Gender

In December, five years later than promised, the Tories finally delivered draft, non-statutory guidance for schools on “gender questioning children”. It provoked criticism and concerns from all sides, and is open for consultation until March. But whatever its final form, one aspect of the guidance has gone largely unnoticed.

The document doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know about this government’s hostile stance on trans identities, inclusion and rights; but, unfortunately, what it does do is further solidify in official documentation and language the politicised phrase “gender identity ideology”. The government is attempting to bring into the mainstream this contested term, a creation of rightwing sex and gender conservatism that dates back to the 1990s, and which forms a key part of renewed attacks against the LGBTQ+ community.

As used in this context, the phrase “gender identity ideology” is actually nothing to do with gender, as in masculinity and femininity, and how this shapes our identities. Instead, it is used to imply that trans, transgender and gender non-conforming identities are a new fad, and that the longstanding social justice movement for trans rights is really a recent conspiracy of nefarious elites.

The use of terms such as “gender identity ideology”, “gender identity” and “social transition” serve to obscure the ideology of gender that members of this government, like all sex and gender conservatives, merrily adhere to themselves, and enforce on us all. Gender ideology is real, but it wasn’t invented by trans men or trans women, and it doesn’t just apply to trans or transgender people. The real gender ideology is the binary sex and gender system that requires all of us to be either male-masculine-heterosexual or female-feminine-heterosexual; and which attaches harsh penalties to those who deviate from this script. Almost all of us will have been socialised on to pink or blue paths from birth, if not by our immediate family, then by the books, TV, toys, clothes and adverts that surrounded us in wider society. This socially prescribed gender informs our gender identity.

Quick question, hotshot: Which political party in the U. S. is more likely to believe gender is fluid? If you think it’s the Democrats, the guys more closely associated with LGBTQ+ rights, you’d be incorrect. More and more, Republicans are claiming that gender identity is not just fluid but so incredibly fragile that even hearing about the possibility of non-cis identities existing poses a serious risk to children.

Case in point: J. D. Vance and Marco Rubio, two whole adult male senators, who apparently believe that by asking a test question about gender on the U. S. census the government might infect teens with the notion that trans existence is possible, thereby destabilizing their entire reality… or something.

The LGBTQ movement—first the campaigners for gay and lesbian rights, and now for transgender rights—deserve credit for shaking up our thinking. They’ve made a compelling case that most of the old beliefs about gender were arbitrary taboos, trapping people in lives that confined them and made them miserable. Just as we’ve rejected stereotypes about how women or people of color were “meant” to live, we’re now confronting these stereotypes in turn.

However, every step forward provokes a backlash from those who benefit—or seek to benefit—from oppression. The Catholic church (and, sad to say, Richard Dawkins) are clinging to the notion that all the old beliefs about gender were fine as they were and nothing needs to be questioned or changed. They continue to insist that people should be compelled into roles determined at birth, with no regard for what those people want for themselves.