Absolutely agree that Gender Ideology is akin to religious thinking.
However, one marked difference between the proponents of Gender Ideology and religious people is that religious people tend to admit the ‘faith’ based nature of their position. Indeed many exalt in faith as the highest value.
Gender ideologists would never admit their ideas are essentially a faith based system. They firmly see themselves as part of the secular, rational, scientific and progressive traditions.
I can’t remember where I came across this idea but it stuck with me and I’m reminded of it here: bizarre/false beliefs actually work better to bind groups of people together than rational/true beliefs. ANYONE can believe something true -it’s easy- but it takes real dedication to believe something that is obviously false. Declaring that the sky is blue impresses no one. Declaring that a cracker can literally become the flesh of your savior, on the other hand, demonstrates an impressive commitment to Catholicism. Likewise, only the most fervent progressives believe that human sex isn’t binary. It’s an impressive thing to profess precisely because it conflicts with the evidence in front of us, and that makes it a good indicator of in-group loyalty... very much like a religion.
I'm just so grateful I found your substack. I can feel my sanity returning.
I'm just a good, old-fashioned Bernie Sanders-type leftist who, until recently, hadn't thought much about the trans issue except to vaguely wonder what does it mean to be a man trapped in a woman's body or vice versa.
Then suddenly it was everywhere, and I noticed you weren't allowed to even ask questions much less say you didn't agree. The comparison to a religion is an apt one. And a high control, cult-like religion at that.
I really felt like my sanity was slipping. I was getting panicky. People are saying you can't be a leftist if you don't swallow the whole trans agenda. And I'm left wondering what any of that had to do with wanting to get money out of politics, reject neoliberalism, support workers, mitigate climate change, etc., etc., etc. If I'm not willing to introduce myself with my pronouns and intone "trans women are women," I can't support those things? Who made those weird new rules? If I were conspiracy minded, I'd wonder if this were some psyop to destroy the left.
It’s not only religious, it’s fundamental. My father-in-law for example is a retired Lutheran pastor. I’m Jewish agnostic/atheist. We get along great even though our beliefs don’t line up. I am not a heathen or hellbound in his eyes. But to my trans daughter, JK Rowling for instance, is a monster. Abigail Shrier’s book is nazi propaganda. Blue lives matter stickers are a sign of the devil. Our one stipulation in approaching our daughter’s fundy cult is to allow that our skepticism isn’t transphobia. Communication is demanded. I’m lucky that she is agreeable to this. It’s one of a handful of hopes I hold that she will come out of this intact. And—Love your piece as always!
I've been trying to frame my conversations with the gender believers in my life in exactly this way. The problem is not that they believe things I do not believe. The problem is not even that, through my lens, their beliefs are delusions that cause them unnecessary and even tragic personal harm. All religions do that, in my view. The problem is that their religious beliefs are being hammered into laws, norms, policies, and rules throughout our secular institutions. Most religious people are used to and even value the idea of the separation of church and state. But in this moment, there is no acknowledgement that the state has become the Church of Queer.
I think it’s precisely this belief — “others know better and I should just trust the experts” — that’s behind much of the institutional support for affirmative care. No one is bothering to verify who the “experts” are and how strong their evidence is. And of course, it’s politically and professionally advantageous not to. What throws a cog into this somewhat forgiving rationalization is the dismissal of the shift in policy in Sweden and Finland. Here we introduce willful ignorance or flat out indifference, and there’s no way to spin that in any charitable light.
The comparison to religion is spot on. I can’t help but notice that the rise in radical trans activism, which promotes women who don’t want to have sex with trans women as transphobic or TERFs, which is a slur, coincides with the campaign to erode biological women’s rights by conservatives.
For decades, Iran, a strictly gendered and religious country, has been coercing gay people to undergo gender reassignment surgery, or face death. Is this trans rights campaign at its core a way to accomplish something similar, and brainwash lesbians into sex with men, but through propaganda? Are progressives too concerned with appearing progressive to realize this is reversing women’s right to consent?
There are many correlates between the attitudes towards women of the most aggressive trans activists and conservatives. Incels (straight men who are involuntarily celibate) think women should not be able to decide with whom they have sex. Many prominent trans women on Twitter say that lesbians should learn to view penises as female sex organs, on men who identify as women, and accept and enjoy penetrative sex with them.
