical features should no longer determine gender, but gender should still be all about personality traits, psychological features, and cultural expectations about behavior. Sometimes, gender theorists even seem to explicitly assert that a collection of cultural expectations about behavior is what a gender is.

Well, I think it would have been better if they had gone the route of making the cut between the second and the third component instead. That is, for most people (except, of course, biologically intersex people and people who don't like the physical characteristics they were born with, developed later, or might develop in the future) physical characteristics and gender identity would remain a package, but gender identity would be separated from expectations about personality traits, psychological features, and ways of behaving.

That would, in my opinion, be a much more direct and straightforward attack on restrictive traditional gender roles than the gender theorists' stance of apparently acknowledging that "men are like this, and women are like that", while just adding that not everyone is the gender they were assigned at birth.

But what we get is a time when the public fight is almost entirely between supporters of forcing restrictive gender roles on everyone, and gender theorists who are absolutely convinced that their theoretical framework is the one way to fight against restrictive gender roles. So the idea that perhaps, we simply shouldn't see gender as having anything to do with behavior patterns rarely ever gets a hearing.

And I'm not sure if gender theorists ever explain why their stance on gender is better than mine. Instead, they seem to be resolutely determined to ignore the possibility that something like my stance might even exist. But if you've seen a piece somewhere written by one or more of today's gender theorists that acknowledges what I've just described as my stance, seriously engages with it, and explains why the standard stance of the gender theorists is better, feel free to point me to it.

It sometimes seems to me that supporters of forcing restrictive gender roles on everyone and today's gender theorists basically seem to agree with each other that, if the gender as which you have identified in the past, and your personality, don't "align" with each other, there's something wrong with you. They just disagree on which one of those two things you should change in that case. But I don't think a person in that position should think that they have to change anything about themselves.

To phrase it a bit differently, and perhaps a bit more sharply: in schoolyard bullying, it's common that bullies tell young boys that they aren't "really" boys because they aren't into or good at stereotypical "boy stuff", and tell young girls that they aren't "really" girls because they aren't into or good at stereotypical "girl stuff". And, frankly, I've got the impression that some of today's gender theorists are basically telling people in that position that those schoolyard bullies were right. Which would be a really fucked up stance to take.

Or, to put it more personally: I've sometimes got the impression that supporters of forcing restrictive gender roles on everyone and today's gender theorists are both telling me that, because I'm not interested in being all that "masculine" by traditional standards, I'm not "really" a man. So from my perspective, in that regard, they aren't as different from each other as they generally think they are.

Some of today's gender theorists seem to act as if they're determined to systematically deny the existence of and erase people who are fine with the gender identity they were assigned at birth but, at the same time, aren't interested in conforming to the "corresponding" gender role. That is, people like myself.

OK, I know that I'm sounding a lot like a fucking transphobe in this post. So, just to be clear: transphobia is wrong and repulsive, and in a time when fascists and fascist-adjacent people are systematically harassing trans people, encouraging vigilantism against trans people, and laying the ground work for future massacres of trans people, the most important thing is to fight against those fascists and other transphobes. The important thing is to fight against people who want to force restrictive gender roles on everyone. Compared to that, my disagreements with the gender theorists are about minor details.

So this post is mostly just a long-winded way of explaining why I, personally, have no plans of ever stopping to identify as male - despite the fact that I often get the impression that some of today's gender theorists, if they would meet me, talk to me for a while, and get to know me a bit, might eventually end up telling me that I'm a nonbinary person who's in denial about being nonbinary.

Finally, some parts of what I've written above might make some TERFs reading this think that I'm a potential future supporter of their cause. Well, nope. If you're a TERF, you're all about campaigns of harassment, intimidation, and vigilantism against people who haven't done anything wrong. You're teaming up for that purpose with people who love to go after the most vulnerable people in society. You've allied yourself with the fascists and near-fascists who are working to destroy everything good and valuable that has been built up over the course of the last few centuries. In the USA, you show up at protests alongside the Proud Boys. And lately you seem to be trying to extend your vigilantism even to cis women who aren't feminine enough for your taste, on the grounds that they're supposedly all secret men. All that clearly more than outweighs any somewhat interesting things some of you might have said about some theory-related points in the past.

[jcb]

I'd say that what you might call "the whole gender thing" has three main components: First, there's genitals, and other physical features. Second, there's gender identity. And third, there are personality traits, psychological features, and cultural expectations about behavior.

There another component, chromosomes, which does not always align with physical features. A person who is born with XY chromosomes, but is intersex, won't have a penis or other male physical features, and thus will be marked as female upon birth (Because hospitals don't do a DNA test upon birth. They just look for a penis.), and thus will be raised as a girl.

