What Has Happened to the Gender Critical Movement?

Hint: They've adopted their opponents' definition of "gender"

Gender, as imaged by transgender activists and many of their opponents

“Women’s clothes don’t belong to women,” I once said to my now ex-husband Jamie when he began to crossdress. “So I don’t care who wears them.”

I didn’t have the relevant vocabulary yet, but that position was known as “gender critical.” Arising from radical feminism,¹ it refers to a critique of the sex stereotypes—that’s what “gender” is—that society imposes on women. As feminist linguist Deb Cameron notes, nearly all behaviors deemed “feminine”—the movement-restricting clothing, the emphasis on beauty, the call for deference, the limits imposed on our financial independence and our career prospects—are designed to fashion us into subservient sexual partners and support systems for heterosexual men. Women can critique and resist these demands, radical feminism says, and seek full humanity on our own terms.

The position is also a liberal one, in the old-school, small-L definition so eloquently defended by my friend Helen Pluckrose—notwithstanding the Democratic party’s (and modern feminism’s) departure from its value system. That is to say, it’s a defense of freedom, to include freedom of expression and tolerance of alternative sexualities. And no wonder: it was brought to us largely by gender-nonconforming, self-described butch lesbians and hairy, bra-burning seventies feminists.

“Gender criticals are gender essentialists,” Jamie said to me later, when we’d become more immersed in the online discourse. “They see biology as destiny.”

“No.” I said. “That’s wrong.” As someone who’d read the second-wave feminists gracing my mom’s bookshelf as a kid, decades before Jamie had started to dabble in the topic, I understood the position well. Gender criticals were exactly the opposite, I informed him; they opposed the conflation of sex with sex stereotypes. They knew that women are harmed most when rigid gender expectations are enforced, from the hanging of “outspoken” or “feisty“ women in the Salem witch trials to the thwarted career prospects of the “demanding,” makeup-eschewing professional woman from Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins. Gender criticals brought us critiques of the appearance-obsessed Miss America pageant and a math-challenged Barbie. They were anything but stans for gender conformity.

But Jamie was sure that radical feminists were “anti-trans,” per the activists he was consulting, which must mean they wanted him to “man up” and put on some pants.

This was a misunderstanding of radical feminism, I told Jamie. If you reject gender stereotypes for women, you can’t then turn around and define women by gender stereotypes. Women are defined by the body we’re born in, not by the makeup or clothing or gendered expectations that body seems to invite in a sexist society. If women have an interest in gathering with our own in a setting like Michfest, without inviting anyone else, that’s because we recognize ourselves as a sex class with our own interests and needs. We are uniquely affected by childhood socialization, menstruation, pregnancy, sexual assault, and more; these don’t mirror the experiences of feminized men. Radical feminist interests aren’t about “trans women,” even if some of those interests indirectly offend or exclude them. Radical feminist interests are about women. Not every event is for everybody. Not every movement is for everybody.

I was right, at the time.

It was a year or two ago when I first saw a tweet claiming that gender criticals aren’t always feminists, and in fact, some are conservatives. That made no sense to me. How is critiquing gender not a feminist project? What conservative argues against the traditional, often gendered values he holds dear?

Then I started to notice that all sorts of people were being called “gender critical” who are nothing of the sort—from Matt Walsh, who wanted Dylan Mulvaney to repent of his gayness long before he transitioned, to Kellie Jay Keen and her followers, who think my friend Cori, who was injured by youth gender transition decades ago, should get a haircut and pursue a more “male-coded“ look. That crowd, of course, is the same that’s decided that gender stereotypes should be not critiqued, but reinstated, anywhere there’s a suspicion of fetishism—which in the case of men is nearly always. As I’ve pointed out before, that is an illiberal and dangerous idea.

It didn’t occur to me that the definition of “gender critical” was shifting, only that an increasing number of unfortunate souls were claiming its mantle in ignorance of its actual positions. A few, like Dr. Jane Cassandra Jones, were getting it right. Surely truth would prevail and the neo “gender criticals” would find another name under which to wave their confusing mix of views.

It was a few months ago when I was working with an editor on an article I’d submitted on drag (watch this space for details). I mentioned gender criticals in it, noting they were against the conflation of sex with sex stereotypes. The editor challenged me, insisting I address the group’s “anti-trans” stance. What was going on? How were so many ostensibly intelligent people, nearly a decade after I set my ex-husband straight, adopting his misconceptions about radical feminism?

Finally, I looked around. I noticed that something important had changed.

The word “literally,” to the chagrin of language nerds like myself, now means “figuratively”—its opposite. The phrase “alternative music” refers not to the strange tunes once aired on MTV’s 120 Minutes, but to popular rock—its opposite.

The word “gender critical” now refers to its opposite, too.

I was right when I corrected Jamie. But unfortunately, Jamie is now the one who’s right.

What has become clear—though I’ve been especially slow to realize it—is that the neo “gender criticals” are using a different definition of “gender” than the original gender criticals.

They aren’t critiquing sex stereotypes. They’re critiquing transgenderism.

What’s ironic about that is that it shows they’ve adopted the definition of “gender” utilized by their opponents. For them, “gender” no longer refers to an arbitrary, oppressive set of behaviors unfairly linked to sex. Instead, “gender” refers to one’s internal sense of maleness or femaleness, and the self-expression that comes with that identity.

They’re using the word as misappropriated by queer theorists, who reject the notion that sex stereotypes are harmful to women, reframing them as a route to self-fulfillment for everyone. Even as they condemn Judith Butler and Michel Foucault, neo gender criticals owe those two homage for defining the terms of their philosophy. I used to think these people were gender criticals inexplicably going their own way; now I think they were never on the gender critical page. They’re likely every bit as confused by the infighting in the movement as I have been.

Honestly, it’s not surprising. Social media will always be dominated by people excited to broadcast their outrage, not people willing to read foundational texts or understand complex analysis. Social media will always reveal, more than anything, the basic, unmediated urges of the id.

Neo gender criticals don’t want sex stereotypes abolished. They want them re-assigned to the appropriate sex. They believe a world which requires men to dress like men will better help them spot fetishism, which they’ve deemed a greater social ill than sexism or illiberalism.

The old analysis exists and is important. But I will not be invoking the language of a movement whose loudest advocates never understood its origins.

1. Though I suggest we drop the word “radical.” Yes, I know what it means. But we shouldn’t agree to relegate ourselves to the kids’ table in our own movement, as if we’re some fringe offshoot whose critique of sexism is somehow passé.