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The Gender Non-Conformity Cop-Out
I’ve been thinking about this post for a few days, but what prompted me to write it now, rather than this coming weekend, is a delightfully wrong-headed piece by our very own and much-loved Fred Cole. So, while this isn’t a rebuttal to Fred’s piece, I’ll nonetheless dedicate it to him.
To Fred
There. On with the show.
My argument is that transgender individuals are, by and large, being lazy and rude, and we do them a disservice if we don’t correct that behavior. Let me explain.
There are only a relative handful of people who are actually sexually ambiguous. A tiny fraction of them are biologically ambiguous, true hermaphrodites having both male and female genitalia. The rest are outliers on the natural scale of masculine and feminine morphology: men with fine bones, delicate features, high voices; women with heavier bones, more rugged features, deeper voices. For the most part, people who are outliers can still present themselves as their correct sex; a relative few may prefer to either remain ambiguous or simply present themselves as the opposite sex.
This isn’t new. There have always been effeminate men and masculine women. They haven’t always been treated well, and I think that’s something which really does call for compassion and courtesy.
That doesn’t explain Caitlyn Jenner*, nor the young lady who works at my local hardware store sporting a button which reads “My pronouns are: he/him/his.” Nor does it explain most of the newly sexually ambiguous, all the men and women, boys and girls, who are perfectly obviously identifiable by their true sex, but who would rather be identified as something else.
What does explain these people? Various things, I’m sure: some undoubtedly enjoy the attention, others get a thrill out of the cross-dressing and role playing, still others are dissatisfied and hope a dramatic change will improve their lives.
But I think most of the “gender non-conforming” are simply being lazy.
Non-conformity has always been a cover for laziness: nonconformity means that the normal rules don’t apply to you, and you don’t have to live up to other people’s expectations or standards. It means exempting yourself from judgment, not playing the same game as everyone else, not being measured by their yardsticks and possibly found wanting.
Tune in, turn out, drop out. Because if you aren’t in the rat race, you don’t have to run — and you can’t lose.
Live Up to Your Sex
Men and women really are different, both in terms of their physical capacities and their emotional natures. Men and women want different things; they are biologically primed to value different things. They have different strengths and vulnerabilities. Why? Because gestation. Because a man can have a thousand children and never think twice, but a woman can’t have a single one without devoting a substantial fraction of her life to it.
I hope this isn’t news, that evolution has produced two very different creatures in men and women, and that five years of Gender Studies at UC Berkeley, no matter how confusing, can’t unmake what adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine have quietly conspired to create.
The phrase “be a man” means something. It means do the hard thing without complaining. Don’t leave it to someone weaker and more vulnerable to do what a lifetime of testosterone has prepared you to do. Step up, man up, do it, and move on.
We don’t really have a similar phrase for women: it isn’t a matter of honor for a woman to “be a woman,” not in the same sense. Women are weaker, and aren’t expected to be heroic, to come through in a clinch, as men are. Less feminine woman have rarely been the target of (unkind, I admit) mirth in the same way that effeminate men have been. But we still have expectations of women: that they’ll be more sensitive and nurturing than men, that they’ll possess an aesthetic sense lacking in the coarser half of the species, that they’ll be more civilized and refined, less vulgar and, in general, less physical.
The point is that there are standards for being a man or a woman. There are expectations, and people are to varying degrees judged by how well they meet those standards. It isn’t particularly fair, but there it is: if you’re a man, you’re expected to behave like a man and we’ll tend to think less of you if you don’t; if you’re a woman, we’d like you to act like one. You’re one or the other and, while we know you didn’t get to pick which, you’re stuck with it: play the hand you’re dealt and try to do it well.