A video of an intersex woman talking about her experience:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9um3rLIFYE

[zompist]

Or, to put it more personally: I've sometimes got the impression that supporters of forcing restrictive gender roles on everyone and today's gender theorists are both telling me that, because I'm not interested in being all that "masculine" by traditional standards, I'm not "really" a man.

I think this is a straw man. Can you name one gender theorist, or even one Tiktok post, that tells you that you are "not really a man"?

You actually mention non-binary later, so you are at least aware of other identities. Wikipedia helpfully lists agender, bigender, demigender, genderfluid, pangender, polygender, xenogender. You're undoubtedly not any of those, but the idea here is that there are a lot of ways to express gender, that all of them are fine, and absolutely no one (on the left) is enforcing some idea of maleness on people who identify as male.

[Travis B.]

Or, to put it more personally: I've sometimes got the impression that supporters of forcing restrictive gender roles on everyone and today's gender theorists are both telling me that, because I'm not interested in being all that "masculine" by traditional standards, I'm not "really" a man.

I think this is a straw man. Can you name one gender theorist, or even one Tiktok post, that tells you that you are "not really a man"?

You actually mention non-binary later, so you are at least aware of other identities. Wikipedia helpfully lists agender, bigender, demigender, genderfluid, pangender, polygender, xenogender. You're undoubtedly not any of those, but the idea here is that there are a lot of ways to express gender, that all of them are fine, and absolutely no one (on the left) is enforcing some idea of maleness on people who identify as male.

Note, however, how non-traditionally feminine women have been attacked throughout history for being "man-like", cf. attitudes towards "butch" lesbians vis-à-vis "femme" lesbians.

[Travis B.]

I'd say that what you might call "the whole gender thing" has three main components: First, there's genitals, and other physical features. Second, there's gender identity. And third, there are personality traits, psychological features, and cultural expectations about behavior.

There another component, chromosomes, which does not always align with physical features. A person who is born with XY chromosomes, but is intersex, won't have a penis or other male physical features, and thus will be marked as female upon birth (Because hospitals don't do a DNA test upon birth. They just look for a penis.), and thus will be raised as a girl.

A video of an intersex woman talking about her experience:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9um3rLIFYE

There is complete androgen insensitivity syndrome, in which people who are genetically XY who look entirely feminine except that they are infertile, don't menstruate, don't have internal female sex organs, and have minimal hair in the pubic region or under the armpits.

[zompist]

Note, however, how non-traditionally feminine women have been attacked throughout history for being "man-like", cf. attitudes towards "butch" lesbians vis-à-vis "femme" lesbians.

Sure, and femmes were criticized for following traditional gender norms. What does that have to do with anything in 2025?

[Travis B.]

Note, however, how non-traditionally feminine women have been attacked throughout history for being "man-like", cf. attitudes towards "butch" lesbians vis-à-vis "femme" lesbians.

Sure, and femmes were criticized for following traditional gender norms. What does that have to do with anything in 2025?

In 2025 femmes still seem to be more accepted in wider society than butches (even if femmes may be criticized by some feminists).

[zompist]

Note, however, how non-traditionally feminine women have been attacked throughout history for being "man-like", cf. attitudes towards "butch" lesbians vis-à-vis "femme" lesbians.

Sure, and femmes were criticized for following traditional gender norms. What does that have to do with anything in 2025?

In 2025 femmes still seem to be more accepted in wider society than butches (even if femmes may be criticized by some feminists).

Probably true, but I don't see the connection to "gender theorists" of this century.

[Travis B.]

Sure, and femmes were criticized for following traditional gender norms. What does that have to do with anything in 2025?

In 2025 femmes still seem to be more accepted in wider society than butches (even if femmes may be criticized by some feminists).

Probably true, but I don't see the connection to "gender theorists" of this century.

Actually, it has more a connection with the TERF's of this century and their tendency to attack non-traditionally feminine cis-women as being secretly men.

[zompist]

In 2025 femmes still seem to be more accepted in wider society than butches (even if femmes may be criticized by some feminists).

Probably true, but I don't see the connection to "gender theorists" of this century.

Actually, it has more a connection with the TERF's of this century and their tendency to attack non-traditionally feminine cis-women as being secretly men.

Raphael made it clear he wasn't talking about TERFs.

[Ares Land]

I tend to agree with zompist.
Gender theorists or activists have their faults, but IME forcing gender on people isn't one of them.

As far as I know they rely on people's self-identification, which is I believe the only reasonable position.

