June 15, 2024 - 6:00pm
Anyone who’s been paying attention to queer politics will have noticed that activist language never stands still but constantly marches Leftward.
Words like “homosexuality” and “gay” have either been written out of the lexicon or redefined in ways that would be unrecognisable to gay activists from the last century. The word “queer” itself has been reclaimed from its origins as a slur to a badge of defiance.
But whatever stage of linguistic purification we’re in, it seems intuitive that this is the final phase, the end of history, and the terminology we cherish today represents the apotheosis of kindness, empathy, compassion and received wisdom.
So it may seem strange that a hallowed word like “transgender” may be showing early signs of turning musty and stale, a liberatory locution morphing into its oppressive opposite, not unlike its discredited predecessor, “transsexual.”
One early sign of such a shift is an article this week in the prestigious journal Nature, which states that the flourishing of gender identities is outpacing the binary limitations of transgender and cisgender. The article provides examples of post-modern individuals who were never “assigned a sex” at birth by their parents, so that they never transitioned to their true authentic self. Such queer individuals “find themselves unmoored from binary terms,” like cis or trans.
And not having the precise label for such individuals means their “experiences will be erased,” a form of linguistic gendercide. “Recognizing gender modalities beyond cis and trans is a matter of justice,” the trio of authors state in Nature. Those terms “can be seen as inaccurate or marginalizing.”
The underlying idea is that the term “transgender” is loaded with a host of assumptions. A transgender person may be transgender from birth, so when they adopt any nonbinary gender identity, they are not actually transitioning from cisgender but rather affirming the only gender they have ever known.
It seems like only yesterday that those terms were the cutting edge of wokeness, but it turns out that “not everyone is cis or trans,” the article states.
The reality is that the word “transgender” has already undergone several modifications. Some well-intentioned people still think that being trans has something to do with gender dysphoria, or being born in the wrong body, but such notions are so 18 months ago. A reliable guide for how the word should be used today can be found in the advocacy group’s Human Rights Campaign glossary, which clearly states that the word refers to “people whose gender identity and/or expression is different from cultural expectations based on the sex they were assigned at birth.” It just means you don’t fit the cultural stereotype.
It’s hard to think of a realm other than social justice activism where vocabulary is constantly undergoing a makeover. The issue here is not that language gradually changes and evolves, but that the changes are imposed from the top by ideological gatekeepers and enforced by diktat.
It’s no accident that the opening chapter of Ibram X. Kendi’s 2019 manifesto, “How To Be An Antiracist,” is titled “Definitions,” and devotes 10 pages to redefining existing terms to advance Kendi’s ideological prerogatives. “Every policy in every institution in every community in every nation is producing or sustaining either racial inequity or equity between racial groups.” Kendi’s definition puts a sobering twist on the local speed limits in Iceland.
The ever-expanding lexicon of social justice words that have been redefined, expanded or inverted has been widely remarked upon, so that sometimes seems as though social justice activism is a branch of lexicography. Let a few examples suffice: harm (mild discomfort), trauma (moderate discomfort), white supremacy (Western, European, American), racism (indifferent to activism and allyship), violence (speech), and, most notably: woman (?).
Thus language is not a fixed system to which we submit, but a malleable tool that we can shape to dismantle the Cistem and create a perfect world with a precise term for every curated, bespoke gender identity.
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SubscribeIf they’re anything like the Feminists, they’ll all be at each other’s throats in another 5 years and then, the rest of us may get some respite from the daily diet of tripe.
As for the ‘new lingo’, the Feminists tried to foist ‘Wimmin’ on everybody for years (no ‘men’ geddit ?), but it never caught on – however, they didn’t capture all the institutions that time round so God help us….
Trump cultists are worried about being fed a daily diet of tripe? Since when?!?!?
Don’t you have anything better to do than to only hurl insults (quite badly too).
The institution guarantees 60 minutes of social media daily to inmates. Take it up with them.
Since I discovered the savory goodness of headcheese, that’s when.
I’d rather live in a Maga world than what progressives want.
It’s magical thinking. Change the name, change the thing.