That’s how it’s supposed to work. But that takes effort, and effort is… hard. If you offer people an alternative to effort, they’ll be tempted to take it, even if it leads to a mediocre and sub-par life. (That’s part of evolution too, unfortunately.) So if you tell young people that they can be “gender nonconforming,” and that that’s natural and no big deal and perfectly okay — cool even — then some are going to see that as a nice way of avoiding the burden of rising to sexual expectations, of being manly if they’re male, or appropriately feminine if they’re female. Nonconformity means not having to try, and never falling short.
It isn’t brave, it isn’t wise, and it isn’t a path to a good, full life. But, increasingly, it’s safe and easy.
Let’s encourage our young men to be men and our young women to be women, and not indulge the temptation to seek an easy end-run around traditional and sensible standards of masculine and feminine behavior. Let’s stop pretending that gender is other than sex, and that it’s a choice — or that non-conformity is, usually, other than lazy self-indulgence.
* Caitlyn Jenner is his legal name, and I’m happy to call him that. It’s a silly name for a man, but then he’s a silly man.
Published in Culture
My thoughts exactly.
To simplify it some, for me, here is where I’m confused. If you consider yourself a man from a gender perspective, though you were born a woman from a sex perspective, then why don’t you just be a woman who is manly? If you believe you need to change your gender (or accept it), so that you can dress like a man, play manly games, etc., aren’t you just buying in to the stereotypes?
I’d be more than happy if we could just drop ‘gender’ and put ‘sex’ back into the lexicon?
Wow, Henry, you really packed a lot of common sense into that one!
Thank you.
Great post, Henry, and an interesting point of view.
I especially liked the last paragraph.
It’s somehow appropriate, isn’t it, that Jenner ended up in the Kardashian orbit?
Umm… not-feminine-enough women may not be as unkindly treated as not-masculine-enough men, but the unkindness these women get is hardly rare.
For example, have you heard us conservatives when we get going about a left-leaning woman who’s just not all that attractive? We’re pretty ruthless. And by “ruthless” I don’t just mean we seem awful proud that that wrinkly ol’ bug-eyed tortoise Ruth Bader Ginsburg ain’t one of our own, though that’s obviously included, too.
Exhibit A: Rush Limbaugh’s statement about feminism.
While I share your frustration with all the gender bending we hear about, the number of people who are actually engaging in it is astronomically small. And, most of them are described by their doctors and psychologists as having other, officially recognized psychiatric problems besides gender dysphoria. So, I disagree with you basic premise: I don’t think this can be explained by laziness. Especially when it gets to the point where people want to physically maim themselves.
Most of those who tell us that we must support the delusions of those who have gender dysphoria do not have gender dysphoria themselves; is it a power trip for them? Are they just trying to test the waters, to see just how ridiculous their orders can be, and people will still follow them? What is going on here is far worse than laziness. The people who want to maim themselves are mentally ill; those who encourage other people to maim themselves are, I think, evil. In more ways than one.
Interestingly enough, I note men are far more kind to an ugly yet feminine and generous woman then they are to attractive, venomous women.
The former may be lovely and the latter hideous.
How much is ideology and comportment playing a role in what you describe?
Dennis Miller had a great line in (I believe) Mr. Miller goes to Washington on a related topic that went something like “… We don’t owe these people anything but our complete indifference. …” Very, very funny stuff…and in general that seemed to be a good enough modified limited hangout for a mature, advanced western society for a generation and a half. Unfortunately, the juvenilization of our society was really continuing, speeding up some during the 90s and 00’s, and then accelerated full throttle through the Obama years…eventually hitting peak stupidity just prior to mid-2016 (see Target Corporation). The fact that even intelligent people occupy any of their time and energies on conversations like this proof positive that this is a dead society walking.
But at least I hope you are enjoyin’ the ride…
I don’t think it’s ideology as such, but others’ willingness to take a dig at that person, which may have ideological or (perhaps more commonly) tribal motivations, but doesn’t have to. And similarly for behavior: people who behave badly can of course invite digs they wouldn’t get otherwise, but anyone, no matter how good, that someone wants to dig at can get it.