[Darren]

This all seems reasonable to me. Gender theorists might not go around assigning people genders willy nilly (or they might do this I don't know what they do to be honest), but I know someone who regular (well, non-gender-theorist people, they were weird for numerous other reasons however) people tried to convince she was a transgender for having "masculine" interests/personality despite her protests, which was very strange and a bit hypocritical.

[Dune]

I do think there's a gap between Actual Gender Theory and how it plays out in everyday life. Not always, but often enough to notice and comment on.

I expect it would be very hard to find mainstream academics saying something as reductive as "if you're on the quieter side and liked reading more than playing with trucks as a kid, you can't be a man; you're transgender or nonbinary." That's obviously a deeply regressive position, and one I doubt any hold.

But in practice, it's pretty common for people to focus almost entirely on the social trappings of gender when describing the experience of being transgender or nonbinary. Take some of the opening lines of I Am Jazz, which is frequently taught in elementary classrooms:

For as long as I can remember, my favorite color has been pink ... My best friends are Samantha and Casey. ... We like high heels and princess gowns, or cartwheels and trampolines. ... As I got a little older, I hardly ever played with trucks or tools or superheroes. Only princesses and mermaid costumes.

Let's be fair: if you search for educational materials about I Am Jazz, lesson plans and whatnot, virtually all of them go out of their way to say it's very important to teach that Jazz is a trans girl because she feels like a girl and not because she likes princesses instead of trucks (because both girls and boys can play with either, natch). They say exactly the things you'd want them to say, assuming you aren't a cultural conservative.

But does that message always get through? Of course it does not. That isn't a criticism of anyone, it's just reality. Educators aren't always going to be well-versed in this or precise about how they communicate. They aren't always going to have time to follow or even read the whole lesson plan. And even if every teacher magically says everything "right," not every kid in every classroom is going to understand.

And equally, there are going to be people in plenty of adult social groups whose official stated belief might be that there's no one right way to be a man or woman, but when they describe what it means to be trans or nonbinary [or any other thing], they'll tend to focus on clothes, social roles, etc. They may never explicitly say "if you like dresses and have stereotypically feminine body language, you MUST at least be nonbinary," but that may be the unintended implication. You can make an argument that this isn't a great result; maybe it does, in practice, push a kind of neo-gender-essentialism.

But even that minor criticism gets complicated, because of course, in reality, we do live in a world where clothes and toys and behavior and so on are still highly gendered. Many people do, in fact, realize they're transgender because of that stuff. They can't be expected to not talk about it.

(On that note, Jazz is a real person and apparently always did gravitate toward traditionally "girly" stuff as a kid, something that's very common with trans kids—"a strong preference for the toys and activities stereotypically used … by the other gender" is one of the traits associated with gender dysphoria in the DSM-5. I'm not saying that the book is doing anything "wrong" by acknowledging that.)

I'm not really making a political point at all. But culturally, societally, I think people are still in the process of figuring out the "best" way to talk about all of this. Even in pretty progressive spaces with well-intentioned people, a lot of it is still quite new, and the lexicon and implicit norms are very much in flux.

[Travis B.]

One thing I have read and heard is that it is often emphasized that trans-women 'act and look the part', and that if they don't then they are not taking being a trans-woman seriously. This seems to conflict with the idea that being trans ought to be a matter of how one feels and not what clothing one dresses in and like.

[Raphael]

Thank you for your replies, everyone. Especially Dune; your response is very knowledgeable, and more subtle and nuanced than either my own opening post or any of the other replies.

Or, to put it more personally: I've sometimes got the impression that supporters of forcing restrictive gender roles on everyone and today's gender theorists are both telling me that, because I'm not interested in being all that "masculine" by traditional standards, I'm not "really" a man.

I think this is a straw man. Can you name one gender theorist, or even one Tiktok post, that tells you that you are "not really a man"?

Well, I admit, all I can provide are some social media posts which I'll have to quote from memory, because I didn't save links for them. But they still left me with certain impressions.

First, a post in which someone stated something like "Some of my friends are men or women; others are not restricting themselves to that."

I'd say that being a man, or being a woman, is only restrictive if you at least implicitly accept the idea that belonging to a gender must involve conforming to the "connected" gender role. If you don't accept that idea, there's nothing restrictive about being a man, or about being a woman.

Second, a post that speculated that one reason why conservatives dislike nonbinary identities so much is that they traditionally could enforce that everyone had to be either cannon fodder (men) or birth machines (women), so they hate the idea that there might be other options available now.

Again, that assumes that being a man or a woman has to involve conforming to the "connected" gender role, and that you can't break out of such gender roles without being nonbinary.

