[AGTRT-BF22] Essentialist thinking about gender is often paradoxical and unreasonable, but it can also be moderate

Jan Bergstra & Laurens Buijs
Amsterdam Gender Theory Research Team

Essentialism about gender amounts to subscribing to the following four principles:

1. That biological sex (“biological sex”) determines gender, and
2. in this way determines who is male and who is female;
3. that whoever is male also remains male and whoever is female also remains female, and
4. that there is actually no room for neutral biological sex and therefore no room for neutral gender.

Essentialism is often seen as old-fashioned in progressive circles, but it is far from gone. Indeed, we find it in a wide variety of movements. On the one hand, these include the Roman Catholic Church, the Russian Orthodox Church and groups of Evangelical Christians, but on the other hand, within feminism there is also the so-called TERF position (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists). In addition, essentialism is alive in a range of nation states such as Russia, Poland, Uganda, and among leading politicians in several states in America.

Learn more about gender in the Roman Catholic Church:
The Roman Catholic Church has more diversity of views on gender than one might think

This diversity of organizations can be explained because essentialism can take different forms. First, there is the idea that modern medical-scientific means (such as genetic testing) can establish a binary distinction between male and female in all cases, even in cases where it remains unclear with mere visual inspection. We encounter this form of essentialism, for example, in the American organization Do No Harm. They use the following definition of biological sex:

“Sex means the biological indications of male and female in the context of reproductive potential or capacity, such as sex chromosomes, naturally occurring sex hormones, gonads, and nonambiguous internal and external genitalia present at birth, including secondary sex characteristics, without regard to an individual’s psychological, chosen, or subjective experience of gender.”

This definition basically leaves open the possibility that at birth the sex cannot be determined and is therefore neutral (ANAB, assigned neutral at birth, see also AGTRT-1 for this terminology). But from the texts on Do No Harm ‘s site, we see no evidence of consideration for ANAB or gender-neutral (or non-binary) individuals. As far as we can tell, Do No Harm assumes the binary male-female dichotomy and pays no attention to the neutral in-between.

Do No Harm also seems to see little in transgendering. In their model of a law on the treatment of gender dysphoria in youth, mentioned above, transgender does not appear except in references to positions or organizations with which they disagree. Moreover, Do No Harm is very cautious about “affirmative therapy” for gender transgender youth.

Apparently, Do No Harm assumes that if one looks hard enough and does medical-scientific research, a reliable male/female distinction can always be made in everyone. Hence we speak of modern-biomedical essentialism.

We see this thinking not only at Do No Harm. From the Vatican, for example, it is promoted by Giuseppe Versaldi and Angelo Vincenzo Zani in Male and Female (2019). We have the impression that supporters of the TERF position (for example, in the Netherlands: Caroline Franssen, the founder of the VOORZIJ Foundation) also adopt modern-biomedical essentialism: the sex determined at birth is and remains decisive.

Learn more about the difference between gender and biological sex:
What is gender anyway, and why is biological sex inadequate?

In the view of the Roman Catholic bishops in the United States (see also AGTRT-7), we see another form of essentialism about gender, which we traditionally call essentialism . Immediately at birth, a gender is established only through visual inspection (the child becomes AMAB, assigned male at birth or AFAB, assigned female at birth). With that attribution of gender (equivalent to biological sex), the person in question must live from now on. The gender so assigned should see this person and those around him as a gift from God.

It is inevitable that with the current and past practice of sex determination at birth, in some cases a different result will emerge than if one (as Do No Harm and suggest the magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church) would bring in modern medical-biological knowledge and techniques to properly assess less obvious case. We see a striking distinction here: putting forward the tradition of making distinctions between male and female from birth versus making a decisive appeal to a multitude of modern scientific insights.

Both forms of essentialism have their own problems. Traditional essentialism carries a paradox. It rejects the idea that gender is socially determined, but the traditional determination of gender over the centuries has been a social process whose outcome, it is now known, cannot always have been correct (at least from a modern medical-biological perspective). Nevertheless, it is believed that on principle a person should be able (and want) to live with the assigned gender, and that such a thing is always possible.

It inevitably follows that in the case of an incorrectly assigned sex at birth, that is, as a result of a social process, it is still possible to live a good life with that (by modern standards incorrect) birth sex. Such a person is de facto transgender by modern standards. Transgendering through a social process would thus be quite possible, an option that traditional essentialism, on the contrary, always denies. We see this as paradoxical and an indication that traditional essentialism is untenable on theoretical grounds.

Modern-biomedical essentialism has another problem, and that is unreasonableness. This form of essentialism is unreasonable in that it sweeps under the rug the fact that sex determination at birth is still very often done in traditional ways. It follows that sometimes things go wrong and in those cases developing the desire to transgender is just the obvious thing to do. The categorical rejection of transgendering that one often encounters is simply unreasonable for this reason.

Moreover, both traditional essentialism and modern-biomedical essentialism are simply at odds with medical-scientific understandings. It has now been established that transgendering can be a solution to gender dysphoria in some cases. This observation is entirely separate from the concern that perhaps too often or too easily, or with too little regard for the risk of making irreversible choices, medical techniques are resorted to treat gender dysphoria.

But essentialism need not be problematic. In AGTRT-BF21, we covered different versions of gender theory, and in it, moderate essentialism is also discussed. Moderate essentialism sometimes accepts exceptions to rules so that these sharp edges come off. Among the sharp edges of essentialism we can think of: denying gender dysphoria, denying transsexuality/transgendering as a possible medical solution to gender dysphoria, denying any form of neutral gender, as well as confusing gender with sexual orientation.

Read more about the different versions of gender theory we distinguish:
Our middle-of-the-road approach to gender is the middle of seven flavors of gender theory

We believe that moderate essentialism can, first, resolve the paradoxical aspect of traditional essentialism, second, avoid the unreasonableness of modern biomedical essentialism, and third, be science-conforming. It is the most conservative approach in which the key problems of traditional essentialism and of modern biomedical essentialism are all addressed and resolved.

We assume that there will be reasons not to see even moderate essentialism as the final stage in the development of versions of gender theory and that further advancing toward co-essentialism is the obvious choice, see also AGTRT-BF21.