I came across an acronym recently which puzzled me. Someone critical of J. K. Rowling’s position on transgender women accused the writer of being TERF. I had to look up the term and found it means activists who seek to limit full equality for transgender people and exclude trans women from women’s spaces. I was surprised. Nothing I’d read by Rowling suggested she wanted to limit transgender rights. I’m not even sure she wants to exclude them from women’s spaces. A recent poll revealed a majority of women don’t worry about sharing private spaces like bathrooms and dressing rooms with transgender women. What worries them were imposters in stilettos who mean to do them harm. Crimes of this sort may be rare, but to a victim, statistics mean little. Data, in fact, reveals a stunning irony. Transgenders face greater harm in private spaces than women. In any case, Rowling’s fears, as I read them centered on how transgender issues affected women’s rights. A long-time feminist, I decided to examine her arguments. Because the library on sex and gender is vast, this blog will rely on two documents as I review the issue: a) Rowlings’ “manifesto” on sex/gender and b) Scientific American’s article on what science has learned about the subject. Rowling’s View: For the record, literature on problems that arise when transgender men identify as men is scarce. The writer’s essay doesn’t address that question. Her focus is on transgender women, specifically those who self-identify. She raises 5 points to explain why she objects to defining them as women. 1. She fears the erosion of women’s rights, believing that trans-activism will erode the legal definition of sex and replace it with gender. The broadening effect, she assumes, will have negative consequences for women. Except as a physical act, Rowling does not attempt to define sex as opposed to gender, so her argument doesn’t flow from any premise. To be fair, I could find no legal definition of sex either. In many cases, the terms sex and gender are used interchangeably. Here’s one example: Sex may refer to either the gender of individuals in many species that are distinguished as being female or male. Constitutional law considers sex a “suspect classification”, so classifications made by public entities based upon gender are strictly scrutinized for a compelling state interest to support it. 2.Rowling explains that as a former teacher, she wants to safeguard the interest of children. Again, she fails to identify what those interests are. I can only point out that the transgender movement makes the same claim. 3. Rowling also worries that transgender campaigns will affect free speech. She cites the example of two women who lost their jobs because they opposed the transgender movement. That number pales, however, when compared to workplace firings of transgenders. 4. Rowling fears homophobia is driving many women to join the transgender movement. She admits she has no data to support this opinion, but points to social media as an influencer and couples it with patriarchy’s allure [for] escaping womanhood. 5. Her final point is anecdotal. As someone who lived as a battered spouse, she’s uncomfortable with transgender women who have done nothing but self-identify. She isn’t alone in that concern as the poll I cited earlier showed. Scientific American on Sex and Gender: Recent scientific discoveries are testing our understanding of ourselves. As the Scientific American article explains, physiology isn’t a definitive marker for a person’s sex. Possessing a penis or a womb doesn’t make an individual a man or a woman. Nor does the presence of XX and XY chromosomes. The arguments are as follows. Genes within chromosomes can complicate sex identification. …new technologies in DNA sequencing and cell biology are revealing that almost everyone is, to varying degrees, a patchwork of genetically distinct cells, some with a sex that might not match that of the rest of the body…[suggesting] there’s a much greater diversity within male and female, and there’s certainly an area overlap where some people can’t define themselves within the binary structure. As we know, the sex of an embryo is indeterminate during the first 4-5 weeks of gestation, a time in which genes do a mysterious dance to manifest sex. During that time, various combinations of gene expression are possible. What’s more, some scientists suspect sex assignment isn’t immutable. Realignments can occur post-natally without medical intervention due to hormonal changes. Scientists base their suspicion on mice studies. We also know that individuals sometimes possess both male and female genitalia, one external and the other internal. A woman might discover this about herself while undergoing going fertility treatments, for example. Another condition is Mosaicism. With this variant, a person has more than one genetic makeup. Fraternal twins are an example, a case when one embryo carries two different sets of genes. More combinations exist but these are sufficient to explain why biologists see sex as a spectrum rather than binary. If society wants a more definitive standard, it will have to draw a line somewhere along that spectrum to define male and female. It wouldn’t be the first time society has made an arbitrary decision. We award adulthood to individuals when they turn 18 even though the human brain doesn’t fully develop until the mid to late twenties. Another alternative to the sex/gender equation might be to eliminate the concept of sex, though it flies in the face of centuries of human understanding. Yet another approach would be to establish a legal definition for a third sex. What we do know is that defining sex is complicated. Learning a person’s gender is easier. Because the term refers to the way an individual’s emotional and mental identity aligns with biology, the best way is to ask. Issues of Concern: Society will eventually decide where transgenders fit in the sexual spectrum. The debate so far has been rancorous with science, lawyers, and stakeholders shedding little light. Nonetheless, transgender women who self-identify would be wise to ponder the […]
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