There Is No Middle, Only Lots of Margins

There Is No Middle, Only Lots of Margins
Rehoboth Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Dover
Rev. Miller Hoffman

June 21, 2020

There are 56 genders. There are 24 genders. There are 32 genders. There are six genders. There are 18 genders. We don’t know how many genders there are. We are obsessed with how many genders there are. We are always getting upset about how many genders there are. We may not know why we care about how many genders there are. When I was an undergrad, ages ago, the biology teacher said there was xx, xy, xo, xxy, xyy, I can rattle off from memory five different chromosome combinations and that was in the 80s. Even then there weren’t two, even in the 60s it seems that folks knew this. And even so these are treated by so many people as variations on the binary. I don’t know why. Maybe we do know why.

Early in June, J. K. Rowling – it feels like this was already ages ago, so much wonderful and terrible stuff has happened this month – she stubbornly insisted (again, she did this already last December) she insisted that something called sex is essential and equivalent to something called gender. I’m okay, if you care, maybe you don’t, I’m okay with biology. Each of us has genital configurations and fat distribution and balding patterns and body hair patterns and chest shapes and hip shapes and genital glands and voice pitch and hormones (everyone has all of them) and larynxes and height. Yeah. We all have height. I’m cool with us having those things. The thing that’s weird and violent, though, is insisting that those things mean we’re either F or M, no matter how we feel about it, no matter what our many other biological realities are. Do you think gender identity is just in our head? Do you think that what’s in our head is not part of biology? I think what’s weird and violent is knowing that there are at least five of a thing that I can rattle off thirty-three years later from memory, but pretending that there is only either M or F, or else only monster and myth.

We all have one of a variety blood types, A, B, AB, O, plus or negative. One or more is incredibly rare, and no one acts like they’re not real or freakish. We all have eye sight, a maybe infinite number, maybe not infinite, I don’t really know a ton about it, but 20/20, 20/30, 30/20, 20/100, whatever. We all have eye color, ambers, browns, blacks, blues, greys, greens, hazels, reds, violets. Hair color, browns, blacks, blonds, auburns, reds, greys, whites. I could go on like this for pages, but Kharma says I’m absolutely not allowed to talk longer than 15 minutes under any circumstances. I’m fine with us having biology. It would be very strange and kind of ignorant not to. Of course we have bodies. Of course we have biological differences. You can call them what you want, of course, you don’t need me to tell you that, but I don’t call them sex differences, because I want it to be very clear that gender is not biological in any way. If I want to distinguish them from blood type, eye sight, eye and hair color, allergies, neurological statuses, then I call them genitals. I call them breasts, hips, hair and balding patterns, and so on. I call sex the thing we do in bed. Or on the kitchen floor, or wherever. No judgement. Of course we have biology and biological difference, but recognize that we don’t use these other biological realities to box people into gender. We don’t use many, many (most?) biological differences to force people to conform.

There is so much overlap across gender of all these things. You already know this, but sometimes we let hegemony (also known as the status quo-by-force, also known as the deputizer-of-oppression, by which we oppress ourselves and one another and act as though it were our own idea), sometimes we let hegemony, or cultural norms and expectations, convince us that we don’t know what we know. There is so much overlap of height, strength, voice pitch across people across gender. So much overlap of fat distribution and hip width and hair patterns and chest shapes across people across gender. So much overlap of hormones, even chromosomes. Almost nobody knows their hormone ratios. Almost no one knows their chromosome make-up. Most of the time you have to be an exceptionally gifted athletic woman before you are coerced to know your chromosomes and hormone proportions and compelled to become not-woman. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so brutal. Everyone must be one of two, except you. Biology is not destiny, except her.

It’s not just Caster Semenya (an exceptionally gifted middle distance runner in the women’s 800 meters with an uncommon chromosome combination and hormone ratio) it’s not only her, Caster, that is harmed by biological gender determinism. What got Rowling riled up was an article about the additional risk to some people, already marginalized by gender, during COVID stay-at-home with its consequent reduced privacy and reduced availability of needed products to manage menstruation. As an aside, the article several times referred to girls and women, as well as nonbinary people, or referred to girls and women, as well as all people who menstruate. The article, in addition to addressing a critical global health byproduct of the pandemic, was also recognizing the number of people who need menstrual products who are not women or girls, though women and girls were also named. Several times. (Which makes me think that Rowling didn’t read the article and only reacted to the headline. Let this be a lesson to us all. First lesson, don’t be a transphobic, biological essentialist jerk. Second lesson, read the article.) Rowling, if you don’t know, hollered on Twitter that people who menstruate should simply be called women. First, she said, because that’s who menstruates. And later, she said, because that shared identity, womanhood, is a critical center of affinity and a powerful locus of creative change.

