Transphobia and Language 2
The Rise of the Self
In Transphobia and Language 1 I argued that the sort of role- or performance- based account of gender that in DSM-V contemporary psychiatry favours—which untether gender from biological sex—are doubly unhelpful. On the one hand, it makes gender concepts indeterminate. What does role “as-woman” mean if the word that appears in the description—“woman”—is not referring to something that isn’t a role? How is a performance “as Hamlet” to be judged unless it’s referred back to… Hamlet? More importantly, this omphalectomic separation of gender from sex blunts the critical edge of gender discourse. That might seem a little hasty. The point of making a distinction between gender (role) and (biological) sex was to show that what some took for biologically determined features were in fact inessential/socially determined. And so might we not argue that if what it is to be a woman is nothing but role all the way down (as it were) we can free all folk from any sort of biological determinacy? The implication here seems to be that the sexed body is onlyever a marker for potential repression, and can never feature in either society’s- or someone’s self- understanding as something to be embraced and valued. I’ll take up this point in a later piece. For the time-being I’ll simply note that despite its appeal to some feminists, the “nothing but role” proposal is problematical. Consider the following:
· We used to think that women couldn’t/shouldn’t/won’t do X, but they can/should/will, or
· People say that women can/should/will do X, but they couldn’t/shouldn’t/won’t
How can one express points as basic as this unless “women” and “they” pick out the same people despite the fact that the “they” referred to in the future/present have by stipulation roles different from the “women” referred to in the present/past? And what could that same set of people be if not those picked out on the basis of their… sex?
Returning to our initial inquiry, then, it would appear that if we are to make progress on what distinguishes a transperson from a nontranperson we have scant reasons to accept the reification of terms like “boy” and “woman” as specificallygender-terms: as nominating different kinds of things based on “roles”, lived or otherwise. However, something has gone missing here. I’ve suggested that on the “role” conception gender terms lack determinacy. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t strive for determinacy. After all, what’s the point of talking about “roles as” if there’s no way of distinguishing one from another? The very project of assimilating gender terms to roles requires that the latter are answerable to objective criteria. Presumably, if they are to go about their business as psychiatrists then two practitioners A and B must in general share an understanding of what “role as boy” as opposed to “role as girl” involves. And since folk are fallible, A might judge incorrectly that some person P’s role is “as girl” where B judges correctly that it’s “as boy”. But if role-specifications are subject to such objective criteria then P might be wrong in thinking that their role is in fact “as girl” as opposed to “as boy”. This marks a crucial turning point in this inquiry. Even if stability could be imparted to gender terms as roles, the specification of those roles would be answerable to objective, third-person criteria.
Almost inevitably, then, the determinations made by those “experts” who are either anointed by society or anoint themselves on its behalf will override in some cases what people think themselves: they will include “as boys/men” (etc.) at least some of those who think of themselves “as girls/women” (etc.) and exclude others. But as Holmes says—channelling his inner Strasberg—‘The best way of successfully acting a part is to be it’ (“The Adventure of the Dying Detective”) and one way of interpreting that requirement is not from the outside but from the inside. In other words, when in Transphobia and Language 1 I dismissed talk of lived roles as an existential conceit I was giving no consideration to what it would be to live a role thinking that the character played was your own. To see the importance of this recall TG(ii), according to which transgendered persons are:
persons [a] ‘whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond to that person’s sex at birth, or [b] which does not otherwise conform to conventional notions of sex and gender’.
The running together of “sense of personal identity” and “gender” here suggests that this Holmesian “innerness” of identification is precisely what these definitions are striving to capture. When Stonewall, for example, defines “gender identity” as ‘a person’s innate sense of their own gender’ it’s evident that by “gender” they don’t intend to insinuate that a person could in their own case (as one’s inner sense is “innate”) ever get it wrong.
This shift towards the unquestionable primacy of self-identity is the crucial turning point I mentioned. We’ve already seen it in spirit in the rejection of the (“expert”) medical model and in the push for new legislation in this area, but let’s explore its emergence further in the present context. Returning to TG(ii), then, note that although (a) and (b) are intended to invoke some sort of discordance or contrast or mismatch there are important differences. Concerning (a), if “corresponds to” means something like fixed- or determined- by then it’s perhaps more useful to talk about the dissonance in question in terms of sexual- (SI) as opposed to gender- identity (GI). If we take a person’s “sexual identity” to involve that sub-set of characteristics or traits that “we” are confident are (normally) fixed or determined by birth-sex we can then understand by the term transperson someone who does not experience their “sexual identity” as being grounded in their bodily facticity as they ought (as a nontransgendered person does). Their “sense” of their sexual identity does not coincide with what they “see”, hence the overly-familiar trope of feeling “trapped” in the wrong body[1].
