The Trans Movement Does Not Get to Lay Claim to Gender Nonconformity
Not being a perfectly stereotypical man or woman doesn't make you trans
Earlier this month, I was thrilled to see that journalist Christina Buttons had tackled the way that transgender identity is often conflated with gender nonconformity and how activists use evidence for inborn gender nonconformity to argue that being transgender is immutable and biologically based. This sleight of hand has bothered me for a very long time as it co-opts evidence of the biological underpinnings of same-sex attraction. But more than that, it simply takes natural human diversity and uses it to argue that some people are born the “wrong” sex.
As Buttons writes:
Some individuals naturally display traits more commonly associated with the opposite sex—often referred to as gender or sex nonconformity. Evidence suggests that prenatal hormone exposure can shape such traits in both boys and girls. Childhood gender nonconformity, a term used in clinical research, has also been strongly associated with same-sex attraction.
When gender nonconformity is associated with transgender identity, I think it blinds us to interesting and truly diverse aspects of human nature. It actually makes things more rigid and binary by connecting masculine and feminine behavior even more strongly to biological sex.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not a social constructionist. I do not believe that masculine and feminine behavior are purely socialized into us and that men and women would be the same or much more similar without these social influences. I think sex differences can largely be explained through evolutionary biology.
Sure, we do get strong messaging about what is expected of us because of the sex that we are, but I don’t think the causality goes one way. Women, for example, are expected to be more nurturing, accommodating, and kind (and we have seen the disastrous results of this in the greater likelihood for women to tolerate and even promote gender ideology). But I think that’s partly because we naturally—in general—are those things. These average differences shouldn’t determine how any one individual must act, but they definitely exist.
Despite this, some people are outliers, and I believe that this is perfectly natural and largely inborn, because you can often see it from a very early age. Yes, society may play a role in what types of social expressions we are attracted to; for example, do I like to keep my hair short because of an innate hair length preference or because it is coded as more masculine? My guess would honestly be the latter. But the preference to lean less feminine in certain ways is just something that comes naturally to me.
And the interesting thing is that gender nonconformity shows a strong correlation with same-sex attraction. No, it’s not a 1:1 correlation. Yes, many people who don’t conform to sex stereotypes are heterosexual. Depending on how far you expand the definition of gender nonconforming, most people could fall into the category in one way or another, after all, as few are perfectly stereotypical in all ways. But you can’t deny that what people generally mean by “gaydar” is just the perception of gender nonconformity, if we’re being honest.
All this to say I am particularly bitter about the way gender nonconformity has been coopted by the trans movement because it actually is very pertinent to the nature vs. nurture debate about homosexuality. Like all things in nature and all human traits, I think we can say very confidently that it is a mix of both. As Buttons notes in her article:
While identical twins in the review were more likely than fraternal twins to identify as transgender, this does not constitute strong evidence of genetic causation. The research relies on case reports of twins raised together, making it difficult to separate genetic influence from environmental and social factors. Identical twins often share closer emotional bonds, which can influence belief systems and reinforce shared identities.
In nearly every case where both twins identified as transgender, both were also homosexual. The one exception involved a pair of identical twins described in the literature as exhibiting “transvestic fetishism”—a condition now more commonly referred to as autogynephilia. This raises the possibility that the studies are not capturing a genetic basis for transgender identity, but rather a shared predisposition for same-sex attraction.
It is a shame because I feel that the idea that homosexuality is caused mostly by “nurture” is creeping back into the culture as a kind of backlash to the decades-long insistence by gay activists that we are “born this way.” While the slogan helped gay people win rights, it was ultimately a little misguided. Then again, “born with a predisposition for same-sex attraction” just isn’t quite as catchy.
While there is certainly no “gay gene” that causes homosexuality 100% of the time it is flipped on, I also think it is ridiculous to deny a biological basis for same-sex attraction mostly due to its correlation with gender nonconformity. The fact that more feminine men and more masculine women on average also tend to be attracted to the same sex is a glaring sign that Something Is Going On Here. Obviously, when speaking in generalities and about averages, there are always going to be exceptions, but to deny the pattern altogether would be silly.
And so, you have a subset of people that are exceptionally gender nonconforming—a disproportionate amount of them gay—and then, as Buttons writes:
Social and cultural influences shape how these traits are understood and expressed. For some, these traits may cause distress, leading to a diagnosis like gender dysphoria. In today’s environment, where transgender identity is often conflated with gender nonconformity, individuals who don’t conform to traditional sex stereotypes may interpret their experiences as an internal “mismatch,” rather than as natural variations in behavior, personality, or sexual orientation.
