If there are 50 odd genders, some of which are fluid or binary, the concept of gender itself has lost all meaning and ceases to be of any value. In England, lesbian women are being pressured into sex with biological men. In Canada and the United States, a legendary feminist is attacked for merely noting we should continue to use the word “women.” There has to be a better way…
Gender has become an incredibly complex, confusing, and even controversial issue in the modern world, one that gender-activists feel is provoking an unwarranted backlash. Judith Butler, writing for The Guardian recently, ponders precisely this, “Why is the idea of ‘gender’ provoking backlash the world over?” Ms. Butler believes “there is no one concept of gender, and gender studies is a complex and internally diverse field that includes a wide range of scholars.” The field itself seeks to understand “how sex is established, through what medical and legal frameworks, how that has changed through time, and what difference it makes to the social organization of our world to disconnect the sex assigned at birth from the life that follows, including matters of work and love.”
In her opinion, “One could go on at length to explain the various methodologies and debates within gender studies, the complexity of scholarship, and the recognition it has received as a dynamic field of study throughout the world, but that would require a commitment to education on the part of the reader and listener. Given that most of these opponents refuse to read any material that might contradict their beliefs or cherrypick from complex texts to support a caricature, how is one to proceed?” Of course, it never occurs to Ms. Butler that the level of complication the gender scholars have introduced is precisely the problem. Oddly, these are basically the same arguments they make when it comes to controversies over Critical Race Theory. Nor does Ms. Butler provide any reason why such an opaque intellectual endeavor should be of interest to anyone outside the field, but she does rant quite a bit about how the purported “backlash” against “gender” is the result of some combination of “rightwing Catholic and evangelical organizations,” “traditional Islam,” a “diverse set of social and economic anxieties,” “increasing economic precarity,” “intensifying social inequality,” “infrastructural collapse,” “anti-migrant anger,” and “the fear of losing the sanctity of the heteronormative family.”
Is that all? A cynic would note that much of the same forces are also said to be aligned against Critical Race Theory, but, for now, why should anyone be surprised that the average person is a little confused as to how the boys and girls we grew up with suddenly spawned a thousand genders? This is not to suggest that transgender people don’t exist or don’t have rights, thoughts, feelings, and everything else that makes a person human. Everyone should be respected at all times, but this doesn’t mean that whatever new form of “cis,” “trans,” “fluid,” “non-binary,” “non-traditional,” or “two soul” that the gender scholars come up with will make immediate sense to everyone, anymore than some radical new interpretation of Hamlet will resonate. If we could step back for a moment from our barricades in the culture wars, perhaps we can admit that all of this is at least somewhat confusing?
The controversies surrounding bathroom policies and sports in schools have been covered extensively, but are just a small part of what seems to get more baffling by the hour. The BBC, for example, recently discussed how lesbian women in England are being labelled anti-trans because they prefer to engage in sexual relations with biological women and transgender women, at least one that has not undergone the full gender-reassignment surgery, don’t fit that description. They tell the story of a 24-year old lesbian woman named Jennie. “Jennie is a lesbian woman. She says she is only sexually attracted to women who are biologically female and have vaginas. She therefore only has sex and relationships with women who are biologically female.” Just a few years ago, this position would not have been controversial. Today, however, Jennie receives death threats for not wanting to sleep with biological men. “I’ve had someone saying they would rather kill me than Hitler…They said they would strangle me with a belt if they were in a room with me and Hitler. That was so bizarrely violent, just because I won’t have sex with trans women,” she explained. According to the BBC, Jennie has been described variously as a “transphobic, a genital fetishist, a pervert and a ‘terf’ – a trans exclusionary radical feminist.”
Another woman, Amy, also 24-years old, told the BBC that her ex-girlfriend verbally abused her for refusing to have a threesome with a transgender woman. “The first thing she called me was transphobic,” Amy said. “She immediately jumped to make me feel guilty about not wanting to sleep with someone.” (Wasn’t that considered another taboo once upon a time?) She continued, stating the obvious, “I know there is zero possibility for me to be attracted to this person. I can hear their male vocal cords. I can see their male jawline. I know, under their clothes, there is male genitalia. These are physical realities, that, as a woman who likes women, you can’t just ignore.” This didn’t satisfy the girlfriend one bit and the relationship didn’t last much longer. Amy explains, “I remember she was extremely shocked and angry, and claimed my views were extremist propaganda and inciting violence towards the trans community, as well as comparing me to far-right groups.”
Yet another woman, Chloe, 26-years old, felt so pressured into having sex with a transgender woman, she went ahead and felt awful for “hating every moment.” “I felt very bad for hating every moment, because the idea is we are attracted to gender rather than sex, and I did not feel that, and I felt bad for feeling like that,” she explained. Ultimately, Chloe was so shamed and embarrassed for not enjoying sex with a biological entity she isn’t attracted to, she didn’t tell anyone. “The language at the time was very much ‘trans women are women, they are always women, lesbians should date them.’ And I was like, that’s the reason I rejected this person. Does that make me bad? Am I not going to be allowed to be in the LGBT community anymore? Am I going to face repercussions for that instead? So I didn’t actually tell anyone.”
Angela C. Wild is the co-founder of Get The L Out, an activist group that believes the latest incarnation of the LGBTQ movement is actively ignoring the rights of lesbians. Their position is that transgender activism “erases” lesbians because traditional homosexual women are being disregarded and silenced. “Lesbians are still extremely scared to speak because they think they won’t be believed, because the trans ideology is so silencing everywhere,” she explained. For example, they regularly face open opposition at marches in support of LGBTQ rights, being accused of “bigotry, ignorance and hate.”