Which it is. But the Buddha didn’t say don’t confuse the moon with the finger pointing at the moon for nothing. Womanhood is a critical center of affinity and a powerful locus of creative change because of the shared experiences of marginalization, dismissal, violence, and disenfranchisement, among other things. But feminism largely acted (and still acts largely) as though the experiences of white, non-trans, middle-class women were/are the defining experiences of womanhood, and so Black, Latina, and Asian experiences, transwomen’s experiences, working class and working poor and poor women’s experiences, Deaf women’s and women with disabilities’ experiences, and a host of women’s experiences of marginalization, dismissal, violence, and disenfranchisement, among other things are left unaddressed or ignored. Imagine if we quit building and policing walls on top of arbitrary, political boundaries and instead read the article and acted on it. Instead built inclusive and sustainable water, sanitation, and hygiene services. Instead built and funded schools, health clinics, and community-based programming. Instead increased access to menstrual materials (and all other materials) to increase school and work attendance and all activities of daily living. Instead dismantled menstruation stigma, both stigma against those who do and stigma against those who do not menstruate, if you take my meaning. Trans women, yes, and non-trans women who are -menopausal, non-trans women who are of bleeding age and yet who do not bleed for many reasons.

It seems so foolish to me, so very foolish, to equate girlhood or womanness with something like menstruation or childbirth or breastfeeding (or breasts), when so many non-trans girls and women agonize over and doubt their girl- and womanhood when they don’t menstruate, are unable to conceive, have breasts removed during cancer and other treatment, or simply age out of these markers. How foolish, and how evil, yes, perhaps evil, if there is such a thing, to claim to equate girlhood or womanness with something like childbirth and then ignore the childbirth mortality rates of Blacks, American Indians, and Alaska Natives, 2-3 times higher than those of whites during childbirth. “Most pregnancy-related deaths are preventable. Racial and ethnic disparities in pregnancy-related deaths have persisted over time” (CDC). Preventable! And persistently 2-3 times higher than those of whites during childbirth. What is a critical center of affinity worth, how valuable is the creative change if so many women continue to die without your attention or interest? Trans women, mostly trans women of color, murdered at horrifying numbers globally, each year more, dying in part because of your insistence that sex is essential, unchangeable, and biological only in the narrowly defined biology of your choosing. And non-trans women, women who pass your precious biological standard, dying in preventable ways at twice or three times the rates of people who look like you. Your center of affinity is exposed. Your lofty concern for creative change is showing its raggedy and jagged edges.

I say “your” and mean “ones,” of course. I say “your” and mean “our,” of course. I say “your” and mean “your,” “you.” You are the only one who really knows which meaning works best.

We don’t know how many genders there are. We are obsessed with how many genders there are. We are always getting upset about how many genders there are. Let’s stop. Here are my rudimentary recommendations.

1. Reject all binaries.
2. Reject all generalizations.
3. Accept that we do not get to decide who other people are.
4. Accept that our determinations about who other people are usually do harm to them. Usually real psychological and physical harm.
5. Don’t use other people who are different as your textbooks. Go find stuff online or on tv or in the library or movies or other public resources. Do not ask human beings to educate you about their difference. There are no exceptions to this. There are exceptions to this, but until you are an expert at exceptions, there are no exceptions.
6. Learn new stuff about stuff that’s different than you, stuff you don’t like, stuff you don’t know yet that you like, stuff that you disagree with, stuff that isn’t about you and doesn’t center you and maybe doesn’t portray you favorably. Seek this stuff out (not from other people who are different from you). Look for it the way you look for things that are deeply satisfying and rewarding. Keep doing it.
7. Resist the urge to evaluate and review these things. Try not to announce “I like this.” Try not to tell others, “I do not like this.” Try to engage, read, watch, listen and not have it be about you and what you think about it.
8. Try not to argue with it. Try very, very hard not to defend yourself. Try to listen, especially when it says or does something disagreeable or maybe unfair.
9. Learn the difference between what you meant and how it was perceived. Eventually, and as soon as possible, learn that but-what-you-meant is perfectly irrelevant. See 8.
10. Don’t stop thinking, don’t stop using your critical skills, but, critically, use those skills on yourself. Use your imagination on behalf of the other person who is different from you. If you feel uncomfortable or attacked, ask, for example, what it is specifically that is making you feel that way. Ask yourself why do you feel uncomfortable or attacked by it. Think about under what circumstances might you rightly and honorably say or do this objectionable thing to someone. Think about under what circumstances might the other person who is different from you rightly and honorably say or do this thing to someone else. If you feel disgusted or put off by something, or find it unpleasant or unappealing, ask yourself why. Wonder with yourself about what has helped to shape your aesthetic. What “told” you whether things were pleasant and beautiful or not; and might that be a matter of taste; and might your taste have limited importance; and might your taste have room for more things.
11. Watch and listen and read so much that you start to be able to tell for yourself what is stereotype, exaggeration, falsehood, what is awful and untrue, what is awful and true because this group is various like all groups. And start again from the top. Reject all binaries. Reject all generalizations. Accept that we do not get to decide who other people are. Accept that our determinations about who other people are usually do harm to them. Usually real psychological and physical harm.

We don’t know how many genders there are. We are obsessed with how many genders there are. We are always getting upset about how many genders there are. Let’s stop. Let’s start. Let’s learn not to care. Let’s learn to care. Let’s expand our centers of affinity. Let’s work for the kind of creative change that affects the most marginalized first, the most harmed most immediately. Let’s let ourselves, if we have more now, let ourselves be the ones to receive the benefits that trickle down. Do it with race and ethnicity, with body size, with Deafness and disability, with class and education, with all the differences we fear and distain all at once, until we’re done. There is no time for one at a time, and none of us is only one kind of difference. We need to act now, with the desperation of those who defend the status quo, to transform it. Let’s start. Let’s not stop until we’re done.

Peace.