By Rachel Williams
I often tell people I am a trans woman. But what am I really? Proposed candidates include:
- Transgender woman
- Woman
- Sub-type of male
- Sub-type of female
- Unspecified third gender
Mainstream trans ideology insists I am a “real woman”. Gender critical radical feminists insist I am really just male who lives and looks like a woman. Am I a unique kind of male or a unique kind of female? There is a strong intuition at work here that there is an objective answer as to what I “really” am. But I want to resist this notion of objectivity. Moreover, even if there was an objective answer as to what I really am I doubt we are capable of knowing one way or another. Hence, I want to propose and defend a kind of gender agnosticism. Gender agnosticism is the refusal to claim certainty that I know what my “true sex” or “true gender” is. Gender agnosticism is a refusal to endorse the sex/gender distinction and it is a refusal to endorse the elimination of the sex/gender distinction.
I don’t know what I am. And it does not matter.
But what I do know are my desires. I desire to keep taking hormone replacement therapy because I have certain desires about how I want my body to look and feel. I desire to change my legal name. I desire to wear clothes that can often be found in the “women’s section”. I desire to walk into the women’s restroom without causing a stir. I desire to blend into society as a woman. I desire for my voice to not clock me as being assigned male at birth. I desire for people to use she/her pronouns when referring to me.
I have no doubt about those desires. So why do I need to claim knowledge about my “gender identity”? I refuse to play verbal games. There is not an objective test for gender identity. And lest we think biology will give me answers, there is no consensus on how to define biological sex. Most people think there are only two sexes. But Anne Fausto-Sterling makes a convincing case that if we think deeply about intersex people there are actually five different biological sexes, maybe more. Who knows. Two sexes? Five? Ten? It all depends on the assumptions we bring to the table. But at this point it does not seem to be a matter of simply doing more science and then we will figure out how many sexes there are, or even how to define what it means to be “male”, “female”, or something else. When thinking about sex and gender, value systems are never far away. The quest for objectivity is hopeless. We need to embrace gender agnosticism.
I do not need to ground my identity in objectivity. I don’t need an identity at all. I am just me, a person with a unique set of beliefs, desires, and values.
With that said, I want to acknowledge that many trans people take solace in gender gnosticism. They feel a deep psychological need to know they really are the gender they claim to be. Their identity is grounded in gender gnosticism. I don’t mean to take that comfort away from people. I just want to bring to a halt the quest to settle things once and for all, to prove to transphobes once and for all we are who we say we are. That will never work. Gender critical folks will continue to see trans women as men no matter how loudly we insist we are real women. Why? Because it’s a debate about values not science. This is not a scientific debate or a controversy that will be resolved through clever experimentation. There is no smoking gun. There is no litmus test. There are just opinions, values, and desires.
Let’s embrace gender agnosticism and see where it takes us. Let’s ground trans rights on ethics not science. Trans people do not need to prove we are “born this way” to justify non-discrimination legislation. All we need to do is stand up as autonomous persons who demand our personhood and core dignity be respected. We don’t need facts about biology to claim our right to exist as free and equal citizens. What we need are facts about violence, suicide, housing and job discrimination, and the satisfaction rates of hormones and surgery. We need facts about how to maximize the happiness of all trans people. We need knowledge about how to survive, not knowledge of our chromosomes. I don’t need to know whether my brain is “female” or “male” to know that I want to be respected as an autonomous person capable of making my own healthcare decisions.
I don’t know what I am. And it does not matter.