The Manual of Impossible Demands
An ally has to watch and weigh her every word—and almost out of necessity she will speak less. She's not sure how to refer to her experiences as a woman without causing offense, so she stays quiet.
If you've any doubts that framing the debate around gender identity to falsely equate gender identity and sex is designed to silence women on sex (as the unhinged response to JK Rowling shows), check out how even the most die-hard allies struggle to stay on top of the latest "approved" terminology—and take a look at how these allies are treated when they fail, as they inevitably will, given how wildly claims and demands surrounding gender identity shift.
Is asking someone's preferred pronouns imperative and inclusive? Or is it transphobic and invalidating? The answer changes all the time. Don’t fuck it up!
Or how about this, from the weekly update to the Manual of Impossible Demands: If you don't put pronouns in your bio, you're making the world more hostile for trans people, but also if you do put pronouns in your bio you're forcing trans people to out themselves.
Are transwomen males who desire to perform the social role of women, a subset of women, or literally biologically female (the latest claim)? This storyline has undergone drastic revisions. You weren't out sick when the latest narrative was sent around, were you?
(And, as it's Pride month, who did throw that first brick at Stonewall, anyway? That's changing all the time, too...)
What gymnastics must you perform to sensitively refer to the only class of people who can become pregnant? Uterus-havers? Pregnancy-capable people? Gestators? Incubators? These terms are always falling in and out of favor. Good luck keeping track!
(Take the latest fashion, referring to women as “transmisogyny-exempt.” "Speaking as a transmisogyny-exempt person..." Look how loaded that is, before a woman says a word of her own. What do all female people have in common, according to the super-special male people? Only our privilege in being exempt from "transmisogyny." Why we'd come together on such a thin basis or what we'd even organize for, blessed as we are, remains a mystery.)
It's impossible for women trying to play by the (ever-shifting) rules to win. No matter how hard you try, you're always one breath away from causing offense and being denounced as violent or a "TERF."
Don't read the wrong books, like Caroline Criado Perez’s excellent Invisible Women that talks about why sex and sex-based data matter. Don't follow the wrong people on Twitter.
Disown your childhood heroes like JK Rowling for questioning the gender orthodoxy and uttering such vile heresies as "my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it’s hateful to say so."
Don't speak of what you know, as you know it. Your experiences must be filtered, rendered inoffensive—censored, really. (Like taboos about speaking openly about women's bodies are anything new? Newly progressive, I suppose.)
Don't explore unapproved new ideas. Don't think for yourself. And if you make a mistake (and you will), you'd better make a clean breast (forgive me: chest) of it, and grovel for the chance to slip up again another day.
So an ally has to watch and weigh her every word—and almost out of necessity she will speak less. She's not sure how to refer to her experiences as a woman without causing offense, so she stays quiet. Maybe she doesn't realize yet that there's no way to speak of these experiences without causing offense.
Think about the tax on a woman's energy and attention—not to mention our very ability to think clearly—that this unreasonable demand to deny sex differences represents. Yet that's the price of being a good ally. Increasingly, it's the price of participating in progressive movements stretching far beyond trans activism.
From presidential campaigns to grassroots organizing to protect our too-hot planet, it's expected that people will profess allegiance to the new creed of innate gender identity—or at least pretend with convincing fervor. Think about the women who've been kicked out of climate advocacy because they refuse to participate in more fashionable (sorry, "progressive") forms of science denial.
What does this do to our ability to build solidarity across movements on the Left to counter the real threats we face? Neither sex nor gender identity will matter very much if our planet isn't livable. Who benefits from this?
What does all this do to the possibilities of solidarity across difference? The differences are real. The solidarity can be real, too, but solidarity requires honesty and openness, and an ability to bring conflicts into the light so they can be fairly adjudicated. I've had this quote stuck in my head: "When the truth offends, we lie and lie until we cannot even remember it's there. But it is still there. Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, the debt is paid."
The longer we put off an open and honest dialogue about the differences and conflicts that exist between sex-based rights and claims made on the basis of gender identity, the greater the debt we incur to the truth. We can't run away from the truth forever, but we can lose a lot of valuable time and energy doing so. Time and energy we need. Let's stop running. It's time to talk about sex.