Fundamentally, yes
Also slightly: change the map, change the territory.
People confusing the map/territory distinction.
Descriptions of the world overwhelm and replace the real world
Boring. I’m waiting for Talia…
You horrible no good terrible bigots!! You are all so awful!!! Child murdering abuser bad persons!!!
No! I do not show basic male pattern aggression in my posting!!! That is unscientific!! Click on my blog link!! Now! Do it! You bigoted Unherd readers!
and so on and so on and so on . . . .
Are you OK?
Are YOU?
John seems fine. TP is not and never was.
You’ve captured the full extent of him very well, and in only a few brushstrokes.
I quite agree.
…and the girls will be forced to have beards!!!!
As an aside, in the WPATH files article, doctors expressed surprise that girls (real ones without Y chromosomes) who were prescribed testosterone were upset that they grew beards. You can’t make it up.
The handlebar moustaches were the final straw.
Apologies, he is surely responding to a late comment I left on the last article about transgenderism with his arguements of “imbecile”, “bigot”, and “abuser”. No doubt he will arrive shortly
Thlamydia Merkin appears not to be in the clinic today.
Me too. Talia is nowhere to be seen!
No need, I think.
It would be good if ‘poofter’ came round again.
When did he last call on you?
Badum-tish! On form this weekend, I see.
Great tongue-in-cheekiness by the author, with a few useful takeaways; the best being: Cistem,
Humpty Dumpty said it all back in 1865
“When I use a word… it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”
You can’t win with activists like these; if you disagree with them it proves you are guilty of whatever they are railing against. About 35 years ago I was called a racist for pointing out that Cleopatra wasn’t African but of Macedonian heritage.
Though I suppose if you go back far enough, everyone is an African if modern humans evolved in the Rift Valley.
You can’t use the word “Rift”… it’s divisive.
You’ve already been told – don’t ever try to be funny.
That’s really boring.
Shut up Norman
Humour must be left to Plonk Socialist. He majored in it way back at a red brick college .
That’s hilarious. 🙂
I feel oppressed whenever I have a wee now due to the annihilating presence of the cistern.
Excellent!
I see what you did there.
Let’s try to remember that Humpty Dumpty had a great fall off the wall and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men (deluded and/or power-hungry politicians & activists?) couldn’t put him back together again. So maybe there’s hope….even if we are already walking on eggshells when it comes to gender ideology
Nice idea, but I’m beginning to think that Humpty didn’t actually fall off that wall. The story was put about by Numptyists, who want to destroy the truth of irrational vocabulary. Convincing by confusion is the new teaching method, and it is successful. (On the other hand, those who disagree have only Pandora’s legacy to fall back on– it’s a very serious matter.) The article in Nature referred to in the article is an abomination, but how to stop this kind of ‘capture’ ? The people who write this stuff actually believe it, Humpties all.
I made the mistake of clicking through to that essay in Nature. Truly, the last nail in the coffin for that journal and its reputation. An article about astrology would have more scientific content.
That was my first thought. WTF happened to Nature?
A load of previously ‘reputable’ publications and publishers have likewise become shallow mouthpieces for the most blatant and laughable activism. The culture is slowly rotting from the inside out.
Dear Jim, you’ll soon be able to buy a decolonised and transed version of the King James Bible.
Sacré Dieu, what a thought.
I’m surprised such a version isn’t already available!
Try to imagine how hard it is to hide or disguise the very plain language forbidding homosexuality in the Old and New Testaments. An acre of word salad would need to be planted and harvested to deal with each time the subject comes up.
And all those Jews running around in Judea… Perish the thought!
It happened several years ago, it’s called the queen James bible.
Very droll
Their goal is to destroy any concept of objective reality, nature and universal morality. They are people who want to see the world burn; and we are letting them do it. It’s time to take back the reigns of government and cast these creatures on the trash heap of history.
My thought too, but I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve come across references to ‘queer ecology’ before now. Anyone have any idea what that is? Anyone? (Incidentally, I’m an ecologist.)
