Jan Bergstra & Laurens Buijs
Amsterdam Gender Theory Research Team
Structure of this blog
1. Introduction
It has been common in gender theory since the beginning of this century to design complex notions through a process called incremental concept engineering (ICE). ICE a process by which new ideas, concepts or designs are developed and refined to create innovative solutions to specific challenges or needs.
Gender is an example of a notion that has been modified ever so slightly over time as a result of concept engineering. In this blog, we show schematically how gender as a concept has changed and adapted over time, and what developments underpinned these changes. Creating such an overview can help to better reflect on discussions and issues now in the field of gender.
Because gender as a term is very ambiguous, we focus specifically on formal gender as a subject of concept engineering. Formal gender theory can be seen as the theory of and about concept engineering for the concept of formal gender. The definition of man and woman provided by formal gender theory is as follows:
“A man (woman) is an adult person with male (female) formal gender.”
Formal gender is meant as pure classification or categorization without any specific connotation. Such connotations do exist precisely with the related notions: legal gender (actual and potential), biological gender, social gender and psychological gender.
Read more about formal gender theory:
Why gender science may pay more attention to formal gender
2. Eight stages in the development of formal gender
We discuss in this blog eight successive stages of the development (the ICE) of formal gender: Gender-1900, Gender-1975, Gender-1995, Gender-1997, Gender-2000, Gender-2005, Gender-2015, and Gender-2025.
The idea is not so much that this describes a historical sequence of developments in, say, the Netherlands or the United Kingdom. This stage classification provides only a simplified thinking model that can be used as a tool for reflection on concrete issues in a specific jurisdiction.
Gender-1900
In ICE (for formal gender) we assume that a useful concept of gender can be developed in a number of steps starting from a (immutable and) on morphological criteria determined at birth binary gender as a starting point. We call this concept of formal gender Gender-1900, taking the year 1900 as a time when in Christian Europe this description is uncontroversial.
Gender-1975
The next phase is Gender-1975. We take 1975 as a time when one is able to change a person’s morphological and endocrine characteristics by surgical and pharmaceutical means such that a transition to the other gender can be achieved in the Gender-1900 sense. In Gender-1975, the immutability of gender in Gender-1900 is abandoned and the possibility of gender transition emerges.
The step from Gender-1900 to Gender-1975 is large and complex. Many countries are implementing legislative changes that describe and enable gender transition. In Iran, Gender-1975 is now the norm. In this blog, we only cover successive stages and steps (transition to the next stage).
The sequence of phases and steps is very different in different jurisdictions. The goal here is to describe the greatest common denominator of these processes in order to capture the most characteristic elements. Motivating the move from Gender-1900 to Gender-1975 is an important issue. People with a TERF background or with a TEFC background (see AGTRT-BF36) are not convinced of this to this day.
At each stage, say definition X of “formal gender FGx,” there is then criticism of that notion and that gives rise to the next definition of formal gender, say Y. Typically, the criticism will focus on the opportunities for gender transition offered by FGx: too little for some, too much for others.
Gender-1995
Gender-1995 we see as the reconstruction of the notion of Gender-1900 but now with the fact in the background that the notion of biological sex has shifted from determination based on morphological characteristics to determination based on more fundamentally biological characteristics (notably, chromosomes and sex organs).
The idea of Gender-1995 is that everyone is assigned a binary gender at birth and this gender is now understood as biological gender. Every now and then a mistake is made (it still happens inners based on visual inspection) and in that case a transition to the “real” gender is possible (and legitimate) afterwards.
Even if the consequences of moving from Gender-1975 to Gender-1995 are not so great on the face of it, conceptually the difference is actually very great. Gender-1995 allows a woman to have a penis (she is then genetically female but still grows a penis due to an intersex condition), and Gender-1995 uses a notion of biological sex that, unlike what is encountered with Gender-1975, is immutable. Gender transition is then plausible only if the wrong gender was assigned at birth (but that is not at all the type of case that Gender-1975 is about).
