[AGTRT-BF82] Gender non-contendedness: a new concept for gender theory

Jan Bergstra & Laurens Buijs
Amsterdam Gender Theory Research Team

Recent research from Groningen (see the UMCG website and the publication Development of Gender Non-Contentedness During Adolescence and Early Adulthood. (2024) by Ravee, Rosmalen, Kalverdijk and Burke) led to headlines in the paper that the desire for gender reassignment surgery in most people goes away on its own over time. But a close look at the research shows that this conclusion cannot be easily drawn.

Gender incongruence is when the gender identity of a person P differs from the gender categorization of P. This can be a trigger for gender transition. But central to the Groningen research is not gender incongruence, but what is called gender non-contendedness. We understand gender non-contendedness as dissatisfaction with one’s own gender (usually understood as gender assigned at birth, either AMAB or AFAB, sometimes ANAB). Gender non-contendedness can lead to the desire to obtain another gender. We denote that desire by transgender desire. The research shows that gender non-contendedness often passes on its own.

Learn more about the basics of gender:
What is gender anyway, and why is biological sex not sufficient?

The said paper establishes a between the development of gender (non-)contendedness and the development of gender identity. There are immediately a couple of comments to be made here:

1. In the gender theory of the last 25 years, we have so far not seen the term gender non-contendedness, however much it seems to be self-evident. Well-known terms in these include gender identity,gender dysphoria,gender incongruence.
2. The references of the said paper also do not include items from gender theory.
3. It seems that Ravee et al. expect a positive correlation between gender identity and gender non-contentiousness. To be more precise, gender non-contendedness can lead to transgender desire and that can be related to a gender identity that differs from one’s current (formal) gender.
4. In gender theory (and in our version FGT of it), it is far from obvious that someone with gender A and gender identity B also has the desire to transition to gender B. Nor is it obvious that gender identity is an evolving personality trait, just as it is not obvious that sexual orientation is an evolving personality trait. The hypothesis that sexual orientation is fixed early on stands pretty strong.
5. In Sally Haslanger’s famous feminist interpretation of gender theory, female gender identity is one that entails an awareness of a subordinate position. From the outset, then, it is clear that this awareness contrasts with any desire for gender transition from male to female. It is then ultimately the (one’s own and personal “first person“) perception of “deep inner feelings” that can then still lead a person to see gender transition as the natural (and even necessary) step. The TERF ideology (see AGTRT-BF43) reverses this pattern: the desire for gender transition from male to female is said to be related to a man’s unspoken desire to claim the rights that women have acquired for themselves as well, and thus de facto undo.
6. We see Ravee et al.’s use of gender identity as an example of IGT(informal gender theory). We previously discussed IGT in our blog on Neil Messer (see AGTRT-BF68). IGT does not aim to arrive at legally tenable distinctions between men and women (that dividing line can be drawn in various ways), and that is explicitly a goal of FGT (and also of gender theory for the past 25 years).

It would be undesirable for the impression to arise that gender incongruence (a discrepancy between a person’s gender identity and current gender categorization P) is like gender non-contentedness.

Within IGT, that consistency may be there; within FGT, it is not actually there. Within FGT, it is more obvious to see gender non-contentednessas (potentially) dissatisfaction with the social role implied by P’s current formal gender and a desire for a different social role. But that is not an indication of gender incongruence. This matters a lot:

1. Gender non-contendedness should not, without knowing its underlying causes, be seen or used as an indication of a deviant gender identity and thus not as an indication that can justify medical gender transition, at least not in children/young adults.
2. When gender identity is used appropriately in the context of gender transition, the results of Ravee et al. do not give the suggestion that (more than previously thought) gender transition is at risk of being done on inaccurate and overly provisional grounds.
3. There is something to be said for the hypothesis that gender non-contendedness is a contradiction to gender incongruence (in this regard, one must read gender incongruence as in FGT).

Does this all matter? Yes, we believe it is of great importance that in addition to IGT (the reading of gender in the medical and theological world), FGT also remains in the picture: gender theory as a theoretical framework on the basis of which regulations and legislation on gender categorization can be developed.

Thus then the two great contrasts in gender theory come into play:

1. Essentialism versus co-essentialism;
2. FGT (legal, formal, legalistic looking at gender) versus IGT (medical, psychological, theological looking at gender).