A Brief History of Sexual Norms: The Rise of Transgenderism
How a little thought about, tiny minority, became mainstream
The whole movement to normalize and promote transgenderism seemed to arise suddenly and out of nowhere. Certainly, bits of popular culture have been slowly promoting this idea. The sexual revolution of the 1960s to 70s promoted all sorts of sexual expression and exploration. Amid this, in 1970 the English band The Kinks released the song “Lola” which recounts a young man having a romantic encounter with a transexual presenting as Lola. A similar theme was put forth by Aerosmith in their 1987 song “Dude (Looks Like a Lady).” In 1975 the cult classic movie The Rocky Horror Picture Show was released in which transsexualism as well as bisexuality is glorified. This movie continues to run with audiences dressing provocatively and often cross-dressing as part of the experience.
However, these all seemed to be fringe things that some were promoting but not truly mainstream. Then, in 2015 all of that changed. In a two-hour exclusive interview with Diane Sawyer for the ABC News 20/20 program former Olympic champion Bruce Jenner declared, "’My brain is much more female than it is male," he added. "It's hard for people to understand that, but that's what my soul is.’"[1] This was the last time he went by Bruce; from then on, he identified as Caitlyn. This interview and subsequent gender transition by Jenner thrust transgenderism into the limelight. It also seems that with the US Supreme Court ruling just two months later in Obergefell v. Hodges saying homosexual marriage is a constitutionally protected right, the burgeoning Social Justice movement now needed to find a new oppressed group to liberate, and transgenderism fit the bill nicely.
Gender vs. Sex
When I was young, if you had to fill out a form, be it census, medical, or something else, you would be asked to mark your sex with the options of male and female. Then, somewhere along the way, the question shifted from asking sex to asking your gender, but at first still with the same two options of male and female. When this happened, I thought it was a more politically correct way of asking the same question; however, that was not really the case. This actually denoted a subtle but profound shift in thinking.
Back in 1949, Simone de Beauvoir wrote The Second Sex in which she posited the idea that biological sex and gender are different things. (I wrote more about the philosophy behind the sexual revolution here.) The difference is that sex is a biological term while gender is a linguistic term. If you have ever learned an inflected language such as French, Spanish, or German, then you know that in these languages every noun is given a gender. Romance languages such as French and Spanish tend to have two genders: masculine and feminine, but others like German add a third: neuter. For the most part, English only uses genders in regard to pronouns, thus the difference between “he,” “she,” and “it.” In an inflected language, every noun is given a gender, even if it seems arbitrary, and there is nothing specifically male or female about most objects. What is significant is that whatever gender a noun is given, it is merely a cultural convention, rather than based on objective fact. When de Beauvoir argued that female is a gender, she was saying that the ways of behaving, or gender roles, are not biologically determined, rather they are socially determined. This means that to speak of sex is to speak of a biological, physical reality. However, to speak of gender is to speak of socially constructed roles.
French postmodern philosopher Michel Foucault argued that the very notion of sexuality is actually based on discourse. He noted that it was in the 19th Century that people started to talk in ways that categorize “sexuality” based upon actions, pleasures, and preferences. It was first done to diagnose various sexual problems (i.e., homosexuality, pedophilia, etc.). For Foucault, there is no “true self” that is the ontological reality of an individual, rather discourse creates the self. Foucault then advocated for the homosexual rights movement to use this idea to reinvent itself and change the discourse by controlling the words and discourse used, such as replacing “homosexual” with “gay” in popular parlance. This created a sexual identity to be used in biopolitics.[2]
Then, in 1990 Judith Butler released her book Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. In this work Butler builds on de Beauvoir and argues that gender is performative. By this she asserts that there is no objective reality to gender, rather “men” and “women” are merely categories of the ways that people behave in our society. For her, woman is not a class but a performance that constructs “gendered” reality which she calls “gender performativity.” For her, “queer” is anything that falls outside of the socially expected gender performances. For Butler and those following her, “to queer” is to destabilized categories and disrupt norms and thereby liberate those oppressed by these categories.[3]
This term, “queer,” is curious because it refers to what is at odds with what is normal, but it has no particular thing that it stands for.[4] This is why someone who is gay can be called “queer” but queer is also awarded its own label: the “Q” in LGBTQ+. This has given rise to the rather crass, but technical term, “genderfucking.” This was created to mean “to fuck about with the meaning of ‘gender’ so as to queer it.”[5] Pluckrose and Lindsay note that “The incoherence of queer Theory is an intentional feature, not a bug.”[6]