It seems like more of a pecking order thing than a principles thing. We abuse because we can, and because we’ve given ourselves permission to do it, not necessarily because our targets deserve it.
For example, I don’t really think Ginsburg is unpleasant looking, or that disparaging her appearance sensibly disparages her rulings. However, I can google a photo of her and find an unflattering way to describe it, and expect, if I manage even a moderately clever description, to get cameraderie from my tribe. Ginsburg and Scalia were friends — clearly it’s possible for a right-wing person to do the opposite of showing contempt for her. But as long as we don’t have to avoid showing contempt…
I did business with a company owned by a set of twins. The male dressed as a girl and the girl dressed as a boy. I don’t know or actually care to know with whom they had sex. I understand that their parents although loving of them could not come to terms with how it happened.
I believe that sex-reassignment surgery needs to be stopped.
I think your take on this subject is fascinating, Hank. Thank you. I’d never thought of it as laziness, but that makes sense. Yes, sometimes being a woman, in certain circumstances can be a challenge. But I like challenges. And I also believe that within our lives, no matter what gender we are, and especially in this country, the opportunities are endless, to be who we are. Just as we are.
Midge, I’m not sure that “unattractive” and “unfeminine” are the same thing — or are often perceived as the same thing. I agree that some particularly boorish conservatives pick on unattractive liberal women, and make much of the fact that conservative women are simply more attractive, on average. They shouldn’t, as that’s rude.
Judithann, I think the number of “gender non-conforming” individuals is growing quickly, and consists mostly of people who are not suffering from body dysmorphia, and who will never consider surgery or hormone treatments. This group doesn’t get a lot of attention because the sexual component of their flirtation with unconventionality is subdued: they’re simply dropping out of the male/female game. This is really the group I’m talking about, and I will be surprised if it is not a small double-digit percentage of all young people within just a few years.
Nothing new under the sun but why it has suddenly(?) become ‘a thing’ in the good ole US of A is a bit of a mystery to me too.
I suspect the truth here, Simon, is that there have been a handful of small populations that embraced some odd ceremonial or quixotic exceptions to the normal male/female dichotomy, but that most people even in those cultures clearly identified as male or female, and those few who didn’t were treated as exceptions, probably religious or having some other special status.
In other words, I think essentially everyone has always considered male and female the only actual sexes.
Why now in the US? Because it was another way for the activists who were successful in the gay/lesbian movement to poke another finger into the collective eye of establishment orthodoxy, and being counter-cultural is cool: it’s fun to upset the stodgy American mainstream.
Now it’s catching on because it’s easy.
More to the point, my understanding of the feminist movement over the past 50 years was that gender stereotypes were bad, that women could do anything, girls could play with trucks and boys could play with dolls and there was nothing wrong with that.
Now all of a sudden if you’re biologically a boy but you want to play with dolls you’re “really” a girl and not a boy at all.
It seems like the whole transgender thing is a complete rejection of the entire feminist movement, and is ultimately going to result in embracing and reinforcing gender stereotypes.
But they haven’t figured that out yet.
Isn’t that just typical of a woman?
Distilled wisdom, and a practical basis for civil interaction as well.
I know some traditional Christian patriarchy types who have figured this out, and support transgender rights against feminism for that reason. Machiavellian, and possibly too clever by half. But not nonexistent.
And where is George Bernard Shaw when you really need him?
Amen to that. I’d sing the Hallelujah Chorus as well, if we could somehow find a way to backform the words “lazy” and “selfish” into coming from the same linguistic root, and having, essentially the same meaning.
Reminds me of the time that Mr, She, on a (used) napkin, during an epic drunken rout at the International Congress on Medieval Studies (Kalamazoo, Michigan) in the late 70s or early 80s, delivered a hilarious disquisition on the derivation of the modern word “handkerchief” from the Anglo-Saxon “snot rag.” Complete with all the academic and philological embellishments necessary to make it totally believable. Sadly, the evidence was lost in the mists of time, and the theorem cannot be recreated.