The idea of transsexing (and with it the term) is falling by the wayside because such a thing “can’t be done” in Gender-1995. Also, the notion of (formal) gender now becomes essential. Gender-1900 and Gender-1975 could still be described in terms of sex and change of sex, with Gender-1995 that option no longer exists. The move from Gender-1900 to Gender-1975 was caused by advances in medical science, and the move from Gender-1975 to Gender-1995 is caused primarily by advances in biology. Gender-1995 requires an adaptation of biological gender (to be achieved through concept engineering) to continue the tradition established at Gender-1975. This adjustment consists in the fact that for some persons dealing with gender dysphoria gender transition based on Gender-1975 is considered sufficient to achieve gender-1995 transition. The term transsexing is hereby abandoned.
Gender-1997
Requirements for the outcome of medical/pharmaceutical interventions as a prerequisite for gender transition are diminishing. Limited application of gender identity plays a role as an additional argument.
Gender-2000
Gender-2000 also creates the possibility of having a neutral gender (and that without requirements of a medical and/or pharmaceutical nature).
Gender-2005
Gender-2005 includes a modification of the concept formal gender that facilitates gender transition when surgical and pharmaceutical techniques are insufficiently feasible or workable or are or can only be partially implemented. With this, the notion of gender becomes more transinclusive as it is called (i.e., the notion allows gender transitions that are now considered desirable and were not allowed before). This is where the idea of gender identity comes into play. The fact that a person pursues a transition to another gender is seen as an expression of that person’s gender identity. A mismatch between a person’s assigned gender and gender identity may still be sufficient for a gender transition, even if it is not accompanied by a morphological/hormonal transition. The move from Gender-1995 to Gender-2005 hinges on the application of the concept of gender identity. Argumentatively, all this is far from straightforward.
Gender-2015
Gender-2015 includes a major modification of Gender-2005: whether or not one has had surgical and pharmaceutical“affirmative therapy” no longer matters. Of importance is the ability to justify the desired gender transition in a conversation. That one shows an understanding of the consequences, and a desire to use transition to resolve a perceived mismatch between assigned gender and gender identity. The move to Gender-2015 leads to considerable resistance, first of all because it is unclear how to eliminate abuse and also because one now perceives an erosion of the rights acquired especially by women to (for women) exclusive access to so-called safe spaces.
Gender-2025
Gender-2025 is not there yet but what is being worked on is to drop the conversations that still play a role in Gender-2015. With this, then, co-essentialism becomes 100% determinant of gender assignment and all biological aspects of gender are “vaporized.”
3. Conclusion
We began this blog by carefully mapping out the successive steps that lead to a particular concept of gender. This is the only way to monitor the consistency of the total arguments used.
For example, if we want to assess the reasoning for the new transgender law (i.e., the bill, see AGTRT-BF17 and AGTRT-BF18), it is not enough to take the existing law as a starting point and want and be able to improve one aspect. The arguments in the steps that led to the existing legislation should be considered. That requires an approach such as ICE.
Accountability
The issues discussed above relate to our previous work in the following way:
- In AGTRT-1, we map different notions of formal gender;
- In AGTRT-2, we contrast the approach of formal gender with the alternative of androgyny, in which not the person as a whole but a set of person characteristics are assessed piece by piece on a scale from female to male;
- In AGTRT-3, we motivate why we prefer the term neutral (gender neutral) to non-binary;
- In AGTRT-4, we describe variants of the definition of biological gender and motivate a notion of formal gender that accommodates partial morphological/hormonal gender transition as a solution to gender dysphoria;
- In AGTRT-5, we look at how formal gender can depend on jurisdictions;
- In AGTRT-6, we describe possible constraints on gender transition in the form of conditional versions of Byrne’s claims “AHF” and “AHM.”
- In AGTRT-7, we name gender erosion as a problem that ICE must consider;
- In AGTRT-12, we describe a proposal from the UK to abandon ICE, allow the notion of gender to develop without further restrictions, while basing parts of legislation on a notion of biological gender (called “biological sex”) that would then coexist with gender;
- In AGTRT-13 we describe the possibility that gender, like sexual orientation, is a deeper personality trait that a person may not always see clearly in themselves and may eventually discover based on observations of their own consciousness and behavior. This is important for an assessment of the usefulness and/or necessity of psychological counseling for gender transition.
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