“Queer ecology is the endeavor to understand nature, biology, and sexuality in the light of queer theory, thus rejecting the presumption that heterosexuality and cisgenderedness constitute any objective standard. It draws from science studies, ecofeminism, environmental justice, and queer geography. These perspectives break apart various “dualisms” that exist within human understandings of nature and culture.”
So that’s clear, then.
“These perspectives break apart various “dualisms” that exist within human understandings of nature and culture.”
A wonderful sentence reminiscent of those dadaesque machines whose only function is to switch themselves off. For not only does the invoking of “human understandings” of a subject reintroduce, confirm and sustain a dualism between that subject matter and human representations thereof: the subject matter here in question – “nature and culture” – is a fine distillation of dualist thinking in the first place. The endeavour to undermine and transgress dualism as such thus only contrives to reinforce, or as the deconstructionists like to say, ‘reinscribe’ it. Since the deconstructionist project only succeeds in deconstructing itself before it gets to make any mark at all on its intended target, it should perhaps be construed rather like an inexperienced suicide bomber (delightful tautology) who succeeds only in blowing himself to smithereens long before he comes close.
Quite…I don’t think dualism is our major problem these days !
More briefly, queer ecology is the denial of the biological facts of sexual reproduction.
As mud. That’s the problem with jargon.
As clear as a foggy day in the Highlands!
And every other species (apart from a tiny number)? They seem refreshingly binary. It would take a heroic intellectual contortion to ‘queer’ the myriad species we share the planet with.
The Guardian did publish a very stupid article on exactly that….
What a surprise!
I miss Punch. Can you imagine the fun they would have with this?
It’d be Judy now. But yeah.
Not sure I can these days. Even Private Eye are a bit shy about exposing this crap.
I miss Punch too by the way.
Private Eye has gotten into this rubbish, as right-wing outlets are flanking & overtaking them, and seeing as they think they have to be restrained, and yet in their hearts they know how stupid it all is, they are very resentful.
The way it has panned out, shows Hislop & Co to be just another part of the establishment.
I am not surprised! I have very low expectations when it comes to the Guardian, and they reliable fail to meet even those standards. That rag is only fit to line small animal cages.
As an ecologist, you must have been sorely disappointed with the Greens who seem to have abandoned ecological concerns for gender nonsense and support for terrorists.
The planet is in a bad way and those idiots are giving us a stupid sideshow.
It gives me hope that someday I could write a piece for Nature. On one of my dumber days.
They have surrendered to the woke side.
My good fellow, you do realize that your suggestion comparing astrology–replete with its strictly male/females signs–vs transgenders’ multiplicity of orientations is hopelessly archaic?
It’s a he** of a note when one sees that astrology has more in common with the fundamentals of biological science than all the purportedly scientific gender research published these days.
The whole thing is unmoored.
Meantime, thank you to John Murawski for reading not only what is no doubt a dreadful article in Nature, but also wading through Kendi’s musings, saving the rest of us the trouble. Truly heroic.
Transgender: Irrationally pretending to be something you’re not like a woman or an astronaut.
Gender Affirmation: Someone agreeing that you really are a woman or an astronaut.
Transphobia: Comfortable in the knowledge that you are in fact not a woman or an astronaut and refusing to indulge your pretense.
It’s not that complicated.
Oh ….
Woman / Astronaut, that’s so binary !!
This is all a bad TikTok challenge gone too far.
What acid trips are these people on?
All too complicated for me.
I’m out.
Well, quite so but it’s refreshing to discover that there are people far more deluded than thee or me.
All human communities contain formal or informal criteria for measuring prestige and status.
When the group’s main criteria are how much you are perceived to transgress and to be oppressed as a consequence, then members of the group compete for status on those terms.
With the amplifying and accelerating effect of social media, the social justice community has entered a kind of doom spiral as members seek status by trying to out-transgress each other.
It would be funny to watch if they kept it among themselves and didn’t insist the rest of us must affirm their absurdities.
Extremely well stated.
Is it just me who is scared?
This surely has to be a wind-up. Am I reading Viz?
Think – try flying a trans flag at a Hamas / Palestine demonstration and see what happens.
