Jan Bergstra & Laurens Buijs
Amsterdam Gender Theory Research Team
In previous blogs, we have covered TERF ideology. TERF stands for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist. Within the TERF community there is again a multitude of differences of opinion but there is agreement in that corner that transgenderism is undesirable, or else that transgenderism cannot exist and therefore need not be taken into account. We see the TERF position as an important leg of gender essentialism. Essentialism about gender amounts to subscribing to the following four principles:
- That biological sex (“biological sex”) determines gender, and
- in this way determines who is male and who is female;
- that whoever is male also remains male and whoever is female also remains female, and
- that there is actually no room for neutral biological sex and therefore no room for neutral gender.
Read more about the TERF position:
The Dutch TERFs of the VOORZIJ Foundation maintain outdated positions on gender
In addition to the TERFs, there is another cluster of groups that act as mainstays of gender essentialism. To this end, we introduce the designation TEFC (Trans-Exclusionary Fundamentalist Christian, to be translated as trans-exclusionary fundamentalist Christians). The TEFC position finds adherents in the Roman Catholic Church, the Russian Orthodox Church and in a number of (especially Evangelical) Protestant denominations.
We describe the TEFC position as follows. To begin with, fundamentalist Christians assign current (and sometimes highly controversial) meaning to fragments of the Bible and derive substantive positions (what we call FC positions) from them. Examples of FC positions include the position that the theory of evolution is false, that the world is 6,000 years old, and that Sunday rest does not tolerate any economic action. But also that no variation is possible in terms of sexual orientation, so that the concept of sexual orientation is effectively redundant. An FC position may involve a combination of such views. For example, the Roman Catholic Church today is not an opponent of the theory of evolution.
Read more about gender essentialism:
Essentialist thinking about gender is often paradoxical and unreasonable, but can also be moderate
The TEFC position is fundamentalist Christian and holds that people are exclusively male or female in terms of gender. Gender would be immutably fixed from birth, and could always be indisputably established at birth. The latter position is an FC position in that excerpts from Genesis are usually used as evidence for the position.
The TEFCs do not form an organization but together form a power block of great size and influence. It is difficult if not impossible to challenge the arguments for the TEFC position on scientific grounds because these arguments themselves have no scientific force whatsoever. After all, people are free to read what they want in the Bible and derive views from it.
Still, it has been shown that FC positions can be subject to wear and tear. The abandonment of opposition to the theory of evolution from the Roman Catholic Church is a case in point. The gradual abandonment of resistance within the church to the notion of sexual orientation, a process one can observe at this time, is another example. We assume that the TEFC position for the Roman Catholic Church is a temporary thing and that, following the example of the German bishops, it will eventually be realized within the Catholic Church worldwide that the TEFC position is increasingly unnecessary and even harmful to the Church’s reputation and influence. But it is far from that point now.
Read more about changing views on gender in the Catholic Church:
The Roman Catholic Church has more diversity of views on gender than one might think
As far as we can see, TERF and TEFC are the two major pillars of gender essentialism. These positions are in direct conflict with legislation that has been in place in most Western countries for another 40 years or so. It does not follow from the latter fact that the TERF and TEFC positions would be wrong on principle. The TEFC does see considerable friction between church and state, but there is not much against that in principle either.
Those who want to support transgender rights must, in our view, think through why the TERF position and the TEFC position would be wrong (see also AGTRT-BF31). This is not as easy as it seems, even with the now existing legislation on transgendering and the rationale for it conceived at the time at hand.
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