Protecting the rights of women and girls: Who's left?

In which guest author Mammalian puts to test the claim that gender-critical feminists are right-wing and gender ideology is progressive.

As a left-leaning feminist, it’s deeply disorienting to find myself increasingly agreeing with right-wing public commentators on some women’s issues. Have those of us who question gender identity ideology¹ really moved to the right, while our former lefty mates keep fighting the good fight on behalf of girls and women? Or, has the left abandoned areas where many people on both the left and the right find common ground?  Who’s right here?

Parties of the left in NZ and abroad routinely denounce gender-critical feminists² as right-wing, conservative, hateful, transphobic and bigoted. In 2018, Judith Butler went further, aligning gender-critical feminists with nationalists, white supremacists, evangelical Christians, misogynists, xenophobes, homophobes and, yep, even fascists.

Baffled by these ludicrous mis-characterisations of their political identities, many left-identified gender-critical feminists have developed the habit of prefacing anything they have to say about sex and gender with their progressive credentials: a history of voting for the left; atheistic or liberal religious beliefs; years of activism or support for women’s rights, abortion rights, homosexual law reform, environmentalism, unionism, poverty reduction, public housing, anti-racism. Also in this preface is usually a statement to the effect that trans-identified men and women should have the same opportunities to live dignified lives free from discrimination as any other person. 

No matter! If gender-critical feminists question any aspect of gender ideology, there will be fellow-leftists standing by to excommunicate them across the political and moral divide.

Ironically for a movement that has hatched a generation of ‘gender non-binary’ individuals, this is crudely binary politics. Party politics may have conditioned us to think in terms of ‘left versus right’, but contemporary politics has many dimensions that don’t fit neatly on that traditional divide.

The old left-right spectrum was primarily an economic one, concerned with the role of the state in redistributing wealth across society. The defining feature of the ‘left’ has been its support for significant redistribution of resources, seeing uneven access to material goods as the root of inequality and injustice. This is not the main terrain on which the sex vs gender debate has occurred, but to the extent that it does, the anti-materialist nature of gender ideology means its place on the left of this spectrum is questionable. Gender-critical feminists’ acknowledgement of the biological reality of sex, on the other hand, allows for materialist analyses of women’s oppression.  

For some, the debate between gender ideologists and gender-critical feminists takes place on a spectrum between social progressivism and conservatism. Here again, gender-critical feminists have at least as much claim to the socially progressive end of this spectrum as do the gender ideologists who would exile them. Second-wave feminists challenged deeply held societal beliefs about the appropriate behaviours of men and women, often in the face of bitter opposition from social conservatives. Feminists called these ‘gender roles’ to indicate that they were socially ascribed behaviours, not innate sex-based ones, and proposed that men and women be liberated from restrictive stereotypes. As a result of decades of feminist activism, discrimination on the basis of sex is now illegal in public places and the workforce, and a raft of policies exist to open previously closed opportunities to women and men alike.  Women were also instrumental in the fights for gay rights and for racial equality. Many, but not all, of the women involved in these movements now identify as gender-critical feminists.

So successful have all these movements been that parties of both the left and the right in New Zealand all now publicly condemn sexism, racism and homophobia, however much such beliefs and behaviours might privately endure. Yet, when expressing concerns about potential conflicts between gender ideology and hard-won women’s rights, gender-critical feminists are recast by some on the left, including by some of their erstwhile feminist sisters, as bigots, erasing their decades-long contribution to the progressive causes that gender ideologists now appropriate as precedents to their own movement.

In another great irony, the fundamental claims of gender ideologists are in fact much closer to the views of the social conservatives they deride:  to be a woman is to feel ‘feminine’, often to wear traditionally female clothing, and to otherwise conform to the gender stereotypes second-wave feminists worked to dismantle. ‘Feeling like a woman’, according to gender ideology, is innate, and evidence that you are one, regardless of your sex. A generation of kids is being told that they can choose whether to be boys or girls, depending on which traditional gender stereotypes they most identify with. Rather than freeing men and women from gender stereotypes, gender ideology makes them stronger and more binary, hence the need for new gender non-binary identities. Equally tragic, the homophobia of social conservatism chimes with the current trend for young homosexual girls and boys to ‘trans the gay away’. Same-sex attracted teenagers are, through identifying as trans, converted into heterosexuals.

Another spectrum sometimes referred to in the context of a left-right divide is that of authoritarianism and libertarianism. While there are examples of both left- and right-wing authoritarian regimes, gender ideologists on the left in New Zealand naturally see themselves as sitting closer to the libertarian than authoritarian end of the spectrum and profess themselves terrified by the rise of the authoritarian right.

Yet, while there is indeed something libertarian about an ideology that is so focused on the removal of any restrictions on an individual’s right to curate and express their identity, the gender ideology movement is in other ways profoundly authoritarian.

