This article appeared in slightly modified form on March 20, 2023 in NRC
UvA professor Jan Willem Duyvendak calls my criticism of non-binary gender in an opinion piece in NRC (March 1, 2023) “unscientific” and “politically motivated” (see also AGTRT-BF6). But in reality, current gender scholarship is precisely so ideological that all kinds of excesses in the emancipation movement are no longer critically approached.
According to Duyvendak, the emergence of non-binary gender identity is well explained by the historical-cultural development of gender relations in the Netherlands. Gender became less relevant as the differences between men and women diminished through emancipation, and moreover, what “man” and “woman” actually are was increasingly questioned socially. In this way, the way would be prepared for today’s non-binary identity. And anyone who questions this would exhibit the same conservatism as those who opposed homosexuals at the beginning of gay emancipation (see also AGTRT-BF5).
Read more about Duyvendak’s problematic argument in NRC:
Nothing new under the sun? A false argument for the acceptance of transgendering
In this way, Duyvendak places himself in the tradition of social constructivism, the dominant school of thought within the field of gender studies. According to this school of thought, gender identities and relationships arise only from the socio-historical context. For example, American philosopher Judith Butler argues that gender is “performative”: the distinction between male and female would not only be filled in by cultural norms, but also made by social behavior (see also AGTRT-BF73). We become men or women by acting like men or women, is the idea.
This thinking is interesting and useful until physical reality enters the picture. The fact that we have a male or female body does not come from our culture, history or behaviors. In constructivist thinking, gender is quickly reduced to just sociality, as if there is not also a biological and psychological reality. There is, of course. As primatologist Frans de Waal put it, “The question of whether you feel male or female is in your constitution. We are biological beings, we cannot operate unbiologically.”
Yes, there is such a thing as gender dysphoria. This is the sense of dissatisfaction with one’s birth sex on which the transgender phenomenon is based. But when exactly is gender dysphoria, and who determines it? Under pressure from transactivists, the case for “self-identification” is gaining ground. People would be best able to decide for themselves which gender they belong to. In doing so, they often invoke constructivist scholarship on gender. Among young people, for example, the idea is gaining ground that they themselves could determine whether they identify with birth sex, with the opposite sex, or with neither sex.
In this way, transactivism has come to propagate a radical social engineering about gender, from which non-binary identity eventually emerged. Of course one’s own perception is important, but people can also have a whim, be under the spell of hypes and trends, or suffer from an underlying trauma. It is up to professionals to separate this properly in order to achieve careful diagnosis. It’s not that simple.
The Volkskrant recently reported extensively on the swelling scientific criticism of the once much lauded “Dutch approach” to transgender youth. Using puberty inhibitors and intervening medically at a young age has been found to have far more negative effects on physical and mental health in these young people than thought. NRC recently wrote about abuses in transgender treatment at the Tavistock Clinic in London, where doctors for years started treatments too quickly without agreement on patients’ clinical conditions (see also AGTRT-BF66).
Read more about transgender health care scandals:
Leaked WPATH files show significant doubt among medical professionals about gender transition
A radicalized and often militant woke movement can be seen in the United States and the United Kingdom. In this, identities such as trans and non-binary have become status symbols, with which young girls and women in particular radiate recalcitrance toward their teachers, parents and other authority figures. That’s politics.
The label non-binary is also eagerly used in the Netherlands by young people who have gotten the idea that sex, like gender, is fluid and malleable. Constructivist arguments give this idea scientific legitimacy. But in reality, gender is actually largely a biological and binary fact.
In progressive circles, critics of social engineering thinking about gender are quickly dismissed as conservative and discriminatory. But the criticism is important because it is not good for the development of young people’s sexuality if they are needlessly confused about sex and gender, and it is not good for feminism if we are deprived of the language to talk about the patriarchal oppression of women and femininity.
So let’s hit the brakes; we know that self-identification in terms of gender has limitations. For example, we know that there are young people in whom the desire for sex change disappears once they have properly explored their sexual orientation. Lesbian, gay and bi are identities that historically have always allowed for a wide diversity of gender expressions.
Learn more about the basics of gender, and why gender is not enough:
What is gender anyway, and why is biological sex not sufficient?
Moreover, we know that all human beings have an androgynous personality: all men have feminine sides, and all women have masculine sides. Androgyny as a component of personality structure, as mapped, for example, in Carl Jung’s analytic psychology (see ABGT), is still largely unexplored in modern gender theory, and has not yet properly reached activism either. It is likely that as more social and scientific recognition comes for this, we will also begin to look differently at the desire we now see among young people to change gender or be non-binary.
People who continue to experience consistent and persistent dissatisfaction with their innate sex are better off seeking advice from a professional gender clinic, where their self-identification is taken seriously but also critically examined. Clearly, there will always be a small group that will never quite fit into the gender pigeonholes. Whether the label non-binary is appropriate for them and holds up remains to be seen; perhaps there is more to be said for speaking of neutral gender (see AGTRT-3). In any case, uncritically embracing non-binarity as a logical new step in emancipation is irresponsible.