Author: Laurens Buijs

Jan Bergstra & Laurens BuijsAmsterdam Gender Theory Research Team There has been a recent commotion about new legislation in Scotland punishing misgendering. J.R. Rowling made herself heard by naming on X people who have a female gender identity and claim to be transgender, but whom Rowling claims are men (see also AGTRT-BF60). Rowling thereby criticized…

Jan Bergstra & Laurens BuijsAmsterdam Gender Theory Research Team A new book by Judith Butler, “Who is Afraid of Gender?” has recently been released. (abbreviated below as WIAOG). Butler is a strong proponent of co-essentialism: people freely determine their own gender, where gender would then be a fact rather than a choice. In WIAOG, Butler…

Jan Bergstra & Laurens BuijsAmsterdam Gender Theory Research Team In recent days, NSC, through NSC MP Nicolien van Vroonhoven, has proposed withdrawing the proposal for the new transgender law. We welcome that. While it is true that a new law is certainly useful and necessary (see AGTRT-BF18), the current bill is too co-essentialist. In other…

Laurens Buijs & Jan BergstraAmsterdam Gender Theory Research Team There was a commotion last week over a trans woman’s participation in the women’s darts competition. Two women, say A and B, refused to be on the national team any longer with a trans woman, who we call C. We don’t mention that persons’ names here…

Jan Bergstra & Laurens BuijsAmsterdam Gender Theory Research Team In connection with the commotion over transgender participation in darts, much commentary is coming out on social media. This comes from several directions. Remarkably, the utter ambiguity of the term transgender gets little to no attention. On the site of the Transgender Network we read “who…