That, and of course, my family’s Aunt Mary, the hermaphrodite dwarf,** draws me to this post like a moth to the flame.
Well done, Henry. Couldn’t agree more.
**Aunt Mary has made many brief appearances on these pages over the past several years, but only in the referential, Sherlock Holmes sort of way, that of occasionally mentioning a significant event or being, but never actually covering the subject in detail. Not sure if that will change here soon, but I assure you she did exist. Her exit from this world was pretty spectacular, too.
Were you living there or just on tour?
Mr She, before he retired, taught Medieval language and literature at a Pittsburgh university. It was sort of an annual thing (still is, actually). I didn’t go every year, but that was my wheelhouse too, before I thought better of it and sold out to the IT world. I like to visit Michigan for their fiber festivals in the Fall (not the All-Bran kind, although of course, that has a Battle Creek/Kalamazoo connection as well, but the alpaca, mohair, angora sort of fiber).
My mother grew up there. My grandmother would have been tatting at festivals at that time.
Absolutely terrific post.
I grew up with a neighbor boy who fantasized about being a girl, to the point he wore his pajama pants on his head and pretended they were pigtails.
He is now happily married to another man and has a wonderful life. He found his own way; completely different from his FBI father and his sports star brother.
Another happily married gay friend has shared with me that when he was young he thought he wanted to be a girl; all of his friends were girls and he had no interest in guy stuff. (Funny story, he eventually joined the Military, loved it and speaks of it often.)
As adults, both these men are horrified at the thought that their childhood fantasies of being a girl would have ever been indulged. They are grown men, successful in their careers and happily married.
I’ve got a little more personal experience with this situation that I would want to have. But watching a feminine 7-year old boy getting his name changed and his entire wardrobe replaced by tutus is a crime. His mother has indulged him and rewarded him since he was four for his desire to wear girls’ clothes. She was so happy he was happy being whatever he wanted to be!
The kid’s getting a lot of attention for his recent “coming out”, but more insidious, the mother is getting more for her “courage”. She now has a cause and she couldn’t be more passionate (and frankly tiresome) about it.
As an aside, I joined my gay friends for the World Cup final. Several of their gay friends were in attendance (it was a brunch, after all).
After a few bloody mary’s, I made a crack something like: It must be rotten to be gay now. No one cares.
One gay guy said, “The trannies ruined it for us. Being gay is so yesterday.”
And I think there’s some truth buried in there. We barely were able to draw breath and get a good night’s sleep after the same sex marriage Supreme Court decision before we were getting bathroom regulations thrown in our face.
While I have become passionately indifferent to same sex marriage, I wish we could have drawn the line there. Because boundaries keep getting pushed at a frightening speed. (PS a couple of gay friends agree with me; they would be willing to give up marriage to get rid of the madness we are now facing)
Like a toddler, there are some that are going to push and push until you lose your [redacted]. And we all know what it’s like to be around a toddler with no boundaries.
Hell.
That, and rebelliously provocative. Both seem to manifest around the same age—just before the next step would be into adulthood.
As a side note,
“used the term “arrested development” to characterize a form of mental disorder comprising severe mental impairment, resulting in a lack of intelligence. However, some researchers have objected to the notion that mental development can be “arrested” or stopped, preferring to consider mental status as developing in other ways in psychological terminology. Consequently, the term “arrested development” is no longer used when referring to a developmental disorder in mental health.”
laziness does seem to conform to arrested development.
And it may not be something new, or more prevalent in the modern West than in the old, or in other parts of the world.
But acceptance of it (and of its derivatives) also seems traditionally un-American.
It always makes me uncomfortable when I read a comment by someone who makes fun of a woman’s looks. I don’t think we ought to do that, no matter what the provocation.
Gender confirmation surgery, please.