We can do better than that! Have them fly their flag and shout their slogans in Palestine! I’d pay good money to watch that—from a safe distance, of course. I am not mad enough to get entangled with deluded ideologues.
Queer was we assume invented by homophobes. So how does one ‘reclaim’ it for the people who were slurred by it?
We didn’t own it in the first place.
Get with the f*****g logic and you might stand a chance.
But start with one lie and go on, is the tactic I suppose.
See my comment on real-world Newspeak: the meaning of “reclaim” has been expanded to include the co-opting of slurs as well as actual reclamation. An earlier version of the Left would have said they “liberated” the slur by taking it as a badge of honor. The co-opting of slurs as a badge of honor is an old phenomenon (cf. the singing of Yankee Doodle by Americans during a victorious engagement in our War of Independence). You might want to try it, rather than raising a ruckus.
Everything is cancelling itself out. Nature has been going this way. Like all of our culture, it is being permeated by a totalitarian regime of think-speak. Like a previous Unherd article describing language police in the clouds, it is really affecting everything. We truly are being forced into how to think – just how to speak is being policed first……….
Beware.
There is clearly a bit of a split within the trans movement between those who believe trans is a biological thing (roughly woman’s brain in a man’s body or vv) and those for whom this is a feminist thing (once gender has been dismantled everybody will be ambiguous, fluid, queer). For the latter being traditionally female or male will be little more than a fashion choice).
A really important question is the overall mental health of these individuals. Are they the most mentally balanced people we have ever seen, freed from the tyranny of gender? Or are they struggling and needing therapy?
Also, these parents were presumably committed feminists aiming to dismantle gender. It’s a bit early for such individuals to have emerged out of the current trans movement. I get hate on here for suggesting the feminist dismantling of gender may have given rise to current trans phenomena – but this suggests clear evidence that it can, and quite probably did.
“I get hate on here for suggesting the feminist dismantling of gender may have given rise to current trans phenomena.”
I don’t think this statement is entirely wrong.
Pretty much all “social justice” movements share common provenance in the critical theory which emerged from people who had read just enough Foucault to suit their purposes. So it would be surprising if there wasn’t a connection.
It’s also true that some strands of feminist thought have to all intents and purposes rejected the reality of distinct female biology as a patriarchal plot. And of course once its decided that biology is irrelevant to defining what women are, it opens up that category to everyone. (Why they ever thought this was a good idea is one of the greatest mysteries of the history of recent western thought, but there you have it.)
The problem with your argument is that it is incomplete and, if you’ll forgive me, a bit irrelevant. Like arguing over shoddy ship design from the deck of the Titanic as she sinks.
Its incomplete in the sense that plenty of feminists have been fighting a rearguard action against gender woo away from public attention for the last couple of decades and, I suspect, even more now regret not having recognised the dangers earlier. We should acknowledge their efforts.
It’s irrelevant in the sense that the fight to preserve women’s sex-based rights – not to mention the fight to save rationality itself – is in front of us now and much more important than bickering over how we got here.
I take your point, but would say the following:
I’m unaware of feminists having resisted in any way the idea that gender is a social construct. Some are ardent believers, some just take it as a given. JB who writes on here is certainly an ardent believer. There are certainly a few heretics like Camille Paglia and Christina Hoff Sommers who still self describe as feminists. Most resist the idea that boys and girls, men and women, are innately different.
Second, I don’t think that things only went wrong with the advent of trans. Woke, political correctness, ideology trumping honest investigation – none of these things started recently. And the trans thing is pretty small beer. We need an intense critical examination of how we got here if we are to extricate ourselves from thinking which may have little basis in fact.
If that all sounds very abstract – a whole range of dodgy ideas have become pretty much part and parcel of how children are educated, how people are presented in media and advertising, and how we interpret human behaviours.
At face value that statement is correct, but the language is important here and helps explain why “constructive ambiguity” between the terms “gender” and “sex” is such a powerful tool for trans activists.