It insists on rigid linguistic and doctrinal conformity, even when those linguistic practices and beliefs go against other people’s genuinely held beliefs and practices. New Zealand midwives are, for example, instructed to use the term ‘birthing bodies’ instead of ‘mothers’ to avoid being ‘trans exclusionary’- that is, to avoid upsetting pregnant women who identify as men and will thus consider themselves the baby’s father. This linguistic imposition occurs despite the fact that most women find being called a ‘birthing body’ deeply insulting and objectifying, and have not been asked whether they wish to be referred to as such (although they may have been asked about their pronouns). Gender ideologists also dismiss the idea of same-sex sports as ‘trans-exclusionary’ but have no sympathy for girls and women whose chances of achieving sporting success are undermined when forced to compete against men. Expressing concerns about the ability to safeguard girls and women when male-bodied, female-identified individuals have the right to enter any female-only space is labeled by trans rights activists as ‘hate speech’.

All this is much closer to authoritarianism than liberalism. Intolerance by gender ideologists and their allies towards women with gender-critical views has been enforced through social media abuse, online petitions calling for them to be disciplined or sacked, for their work not to be published, and for their public talks to be cancelled. Inevitably, as the internet has normalized digital violence against women, this abuse-dressed-as-moral-outrage also comes with rape and death threats. Few women want or can afford to risk unleashing such destructive forces against themselves and their livelihoods, meaning anxieties or even questions about the rapid spread and effects of gender ideology in society are now expressed only in secret, among trusted friends and allies.

Disturbingly, this brand of authoritarian intolerance has been facilitated by the failure of left-wing parties, trade unions, universities, and the media, to defend the right to question or debate the strictures of gender ideology. Indeed, these organisations often join in the ritualized public shaming of women who dare to express gender-critical views, describing them as ‘transphobic’, hateful and TERFS.  When left-wing parties and trade unions cannot find it within themselves to defend the free speech even of left-leaning, progressive women, let alone those with whom they disagree on a much wider range of issues, it is time for them to admit they are part of that rising tide of authoritarianism.

In exiling and silencing gender-critical women within their ranks, the Green and Labour parties, and the unions (whose staff, let’s not forget, are paid from the wages of gender-critical feminists as well as those who believe in gender ideology) foster a culture of fear and intolerance. Gender-critical women still within these parties and unions face three choices: shut up and go along with an ideology they find both unscientific and callously indifferent to the specific needs of children and women, speak up and risk banishment from their tribe, or leave the party or union.

None of this is good for the left. By making this a no-go area of debate within their own ranks, they abandon the possibility of finding compassionate and sensible ways to accommodate the needs of transgender people that don’t involve pitting them against women who want to retain their own spaces and identities. They deny left-wing gender-critical feminists a public voice with which to reassure already anxious trans-identifying teens that of course they don’t hate transpeople or ‘deny their existence’. In many cases, they are those trans teens’ mothers, and care more about them and are more aware of their existence, than anyone else in the world.  

The left will lose not only members but voters over this issue. Many gender-critical feminists would rather not vote at all than vote for a party on the right, but either way, lost votes reduce the left’s chances of electoral victory.

Does the left really want to leave it to the right to defend science over ideology, to speak up for women’s and children’s rights,  for free speech, and tolerance of diversity of opinion? It was FOX News’ Tucker Carlson – TUCKER CARLSON!! – who interviewed a member of the Penn State women’s swimming team about how upset she was at the unfairness of having to compete against  (and, of course, lose to) a six-foot-two ‘woman with a penis’, while ‘left-wing’ media praised that be-penised ‘woman’ for ‘her’ bravery. This must have sent young women a confusing and dispiriting message: the only side willing to defend their rights to same-sex sports is also the side working to remove their right to an abortion.

It’s a topsy-turvy world. When some on the left would have us believe that it is bigoted to defend the political relevance of biological sex, hateful to argue that male-bodied rapists shouldn’t be housed with female prisoners, and reactionary to question whether an appropriate treatment for children and teens’ discomfort with their pubescent and adolescent bod,ies is to stop their natural puberty and amputate their sex organs, it’s time to acknowledge the ways in which the left has, in respect of women’s rights,  become regressive, conservative, and authoritarian.  But this is not just a childish game of ‘you’re right-wing’, ‘no, you’re right-wing’. Name-calling is a dishonest and lazy way of claiming to have won an argument before that argument’s been had. So, if you are on the left and disagree with gender-critical feminists arguments, don’t just scream, ‘you’re so right!’. Explain, respectfully, with reference to evidence, why and how you think we are wrong.

1. ‘Gender ideology’ refers to the view that everyone is born with an ‘inner gender’ that may or may not correspond with their biological sex. Adherents to this view believe that individuals can therefore change sex/gender at any time, becoming ‘transgender’, with or without having surgery or hormones. They believe it is this ‘inner sex’ or gender that should be recognized in law and by other members of society, regardless of their biological sex.

2. Gender-critical feminists reject the idea that individuals can literally change sex. While supportive of individuals’ right to adopt a gender identity that is different to their biological sex, they also believe that biological sex remains an important contributor to girl’s and women’s experiences and vulnerabilities. They think that protecting girls’ and women’s rights requires that language, data and public policy continue to distinguish between biological sex and gender identity.