Sexual Reassignment Surgery
The attempts to change one’s body to match their preferred sex actually goes back just over 100 years. The first medical institution dedicated to divergent sexuality was the Institute for Sexual Research in Berlin. It existed from 1919-1933 and was the first institution to actively investigate surgical methods to change one’s sex.[7] This institution was then shut down by the Nazis as part of their early campaign to clean up Germany.[8]
The seeming breakthrough in the arena of gender identity was brought about by the New Zealand psychologist and sexologist John Money. Money moved to the US and theorized that gender identity is totally divorced from biology and comes purely from upbringing. His early work was with hermaphrodites, and from this he argued that boys could be raised as girls and vice versa. Money’s great chance came in 1966 when the circumcision of an 8-month-old boy, one of a set of twins, was terribly botched, and his penis was burned off. Money saw his chance and counseled the parents to raise this son, Bruce, as a girl, Brenda. Money published widely about the success of this case and garnered great fame from it. However, all was not as Money made it seem. It turns out that Money falsified the data and lied about the reality. In truth, “Brenda” always felt wrong as a girl, and when his parents finally told him what happened, he detransitioned, taking the name of David, and even married. However, the damage to the family was terrible; his twin brother died of an overdose and then David committed suicide due to the trauma.[9] However, by the time Money’s deceit had become public, his views had already become widely accepted.
From Fringe to Mainstream
There can be little doubt that following Jenner’s 20/20 interview, transgenderism moved from a little thought about fringe to widely celebrated segment of our society. Social media, especially Tik Tok, has promoted this lifestyle. Some have even noted that this seems to have become something of a social contagion. Previously, gender dysphoria was considered to be a life-long condition, but recently there has arisen the new phenomenon of “rapid onset gender dysphoria.” This involves teenagers and those in their 20s who had previously no issues with identifying with their biological sex, but they now declare themselves to be transgendered. This appears to be driven far more by social factors than anything else. It should come as no surprise that this discomfort arises during the time of puberty and immediately after when young people are uncomfortable with their changing bodies. While numerous studies show that if one just waits until adulthood, the vast majority of these individuals will embrace their biological sex without any intervention, we are presently being inundated with the message that they need to have this alternate identity affirmed rather than waiting it out.
There is also no question that the Social Justice Movement, which is always on the lookout for forms of oppression to protest, has latched onto transgenderism as another example of how a minority is being oppressed by the majority. This fits their narrative and gives them more ammunition with which to attack Western society, including the traditional teachings of Christianity.
As a result, we have seen a radical shift in our society, where objective reality is now rejected. One is not supposed to believe what their senses (and even medical tests) tell them about who they or others are. God’s created reality is now rejected in favor of the idea that we can each create our reality by simply declaring it. However, this also means that objective facts, including DNA tests, are to be rejected.
[1] “Bruce Jenner: ‘For All Intents and Purposes, I’m a Woman,’” ABC7 Los Angeles, n.d., https://abc7.com/bruce-jenner-the-interview-keeping-up-with-kardashians-transgender-abc/680797/.
[2] Christopher Watkin, Michael Foucault, Great Thinkers: A Series. (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P&R Publishing, 2018).
[3] Helen Pluckrose and James A. Lindsay, Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity - and Why This Harms Everybody, First Edition. (Durham, NC: Pitschstone, 2020), chap. 2.
[4] Pluckrose and Lindsay, Cynical Theories, chap. 4.
[5] Pluckrose and Lindsay, Cynical Theories, chap. 4.
[6] Pluckrose and Lindsay, Cynical Theories, chap. 4.
[7] WIKIPEDIA, s.v. “Institut Für Sexualwissenschaft.”
[8] The Nazis had a very confusing relationship with homosexuality. While many are familiar with Kristallnacht and the Nazi imprisoning of homosexuals, most are not aware of the fact that many early Nazis, including the leadership of the SA (Storm-troopers or brown shirts) were homosexuals.
[9] Malena R. Cvz, “The Case of John / Joan,” Roll. Stone Mag. (1997): 54–97; Guillermo Rodríguez, “John Money: Father of Gender Identity, Falsifier and Advocate of Pedophilia,” 9 March 2021, https://elamerican.com/john-money-father-of-gender-identity-falsifier-and-advocate-of-pedophilia/; Anna Slatz, “John Money: The Pro-Pedophile Pervert Who Invented ‘Gender,’” Reduxx, 24 January 2022, https://reduxx.info/john-money-the-pervert-who-invented-gender/.