Almost all feminists agree that gender is a social construct to some degree, but they differ in what they consider within scope of the term “gender”. At risk of over-simplifying and misrepresenting their respective positions, we can contrast Butler and Bindel:
Butler basically believes that gender is everything and its all a social construct within which we can pick and choose our gender options like one of those cut out paper dolls from childhood. Any biological differences between men and women either don’t really exist or are of such little significance to what’s going on, they can be dismissed as irrelevant. To Butler the performance of “gender” is comprehensively empowering and she doesn’t need a distinction between the terms gender and sex, except to dismiss anyone who insists on clinging to what she views as prehistoric biological essentialism.
Bindel overlaps with Butler in the sense that she also believes that there are socially constructed cultural norms which are called “gender”, for example women being expected to behave in a stereotypically feminine manner. But she opposes Butler in two very important ways.
Firstly because to Bindel gender is subjugation not liberation. Women are expected to behave in ways consistent with the gender stereotypes imposed by their society on their sex-class or they are punished.
Secondly because to Bindel biological sex differences between men and women still exist and still have real-world consequences. Gender is the cultural manifestation of oppression rooted in those sex differences.
For the record, I’m not saying that I agree with everything Bindel says. But I certainly agree with her on this.
One can only think that the very act of procreation that led to the birth of those children was undertaken with distaste, verging on nausea. Unless, that is, it occurred as a form of cosplay with the male inseminator imagining himself making love to an alligator and the female opening herself up to a cactus plant.
You are almost certainly right that the feminism is one of the root causes of the trans phenomenon. Beyond laying the groundwork for it by presenting men and women as essentially interchangeable (during one of its phases), feminism succeeded in making it socially acceptable for women to enter male-dominate professions (including lots of government spending to encourage this), dress in mannish or even men’s clothing, engage in stereotypically male pursuits that involve risk-taking like extreme sport, in effect to be tom-boys for life, while still remaining women and be celebrated for it. Men got no corresponding liberation: save for nursing there is no push to get men into female-dominate professions, men who dress in feminine clothing are either looked at askance or bizarrely celebrated for “being in drag”, men get no plaudits for doing needlework,… so if you want to be a sissy for life, you have to declare yourself to be a “woman” to make it socially acceptable.
Trannies that I have encountered are invariably sad, lonely losers. They are enmeshed in this delusional state, and obsessed with trying to get others to validate their delusions. The most important thing is to not validate. We have a trans woman at church. He is a complete unsuccessful adult.
To be fair, I would expect trans people to be sad. They basically want to be something they can never fully be. That would make me sad too. They deserve our sympathy. Though that is not the same as simply giving in to all their demands.
Vehement activists of all stripes also tend not to be very happy.
I have encountered some who were very honest about themselves and that, by transitioning, they were merely fulfilling a sexual need, not a societal one. Incidentally, it seems that the most fervent of trans-activists also tend be the most ugly ones.
Here you go with your feminist fixation again!
Thick skulls take a lot of penetrating.
When an article makes the same point I made a few articles back – doubtless dismissed by you – that trans phenomena may be the outcome of the dismantling of gender by feminists (in this case feminist parents) – you can hardly expect me not to pick it up just to save your feelings.
If you did a bit more reading, a bit more thinking and bit more putting two and two together you’d save me the trouble. How is it even possible to discuss the trans issue without mentioning feminism. It’s basically a dispute between two groups of self avowed feminists, with a few others weighing in on the sides.
I misread the tongue-in-cheek neologism ‘Cistem’ in the final sentence as if it were ‘Cistern’, and took it to be a sort of toilet-based ‘Comintern’. Actually that works just as well.
The thing is, most of the time I fit this one perfectly. I just don’t walk around thinking about my gender all the time. It’s just not on my mind. I’m busy just being me. Of course to everyone else I’m just that bloke over there.
Except, perhaps, to those others with an agender.
Except, as we both know, you’re in the vulgar “cis heteronormative” caste, whereas “agender” is for people who, after compulsively obsessing over their “gender identity” for hours a day, realise they’re very special and highly radical, for theirs is a very rarified and cutting edge identity — they are the true sannyasi of gender ideology.
Can I hide from this, somewhere?