Then, I saw a number of posts that claimed that with this or that famous person or fictional character, we "should" have been able to "tell" that they were nonbinary long ago, presumably based on how they, in the language of theory, presented.

Again, that assumes that someone who doesn't follow a traditional male or female gender role has to be nonbinary - which assumes a strong connection between each traditional gender and the "connected" gender role.

Finally, something a lot more problematic, because it was from a post by a TERF or TERF-adjacent woman. So I know that it should be taken with a lot of salt. But, well, she claimed in the post that her daughter had come home from school crying because an instructor had told her that, if she wasn't into stereotypically "girly" stuff, she might not be a girl. Again, a lot of salt. But if there was any truth in that story at all, then, yes, I can imagine something like that being part of the origin story of a TERF.

[zompist]

First, a post in which someone stated something like "Some of my friends are men or women; others are not restricting themselves to that."

I'd say that being a man, or being a woman, is only restrictive if you at least implicitly accept the idea that belonging to a gender must involve conforming to the "connected" gender role. If you don't accept that idea, there's nothing restrictive about being a man, or about being a woman.

Second, a post that speculated that one reason why conservatives dislike nonbinary identities so much is that they traditionally could enforce that everyone had to be either cannon fodder (men) or birth machines (women), so they hate the idea that there might be other options available now.

Again, that assumes that being a man or a woman has to involve conforming to the "connected" gender role, and that you can't break out of such gender roles without being nonbinary.

Neither of these examples say what you're assuming they do. They are about throwing out restrictions, not celebrating them. No one is policing your maleness.

What is evident is that these two people are excited by being nonbinary, or excited that others have that option. One thing you have to get used to, if you're in the majority of any classification, is the minority enjoying and celebrating what makes them a minority (and that tradtionally was repressed or mocked). Sometime the rhetoric gets a little excessive, but this is how liberated people feel and it should make you smile, not want to fight back.

I read a French lesbian comic which was full of gender essentialism and dissing other sexualities. It was from the 1990s and I don't take it very seriously: they were happy to find and explore their sexuality and I'm happy about that for them; the dumb things they said about gay men and straights doesn't hurt me. (If you can't handle something like that, you'd really freak out reading Hothead Paisan. But some things are created for catharsis, not as a political plan. An outsider who reads them should be trying to understand why people need that catharsis.)

A more nuanced person would point out that the conservatives not only can't enforce gender roles on non-binary people, but they can't do it on self-identified men and women either. Or they'd point out that anti-trans policies inevitably harm cis women— either hassling them for no reason, or policing gender roles on those who are less obviously feminine.

Then, I saw a number of posts that claimed that with this or that famous person or fictional character, we "should" have been able to "tell" that they were nonbinary long ago, presumably based on how they, in the language of theory, presented.

How we deal with past sexuality is pretty tricky. You can't assume that just because modern gender identities were not openly discussed, that they didn't exist. And we do get traditional-minded historians who assume just that, who are very uncomfortable with (say) people declaring that Shakespeare or Julius Caesar were bisexual. And then you get scuffles between people who want to put historical figures not just into the "gay/lesbian" bucket, but into narrower categories.

That is a can of worms you should be wary of opening. Sure, you could insist that "we don't really know" or "people didn't use the same categories we do". But "person/character X is by default a traditional cis male or female" is also a strong theoretical claim.

Plus, someone who's acutely conscious of (say) their nonbinary identity, and how that identity is shaped in response to a society that doesn't recognize it, probably knows more about the signs and psychology of that than you do. If they say that (say) Isaac Newton was enby, maybe they have a good case. (And a case is all you can make; there is no final proof in these things.)

Finally, again, these posts don't mean that someone is policing your maleness. Maybe you're not totally gender-conforming. Neither am I. But what you're seeing is more errors of enthusiasm ("hey, this person sounds like me!") than anything else. Yeah, people should remember that men and woman can be non-gender-conforming and can choose their own identities.

[linguistcat]

I mean, people with a shallow understanding of gender theory might do this. I don't even think I have that deep of an understanding of the theory side, but I know from experience that all three of the aspects you mentioned (and chromosomes) are all separate, and just happen to align a lot of the time, but nowhere near always.

[rotting bones]

Gender theorists create frameworks to criticize literature, films, laws, political movements, HR departments, etc. for being heteronormative. There are two prominent currents of gender theory: liberal and postmodernist. Liberal gender theory tries to discover and affirm repressed identities, whereas postmodernist gender theory tries to argue that the seemingly "scientific" attitude of liberalism in seeking answers out there in objective reality masks repressive power structures. Namely, it hides a desire to discover secret answers and use them as weapons to bash people over the head with. Maybe that whole approach is antithetical to freedom. After all, doesn't freedom mean letting people do what they want?

