2. The Brave New Worldview of Gender Plasticity
a) A question of identity
The question – “Who am I?” – is by no means new. It is part of King David’s question: “[W]hat is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (Ps 8:4).10 Nevertheless, as the rapid development of new terminology testifies, it is being asked today with a new force and in a new form. The old form assumes there is an objective ‘I’ that already exists and is simply waiting to be discovered. But this, according to current gender theory, is a false assumption. So the new form of the question is this: “What do I identify as?” This way of putting things emphasises chosenness (as opposed to giveness) and changeability (as opposed to stability).11
This takes us directly into the heart of the ‘brave new worldview’ of gender plasticity. The word ‘plasticity’ is important, for at the heart of this worldview lie the twin notions of ‘gender diversity’ and ‘gender fluidity.’ Gender diversity conveys the idea that gender is not binary (male or female), but exists on a broad spectrum with many points lying in between male and female. Tumblr, for example, currently lists 114 different gender options.12 Gender fluidity conveys the idea that people can move back and forth along the gender spectrum. This idea is so acceptable to many millennials (Gen Y) and post-millennials (Gen Z) – that is, those born after 1984 – that they have been dubbed “the gender-fluid generation.”13
It is also important to understand how these two notions – ‘gender diversity’ and ‘gender fluidity’ – are connected. For even if biological sex is understood to be binary (male and female) – which is still the understanding of most people (notwithstanding the acknowledgement of intersex deviations), once gender is severed from sex, then not only does gender not have to correspond to sex, but there is no reason for gender to share the binary character of sex. Here’s how one biologically female advocate, who describes herself as “gender fluid but also non-binary and trans,” puts it:
My gender is an evolving thing, like my sexuality, the more I explore it the more it changes. The only reason why I feel I should put a label on it is just to make it easier for other people.14
However, not all who place themselves under the ‘T’ umbrella are quite so ready to embrace the prospect of perpetual fluidity, nor to dispense with the sex/gender binary. In fact, many who identify as transgender have a very strong sense of the gender binary, at least in regard to their own experience. For example, those who experience gender incongruence are often convinced they are in “the wrong body” and therefore want their body to be (or be changed to appear to be) that of the opposite sex. In other words, they don’t believe in gender diversity, nor are they interested in gender fluidity or gender neutrality. This is one of many tensions within the LGBTQ+ movement.
Nevertheless, the slender but common thread that seeks to hold the ‘T’, ‘Q’ and ‘A’ letters in the ever-expanding acronym together is the idea that subjective feelings of identity override the objective facts of biology. So, for example, Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, which (according to its website) “remains committed to its historic mission as a women’s college,” now admits the following array of academically qualified persons:15
- Biologically born female; identifies as a woman
- Biologically born female; identifies as a man
- Biologically born female; identifies as other/they/ze
- Biologically born female; does not identify as either woman or man
- Biologically born male; identifies as woman
- Biologically born male; identifies as other/they/ze and when “other/they” identity includes woman
- Biologically born with both male and female anatomy (Intersex); identifies as a woman
Such developments beg the questions: Where did this revolution come from? And how has it come upon us so suddenly?
b) The transgender ‘tipping point’
Social commentators are generally agreed that sometime toward the end of 2013, and triggered, in part, by the success of the TV series Orange is the New Black,16 a transgender ‘tipping point’ was reached in western society.17 Sociologically speaking, a ‘tipping point’ refers to that moment in time when a minority is able to change the attitude of the majority – a change that presupposes the weakening, if not the collapse, of long-held understanding.
But despite the appearance of ‘suddenness’, the larger change didn’t, in fact, take place overnight. It has been happening incrementally for the last half-century or more. Indeed, it is simply one part of a much broader social and sexual revolution that has engulfed western culture – a revolution that includes the advent of the contraceptive pill, the various waves of feminism, pre-marital sexual experimentation, de facto marriage, no-fault divorce, abortion on demand, the lowering of film and television standards, the repeal of blasphemy laws, the repeal of sodomy laws, and the legalisation of same-sex adoption and same-sex marriage.