The Genesis of Gender

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Abigail Favale’s The Genesis of Gender is a helpful overview of the current controversy over gender ideology from a philosophical and theological perspective. Anyone seeking to understand what the heck is going on here would do well to dive into this book, as Favale unpacks some background – how “gender” became a thing at all, and then such a dominant paradigm – and then invites the reader to look at this issue as an expression of existential dis-ease, both on an individual and a society-wide level.

That said, I also think that if one is familiar with trans-related events and incidents as they are occurring these days, one might finish the book, consider the news of the day, and sense something missing in Favale’s treatment.

In The Genesis of Gender, Favale takes us first, on a personal intellectual journey, then lays out a theological understanding of the issue, followed by explanations of feminist and other philosophical movements that produced the division between sex and gender, and finishing with a few chapters digging into the current scene of transgender activism and treatment.

Most of those last chapters focuses on girls and women – much of the same ground covered by Abigail Shrier in Irreversible Damage.  There’s barely any time given to men seeking to claim female identity, and there’s your gap.

Everything Favale writes about this is, of course true and a real problem, and I agree with her take – I’ve written about it in the past.

However, when you scan the news and follow the events related to trans activism as they unfold on a daily basis in this moment, what you will find is that this issue and activism on this score is dominated by men. Yes, we have a crisis in western countries related to girls and women seeking to opt out of womanhood, and the proportion of young women seeking to “transition” has exploded in recent years.

And as helpful as Favale’s discussion is on this score, it doesn’t do much to explain the men. It doesn’t explain Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Levine and it sure doesn’t explain the virulent and violent hostility that trans activists, most of them men, have towards women.

Who are these guys, why do they want to perform womanhood and why do they seem to actually hate women so much?

There are a number of different angles to this issue, and the dysphoric female-to-bro pipeline is one, and while the bigger spiritual picture Favale paints is applicable to the yearnings and desires of all (or most), her treatment doesn’t account for whatever it is that is driving these men.

Because it’s hard to fit porn-fueled paraphilia, fetishes and mental illness into that picture.

There’s another omission, I think, related to feminism.

Favale threads the feminist needle well, especially considering her audience which might well be reflexively hostile to any notion of feminism. She gives an excellent backgrounder on the history of feminism and how the movement has contributed to the destructive gender paradigm, pointing out the contradictions and inconsistencies along the way.

However, what Favale fails to mention in any substantive way is the role that feminists are playing the fight against gender ideology right now. This is something for which I’ve also critiqued Matt Walsh.

Yes, self-identified American feminists whose voices define “feminism” in this country, who dominate academia and all kinds of institutions – are indeed, on the trans train. They are hypocrites,  handmaidens, they are betraying women and girls and they are truly digging their own graves.

But all over the world, most of the women who are speaking up about this – and are suffering consequences for it, mostly thanks to male activism – are self-declared feminists. They have contempt for those they call “LibFems” – mainstream liberal feminists – and think of themselves as “radical feminists” who center the biological human female in their analyses and activism, no compromise.

I mean – what’s the “slur” hurled at opponents to gender ideology?

TERF – Trans-exclusionary Radical Feminist, right?

I was disappointed that the insights and experiences of these women – who’ve written books, been deplatformed, threatened, and fired from jobs – are not referenced in The Genesis of Gender. Favale mentions gender-critical feminists, but in an offhand way, which I think is unfair and even an inaccurate rendering of the current moment, since so much of the pushback against gender ideology is actually being powered by gender-critical feminists, particularly in Europe.

It’s not an easy alliance – from either end. There’s a lot of discussion among gender-critical radical feminists about joining forces with conservative and traditionally-minded activists, there’s anger whenever, say, Kara Dansky goes on Tucker Carlson. There’s discomfort from the conservative end with other goals of the gender-critical feminists, most importantly, abortion rights. That’s all understandable and expected.  

But at the same time, I think our understanding of this moment – and our ability to do battle – requires us to take into account both the mental illness, paraphilia and fundamental misogyny that is driving so much of the gender paradigm and what the radical feminists who recognize that for what it is are saying and doing about it themselves.

It’s absolutely true that the tragedy of girls and young women seeking to opt out of womanhood is a social, cultural and spiritual problem which Favale’s analysis is helpful to understand.

But there’s something else at work in a moment like this, a moment, for example, when a town’s mayor expresses great pride in the hundreds who came out to protest, shout down and threaten 80- year old Julia Jaman and her supporters speaking out against a physically intact male having access to women’s spaces and indeed, “helping” young girls in the changing room. All because that male decided that he’s Clementine now, and, according to the mayor of Port Townsend, Washington, anyone disagreeing is a “TERF,” with no place in his city.

Yes, when the mayor defends the male’s right to be in a women’s locker room with elderly women and little girls, and would like the women who disagree to just shut up, go away, and let the men wearing lipstick and heels who happen to be named Clementine, Caitlyn and Rachel do what they want – that is, indeed, a different sort of problem that might call for a more expansive conversation and response.