Self-Censoring in 2019

It was a year and a half, maybe two years ago, that I stumbled into the debate about gender identity. I'd assumed, like a good progressive, that Amnesty was right when it said Self ID was a good thing and really only affected trans people.

I only started looking at the arguments more carefully because I felt I should defend Self ID against its detractors.

After listening carefully to the pro-Self ID side, I realised I didn't agree with it. Only then did I listen to speeches hosted by A Woman's Place UK. I remember the first time I visited their website, I felt nervous. Even in the privacy of my own home. And then - it was all so sensible, and reasonable. And I realised I was the modern equivalent of a heretic. I didn't believe. And I'd seen how heretics got treated. By people I knew.

I changed my mind gradually, but when I knew for certain that I was gender critical, I think I just thought fuck. Because I am no good at pretending I believe stuff I don't believe. I knew at some point, I'd come out and say it. And what then?

I'm an artist. I am involved in the crafty, arty side of the city I live in. Not socially, but for work. I'd seen what had happened to a similar business when the owner, citing his religion, wouldn't display cake toppings for gay couples. (To be clear, he had never refused service to gay couples). He'd been boycotted. He'd had to pass the business on to someone else. I am in favour of same sex marriage but the glee with which he was denounced disturbed me even when I had no inkling I could be headed the same way.

I also write short fiction as a hobby, and I submit these, again, to lefty, arty type online magazines.

A guy who I knew through Twitter would, if he saw someone say something gender critical, retweet them with the hashtag 'TERF'. It's like being branded a witch. On the left, it gives people the right to threaten you, harass you, even attack you.

The first time I liked a gender critical comment my hands shook. I got up in the middle of the night to unlike it.

Feeling unable to point out the sexism, misogyny and incoherence of gender theory reminded me of all the times I was made accept the sexism, misogyny and incoherence of Catholicism. Eventually, I just started tweeting openly. Before I did so, I muted men I knew who regularly 'called out' heretics. I also stopped logging into my business account, because I think it's likely I'd be targeted through that, and I feel better able to defend myself on my personal account. I no longer retweet people who might not want to be associated with me. I no longer bother submitting short stories.

I don't know how paranoid or realistic I'm being. I've seen women hounded and ostracised for believing that biological sex is real. I have always had bad anxiety, and the only way I can be open about my opinion is to shut down as many avenues I can think of through which I can be attacked.

Like other gender critical feminists I follow, I have been over and over these arguments, looking for a way in which I could be wrong. Because I don't want this. But I can't see a way to reach any conclusion other than the one I have. Politicians, organisations, publications, have abandoned their duty to critically engage with this, and to make sure debate can be had. Instead in many cases they have stoked the animosity that anyone risks by speaking up.

It hit me today how much this has affected me. An online magazine tweeted one of my stories, and I felt unable to retweet it, in case they get hassle for publishing something by a 'terf'. I've just swapped one form of self-censoring for another.

Gender, Gender, Gender, and Gender

I am going to do something unforgivable. I am going to ask the meaning of a word.

What does 'Gender' mean, when used in the context of 'gender identity'?

Before I started paying attention to the gender debate, I thought that what was being said was, more or less, that some people deeply felt that they should have been born the other sex, and that we should treat them as if they were that preferred sex. What's actually being said is that biological sex doesn't really exist and that whether you are male or female depends on your gender identity, not your physical body. So it seems kind of important that we know what this term, gender identity, means.

I've asked this of many people - politicians, people who work in civil rights organisations, people who agitate for the primacy of gender identity over sex. I've only ever got three kinds of answers:

Silence - the most frequent (non) response.
Circular definitions - eg., 'Gender identity is the gender you are', 'gender relates to your gender identity'.
and Negative definitions - 'Gender isn't biological sex, or stereotypes, or personality type'.

I have come across various uses of the word where it means something in particular:

1. It's often used as a synonym for biological sex.
2. People who hold that male and female people have distinct, innate patterns of psychological traits sometimes refer to that as 'gender'.
3. Second-wave feminists believe that 'gender' is the system by which female people are conditioned to be submissive and male people are conditioned to be dominant.

