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ABSTRACT
Recently an acrimonious debate has emerged about transgenderism. Trans-activists defending the full spectrum of the latter have advocated a form of identity politics based upon individual self-definition. However, gender-critical feminists (within another current of identity politics) have disputed the legitimacy of these bids for self-determination, especially when considering men who are claiming to be women. These contrasting positions are examined and their political implications explored. The focus of the paper is on the intransitive aspects of sex and the transitive aspects of gender. The former, with rare exceptions, is a binary whereas the latter is open to social negotiation and variation. The article argues that the gender-critical position is broadly aligned with critical realist philosophy, though the counter view is represented in order to clarify this point of reflection. It ends with a discussion of the ‘trans debate’ and the public policy development emerging in its wake.
Acknowledgements
The author was helped considerably during the drafting of this article about a controversial topic by Beatrix Campbell, Natasha Chart, Andy Cohen, Jessica Easton, Jack Pilgrim, Leigh Price and Jo Watson.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
David Pilgrim is a Honorary Professor of Health and Social Policy, University of Liverpool, UK and Visiting Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Southampton, UK. His books include Understanding Mental Health: A Critical Realist Exploration (Routledge, 2015).
Notes
1 At the time of writing some gender critical feminists are leaving the British Labour Party in protest at the inclusion of transwomen on all women shortlists and their objectionable presence as women’s officers. In February 2018 the Women’s Equality Party sacked a spokesperson, Heather Brunskell-Evans, for challenging the increasing practice of medical interventions with gender-confused children. In response, students at her place of work (Kings College London) cancelled a talk she was about to give to its Reproductive and Sexual Health Society. See https://leftfootforward.org/2018/02/the-womens-equality-party-have-sacked-a-feminist-academic-over-this-transgender-debate, as well as http://theweek.com/articles/759763/egregious-overreach-transgender-activism
2 Broadly the transitive dimension implies the epistemological process of any inquiry, whereas the intransitive is about mind-independent ontology. This general rule holds clearly in the natural sciences but in the social sciences causal interdependence can also emerge between the researcher and their subject-matter (see Hartwig Citation2007, 263/4)
3 Not all trans-people adopt a public political stance and become activists for a collective cause. However, trans-activists tend to reject any scientific or political query about their case as being automatically ‘transphobic’; a fate awaiting this paper.
4 The recent vote on abortion reform in Ireland led to some transwomen complaining that their voice had been excluded from women’s lobbying for the ‘yes’ campaign.
5 The commonest sex chromosome abnormality is Klinefelter’s Syndrome, where individuals have an XXY pattern. The condition involves infertile males with under-developed testies. Cognitive impairment is typical. In some cases, which are phenotypically unremarkable at birth, the diagnosis is made later in life. The less common Turner Syndrome refers to girls born with a missing or deformed X chromosome. They are infertile and are prone to several chronic conditions, which reduce life expectancy. Some but not all are learning disabled. Other conditions that invite an inter-sex diagnosis include congenital hormonal variations that create abnormal genital development in the foetus and then the child (missing, additional, small or large features). For more detailed descriptions see the fact sheet from the North American Intersex Society (http://www.isna.org/faq/conditions/cah).
8 In 1997 Greer tried and failed to block the appointment of a trans woman academic to Newnham College, Cambridge (an all-female college).
9 The word ‘innate’ here is illogical and confusing.
10 2017 UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office submission on proposed amendments to the UN’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The current treaty says that a “pregnant woman” must be spared the death penalty. See https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/its-not-women-who-get-pregnant-its-people
11 Potentially, more dramatic surgical interventions in the lives of transwomen could involve a womb transplant.
12 For a critical realist examination of the need for medical sociology to return to the reality of the body, after the sub-discipline being in the thrall of strong social constructivism for a decade, see Williams (Citation1999).
13 A satirical examination of this topic appeared in an episode of South Park (‘Mr Garrison’s fancy new vagina’-Episode 1, Series 9, screened first on Comedy Central, 9 March 2005). In it, the teacher Mr Garrison becomes Mrs Garrison by a ‘sex change operation’ and is then angry that s/he cannot menstruate, get pregnant or have an abortion. In its wake, one of his/her pupils, Kyle, seeks ‘negroplasty’ to become tall and black (rather than short and Jewish) in order to play basketball. In turn his father than seeks surgical intervention to become a dolphin, a creature he had adored since childhood.