So instead of having a fruitful discussion about human traits and behavior, instead of growing in our understanding and trying to increase our acceptance of people who don’t fit sex stereotypes, the answer to gender nonconformity becomes “trans.” How sad, that instead of simply accepting both the immutability of sex and variations in personalities, gender activists have really created stricter rules for what it is to be a man or a woman than the cisheteropatriarchy they rail against.
As regular readers will know, it’s not that I discount trans-identified people from the wonderful mosaic of human diversity. While I think it is a choice that needs to be reserved for adults, that should not be encouraged, and that should be presented in a far more honest light, I think it is a choice that some people are going to continue to make. But it needs to be framed correctly as a choice to change one’s body and how one is perceived in the world, as Buttons says:
Taken together, the studies cited in the immutability brief do not establish that transgender identification is biologically determined. Instead, they more consistently reflect patterns of gender nonconformity and same-sex attraction. Ultimately, transgender identification is an individual choice made in response to gender-related distress—not the result of a hardwired biological condition.
There are many different reasons people transition, and the teenage girl who opts to identity as male because she is uncomfortable with her developing body could not be more different then the 50-year-old married augtogynphilic father who decided to finally pursue his fetish out in the open. By co-opting gender nonconformity, the trans movement not only stole the argument for the biological underpinnings of same-sex attraction but it slyly masked the various different pathways to transition as well.
In closing, I really couldn’t say it better than Buttons herself:
Misinterpreting the findings of these studies as evidence of a fixed transgender identity risks narrowing society’s understanding of gender nonconformity. Rather than encouraging individuals to alter themselves to fit a prescribed identity, we should create space for a broader range of expression—recognizing that many gender-nonconforming children grow up to be gay or lesbian adults.
Again, I feel it is important to note that gender nonconforming people can also, obviously, be straight. I harp on its correlation with being same-sex attracted because I think it is crucial for society to understand us and to understand us properly as different from those making the magical claim that one can be born in the wrong body or the pseudoscientific claim of a brain and body mismatch.
The trans movement is full of empty claims, and one way it has masked this is to co-opt not only the gay movement but even scientific findings that are much more appropriately applied to us. It is well past time for this to stop.
Always eloquent but I’d calmly advise to evolve using gender. A substantial part of the writing is twisting in the shadow of a corkscrew to get around the fact that gender (intentionally) has no fixed meaning.
There are, however, true meaningful sex traits or features. I am gay. I prefer to have sex with men. Let’s use that philosophically.
For my sex, I’m chockablock full of masculine traits - decisive, aggressive, solitary at times, muscular, broad-shouldered, prominent you know what, hairy, not very emotional, the whole sheet. I look like the Santa Claus version of a pro-wrestler complete with deep voice and wry sarcasm.
I have an uncommon but not rare male sex trait (about 6% of the population) in that I am a man who prefer sex with men.
There are women who have unusual but not rare sex traits that are common in men, such nas stoic, assertive, interested in things not people, and so on.
I am a man with a variant sex trait for men. I have a gay variant male sex trait.
You could almost say, irresistibly so, that I have a female sex trait, attraction to men which is common in women, but women aren’t gay men. The relationship of a gay man to a male sexually is not the same as a woman to a man sexually. I don’t have sexual with men with the least thought about pregnancy. It’s arguably an unusual male trait, but not an assumed female trait. In fact there are classes of male sex among men called facultative homosexuality. I don’t thing men in prison have “female” traits.
Now we’re cooking.
So a woman who is stoic, risk-taking and assertive (common male traits) is a woman with variant or high variant sex traits - that’s all.
A man who likes sex with men, is highly verbal and social (common female traits) has variant or variant sex traits.
Important to me is that a woman who is “stoic” is not quite stoic like a man is “stoic”.
So:
I would say “they are high variant” or “have high sex variants” instead of “gender non-conforming”
It’s more accurate, since it speaks of sex, it doesn’t attempt to define someone in relation to another sex, and it only speaks of variant traits, not “conformance” which implies some doomsday social convention.
Most people in the world have dark hair and brown eyes. Some people have variants of that, blue eyes and red hair for instance.