Second-wave feminists, among others, believe that the concept of gender identity actually does refer to the second and third meanings. That the idea of an innate gender identity suggests that men and women really do have distinct patterns of psychological traits, and that these traits are in line with the socially-prescribed roles of men and women. As second-wave feminists believe that those socially-prescribed roles are detrimental to women, they naturally reject the idea that female people are fundamentally suited to those roles.

So second-wave feminists see gender identity as regressive and sexist. Given the understanding of the word 'gender' by second-wave feminists, it's unavoidable that they think this.

Meanwhile, people who promote gender identity see second-wave feminists as regressive and transphobic, because they object to the replacement of sex with gender identity.

I am a second-wave feminist, I think. I certainly don't want to be regressive, which is precisely why I currently have a problem with the concept of gender identity. It appears to me to be regressive. It doesn't matter how much hate I get for this position, I can't go along with something I believe is sexist and harmful to women. What would make me go along with it? It's simple - if I could see that it wasn't regressive, that it was, in fact, progressive.

For this to happen, I'd have to know what people mean when they use the word 'gender' in 'gender identity'.

Grief, the Stoics, The Flaming Lips and Fleabag

Recently I started listening to Daniel Kaufman's discussions with other philosophers, particularly Massimo Pigliucci. Pigliucci is a Stoic. They were talking about the Stoic way of dealing with grief. How I understood it (I'm not a philosopher) was this: the Stoics thought that, as death is outside your control, you shouldn't allow it to destroy your well-being. You have to accept the death of loved ones and recognise the futility of wishing that they hadn't died. This involves seeing your loved ones as "preferred indifferents"; you might strongly like to have them around, but your happiness doesn't depend on them.

Daniel Kaufman's objection to this was fairly natural. If our loved ones die, we are devastated, because we love them. It seems like the only way to avoid being devastated is not to invest emotionally in them, which doesn't seem like a good way to live. Pigliucci explained that it's more about being proportional in our grief - that is, that it is natural to grieve for a certain amount of time, but that eventually we have to get on with life.

Elsewhere Pigliucci says that as a Stoic you should focus on what you can affect, which boils down to your own thoughts and actions. Basically, you should do your best, and take comfort that you did your best, regardless of the outcome.

To me, together with the bit about grief, this sounds a lot like some lyrics from a Flaming Lips song:
Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes, let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn't go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

 

These went round and round my head in the weeks before and after my dog, Zuni, died. I'd dealt with my dog Pasha's death four and a half years ago by thinking of how much we cherished her when she was alive. I told myself that the time to love her was when she was alive, and now that she was dead, I had to focus on loving Zuni, who could still benefit from that, and Lily (aka Tess), the dog we took from the shelter after Pasha's death.

In a way, this was a good way to deal with it, although I think I pushed memories of Pasha away too much. It was painful to think of her, so I tried not to. I didn't look at photos of her and avoided talking about her. I think I was trying to do what the Stoics recommend, but I don't think I did it quite right.

Grief is, to some extent, proportional to love. We can't avoid grief without suppressing our capacity to love. But we don't only love one person (I include dogs in people). If our grief for one loved one, who is gone, stops us from being happy that we have other loved ones, it's stopping us from loving, to some extent. I think. If we take comfort from the fact that we cherished our departed loved one when they were alive, shouldn't we be cherishing those we still have? Because some day, they too will die. Can you do this, if you are eaten up with grief?

So I think that the imperative to overcome grief comes in part from what we owe our loved ones, rather than just from the pursuit of our own well-being or equanimity. But how do we overcome it?

After Zuni died, I didn't hide his pictures. We have a photo of him on our fridge and every time I see it I get a lump in my throat. But, as with Pasha, I do ease the pain by thinking of him being happy, and how much we loved him and cared for him. This time I am dealing with it by being aware that we can be happy and sad at the same time. I don't feel the need to try to align all my emotions into one. (I've written about that here).

I watched the TV series Fleabag a while ago. In it, there's a wonderful speech about love, and how love feels like hope. I think that's true - love makes you look forward to the day, it makes planning a pleasure. Grief is the opposite of love, I think. It feels like the lack of hope. Every day carries you further away from where you want to be, looking forward hurts.

So I think hope is a kind of antidote to grief. If you can find other things to feel hope about, then the grief is less sharp. The hope can be vicarious. Sometimes it's easier to be happy for other people. The fact that we are social empathic creatures is a great thing. It's like a sort of central treasury of happiness that we can draw on.