Jan Bergstra & Laurens Buijs
Amsterdam Gender Theory Research Team
We with the Amsterdam Gender Theory Research Team have been searching for some time for a compromise between gender essentialism (man and woman as highly fixed) and gender co-essentialism (man and woman as highly malleable). In other words, we are looking for a Middle-of-the-Road (MotR) version of gender theory, and this puts us at odds with both sides.
Learn more about our MotR gender theory:
Our middle-of-the-road approach to gender is the middle of seven flavors of gender theory
Representatives of gender co-essentialism stood strong enough at the UvA to have Laurens Buijs expelled from the UvA, arguing in part that his views were insufficiently trans-friendly. From the co-essentialist corner (represented in the Netherlands, for example, by the anti-transgender foundation VOORZIJ), there is also little to no appreciation for our work.
Read more about the trans-exclusive feminists of VOORZIJ:
The Dutch TERFs of the VOORZIJ Foundation maintain outdated positions on gender
The objection to a middle position is that you seem to come into conflict with everyone. Nevertheless, we cannot imagine that there will not eventually be an interest in a middle position. The subject is too important to be permanently blocked by extremes that deny each other’s rationale and even existence. On the one hand, there is no way around it for the essentialists to ever take note of the arguments of the co-essentialists, and there is no way around it for the co-essentialists to put into words much better than they have done so far exactly what one means by anti-trans and why that is an incorrect position.
In our work to date (reports AGTRT-1 to AGTRT-12, and messages AGTR-M1 to AGTRT-M5, and the blogs AGTRT-BF1 to AGTRT-BF21), we have developed a MotR position that could hold up in the debate with co-essentialists. So far, we have seen no evidence of the co-essentialists even acknowledging that there could be a debate. Anyone who is not co-essentialist (and does not embrace the recent bill for a new transgender law, for example) is dismissed without further argument as transphobic, anti-trans or gender critical (with that being meant very negatively).
Read more about the extreme views of the radical trans movement:
Transactivism preaches inclusion to mask a systematic practice of exclusion
Only in the blogs AGTRT-BF22, AGTRT-BF23 and AGTRT-BF24 do we pay attention to the representatives of gender essentialism in the Netherlands. Gender essentialism has many manifestations. Representatives feel themselves on the defensive because current legislation with which they already have problems is about to be turned into new legislation with which they have even bigger problems. That situation also exists in Germany, and for now in Scotland. There is visibly more interest in substantive debate in the corner of co-essentialism, but we see no interest there either in seeking compromise with the representatives of gender essentialism.
The essentialists and the co-essentialists have in common that they do not consider the other side’s argument worthy of any attention. Formal gender theory, we believe, can still provide an opening toward finding a MotR compromise between essentialism and co-essentialism. But it is clear to us that a response to gender essentialism requires much more attention than we have given it so far.
Read more about formal gender theory:
Why gender science may pay more attention to formal gender
This is also where co-essentialists could see a task. The problem for them in doing so is that questions must be asked even at the rationale for the gender legislation now standing. After all, why is it actually of great importance to them that an M2F transgender person can and is allowed by the rules to call herself a woman and be considered and treated that way? Why is it not sufficient to introduce “M2F transgender” and “F2M transgender” as two new gender categories so that one then works with 5 genders: male, female, F2M trans, M2F trans and neutral? Co-essentialists might say that’s a rearguard action not worth the time, but we definitely don’t believe that. Here clearly there is still a task for the co-essentialists: to find (and line up) the good arguments that can also convince the other.
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