This is frighteningly similar to the old attitude that lesbians could be ‘cured’ of their homosexuality by being raped. Being straight or homosexual is not fetishizing genitals, it’s being true to yourself and your feelings, just like consent is about choosing who you want to be with, regardless of who wants to be with you.
This made me think of how Christianity requires it's followers to have faith and doubt is viewed as undesirable: "the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea", "trust in the lord...and do not lean on your own understanding ", "oh you of little faith ". To not question gender ideology is a demonstration of one's faith and seen as ideal whereas to question is to demonstrate doubt or to be without faith which is seen as a threat.
Incidentally, when I was searching separation of church and state, I stumbled upon an article that said in addition to the Roe ruling, the supreme court has been siding more and more with those citing freedom of religion to the point where "secularism..(is seen as)...a form of discrimination against religion." Seems to apply in the case of gender ideology as well.
"I reject—totally—the demand that you must subscribe to someone else's belief system in order to care about them or that you must profess religious dogmas to have a voice in this debate. That if you disbelieve you do not care and your motivations are suspect."
This is such an important point! Suppose I were Catholic, and demanded that the only way people could respect me or care about me or even speak about me was by adhering to Catholicism. That would be seen as an unreasonable power play. And so is gender ideology.
This reminds me of an exchange I had with Angel Eduardo (sp?) on Twitter, who is part of the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism. Basically how this sort of "woke" stuff is not a religion, though I liken it to be more like a cult. With all the standard canned responses. There seems to be a lot of handwringing, whenever you compare this stuff to religion, because religious types will get upset and be like "NUUUUU It is not religion!!!" There's a woman who writes for the NYT who has said this, her name escapes me at the moment, but she's fairly young and Catholic.
But like, when we say these things we are not calling it religion, but taking the worst elements of what religious like behavior is and applying it. The group that "can't be questioned" or the sticking to a script part and going off the script means you're a heretic.
Absolutely agree that Gender Ideology is akin to religious thinking.
However, one marked difference between the proponents of Gender Ideology and religious people is that religious people tend to admit the ‘faith’ based nature of their position. Indeed many exalt in faith as the highest value.
Gender ideologists would never admit their ideas are essentially a faith based system. They firmly see themselves as part of the secular, rational, scientific and progressive traditions.
And that’s often what makes it so dementing.
I can’t remember where I came across this idea but it stuck with me and I’m reminded of it here: bizarre/false beliefs actually work better to bind groups of people together than rational/true beliefs. ANYONE can believe something true -it’s easy- but it takes real dedication to believe something that is obviously false. Declaring that the sky is blue impresses no one. Declaring that a cracker can literally become the flesh of your savior, on the other hand, demonstrates an impressive commitment to Catholicism. Likewise, only the most fervent progressives believe that human sex isn’t binary. It’s an impressive thing to profess precisely because it conflicts with the evidence in front of us, and that makes it a good indicator of in-group loyalty... very much like a religion.
I'm just so grateful I found your substack. I can feel my sanity returning.
I'm just a good, old-fashioned Bernie Sanders-type leftist who, until recently, hadn't thought much about the trans issue except to vaguely wonder what does it mean to be a man trapped in a woman's body or vice versa.
Then suddenly it was everywhere, and I noticed you weren't allowed to even ask questions much less say you didn't agree. The comparison to a religion is an apt one. And a high control, cult-like religion at that.
I really felt like my sanity was slipping. I was getting panicky. People are saying you can't be a leftist if you don't swallow the whole trans agenda. And I'm left wondering what any of that had to do with wanting to get money out of politics, reject neoliberalism, support workers, mitigate climate change, etc., etc., etc. If I'm not willing to introduce myself with my pronouns and intone "trans women are women," I can't support those things? Who made those weird new rules? If I were conspiracy minded, I'd wonder if this were some psyop to destroy the left.
