A Spectrum of Gender Spectrums
"I am afraid we are not rid of Gender because we still have faith in grammar."
In June of 2018, I went to a Jordan Peterson talk in Portland, Oregon. Of course there was a protest afoot. And of course a protestor was toting a sign that read “infinite genders”
Infinite genders… as opposed to what—144? 89? 55? 34? 21? 13? 8? 5? 3? 2? 1? 0?
Considered geometrically, it’s not entirely nonsensical. If gender is a spectrum, then between any two points on this spectrum exists infinite more points. Simply take out your hair-splitter, set your eyes to squinting, and voila—more gender!
As the anti-discrimination movement made gains breaking down systemic barriers only to find microagressions lurking in every crevasse—so too does the gender spectrum, once taken seriously, inevitably lead to microgenders—which God or a supercomputer alone could count.
The most popular notion of a gender spectrum relies on splitting hairs between two basic poles—popularly portrayed as the G.I. Joe / Barbie binary:
This graphic (distributed by the transgender advocacy group Mermaids UK) was roundly mocked on social media for being based on regressive stereotypes—and as a piece of graphic art it’s grotesquely arbitrary (why are there so many asymmetrical genders, for starters). But at least it attempts to pave a path away from the deterministic sex binary, and provide more than two ways of being in the world.
But why would gender be what organizes these ways of being in the world? Why does gender have to mean so much? And to what extent does my gender identity define my social interactions and subjective experience?
Adversely, is gender entirely a fiction, a ruse of ideologues, invention of pervy doctors, plaything of nutty professors who couldn’t fix a clogged drain but will gladly lecture the plumber about the performativity of his crack whilst he’s wrangling with her pipes?
Political and medical extremities aside, I don’t think any fairly socialized person would think a gender spectrum all that queer. We all experience more or less feminine and masculine men and women, and can recognize gender operating either strongly or weakly in different age groups and cultures and even occupations. Where the concept of gender goes wrong, and turns into an agenda, is with the introduction of identity into the mix. Identity presumes a fixedness and concreteness that gender is not meant to serve. Gender is a mode of relation and expression. It’s a means of being, not a being in itself.
I’ll return to gender identity, but first I must argue further for gender. I will use, as my foil, the best foils on the block, weatherers of many a social media storm and main stream media blackout, men and women who have taught me much, entertained me some, and scolded me often: the Gender Critical.
Even the Gender Critical rely on gender to communicate their values. They profess that biological sex1 is the foundation of their political programme, and yet when “adult human female” is replaced with “menstruator,” “gestator,” “chest-feeder,” “uterus haver,” etc., they say such terminology is dehumanizing. This tastes like have-your-cake-and-criticize-it-too. For if, as they are inclined to say, gender is set of regressive, oppressive stereotypes, and sex is the one true reality, on what basis are they to stand when woman is reduced to a set of biological functions?
Is there not something personal, cultural, and historical about “woman” that the Gender Critical are wanting to preserve? And what is that complex of personal, cultural, historical meaning other than—gender?
The Gender Critical do approach a positive notion of gender when they advocate for acceptance and against harassment of the Gender Non-Conforming. A masculine girl is no less a girl for acting masculine, and a feminine boy is no less a boy for acting feminine. Fair enough, but that statement only makes sense if masculinity and femininity are salient concepts. And insofar as the Gender Critical stop short of building a positive notion of gender—articulating its biological roots, its cultural value, its personal significance—they are weak on two fronts (and they know this, though are feign to admit it):
On their left flank (to evoke a political spectrum) they are vulnerable to Gender Ideologues who, fueled by Critical Theory (in its Queer modality), will proceed to dissolve and demolish the historical, cultural, and biological categories of man and woman until there is nothing left but subjective feeling, self-gratification, and games of gains and losses of power.
On their right flank, Gender Criticals are vulnerable to Gender Conservatives, who will continue to upstage them with coherent gender categories that limit gender expression for the sake of social cohesion (which the radical feminist branch of Gender Criticals dubs patriarchy, and ipso facto oppressive).
What are the Gender Critical to do, then, but define and defend a coherent notion of gender that is flexible enough to allow for individual expression, yet solid enough to stave off the dehumanizing, dissolute tendencies of unfettered Critical Theory? And beyond that—how else are they to preserve and transmit their values—their own sense of what it is to be a woman and what it is to be a man, and how men and women should behave as women and as men, in order for society to continue and continue to function?
Assuming that Gender Criticals are not given to anti-natal nihilism, their reduction of gender to biology must be supplemented with some sort of normative propriety that regulates to the benefit of self and society the psyches of both sexes.
For the nature of man and the nature of woman require wisdom to be other than wild, and the critical alone does not wisdom beget.
Returning to gender identity, I would like to propose a weird idear: A Spectrum of Gender Spectrums.
Whilst investigating the topic of gender, I’ve come across a number of different gender schemas. These range from unreasonably rigid to absurdly open-ended, and when I tried to line them up in a spectrum from densest to diffusest I realized these schema are more like a cone than a straight line.
“Infinite Genders” would be the uppermost limit of this conical spectrum, where gender is unbound from anything other than self-determination, based on feelings communicated through archetypes and stereotypes and neologisms such as “gender queer,” “non-binary,” “bigender,” “agender,” “doubledeckergender,” ad absurdum.
