NOTE: the following is excepted and adapted from our upcoming book on the transgender movement.
What is a woman? Why has this question become a dividing line? If you think you know what a woman is, you don’t, as the gender identity experts teach us; you need gender theory re-education.
To the outsider, gender theory can be confusing. But anyone can become an expert in a matter of minutes by understanding two simple rules:
1. Identity trumps everything.
2. Anyone who attempts to deny gender identity must be summarily dismissed as irredeemable, fundamentally incapable of being right or even relevant.
If you can assent to these rules, you’ll be an expert by the end of this quick guide.
These two rules combine absolutism and relativism to enable narcissistic validation of identity. The two rules ensure that every individual is a sovereign nation protected by a multi-national treaty alliance against the despots who oppose unrestricted selfhood (like NATO for gender identity activists). Under these rules, if you claim sanctuary under the Alphabet of Oppression, you must stand in solidarity with every other letter, even where that identity seems to abnegate your own (such as when “pre-op trans women” insist that only “transphobic” lesbians would refuse to have sex with them). Every fellow sufferer of injustice becomes an ally under a pact of reciprocal support for any notion and mutual aid in any argument. You can never question any authentic identity, not even your own. Just go with it. The first rule enforces absolutism at the level of selfhood, removing the restrictions of realism, while the second rule mandates relativism at the level of social interaction, forbidding criticism of any identity, allowing one xie to support another, all theys to celebrate each other, and so on. Be your true self, the first rule dictates, no matter what that happens to be: man, woman, either, neither, both, whatever. The second rule ensures that all gender activists remain insulated from self-reflection in a bubble of mutual congratulation. Self-reflection is always dangerous for those committed to their true identities.
If you say you are a woman, you are a woman, no matter what anyone says, no matter what the mirror shows, no matter what your chromosomes determine. In a lineup of a “pre-op T-gurl,” a “fully transitioned trans woman,” and a pregnant woman, not one is more woman than another, as gender theory allows us to see. Each gender identity negates the tyranny of realism, but not one negates another.
According to rule number one, you can bend any words to new meanings, mash separate words into new terms, or coin new words altogether, so long as they relate to non-conforming gender identities. You can say anything, provided that it contradicts the biological binarism accepted by every oppressive culture throughout history. If you can nod your head and repeat certain sounds in the right syntactical positions, you instantly become an expert, knowing as much as a post-doctorate fellow who’s devoted 20 years to exploring gender theory. The less you know, the better. The more you can agree to, the farther you can go in the field of gender activism. You can be an expert in gender theory as long as you forswear all expertise except self-knowledge, avoiding all absolute positions but your own identity, staying rigid in your relativism toward everything else.
Confused about what genderqueer means? You’re missing the point. Just nod your head, purse your lips, and squint your eyes to show your sincerity and empathy. Tilt your head for extra emphasis, as needed. Ignorance is bliss; knowledge is arrogance (to elevate knowing above choice, thereby abnegating free will, you must dismiss the possibility of shared, verifiable knowledge). Act shocked, indignant — baffled — when someone denies your basic right to “live your truth” by disagreeing with you or an ally. Provide mutual aid to any ally, no matter the context. Demonstrate that you fall on the right side of history. To enter a conversation on gender identity, you need only consider one factor to evaluate and respond to any assertion: its source. Any statement from an ally is unquestionable. Anything from an enemy is false or irrelevant, stated out of spite and bigotry. Enemies are easy to distinguish from allies. You can identify an enemy because his statements attempt to nullify your truth; you can identify the oppressive intentions behind his statements because he is your enemy, bent on erasing your identity.
A trans woman, a unicorn, and a Rabbi walk into a bar
What seems like a joke to the uninitiated is quite serious indeed. Gender is no laughing matter. Adhering to the rules above, we come to understand the prevailing blindness to our own ignorance, mandating growing subsets of rules for every occasion. What is a woman? That depends, quite literally, on whom you ask. Not everyone can answer, according to the rules of gender theory:
1. Only a woman can define womanhood — and only as a one-off, self-referential description, rather than a universal set of standards.
2. Anyone can be a woman by proclaiming womanhood.
Thus, a woman is whatever a self-proclaimed woman says she is. By these rules, a man could proclaim he is a woman and state that “‘woman’ means just what I choose it to mean — neither more, nor less.” Although a man, by claiming a transgender identity, could use himself as a standard for womanhood, as he experiences it, a woman could not use herself as a universal criterion for all women, because that would be exclusionary. Establishing such distinctions would be an act of bullying. To the question of womanhood, a “cis-gendered” man can only respond by citing the rules above as an act of allyship, or else commit identity erasure. Nobody can answer the question, except by citing ignorance of everything beyond selfhood. Know thyself — and only thyself.
Other than tautologies, like “a woman is a woman,” gender theory allows no definitions, only negations: a woman is not two X chromosomes; a woman is not a female of the human species; a woman is not dresses and makeup; a woman is not a pair of breasts and female reproductive organs; a woman is not a human whose body, by design, excepting anomalies of genetics, epigenetics, or experience, can gestate a fetus and nurture that infant upon birth with a food source produced by her body; a woman is not the female compliment to the male within her species; a woman is not a person who menstruates; a woman is not anything you assume. According to this blend of relativism and absolutism, identities are infinitely variable, and all definitions are unassailable, except those that describe reality. You will finally understand womanhood when you’ve lost all ability to define it.
What is a woman? Nobody knows, and now so do you!