Orwell presciently predicted the corruption of language in the service of ideology, but got the method wrong. Instead of narrowing the meaning of word based on reason to impose an ideology, real-world Newspeak expands the meaning of words based on emotional valence. For instance, once it became generally accepted throughout the West that the view that people of different races should be treated differently as a matter of custom or law was contemptible, the word “racist” was expanded to include not just people who held that view, but (in no particular order) people who object to disorderly illegal immigration, people who oppose any policy the Left (such as it is these days) fancy will help racial or ethnic minorities, even if the opposition is based on a reasoned critque that suggests the policy harms its purported beneficiaries (cf. “affirmative action” in the US and the “racism of low expectation” — there the word is used in English, not Newspeak), or even anyone whose ancestors came from Europe (cf. “all whites are racist”). The point of this is the hope that the negative emotional valence attaching to the desire to treat people differently according to race will attach to the expanded meaning.
The absurd fluidity of terminology among gender ideologues results from too many of their words having no standard English denotation with which to play this game. They did it with “man” and “woman”, which in English denote “adult male human being” (or when used in the generic sense “adult human being”) and “female human being”, but you can’t get the same mileage in terms of advancing ideology by expanding the definition of “transgender” and ‘cisgender” which no normal native speaker of English uses, so the usual linguistic playbook fails and they flail about. Quite frankly, I think the whole thing is a bit queer (and you can take that last word as either English or real-world Newspeak as you see fit).
“Nature” has turned into the canary in the coal mine for once-esteemed scientific journals that are squandering mountains of credibility in craven pursuit of the approval of Woke despotism.
The first author of the Nature piece is Florence Ashby. He is a transwoman, who pretends to be female. He is one of the highly aggressive advocates for the delusional state of trannie-dumb.
Reading the half baked jargon and crackpot pseudo science in the paper described makes it easy to see why Peter Boghossian, James A. Lindsay, and Helen Pluckrose got deliberately fabricated and bonkers social justice papers published in prestigious social studies journals.
E.g. one paper accepted for publication was a section of Mein Kampf re framed in current feminist jargon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair
There is no science in this crap. It is a psycho syndrome that some people need for attention and the colors are an insult to normal LGB people…The LGBT++++$$$$ is purely a money shop run for profit and political positions…same as BLM did , but they failed. Same as GLAAD…all about the money…Burn the baby party colors and get rid of this trans crap
Do I care?
The deformation and sabotage of language is part of every totalitarian ideology. First, you purify the language and then you purify society of the enemies within. It’s the common thread that unites every fascist, Stalinist and Islamist.
Eleven years earlier:
https://youtu.be/e9r2o5ZnSHo?si=3DckVBNsUySH18Bw
Portlandia bookstore. Very funny on feminists raising their children gender neutral. Hilarious if you haven’t already seen it.
Hilarious!
The deformation and inversion of language is part and parcel of all totalitarian ideologies. Purify the language and then move onto ‘purifying’ society. With the usual appalling consequences.
The trans-or-whatever-you-call ’em constitute only .004% of the population. Why is there so much windiness about their particular form of mental illness? It is time to move on to another victimhood.
A load of tosh from Nature. There are two sexes only. The rest is all meaningless terms to define simply being gender non-conforming.
Before the GRA and trans activism, society was more accepting of men such as Eddie Izzard who said he was a man who likes nail varnish etc… (brave and likeable). However, now he claims to be a woman, a lesbian of course, which is a misogynistic fiction (he’s not even had surgery) and he invades women’s toilets. Hateful man.
I’ve no problem with ‘transsexuals’ ie people who actually went through the whole gender reassignment surgery process, whatever their reasons (the possible problems with their families is not for me to discuss). They will never be truly women but most actually accept that and they’re not the ones harassing women.
Trans does not mean them any more however, but those liars in skirts who have not ‘transitioned’ in any way. Should any of them call me ‘cis’ to my face, they’ll live to regret it.
“Queer’ could not be ‘reclaimed’ as that word assumes that since it means that it was once possessed, and that is not true.
The LGBTQ is definitely anti homosexual.
I do worry that the explosion of “queer” and trans nonsense could end up in a reversion to horrid old homophobia, though most gays and lesbians generally aren’t part of that circus.
Whatever.