Sex and gender: Countering Harmful Narratives
[Part 1 of 2]
You are not more or less female/male because you do not fit into or conform to dated, spurious notions of gender, be they social or emotional or otherwise.
Not fitting into or conforming to the ‘gender roles’ of your sex does not make you a different sex
Nothing you do, think, feel or wear makes you more/less male
Nothing you do, think, feel or wear makes you more/less female
STILL, men and boys are told or hear people say they sound, talk, look, act, walk, throw, run, dress, laugh, think, write, dance, nag, cry … like a woman/girl.
STILL, women and girls are told or hear people say they sound, talk, look, act, walk, smell, think, write, eat, dress, shout, climb ... like a man/boy.
^^These regressive attitudes^^ are ridiculous and are society’s problem. They represent external, cultural problems. They DO NOT represent an individual’s internal problem.
STILL, you might have been told or heard people say that being attracted to men makes you a woman or being attracted to women makes you a man.
^^These regressive attitudes^^ are ridiculous and are society’s problem. They represent external, cultural problems. They DO NOT represent an individual’s internal problem.
The people who say these things might be friends, family, neighbours, classmates or colleagues, teachers/employers, doctors/nurses, strangers/loved ones. They might be calculated or callous, concerned or indifferent, thoughtless or considered, cruel or caring, gentle or vicious.
Their intention might be to exploit or support you, to exclude or understand you, to hurt or help you, to expose or protect you, to attack or defend you, to praise or humiliate you. They might be people you trust, respect or admire. They might be people who intimidate you or reassure you.
Who they are, why they say this and how often you hear it may (in some cases drastically) change the impact of what you hear though it does not alter the substance.
No clothes, hairstyles make you more/less female/male. No emotions make you more/less female/male. No posture, shape or size makes you more/less female/male. No-one is more/less female/male because of who they are attracted to. No-one is more/less female/male because of who they spend time with socially.
Those who have experienced social exclusion, verbal attacks, physical assaults on the basis of gender non-conformity might well feel ill at ease with their sex.
This is both compounded and driven by regressive messaging and marketed images of women and men who typify these gender-conforming characteristics, forms and roles in a hyper-nomalisation of altered-image norms.
People individualising / internalising issues with gender non-conformity is a result of regressive ideology being spread, endorsed and substantiated where it should be challenged, exposed, and refuted.
The beliefs underpinning 'gender identity ideology' are inseparable from the beliefs underpinning misogyny and homophobia. They assert that instead of bodies it is our conformity to stereotypes of 'femininity' or 'masculinity' that determine whether a person is male or female.
It is neither kind nor reasonable to affirm or acquiesce to falsehoods which seek to medicate or medicalise individuals to treat symptoms of cultural oppression.
*for more considered & considerable detail on this and related issues read:
Kathleen Stock / Jane Clare Jones / Maya Forstater
Sex and gender: The Consequences of Conflation / January 2021
[Part 2 of 2]
The systemic conflation of the word sex (i.e. definition: male or female) and the word gender (stereotypical social characteristics of males or female) has undermined practice, policy & discussion of issues affecting women's rights and sex-based protections.
Gender stereotypes have long been the justification for sexist law and sexist cultural norms. Women's rights campaigns began fighting these stereotypes which underpinned the idea that women were intellectually lesser than men, naturally subordinates to men, inherently the property of men. Many of these culturally perpetuated stereotypes persist alongside their consequent impacts in legal, medical and social life but if we do not have clear vocabulary to define sex (male or female) as distinct from gender we confuse any dialogue or debate where the distinction matters.
Policy and Law
The readiness of authorities, organisations and companies to expand definitions of mutually exclusive categories (male or female / man or woman) to each become inclusive of their binary renders these most common and necessary terms incomprehensible. Further, use of the words woman or man which does not recognise 'self-identified women/men' as included in these categories is now deemed 'hate speech' which can and already has resulted in professional, financial and legal sanctions.
Where governments, authorities and organisations approve, support, promote or endorse interchangeable, optional or self-identified uses of the words sex and gender the meaning of each word must first (though, now, retrospectively by necessity) be clearly and rigorously defined. These clear and rigorous definitions must involve robust analysis of historic and continued gender stereotypes and the impacts of these gender stereotypes in terms of health, prospects and autonomy.
Definitions & Meaning
There has been a relentless campaign and, simultaneously, an inadvertent slide to replace/supersede sex (i.e. definition: male or female) with gender (stereotypical characteristics of males or females) in official policy and practice resulting in the words being used interchangeably.
Regardless of intention, this conflation of the terms sex and gender prevents any clear, robust discussion and understanding of any issue where the distinction is not only important but essential.
If the meaning of male/female is defined by gender stereotypes it ceases to define biological sex. If the meaning of male/female is defined by biological sex it cannot be determined by gender stereotypes.
Crucially:
If is accepted that the words woman and man define people with (often robustly contested and debunked, historically changeable and rooted in misogyny) stereotyped social performance of males or females (i.e. gender: masculinity/femininity) then, by definition, all those who do not conform to or perform these stereotypes no longer belong to their categories male or female.
If female/woman is no longer to be defined by primary and secondary sex characteristics but instead as a feeling (i.e. a person 'feels like a woman') there must be rigorous analysis of what that feeling is, what informs that feeling and whether it could be said to be common to all women as primary and secondary sex characteristics are.
If male/man is no longer to be defined by primary and secondary sex characteristics but instead as a feeling (i.e. a person 'feels like a man') there must be rigorous analysis of what that feeling is, what informs that feeling and whether it could be said to be common to all men as primary and secondary sex characteristics are.
The current criteria (ALL CONTESTED) for 'feeling like a woman/man' include:
clothing preference
active interests
intellectual interests
sexual profile
emotional profile
behavioural profile
'INNATE INTERNAL FEELING'
Treatment Models & Medicalisation
The affirmation model, for people whose bodies represent to them a deep psycho-social dysphoria, reinforces this fiction, deepening rather than treating the causes of dysphoria. This medicalisation of individuals - with affirmations, medications and surgery - does not treat but instead exacerbates dysphoria, leading dysphoric people to further internalise gender non-conformity as 'being in the wrong body'.
Rights & Protections
Discrimination based on a person's gender expression is and should continue to be unlawful. There is no need to falsely assert a person's sex has changed in order to protect their freedom of (gender) expression.
Human sex does not change – this, where it is asserted, is always a legal fiction and the consequences and ramifications of this fiction are far more serious and pervasive than lawmakers intended. A shift of emphasis is needed away from this fiction, away from denial of (biological) sex and towards freedom of (gender) expression for any person of either sex with continuing legal protections for any person discriminated against on the basis of sex.
Where existing sex based protections have been eroded, breached, removed or replaced in line with what is called 'gender identity policy' these protections should be reasserted and reinforced. Existing protections based on a person's sex:
must remain lawful
must be recommended practice
In the Name of Progress
The increasingly common substitution and conflation of the word sex with the word gender has contributed to the continued disadvantage of women and introduced new infringements on women's hard fought sex based protections.
No law should support, facilitate or enshrine demonstrably false beliefs. No law should criminalise open dissent of / non-compliance with demonstrably false beliefs.
Progress is the act of reforming laws, systems and structures which, by design or application, normalise, perpetuate or reinforce demonstrably false and/or discriminatory beliefs.
There is nothing progressive about gender stereotypes.
*for more considered & considerable detail on this and related issues read:
Kathleen Stock / Jane Clare Jones / Maya Forstater