Yes, Gender Critical Feminists Promote Biological Essentialism (Opinion Piece)
Content Warning: Sex, Transphobia
A little over a month ago, I found myself arguing on Twitter with a pretty prominent GC (Gender Critical) feminist of this platform. I had just read an anthropological paper on sex and gender and had noticed some parallels between the ideas of GCs and those of biological essentialism, especially in regards to their origins (biological essentialism, in this case, being the belief that what makes a man or a woman, and their qualities, is innate rather than a product of upbringing, circumstances, and culture). Curious about what she would answer, I pointed out the parallels to her.
She replied that GCs do not believe in biological essentialism nor promote it, and that instead their thoughts around whether or not trans women can be women are centered around the idea of “male socialization” — that to them, trans women simply cannot be women because they are first socialized as men within a patriarchal society — and that it’s precisely because they don’t think “gender” is innate that they call themselves “Gender Critical”.
Now, it’s entirely possible that she believes that — and I would have had a proper conversation with her if she hadn’t taken the opportunity to quote retweet me twice to her 20,000 followers (I only had 180 followers at the time, for the record). Within seconds, I had all sorts of people in my mentions talking to me about “cutting off healthy body parts” (in reference to gender affirming surgeries), or telling me I’d never be a woman (which wouldn’t be funny if I wasn’t non-binary). Perhaps the most ironic part is that the first tweet of mine she decided to quote had me mention that I felt bad for transgender teenagers who felt they had no choice but to debate their own rights with GCs and people like them — that it must be scary for them, and that I wish they’d leave us alone.
Of course, I’m not a teenager myself and I am, thankfully, mentally speaking, in a good place. Instead of playing into her hands and arguing with her any further, which would have done nothing but paint a larger target on myself, I decided to mute the thread and ignore the abusive words I received. This, however, is something that GCs do frequently, and it can be very damaging to the mental health of the person who’s on the receiving end of it. I will admit this sort of thing has the potential to happen to anyone, including GCs, but the fact is, she knew exactly what she was doing by quote retweeting me; there was never any chance for discussion.
Since it wasn’t possible on Twitter, I want to address here, first, the claim that GCs don’t believe in biological essentialism but rather think that trans women can’t be women because they are first socialized as men in a patriarchal society. Second, I want to pick apart this idea to examine whether or not it has any validity.
I) No, Seriously, They Love Biological Essentialism (Like, A Little Too Much)
First, let’s look at the idea that’s at the center of GC thought and Twitter debates: “trans women are men, and cannot be women”, and let’s examine the arguments they use to justify that idea.
If you’ve spent any amount of time on Twitter arguing with GCs or simply being a witness to their arguments, you’re probably already well aware that most of their talking points regarding the validity of trans women as women revolves around biology — they’re certainly not trying to hide it either, usually proudly calling themselves “adult human female” or sporting the letters “XX” in their Twitter bio or profile picture. In fact, GCs take issue with the idea of “changing sex” itself, often claiming sex to not only be binary, but also completely immutable; men are “XY” and women are “XX” is the “basic biology” they so often defend, and use, to make people fit into two strict categories, “male” and “female”.
This insistance on biological sex by GCs is why trans people and allies so often find themselves arguing about biology in the first place and, slight aside, I personally believe that engaging with them on this topic is, mostly, a waste of time — not only because in my view it’s obvious that GCs don’t care about whether or not they’re wrong, but also because, in the end, it’s often brought up as a distraction from gender identity. By arguing about whether or not sex is binary, we are already, in a way, playing into their hands and undermining gender identity; it does not matter what a person’s “sex” is or whether or not it is binary to determine if a person is a man, a woman, etc.
Again, GCs are absolutely wrong about the nature of sex, and it’s frustrating, but they know this, and it’s the point. If you start arguing for “sex” as biological and not for “gender”, then you’re already throwing them a bone (I know I am guilty of this too). That being said, there is perhaps a positive to the endless arguments around the nature of sex between trans people and GCs, and that is to expose the GCs’ incapacity to even properly define, biologically, what makes a man or a woman (chromosomes don’t suffice and neither do gametes, and it’s clear in their struggle that they never had a strong argument in the first place — but again, this unfortunately does not matter in the grand scheme of things).