The lowermost limit of this spectrum of spectrums would be Gender Absolutism: the most restrictive Alpha-Male/Trad-Wife binary, which is usually circumscribed by a religious order.
Where the Gender Critical lie is somewhere in the middle. Were they to decide that positive assertions about gender were advantageous, they might consider themselves Gender Empiricists: admitting that masculinity and femininity are ubiquitous forms of social currency, not entirely arbitrary and not entirely determined by sex. This middle ground would ease tensions betwixt them and the Gender Conservatives by laying groundwork for an evaluation of gender norms that are culture specific.
To axiomate: Sex is universal, Gender is local.
To work our way further “up the cone”—to a gender schema more liberal than the Gender Critical, yet not so liberated as the nonsensical “Infinite Gender”—we find the gender schema that birthed the popularly depicted gender spectrum—by dint of it bringing to being both Barbie and G.I. Joe.
Namely: Marketplace Gender, or Gender-as-Commodity. Marketplace Gender is in large part responsible for the rapid proliferation of Gender Idolatry throughout education and social media: because it seamlessly serves both Big Data and Big Ego.
There is nothing so valuable to the narcissist as being able to define and thereby promote oneself, and there is nothing so useful to the Almighty Algorithm as being able to define and promote its subjects. Gender-as-Commodity turns gender into something one buys into and brands themselves as.
Gender-as-Commodity convinces us that our “authentic selves” can be expressed and experienced through signifiers and identities—convincing us the whole world is a stage, or at least that the whole world is a middle school cafeteria, where the most important thing about us, that by which we are known, are surface details and adornments.
Gender-as-Commodity also enables easy, do-nothing wins for politicians, opening up more areas for government to do exert itself in the daily life of citizens. Take for example California’s recent law mandating retailers provide a “gender neutral” toy section:
(How many hours will businesses spend deciding which gender to assign Play-Doh?And what accursed agency will be tasked with fining companies for misgendering the latest fidget tchotchke?)
Gender-as-Commodity materializes gender, dehumanizes gender, makes gender an add-on to our selves—and has done so so efficiently and completely that few can think of gender as anything other than fashion.
But gender is more than fashion. Gender is more than stereotypes and expectations.
Gender is a deanonymizing force.
Gender is the means by which humans achieve intimacy and self-knowing. It’s difficult to see directly, and vanishes when one tries to grasp it, but as a mode of being it is the aesthetic penumbra emanating from our movements and tones of voice—gender is the field wherein humans express not an “authentic identity” but their unique personality.
Gender is negotiated in every human interaction—and it is ultimately a spectrum not just between male and female, masculine and feminine, but between subconscious and self-conscious.
Being aware of ones manhood and womanhood only comes about in relation to men and women. The charge of gender (not just sexuality or eroticism, but the ways in which men operate as men and women operate as women) is animating the bonds we form with friends, family, lovers—facilitating the timing of jokes, the deciding on what to talk about, the activities that are engaged in—in all of that, sex is there, and gender—as a social conduct informed by sex—is there as well.
And insofar as gender facilitates intimacy, it is not infinite, but rather inexhaustible. And perhaps that is why it has become something of an idol to be deified or icon to be defaced—because we are profoundly separated from intimacy by the market and by technology and by identities and politics.
Gender-as-Identity—just like all those fancy sexualities2—is an affect in search of affection. And in a world where affection is expressed through applause (likes and shares [like and subscribe, if you please]) these declarations and definitions tend to hollow people out, denying them sustenance, distracting them from lives of real substance.
Gender-as-Commodity, Gender-as-Identity, and Gender-as-Stereotype (embraced by Conservatives, challenged by Gender Criticals)—all of these gender spectrums operate on a superficial level, and get caught there, wrestling with each other for market dominance, for social prominence, while men and women grow ever more alienated, ever more robed in categories and beliefs, yearning for a naked intimacy that is the opposite—or moves in the opposite direction—of superficiality.
A dance, a game—gender, like the rose, is known less by its name than the sweetness it sends forth.
(They will go so far as to assert that “biological sex” is a silly redundancy—for what other type of sex could there be besides bio?)
First search result lead me to this:
Under which was this precious exchange:
Mr. Glockman 4/14/2022 : I would like to start by saying that I am not Homophobic, Transphobic, or any of that; I am commenting this as an objective bystander, and this is my opinion. I think we should narrow sexualities down to, say, 20 or so. I say this because I and many others are finding it hard to follow when there are 70+ sexualities and growing, and I think there should be a bit more umbrella terms. Once again I say this objectively, and only for the sake of simplicity of pronouns. Thank you for your time.
RelleJ, 4/14/2022 : If you're lazy and don't want to learn, just say that.
Mr. Glockman, 4/15/2022 : Thank you for your input, however the problem wasn't that I am too lazy to learn all the pronouns, the problem is that it is almost impossible to keep track of all of them, and in lieu of misgendering people left and right, I suggested the "narrowing down" of pronouns.
Sincerely,
Mr. Glockman
"To axiomate: Sex is universal, Gender is local."
As a mathematician, I can relate to that. "Infinite Genders" is like trying to comb a coconut (or a hedgehog) without creating a cowlick.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairy_ball_theorem