astroblastoise asked: Hi!!! I feel so dumb but I haven't found what "gender critical" means. I am usually pretty on top of understanding and educating myself on this type of stuff (i'm a first year gender and sexuality major). But can you explain to me exactly what being "gender critical" means? Thank you very much if you reply, I just don't ever want to be ignorant about this type of stuff.

Hi JS!

“Gender-critical” means taking a critical look at how gender operates, and the relation between sex and gender. This perspective is informed by a radical feminist analysis of gender: specifically, that while human beings are sexually dimorphic (there are two sexes, female and male, which are fundamentally different in terms of reproductive capacity), the system of sex role stereotypes (aka “gender”) is a man-made concept, which males created in order to maintain supremacy over females. (Note that women also help to enforce sex-role conformity, often under the guise of third-wave “feminism”: this is why feminism which focuses on female liberation is critical!)

A gender-critical analysis posits that the vast majority of behavioral differences between males and females can be traced back to the prison of gender, and that the liberation of women requires the dismantling of this system, in part through the abolition of gender. In a world without gender, females and males would be able to reach their full potentials without being hampered by sex role stereotypes at every turn.

In order to maintain the sex-based hierarchy, the system of gender requires strict enforcement of sex-role stereotypes. A primary method is the naturalization of sex-role stereotypes, which is where biological determinism comes from. (All the “boys will be boys” and “Well, you know girls…” excuses.) People grow up with this biological determinism already naturalized, and believe in it so strongly that they help to enforce it themselves. That’s why many people consider gender as a kind of auto-panopticon: we are all the jailers, and the jailed.

Gender-critical analysis gives primary focus to sex, not to the modern concept of gender identification. If identification mattered, then women of the 1910’s could have just “identified” as men and gotten the vote! Likewise, when Simone de Beavoir said “One is not born a woman, one becomes one”, she was talking about something that is imposed upon people born female. Giving primacy to sex is not due to a biologically essentialist belief that sex determines behavior. Rather, it is due to the reality that patriarchy operates along the lines of sex, using gender to maintain this hierarchy, and that sex-based socialization is a strong predictor of behavior. Consider this: when a man decides to rape a woman, does he ask the woman if she “identifies” as a man first? And if the woman did id as male, would the man actually stop? And also consider this: for all the talk of trans men having “male socialization”, the rates of criminality among trans men are significantly lower than that of (male) men. In contrast, when people say “trans women are women”, they are (whether intentionally or accidentally) erasing the fact that trans women, having been socialized as males, have the same rate of criminality (including violent crime) as all males. In fact, anecdotally it appears that trans women are more likely to commit sex crimes than the “average” male, at least the way that “trans woman” is currently defined - that is, purely as a self-reported identification. (Please note: as a trans women, both the criminality statistics in the Dhejne study and the thousands of cases of trans women committing sex crimes make me sick - but pretending that it is “only a stereotype” that many trans women are sexually predatory isn’t helping the women that many of my so-called “sisters” are raping with their dicks. Enough is fucking enough! Not in my name anymore!)

Given the reality of male violence (women who are dating or married to men are at higher risk for being murdered than single women, men have been using rape as a tactic of war for millenia except historians and the media usually ignore the fact that this only effects women, etc etc), and the reality of economic and legal male supremacy (besides the US government, check out the 100% men tumblr, for example - and silicon valley is no better either!), there is no possible chance to advance the state of women without a sex-based analysis of gender and patriarchy. And importantly: the fact that some multi-millionaires (or billionaires) are becoming trans women in middle age after successful careers as men is having ZERO effect on the boy’s club.

It is currently popular to slur women with a gender-critical perspective as “TERF"s. (If you’re not aware that TERF is a slur, please review this collection of tweets and posts by trans women and allies telling TERFs to die, get murdered, and choke on dicks.) Sometimes, trans women who are gender-critical also get slurred as TERFs, which if you think about it literally doesn’t make sense. But let’s think for a moment about who is being more reasonable: a gender-critical analysis says "We believe in the right of all people to dress and behave as they wish. However, we recognize structural patterns of power that exist along the lines of sex, and we are not happy with the status quo of male dominance. And given this, we believe in the absolute right of people born and raised female to set their own boundaries!” The trans activist line says “A trans woman with a full beard and penis who hasn’t begun transition is still just as much of a woman as any other woman and trans women don’t have male privilege if they say they don’t also penis is female and ftm’s are the worst human garbage because they oppress everyone with their male privilege.” Like, seriously??? And just to be clear: I read trans activists and their allies saying those same things, word for word, every day on tumblr, facebook, blog posts, you name it. I am not exaggerating a single iota!

As you may have guessed, gender-critical is not the most popular train of thought in “gender studies” programs these days. This is because the neo-liberal philosophy of queer theory took over about twenty years ago. If you can do your part and inject some reality into your classmates, that would be terrific!

And hope that helps!