It’s not only religious, it’s fundamental. My father-in-law for example is a retired Lutheran pastor. I’m Jewish agnostic/atheist. We get along great even though our beliefs don’t line up. I am not a heathen or hellbound in his eyes. But to my trans daughter, JK Rowling for instance, is a monster. Abigail Shrier’s book is nazi propaganda. Blue lives matter stickers are a sign of the devil. Our one stipulation in approaching our daughter’s fundy cult is to allow that our skepticism isn’t transphobia. Communication is demanded. I’m lucky that she is agreeable to this. It’s one of a handful of hopes I hold that she will come out of this intact. And—Love your piece as always!
I've been trying to frame my conversations with the gender believers in my life in exactly this way. The problem is not that they believe things I do not believe. The problem is not even that, through my lens, their beliefs are delusions that cause them unnecessary and even tragic personal harm. All religions do that, in my view. The problem is that their religious beliefs are being hammered into laws, norms, policies, and rules throughout our secular institutions. Most religious people are used to and even value the idea of the separation of church and state. But in this moment, there is no acknowledgement that the state has become the Church of Queer.
I think it’s precisely this belief — “others know better and I should just trust the experts” — that’s behind much of the institutional support for affirmative care. No one is bothering to verify who the “experts” are and how strong their evidence is. And of course, it’s politically and professionally advantageous not to. What throws a cog into this somewhat forgiving rationalization is the dismissal of the shift in policy in Sweden and Finland. Here we introduce willful ignorance or flat out indifference, and there’s no way to spin that in any charitable light.
The comparison to religion is spot on. I can’t help but notice that the rise in radical trans activism, which promotes women who don’t want to have sex with trans women as transphobic or TERFs, which is a slur, coincides with the campaign to erode biological women’s rights by conservatives.
For decades, Iran, a strictly gendered and religious country, has been coercing gay people to undergo gender reassignment surgery, or face death. Is this trans rights campaign at its core a way to accomplish something similar, and brainwash lesbians into sex with men, but through propaganda? Are progressives too concerned with appearing progressive to realize this is reversing women’s right to consent?
There are many correlates between the attitudes towards women of the most aggressive trans activists and conservatives. Incels (straight men who are involuntarily celibate) think women should not be able to decide with whom they have sex. Many prominent trans women on Twitter say that lesbians should learn to view penises as female sex organs, on men who identify as women, and accept and enjoy penetrative sex with them.
This is frighteningly similar to the old attitude that lesbians could be ‘cured’ of their homosexuality by being raped. Being straight or homosexual is not fetishizing genitals, it’s being true to yourself and your feelings, just like consent is about choosing who you want to be with, regardless of who wants to be with you.
This made me think of how Christianity requires it's followers to have faith and doubt is viewed as undesirable: "the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea", "trust in the lord...and do not lean on your own understanding ", "oh you of little faith ". To not question gender ideology is a demonstration of one's faith and seen as ideal whereas to question is to demonstrate doubt or to be without faith which is seen as a threat.
Incidentally, when I was searching separation of church and state, I stumbled upon an article that said in addition to the Roe ruling, the supreme court has been siding more and more with those citing freedom of religion to the point where "secularism..(is seen as)...a form of discrimination against religion." Seems to apply in the case of gender ideology as well.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-supreme-court-takes-aim-separation-church-state-2022-06-28/
Spot on dear Eliza, as always. What a great read this is.
"I reject—totally—the demand that you must subscribe to someone else's belief system in order to care about them or that you must profess religious dogmas to have a voice in this debate. That if you disbelieve you do not care and your motivations are suspect."
This is such an important point! Suppose I were Catholic, and demanded that the only way people could respect me or care about me or even speak about me was by adhering to Catholicism. That would be seen as an unreasonable power play. And so is gender ideology.
This reminds me of an exchange I had with Angel Eduardo (sp?) on Twitter, who is part of the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism. Basically how this sort of "woke" stuff is not a religion, though I liken it to be more like a cult. With all the standard canned responses. There seems to be a lot of handwringing, whenever you compare this stuff to religion, because religious types will get upset and be like "NUUUUU It is not religion!!!" There's a woman who writes for the NYT who has said this, her name escapes me at the moment, but she's fairly young and Catholic.
But like, when we say these things we are not calling it religion, but taking the worst elements of what religious like behavior is and applying it. The group that "can't be questioned" or the sticking to a script part and going off the script means you're a heretic.
Great piece again.
Brilliant piece--you write so well!
Oh, hell yeah.