The Counterproductiveness of Vitriolic Gender-Warring
(Audio version here)
Today,
published a piece about why he will continue to use trans people’s preferred pronouns.
He says, “Regardless of whether there will ever be any winners in the battle of the genders, I choose being kind over waging war.”
I am an admirer of Benjamin’s, primarily because he has been such a valuable science writer addressing the problem of authoritarian trans activism and ideologically captured ‘gender medicine’ that does so much harm to children, but also because he is kind. Unfortunately, some Gender Criticals have taken a perfectly reasonable and well-argued stance of rejecting exhortations to “be kind” (that are really a demand that people say things that are untrue and also contrary to their principles in support of trans identity) to a new level of revelling in unkindness & trying to bully everyone else into doing the same. Trans-identified people are, of course, the primary targets of this. I recommend anybody who doubts this to search “troons” on X. Here is the most recent use of the term at time of writing:
However, vicious personal attacks are also aimed at people, like Benjamin, who have been staunch supporters of women’s sex-based rights and children’s rights to evidence-based medical care and who dissent in the slightest way from the hardest line gender critical approach, particularly when it comes to the use of pronouns or the rights of men to wear dresses. (The latter is not very gender critical at all). Benjamin has been a repeated target of this. I wrote about the nasty abuse aimed at people seen as not pure enough here and about that specifically aimed at gay men here. Contrary to the beliefs of a radical fringe of the gender critical movement, it is quite possible and, indeed, admirable to counter untrue claims about biological reality, oppose the authoritarian trans activists and reject the notion that it is unkind to do either without being genuinely viciously unkind to people with whom one disagrees in the slightest.
I would disagree with Benjamin that the Gender Criticals engaging in this behaviour are defined by being ‘woke right’. Some of them are, certainly, and those who are not on the right certainly have some ‘woke-like’ qualities in their purity-spiralling and tendency to pile-on dissenting voices, engage in character assassination and seek to cancel them from the gender critical sphere. Nevertheless, I think the woke right is a specific thing which I discussed here and the developments among the gender critical ‘Ultras’ is in a category of its own although they can find common cause and overlap. However, this is getting too much into the weeds of political tribes for this piece. I certainly agree with Benjamin when he says,
Using a trans woman’s preferred pronouns need not amount to a sweeping philosophical declaration about whether sex can be changed and whether she should be permitted to undress in a woman’s locker room. Demanding so-called “right-sex pronouns” wrongly prioritizes ideological purity over kindness and turns every mention of a trans person into an act of war.
Aside from the personal spite and nastiness (the one thing it seems the authoritarian trans activists & the GC Ultras agree on is that I am fat & physically repulsive and that this is relevant somehow) the second most counterproductive and alienating thing they both do is try to smash each other out of existence by dictating language.
Benjamin argues that there is a need for compromise. I’d call it a need for co-existence, but I think it is clear we are on the same page as neither of us expects anybody to surrender any of their rights or freedoms but simply to accept that each other have them and find a way to resolve issues so that women’s sex-based rights are respected, children’s healthcare is evidence-based and trans people can live their lives free of harassment and abuse. This is something my liberal gender critical feminist and liberal trans identified friends and collaborators can agree on while radical authoritarian activists never can. This is why the latter undermine their own causes and alienate anybody who cares about the freedom and dignity of everybody.
The central liberal principle is “Let people believe, speak, live as they see fit, provided this causes no material harm to others nor denies them the same freedoms.” This means that the gender criticals need to accept that they cannot control what others believe, how they speak or how they dress and present themselves. Trans activists also need to accept that they cannot control minds and mouths but they also need to accept biological & scientific reality when a failure to do so creates issues of safety and fairness for women in spaces and sports or results in gender-distressed youth receiving ideologically captured medical treatment that harms their bodies rather than evidence-based care that can discover the cause of their distress and help alleviate it.
Those who accept the freedoms of others when it comes to belief, speech and presentation and that biological realities exist which require single sex spaces and sporting categories for women and the reality that the vast majority of cases of gender distress in young people resolve with therapeutic support that investigates the causes of it individually rather than medicalising it, often irreversibly, on ideological grounds can work together and find resolutions. People who accept this include both gender critical people and trans identified people.
