This is also expressed in the required terminology: girls are 'people who were assigned female at birth' (abbreviated to AFAB).įor some people, this inner essence does not correspond to the male or female body. The assignment of gender at birth on the basis of genitalia is actually arbitrary only you yourself know who you really are inside. A kind of soul that resides somewhere in the body, but which is also distinct from that body. Who you are is determined by your 'gender identity', an inner and unchanging essence.
Gender-identity theory has given this idea a completely different meaning. Their books are therefore not an attack on trans rights, the legal protection of trans people against discrimination. Joyce emphasises, just like the other two authors, that it is not about criticising transgenders and their choices, but about questioning the 'gender ideology' that trans activists want to impose on others. Trans reads as a major indictment of what she calls the 'gender-identity ideology', which not only damages the social position of women but also has a stifling effect on science, journalism and social organisations. There was not a single publisher in the US who dared to publish it in the US. The third author, Helen Joyce (1969), a mathematician with a doctorate and now an editor at The Economist, has written perhaps the most critical book of the three: Trans. As a neuroscientist and sexologist, she did research into the biological determinants of gender behaviour but opted for a career in journalism when it turned out that numerous subjects and fields of research had by now been declared taboo and she also had to deal with accusations of transphobia.
Debunking the Myths about Sex and Identity in Our Society, published last year. That academic freedom is under pressure when it comes to gender issues has also been experienced by the Canadian Debra Soh (1990), author of the book The End of Gender.
0 kommentar(er)
