My Fight is Against Coercive Control
The reason I am against gender ideology is because it is an authoritarian movement. Actually, I think it is part of a much larger progressive and postmodern—“woke” for short—movement that has captured our culture and our institutions. I just happen to be passionate and, dare I say, good at talking about the gender part. I started peaking when I saw that we were being asked to profess and believe that trans women really are women. I finished peaking when the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal took seriously the complaints of a man who wanted estheticians to perform a Brazilian wax on his male genitals, some of whom worked out of their homes.
My fundamental problem has always been that this is a pathologically controlling movement that forces people to profess their beliefs in absurdities under threat of job termination and social ostracization.
I didn’t come at this from a feminist analysis of how men as a class oppress women as a class and that’s why we need sex-segregated spaces and services. The reason we need sex-segregated spaces and services is because of sexual dimorphism. Socialize men all you want—we are still always going to need certain separations because we are the smaller, weaker, and childbearing sex. I don’t think you need a feminist analysis to come to this conclusion. I think this is the reason most everyday people oppose men in women’s spaces. I also don’t believe that a group-based oppression analysis correctly captures what is going on and, in fact, it is quite contrary to my way of thinking overall.
I don’t come at this from any specific analysis except from a deep revulsion to coercive control. This is why I will always place the freedom to speak above anything else, even if that means supporting a voice and a platform for people who I think are completely ridiculous. This is why I experience the same revulsion when people on “my side” exhibit controlling behavior, and why I have butted heads with so many of them. This is why I very much hope I have made it clear that I don’t support the attempt to control people’s private choice of pronoun use or fashion choices (see: Genspect controversy).
Just the other day I witnessed some people who I am thankfully already sworn enemies with enthusiastically discussing the need to bring back laws against crossdressing. Their rationale, of course, is that fetishistic men shouldn’t get to walk around in dresses. While I have no love lost for such men, I am much more sensitive and vigilant to people who share many of my goals but want to accomplish them in a draconian manner. I think it is always more dangerous to consider your goals so politically justified that you get to control how others express themselves.
This also led to the great drama surrounding pronouns, where my contribution always has been and always will be that I will not control people’s private choice of words. You’d think I had turned around and proclaimed my support for the chemical castration of children, with the reaction that I got. You’d think I grew literal devil horns, with the accusations that got thrown around!
To be clear, I have no problem with people voicing their opinions and making their case for a different viewpoint than my own. I’ve remained perfectly friendly with many people who take a much harder line than me, and I am very happy about that. It’s the coercion I have a problem with—the personal attacks, the reputation savaging, the “grifter” accusations (which make absolutely no sense as you’d think I’d want to pander to the most emotionally passionate crowd). It’s the attempt to make me change my views by being nasty enough that I get scared and repent.
But I won’t lose sight of the fact that my main fight is against controlling attitudes like these, wherever they lurk. Yes, I fight against the medicalization of children and the erosion of women’s rights, but I’ll never use this to justify silencing others or to attack people who share my goals but have slightly different opinions. There must be a way to fight for these goals without utilizing the tactics of the people who pushed gender ideology in the first place.
And I don’t mean that in just a moral sense, though I do mean it primarily in a moral sense. But if the battle is only won politically and legally but not culturally, then we risk a blowback. If, for example, we simply outlaw crossdressing and pat ourselves on the back for a job well done, then all we do is inspire people to fight back even harder. The change has to be cultural. We need to have difficult conversations even with people we disagree with about the harms of gender ideology and about the reality of the fetishistic men who do indeed push a large part of it.
At the end of the day, gender ideology is part of a much larger movement that is illiberal to its core. If I threw away classical liberal values in order to fight it, then I consider my mission to be entirely self-defeating.
I couldn't agree more. Sometimes I get apoplectic at the excesses of gender ideology and I find myself thinking "they" should ruthlessly outlaw any kind of transition from one gender to another - socially, hormonally and surgically, huff, puff, snort !!! And then I come to in a puddle of cold froth and I realize the problem is with the "they". Because the "they" never stays the same, does it? I've lived long enough to watch the pendulum swing over and over. The only thing protecting us from the wrong kind of "they" in positions of power is tolerance of difference and respect for the everyone's right to self determination.
There's an unresolved tension here.
On the one hand:
"This also led to the great drama surrounding pronouns, where my contribution always has been and always will be that I will not control people’s private choice of words."
On the other hand:
"My fundamental problem has always been that this is a pathologically controlling movement that forces people to profess their beliefs in absurdities under threat of job termination and social ostracization."
Preferred pronouns are one of the ways the gender identity movement forces people to profess their belief in absurditites or risk punishment in their vocational and personal lives. The fundamental absurdity is the belief in the existence of something called gender identity that exists independently from biological sex and culturally determined sex roles. That absurdity has bred the absurd ideas that people can find themselves trapped in the wrong sex or gender identity and that to obtain relief from that condition they can change sex or gender or do away with their gender and sex altogether by claiming to be nonbinary.
In the current climate, the use of a trans person's personal pronouns is not a private choice of words. The personal here is highly political. Other people's failure to signal their agreement with the absurdities of gender identity ideology by using trans or nonbinary pronouns can have adverse personal consequences. For example, some social media and mainstream media such as The Washington Post will take down comments that flout the new personal pronoun conventions. They may even suspend or terminate users' accounts for the sin of transphobia. Noncompliance in the workplace could turn the dissident into a pariah among his or her peers and trigger disciplinary action up to and including termination.
I will not be forced to publicly profess my belief in the absurdity of personal pronouns by honoring them in speech or in writing. For example, I will never refer to the ACLU's queer terror Chase Strangio by any pronouns other than she/her. To do otherwise would be to surrender to gender absurdities and empower one of the most effective and pernicious evangelists of gender ideology.
If I hear a stranger or acquaintance use a trans person's preferred pronouns, am I going to confront them? No. What if the speaker is a friend or relative? Depending on the circumstances, I may say nothing or explain that I do not refer to people by pronouns that are incongruent with their biological sex. In online gender critical forums I will always advocate not complying with the personal pronoun mandate.