So with the question of the validity of trans women as women, GC arguments sort of go like this. A trans person will say “trans women are women”, and the GCs will go: “no, women don’t have penises, and if they had sex replacement surgery it doesn’t count because it’s not a real vagina, and if uterine transplants for trans women were available then they’d still have XY chromosomes anyway, and the cis women born with XY chromosomes don’t count either, and…”. Etc., etc.
At no point will the question of “male socialization” come into the equation, instead we only ever see it used as a weak “gotcha” whenever a trans woman uses a swear word online (sometimes targeted at cis women too, because everyone who disagrees with them is a man in their minds). In particular, I find very interesting the ways in which GCs attempt to undermine all that might make a trans woman “biologically female”, from misrepresenting the effects of hormones, to describing neo-vaginas as “wounds” and “not real”, to calling trans women “liars” and “fetishists” for talking about their period symptoms… Why do they do this? Because it’s absolutely vital for them to not let trans women be “biologically female” in any sort of way, or otherwise their entire argument about trans women being men falls apart, precisely because it’s based in biology and not gender!
Of course, I have centered the argument around trans women because that’s often how these discussions go, but make no mistake, they apply this faulty logic to trans men as well. There is a reason why J.K. Rowling embarrassingly argued, in her ‘TERF wars’ essay, that trans people are included in her feminism because trans men are included as “women”, there is a reason why she invoked the Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria myth as fact (seriously, Rowling, that one was gross). There is also a reason why books such as “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters” are published. In this attack on trans rights, GCs do their best to portray trans women as dangerous (see the tired bathrooms & prisons argument) and trans men as victims of an agenda; because to them “males are dangerous” and “females are victims”. Welcome back to biological essentialism and misogyny, baby.
Finally, there is a reason why all of them parrot the dogwhistles “sex-based rights”, “adult human female”, “female biology is not an identity”, “sex not gender”… and it’s not because they believe that “male socialization” is the reason why trans women can’t be women. If it truly was what they believed, the extreme emphasis they put on biology would not be necessary. The claim that Gender Critical feminists are critical of gender merely because they don’t think it is innate does not stand up to scrutiny, and I’m only scratching the surface of their obsession with biology here, because it is also applied to sexuality (with their favorite saying being “same-sex attracted not same-gender attracted”). There is also a reason why they so often misgender trans people in spite of their claims that they support gender nonconformity, and it’s because they believe that pronouns (despite them being 100% social) should be assigned based on biological sex… this is textbook biological essentialism, in case that wasn’t obvious. Essentially, GCs cling on to the old, patriarchal model of biology in order to further their agenda. Tell me GCs, if the bulk of your rhetoric around trans people not being who they say they are revolves around biology, how exactly are you not saying that what makes a man or a woman and their qualities is innate? How exactly are you not arguing in favor of biological essentialism? Where is the critic on gender?
One might be asking themselves, “why then are those so-called feminists so obsessed with biology as the sole decider of what makes a man or a woman?”, and the answer is not in their arguments but in their actions — indeed, in their fight against trans rights, GCs have “allied” themselves with many hateful right-wing evangelical groups, associating themselves with anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, anti-surrogacy people. So much for women’s rights and bodily autonomy…! And I put quotation marks around “allied” because I suspect that many of them were always supportive of those groups, if not members already.
So, again why are they doing this? Simply put, because they are conservatives who appropriate and weaponize feminism as a way to not only push back on trans rights but also on LGBT rights in general and on women’s rights. Because their goal is to uphold the patriarchy.
I have no doubt that some people who are part of the GC crowd don’t realize that this is happening — grooming and fear-mongering is part of their tactics and it’s easy to get sucked into a hateful ideology, no one is immune to that — and stories like that of Amy Dyess’s perfectly expose the manipulative nature of the movement, and are extremely important in that regard.
Now, of course, I realize that pointing out the hypocrisy of exclusionist and right-wing beliefs in general is not the most productive use of my time because, in many ways, the hypocrisy is the point, but I still thought it was important to at least make it clear that the claim that they are simply “critical of gender” has no validity whatsoever. Gender Critical feminists absolutely do promote biological essentialism, and it’s far from accidental.