Ms. Wild conducted an online survey to guage what other lesbian women were feeling, and, out of 80 responses, 56% reported being pressured or coerced into having sex with a transgender woman. One woman submitted a comment, “I thought I would be called a transphobe or that it would be wrong of me to turn down a trans woman who wanted to exchange nude pictures. Young women feel pressured to sleep with trans women ‘to prove I am not a terf’.” Another claimed she was targeted by an online group, “I was told that homosexuality doesn’t exist and I owed it to my trans sisters to unlearn my ‘genital confusion’ so I can enjoy letting them penetrate me.” Yet another compared it to the atrocious practice of conversion therapy, where homosexuals would be “fixed” to become straight. “I knew I wasn’t attracted to them but internalised the idea that it was because of my ‘transmisogyny’ and that if I dated them for long enough I could start to be attracted to them. It was DIY conversion therapy,” she claimed.
Does any of this make any sense to anyone? Barely six years ago, we were celebrating the landmark Oberfell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision that legalized homosexual marriage in the United States. Today, we’re attacking homosexuals because they like to have sex with people with the same body parts, encouraging them to learn to love to be penetrated, and the transcommunity and their supporters are acting like it’s an offensive, shocking surprise to discover most lesbian women aren’t interested in a well-hung transgender no matter what she chooses to call herself. Isn’t the whole point of homesexuality that you are attracted to people with the same biological make up as yourself? What is coercing women to have sex with biological men other than a new, insidious form of conversion therapy, a practice with a long and awful history that society had supposedly moved past for good reason?
The gender scholars can say whatever they like, but the reality is that claiming there are 50 odd genders, some of which are fluid or binary, confuses the concept of gender to the point where it is completely useless and terms we’ve used for generations like hetero- and homo-sexuality no longer have any meaning. Is a transgender woman, that is a biological male, who still prefers men a homosexual or do they somehow become a heterosexual when they switch genders? Is it even possible to answer that question? I have no idea, but I do know that people are attracted to one another due to far more than a gender label whatever the activists claim. The current trend is not sustainable. It’s too complex, too confusing, too controversial, and too polarizing. I think we can all agree that in the year 2021, we should not be pressuring women to accept penetration by a penis for any reason.
Therefore, I have a simple, modest proposal: Let’s do away with gender entirely. People can claim to be whatever they like, use whatever pronouns they like, be called whatever they like, dress however they like, but when it comes to actual sex, let’s just use the appendages we currently have and those we like. We’ll be (blank) that likes (blank), and leave it at that. If a person undergoes actual gender reassignment surgery, they can change their (blank) but until then, they remain the (blank) they were born with when it comes to the bedroom, bathrooms, sports, and other areas where actual appendages come into play.
In my opinion, this streamlined approach has several obvious benefits and solves quite a few problems. People can craft their own identity, however they desire, and be respected for it, but likewise people that choose to fall into conventional categories, men, women, and hetero- or homosexual will not be coerced into sex with private parts that aren’t of interest or exposed to various genitalia they have no interest in. The scholars can do what scholars do and if they make some breakthrough discovery in the field that dramatically changes the situation, so be it. Women who choose to be in spaces with other biological women for whatever reason can make their own choice. Parents no longer have to worry about their adolescent daughter confronted by male genitalia at school, and the schools themselves no longer have to cover up for sickos that might exploit the situation, claiming they are trans to gain access to private spaces. Further, the average person would no longer be expected to understand the intricacies of dozens of genders, and maybe, just maybe we can agree that it’s alright to use the word “women” again.
Yes, the simple word, women is now also controversial. Once, it was “I am woman, hear me roar,” but now in the gender-obsessed era it’s “menstruating person” or something else equally devoid of meaning and even champions of the cause are not above criticism. Last week, the trans-activist community lashed out at legendary feminist author, Margaret Atwood, creator The Handmaid’s Tale, for having the temerity to post a tweet linking to an article about the importance of using the word “woman.” “‘Woman’ is in danger of becoming a dirty word…struck from the lexicon of officialdom, eradicated from medical vocabulary and expunged from conversation,” Rosie DiManno originally wrote in a column for the Toronto Star. The response to Ms. Atwood’s endorsement of what should normally be an uncontroversial position was swift. “Atwood’s recent tweet is disappointing but not surprising,” claimed Lydia X. Z. Brown, a disability justice advocate. “Casual trans-antagonism – anti-trans oppression – is widespread in society, just as casual ableism and racism are. Unfortunately, many people coming from privileged perspectives falsely believe that any perceived increase in visibility or attention for marginalized communities is an attack on them, which is the sentiment echoed in the article Atwood shared.” “Seeing her share this particular article, which a lot of people in the trans community view as a dog whistle, it definitely gave me pause,” said Erin Reed, a DC-based activist. “It made me upset. It didn’t seem like she would be the kind of person to share something like this.”
The Handmaid’s Tale is about a society where women are forced into having sex for reproduction and treated like cattle. Lesbian woman are labelled “gender traitors” and shipped to concentration camps or executed. Perhaps the trans-activists can explain how this is different than what is happening with lesbian woman who report undergoing “DIY conversion therapy” and being told they must sleep with biological men against their wishes. You must be penetrated by a penis, or you’re a traitor to the cause. How handmaid is that? Ultimately, if Ms. Atwood can’t get this right, what hope does the average person have? Hence, my modest proposal: Let’s just say I have (blank), I like (blank), and leave it at that for now.
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 