I know humanities grads prefer a literary style that uses a large vocabulary, but you shouldn't assume you know what the texts say without having read them. For example, Gender Trouble by Judith Butler (1990), the foundational work of contemporary gender theory, uses post-structuralist philosophy to criticize second wave feminism for being heteronormative. As you might expect from non-French people using post-structuralism, it tries to break down all gender identities and argue that there is no consistent heteronormative identity: https://selforganizedseminar.wordpress. ... rouble.pdf

[Raphael]

There are two prominent currents of gender theory: liberal and postmodernist. Liberal gender theory tries to discover and affirm repressed identities, whereas postmodernist gender theory tries to argue that the seemingly "scientific" attitude of liberalism in seeking answers out there in objective reality masks repressive power structures.

Wait, are those postmodernist gender theorists arguing that the narrative that "the seemingly scientific attitude of liberalism in seeking answers out there in objective reality masks repressive power structures" is somehow inherently more valid, closer to the truth, or more objectively true than the opposite narrative, which holds that the seemingly scientific attitude of liberalism does no such thing? And if they're saying that, doesn't that contradict some of the most foundational ideas of their postmodern philosophy? Specifically, the idea that no narrative is inherently more valid, closer to the truth, or more objectively true than any other narrative?

Sorry, I simply have a very low opinion of postmodernism. If you deny objective reality, as postmodernists do, then you ultimately can't really say anything about anything, except maybe purely personal preferences. Because every time you say something, you're at least implicitly claiming that what you're saying is closer to the truth than a possible opposite claim. Whenever postmodernists assert something or argue for something, by the very act of doing that, they're at least indirectly or implicitly turning against their own stated beliefs.

So, IMO, every time postmodernists make any kind of claim, even something as simple and basic as "There once was a human being named Jacques Derrida", they should be roundly mocked for claiming something even though, if they would really accept and think through their own main ideas, they would have to acknowledge that no claim can ever be more valid than an opposite counterclaim.

As for reading important philosophical texts: Thank you for the offer, but no thanks. Modern era philosophy looks and sounds mostly like theology for atheists to me.

[rotting bones]

Wait, are those postmodernist gender theorists arguing that the narrative that "the seemingly scientific attitude of liberalism in seeking answers out there in objective reality masks repressive power structures" is somehow inherently more valid, closer to the truth, or more objectively true than the opposite narrative, which holds that the seemingly scientific attitude of liberalism does no such thing? And if they're saying that, doesn't that contradict some of the most foundational ideas of their postmodern philosophy? Specifically, the idea that no narrative is inherently more valid, closer to the truth, or more objectively true than any other narrative?

Any metaphysical argument can be avoided by splitting and joining terms. For example, a committed metaphysical idealist (of which I'm not one) could say it's a philosophical truth that scientific facts are not objective. You're confusing truths (like math and logic), which are objective, with facts you find in so-called "reality", which are subjective.

Actual philosophers accused of being postmodernist most likely wouldn't say such things. If a leftist, they would say something like: What I'm are attacking is purely the language distorted by oppressive power structures. Our alternative is to offer the language built up through consensus in a progressive movement. I don't want to talk about objectivity because that's what Stalinists say.

Umberto Eco had a unique position in calling himself a "minimal realist". He said that objective reality definitely exists, but most of the things people say are appearances generated by social systems, not objectively true.

Personally, I'm a mechanical materialist. I'd say factual statements pertain to the patterns of material objects. Most of the things people say are subjective, and therefore do not pertain to objective reality. Also, many people are simply deluded by propaganda even when they try to be objective.

Dialectical materialists have a different answer that I'm not sure I fully understand.

As for reading important philosophical texts: Thank you for the offer, but no thanks. Modern era philosophy looks and sounds mostly like theology for atheists to me.

But then how do you know what it says? Judith Butler directly addresses heteronormative laws. What could be more practical than that? They're just using a large vocabulary. I don't understand why that has become a crime these days.

And it's not just "modern philosophy". Dialectical reasoning of the kind you dislike is explicitly used under that name in the works of Plato, who was after all, the arch-idealist, and then given lesser importance, but still used, in Aristotle. You will never find common sense outside mechanical materialism because human language is inherently inconsistent. People use language to gesture at phenomena they imagine their interlocutors understand instead of tediously spelling out every detail.

You don't have to believe what the philosophers say. Learning thought patterns people find believable is useful for creating fictional characters.