II) The One Time They Actually Talked About Something Other Than Sex
Finally, I want to take a quick look at the idea that “male socialization within a patriarchal society is the reason why trans women cannot be women”. This is actually the only time I’ve ever seen “Gender Critical feminists” on Twitter attempt to be critical of the notion of gender, and it only happened because I called them out. I have no doubt that some of them actually do think about gender more than they do biological sex, I know that some radical feminists have published books on the matter after all… but as I pointed out, this does not represent the majority of the movement.
First off, I have to question the notion of being “socialized as a man” — what exactly does that mean and what does it entail? How can you say for sure that this applies to the person you’re thinking of? I recognize that in this case they are pointing to toxic masculinity which is reinforced by the patriarchy and often internalized, but where is the evidence that this applies to all “males”, let alone to trans women?
The thing about this claim is that it does something GCs love to do; it conflates gender identity with gender stereotypes in order to undermine the former, by making “socialization” within the patriarchy the reason for gender rather than the reason for stereotypes of gendered behaviours. But scientific evidence shows that gender identity is already formed by age three, which is not something that would happen if socialization was the cause of gender — by that age, most children in the western world would have been raised in a very similar manner regardless of their assigned gender at birth, and it would be silly to think that a three-years old had already fully internalized toxic masculinity for instance. As all other kids do, trans kids internalize stereotypes of gendered behaviour, but the truth is that they, most often than not, feel uncomfortable about them. Because gender stereotypes are reinforced, they might learn to behave in ways that rewards them, but it will not come easily to them nor bring them pleasure. In most cases having to conform to those stereotypes simply to appease the world around them will in fact bring them suffering, because those stereotypes do not match their gender identity whether they are conscious of that or not; it’s not that the stereotypes are gender identity, it’s that, within western society, they signal gender identity — and if there’s a mismatch between your identity and the identity you signal to the rest of the world, then there is discomfort.
I find GCs particularly vile when they attempt to put the blame on trans people for “reinforcing gender stereotypes”, when in fact most of us have struggled with them our entire lives. Trans people want to be recognized as who they say they are not because of the gendered behaviour that they feel “fits them the most”, rather they might adopt some gendered characteristics and behaviours to better signal their gender identity — while yes, that is still playing by the rules in a sense, I’m not sure it’s fair to blame trans people for that considering just about everyone else does it; not only that, but it’d be more productive to blame the system in the first place than people who simply have no choice but to navigate it. This is precisely why many trans people also call themselves “gender abolitionists”, because we recognize the ways in which the notion of gendered characteristics and behaviours is harmful — we know exactly what it’s like to feel alienated by them, to feel forced to conform, to “play a role”!
So, are trans women even socialized as “men”? Not really, because the implication would be that they not only internalize all gender stereotypes associated with being a man but also that they are able to conform to them, when the reality is that they actively reject those stereotypes, and that trying to conform to them brings them discomfort.
And finally, even if we assume that socialization is gender… well, is socialization even immutable? I mean, I personally like to believe that we’re all capable of unlearning things — can one not simply “re-socialize” themselves? If not, then I worry; the implications of socialization as immutable are far scarier than trans people not being who they say they are would be. Indeed it would also mean that there is little difference between socialization and biological determinism — in fact, it’d be the perfect excuse to proclaim “boys will be boys” and never actually tackle toxic masculinity- because if you have to internalize it and if you can’t unlearn it, what’s the point? Men control the world, teach boys to do the same, and the cycle perpetuates — society will always favor men, and women will always be oppressed. That’s the logical conclusion to the idea that socialization is immutable, inescapable. But I don’t believe that one bit. Trans people’s experiences, in fact, constantly prove the opposite.
And so, even while actually attempting to be critical of gender, GCs end up promoting harmful, essentialist views which not only offer no answer as to how to dismantle the patriarchal systems that hold us all down, but in many ways also help perpetuate those systems.
While my aim in writing this opinion piece was to simply respond to the claims that GCs are merely critical of gender, I hope it can also shine light on why their rhetoric is not only harmful but also, in many ways, manipulative. And while none of the information I provided was new to the people who are already involved in the discourse, I hope that, for everyone else, the piece was also able to provide insight into Gender Critical feminists’ political backgrounds and the aims behind their rhetoric.
And to conclude,
Trans and non-binary people are who they say they are. ❤
-Aline G.