15 In the UK this is the 2004 Gender Recognition Act. In addition, the Sex Discrimination (Gender Reassignment) Regulations (1999) protects transsexual people against discrimination in employment and vocational training. The Sex Discrimination (Amendment of Legislation) Regulation (2008) intended to eliminate unlawful direct discrimination and harassment on grounds of gender reassignment. Public bodies are required to include transsexual people in their gender equality schemes.
16 This is not a unique medical ethical point of contention. Infertility is arguably not a morbid condition merely a variable feature of adults and so it is not self-evident that it should warrant spending from healthcare budgets. Any iatrogenic consequences then have to be dealt with by the same system that generated them. This real constraint has implications for socialised medicine, such the NHS in Britain, because money spent on one set of interventions and supports cannot be spent on another. In privatised systems this skews access to those who are able and willing to pay. See also next footnote.
17 Medical interference in healthy bodies is not limited to trans patients. It is also implicated in preventative measures, such as vaccination and for cosmetic reasons. What makes trans interventions noteworthy is the extent of the procedures involved, their unnecessary iatrogenic risks and that they are only justified psychologically (i.e. there is no physical requirement to correct pathology). At the time of writing in the UK an NHS surgical re-assignment cost per patient is around £10,000 and in the U.S.A. between $5000 and $100,000, depending on the facility and type of procedure; see http://www.transgenderlaw.org/resources/tlchealth.htm
19 A high profile trans-activist Thomas Beatie is a promoter of ‘trans fertility rights’. Because of her self-defined trans man status, she gained fame by becoming pregnant during transitioning. This led to the mass media reporting a medical miracle: Beatie was the first man in the world to become pregnant. www.telegraph.co.uk/…/Pregnant-man-Thomas-Beatie-First-pictures…11/09/2013. Of course Beatie was, and is still not, a man who had had a baby (and then others). ‘He’ was simply a woman with medically-induced male secondary sex characteristics from continuous testosterone injections, which had to be adjusted for successful conception and pregnancy.
20 In the first decade of this century in the UK the rate of surgical re-assignments nearly tripled. However, the actual numbers remained very small: a shift from 54 to 143 cases per annum. These numbers put into context the fierceness and salience of the trans debate; a seemingly disproportionate policy and political discourse compared to other topics. See https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2010/04/21/nhs-gender-reassignment-surgery-rates-triple/
21 Ever since homosexuality was dropped from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association in 1973, it is now taken for granted that it is a variation on sexuality not a morbid condition, though that view is still challenged by some social conservatives.
22 A frequent complaint from ‘TERFS’ is that transgender demands do not subvert traditional gender expectations at all, because they tend towards very traditional stereotypical forms of expressed physical appearance and demeanour. A biological binary is denied by trans-activists but a social binary is celebrated by them instead.
23 Some post-Marxist writers argue that working class people make progressive contributions to the politics of race, gender and sexuality (e.g. Roediger Citation2017). Others regret the diversion from class politics by identity politics (e.g. Benn Michaels Citation2006).
24 A demand not based on equivalence but differentiation seemingly unites trans activists and radical feminists, within the shared epistemologically-dominated world of identity politics. For example, radical feminist women may argue that they do not want to be equivalent to men but liberated from them. However, transwomen are claiming that they are not merely logically equivalent to women but that they really are women. These nuances of trans politics can make it challenging to understand for those new to its study.
25 This point does not only apply to the focussed political concern of ‘TERFS’ but also to the high profile public figures and celebrities who are very rarely trans men (exceptions include the ‘son’ of Sonny and Cher, Chaz Bono and the comedian Ian Harvie). Well known trans women include ex-athlete and reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner, actress Alexi Arquette, punk rocker Laura Jane Grace, actress and model Jamie Clayton, film makers Lana and Lilly Wachowski, actress Laverne Cox, the US spy Chelsea Manning, glamour model Tracey Norman, German pop star Kim Petras and the magazine editor Janet Mock noted in the introduction.
26 See for example the discussion in the online journal 4th Wave Now by Brie Jontry https://4thwavenow.com/2017/10/25/born-in-the-right-body-introducing-4thwavenows-new-spokesperson-mom-of-a-teen-desister/
27 ‘Conversion therapy’ is a term used typically about the socially conservative approach to homosexuality in the heteronormative Abrahamic traditions and so for now implies that clinicians who advocate it are deeply reactionary.