What (a) articulates is pretty much the stance taken in DSM-IV (2002) and—as we’ve seen—reflected in current UK legislation, where the psychiatric condition “gender identity disorder” designates a mismatch between gender identity and biological sex, and transgender is identified with transsexuality. In DMS-V (2022), however, the name of the condition is changed to “gender dysphoria” in acknowledgement of the fact that it’s the dysphoria that is now regarded as ‘the clinical problem, not [gender] identity per se’ (512). In other words, gender identity no longer serves to conceptualise a pathological conflict with biological sex; it has been democratised and now designates a universal, free-standing state which may—but in the majority of cases isn’t—discordant. In this light, TG(ii) gives us the following: P is a transgendered person if
(a) P’s sexual identity (SI) does not correspond to P’s sex at birth, or
(b) P’s gender identity (GI) does not conform to conventional notions of sex and gender.
Part of the reason for rejecting the identification of transgender with transsexual is the imputation that there’s something “wrong” with transgendered people per se, that individually they are in need of a cure or remedy because dysphoria is intrinsic to the specification of their condition. And that is in turn driven by the conviction that the classification is exclusionary since it fails to acknowledge that few—and for some, no—components of a sexual identity are in fact “determined” by or can fail or succeed in “corresponding to” or in representing biological sex. The challenge set by (a), then, is to elaborate a way of thinking about—an alternative metaphor for evoking—the relationship between a person’s sex at birth and their sexual identity that is non-exclusionary and yet remains criterial with respect to the claim that the latter may (in the case of nontranspersons) or may not (in the case of transpersons) “correspond” to the former. Or to put this another way, the challenge is to find a use for the term “sexual identity” that does not see it collapse into gender identity.
If the pressure on (a) is that it risks excluding people, (b) confronts the contrary challenge. Consider a man wanting to wear flamboyant clothes or makeup, or take a job as a nurse or carer; or the plight of many women and girls living in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan or in a theocratic state like Iran. It doesn’t seem inappropriate to describe cases like these in terms of a “sense of personal identity and gender” not conforming with “conventional notions of sex and gender”. Likewise, if one regards “conventional” notions of sex and gender to include the idea that the purpose of sexual intimacy is reproduction then same-sex relations are likewise nonconforming in this way. Indeed, one doesn’t have to look far afield to find groups who still believe that this is the case, and not much further to find countries where this nonconformity is punishable by (in some cases) death. Given the vagueness of the concepts of self identity, gender and sex and the variability amongst what is and isn’t considered conventional it’s hard to determine how on this basis one might draw the trans/nontrans distinction.
At this juncture it might seem that we’re once again pursuing a perverse line of inquiry: that there’s a clear consensus about how to constrain interpretations of “conventional notions of sex and gender”. According to DSM-V, for example, P is a transgendered person if and only if
(c) P’s ‘gender identity [GI] is different from their birth-assigned gender [BG]’ (511)
Generally speaking, we can relate or contrast things to some useful end only if they are “things” of the same general “type” (broadly speaking)—that it’s not a case of “apples and pears” as the idiom has it—and both [GI] and [BG] so appear to be “gender classifications”. Recall the OED definition:-
[gender is] the state of being male or female as expressed by social or cultural distinctions and differences, rather than biological ones; the collective attributes or traits associated with a particular sex, or determined as a result of one’s sex (emphasis added).
Having rejected the relation of gender to biological sex implied by “correspondence” and determination as per (a), the question is: “What relation (if any) to sex do gender assignments signify in the baptismal setting?” Is the correlation to be understood rather in terms of the more amenable relations of “association with” and “expressed by”?
Since it’s intended to codify best contemporary practice let’s return to the picture insinuated in DSM-V, which aims to support the shift towards the non-pathological view of gender identity already noted. Accordingly, the classification of individuals proceeds in two ways, the natal route [BG] and through self-identification [GI]. Ostensibly at least, the former is indifferently called birth-sex or birth-gender because in the overwhelming majority of cases the assignment is a binary one made on the basis of the biological ‘indicators’ of male and female. But the clear implication is that unless it’s acknowledged that sex- and gender- talk are used interchangeably in the “baptismal” context the term birth-sex is misleading because it suggests that the criteria for the correct use of gender terms are determined biologically from the get-go. Although such factors are seen as ‘contributing, in interaction with social and psychological factors, to gender development’ (511), the contention that that “interaction” is causally determinative is rejected. In a sense, this much is dictated by the logical form of (c). If [BG] were a biological term it could not be usefully related to [GI] in the way described unless self-ascriptions of biological status were themselves authoritative. The alternative would be to recur to (a) and to the relation of “correspondence” or determination.
To avoid this we are presented with something like the following picture: There is a set of gender-terms which include “boy”, “girl”, “man”, “woman” and—crucially—“male” and “female”. These have classificatory priority because, although they can be “indicated” by sex as in natal assignments [BG], they are not regarded as intrinsically biosexual in character, and thus can be picked out in another way. That leads us to the second route to gender classification; namely, the developmental route [GI]. As a person grows up they acquire a gender identity where they identity as a female/woman, male/man, girl/boy etc. This self-assigned “identifying as” is not mimetic or representational because although the other-assignment [BG] that constituted the beginning of one’s gender-journey was fixed by biological criteria those were inessential.