Those who will not be satisfied with anything less than everybody else in the world agreeing with them on every single point and speaking in the ways they want them to and/or presenting in the ways they want they want them to and/or ignoring biological reality cannot ever achieve resolution. This is because never, in the history of humanity, has one group of humans got everybody else to agree with them and because biological and material reality continues to exist even if you deny it.
There is nothing more certain to alienate the average well-intentioned person who just wants a modicum of sanity and reason and to live and let live than trying to bully and hector them into a hardline position on gender that simply won’t leave people who are harming no-one alone and demands a total conformity to speech codes. Surveys in the UK have indicated that only 8% of people pay a lot of attention to gender issues, about half of people think prejudice against trans people is a problem (a similar number to those who think racism is) and the majority of them don’t think trans women should be in women’s sports. This suggests to me, and also matches my own observation, that the general feeling is that biological reality matters, acknowledging it does not constitute prejudice against trans people and that most people would really rather not be hectored by gender ideologues of any kind. I think this is positive and that ethical activists of all kinds would do well to work with it, rather than against it.
Nobody should be compelled to affirm a belief in gender identity or to use pronouns that relate to gender identity rather than biological sex. We must protect the right of gender critical feminists, gender critical people more broadly and everybody else who believes that an individual’s biological sex should be clearly referenced in every aspect of language to decline to speak in ways that indicate otherwise. We should also recognise that very many people (including me) absolutely support the protection of women’s sex-based rights and children’s bodies and do not believe that this requires never addressing a trans person as they wish to be addressed, being abusive to them or denying their right to present as they choose. We must also accept that authoritarian trans activists who do not respect women’s sex-based rights and who endanger children’s health exist and still have a significant degree of institutional power. Anybody who wishes to address that effectively cannot afford to descend into vicious purity spirals over word choices and character assassinations against those who decline to be unkind to trans people. We need to focus on what matters and engage with substantive issues that threaten women, children and freedom of speech and we need to work together.
Therefore, I second Benjamin’s call for people to recognise that,
Accusing people of misogyny who refer to a trans woman as “she” is as counterproductive as smearing anyone who raises concerns about pediatric gender medicine as a transphobe. Such invective doesn’t help anyone’s cause. It doesn’t help anyone reach consensus. It just causes a reactionary effect, driving people to dig in their heels, and can even radicalize people.
Anybody who wants to resolve this issue in a way that protects women’s spaces and sports and children’s bodies and also individuals’ right to believe, speak and live as they see fit provided it does no material harm to others nor denies them the same freedoms must reject this counterproductive, vitriolic warring and talk to each other as human beings.
Helen, I agree with your main liberal contention that all people should be free to express their own beliefs without external constraint, whether it is always using sex-realist pronouns (as some gender-critical feminists would do), or always using other people's preferred gender-identity pronouns (as some gender-identity advocates would do), or sometimes one and sometimes the other, depending on the circumstances (as I would do).
And I also agree that it is a bad idea to be gratuitously nasty to anyone, even if we liberals also defend people's *right* to be nasty.
That being said, I think Benjamin Ryan exaggerated in implying that using sex-realist language is *inherently* nasty, and that he grossly underestimated the harm that can be caused *in some cases* by using gender-identity language. As one commenter on Ryan's article eloquently observed:
"I get your position but I think you haven't discussed how circumstances may influence the conclusion. One thing is to use preferred pronouns in an ordinary setting, but what if you were to write an article about a convicted offender? I hope you too would acknowledge that "she raped her with her penis" is nonsense. Even the headline "woman convicted" is a lie that should be avoided. Finally, in court proceedings it would amount to conceding way too much, as in the currently ongoing case of the nurse against NHS Fife. I hope you'll recognize that in such cases avoiding any ambiguity matters more and shifts the weight of the arguments to use sex-based pronouns instead."
Curiously, Ryan didn't respond at all to this comment, though he responded to many other comments.
indeed! I have just had to remove someone from commenting on my substack as they persisted in calling me a 'liar' 'deluded' and part of a 'clown show' because I commented that some people are genuinely transphobic. I attempted to be patient and explained that using this kind of language meant I didn't want to engage with her; and yet, she persisted. Some people, on 'both' and any side seem strangely invested in being as vile to others as they can. I guess it is a kind of freedom for some who may feel powerless in other areas of their lives. But it is very irritating and achieves nothing.