A bit of philosophy might help here. According to Kripke there are terms that pick out something by virtue of its essence (“rigid” designators) and terms that pick out something in terms of more accidental features (“nonrigid” designators). So, for example, Tony Blair would have picked out or referred to Tony Blair whatever course his life had taken, and that’s the reason we can talk meaningfully about Tony Blair possibly having become a musician instead of a politician and still understand ourselves to be talking about the Tony Blair who did in fact become the Prime Minister of the UK in 1997. But “The person who became Prime Minister of the UK in 1997” only picks out Tony Blair in one of the possible lives he might have had (in one “possible world”). It doesn’t pick him out in the musician-alternative world. There it might well pick out Gordon Brown, or perhaps—even more likely—John Smith. To return to the example, then, we might say that in all possible worlds where there are women (etc.) these are picked out using the (self-ascribed, “rigid”) gender identity terms (GI). In contrast, the biosexual-correlates (BG) are “nonrigid” designators, used appropriately in this world only in the baptismal setting. The priority of gender terms is the priority of terms as they are deployed in self-assignments of identity: the authority in question is devolved to the subject.
On the DSM-V picture gender terms are the codification of possible gender identities, and gender identities are by unconstrained by biosexual characteristics. Since gender identity per se is not the problem (because—say—it fails to correspond to or represent accurately biosexual categories, as in (a)) then we need something for one’s GI to conflict—or indeed be congruent—with, and that requires something of the same category type. Since babies don’t have gender identities we can’t baptise them “genderqueer” or “gender nonconforming” or with any of the other, ever-proliferating, terms. All that we can say about an assigned gender (BG), then, as something that is of the appropriate type to be of contrastive value, is that it’s a gender identity (GI)-predictor based on (non-binding) association with or typical expressions of biosexual characteristics.
With that conclusion in mind let’s return to (b). Recall that we took up the question of birth-assigned gender to avoid the fact that “failing to conform to conventional notions of sex and gender” just doesn’t allow us to draw the non/transgender distinction in the right place. But the “predictor” conception of assigned gender (BG) doesn’t really advance on that. If all we can say is that biological male infants “typically” grow up to have certain gender-features or characteristics or identities we are claiming no more than that they typically grow up in conformity with conventional notions of sex and gender, which as we’ve seen are highly contextual (culturally; historically; socially) in nature. So the apparently obvious contrast in (c) between self [GI]- and birth [BG]-assignments doesn’t after all help us place constraints on inclusivity and by allowing us to hold on to difference help thereby identify the group of people that might be subject to transphobia.
If this is at all on the right lines then we should drop any attempt to draw the distinction between transgendered and nontransgendered persons using the now/then, present/birth contrast. If identity is the key to understanding gender then children do not have a gender at birth. Rather than registering everyone as “gender neutral” we should obviously drop use of the term gender in relation to birth altogether. It simply promotes confusion. If we think that biological sex is important for resource-allocation and decision-making then that should continue to be a census question. This does not of course mean that there are no transgendered people or that one cannot make the non/transgender distinction. But it does put that question in a more fruitful light; indeed, a light familiar from the conclusion of Transphobia, Hate Crimes, and the Right to Identify. To see it note that the discordance in (b)—unlike in (a)—is not essentially “internal” but heterogeneous, concerning incommensurability between the personal or individual and society. It may be experienced as the shameful feeling that one has failed to be a “real” man or a “proper” mother or daughter or wife; but it might equally provoke a rebellious joie de vivre, or righteous anger at a society that presents women (etc.) with such restricted options. Accordingly, one might embrace the idea that what (b) in fact strives to articulate is a profound and radically political resistance to the forces of conservatism that aim to set limits on human freedom. Rejecting the “gender” assigned at birth is not renouncing a past state: it’s elliptical for asserting a right not to be answerable to an external authority, a call for people to “dare to be wise!”.
Thinking about transgender identity as involving a rights claim perhaps goes some way to explaining why—in spite of the yet further recursion—many sources now refer to “transgender” as itself a gender! It also helps account for the opprobrium directed at some (“TERF”) feminist, for on this account transphobia is, however expressed, a sign of complicity in the patriarchal (or patriarchal and white supremacist) system much as the fascist thug and charitable industrialist are likewise for Marxists implicated in the capitalist system. It is to deny the existence of a human right to self-identify and hence deny all people the possibility of new freedoms. And this critical edifice is founded on the claim that what we have traditionally regarded as terms the norms for the correct use of which are determined by one mechanism or method—sex-terms—are in fact subject to a radically different source of authority: the self.
[1] In this sense the dissonance in question is seen as essentially self-relational. Someone might experience a mismatch between their sense of sexual identity and what others see, but that is neither necessary nor sufficient for the discordance that determines their trangender status.