I think you're absolutely right. This is a men's rights movement. A beta men's rights activism. We can see that very clearly in sports. Actual athletes can't think of competing against women: winning would be too easy for them, hence there would be no merit or glory in their victory. Only beta males, the underdogs, are changing categories, like Lia Thomas. They are not good enough to compete with the best men in sports, plus they resent women and want a comeback. It's the revenge of the incels.
Jo makes a bold sweeping attempt to place Transgenderism in the context of socialist history. She is mostly successful.For a jaded lefty feminist such as me,the essay gives a lot to chew on.Her argument is tethered to a materialist world view,which I would say is “correct”,while also pointing to the homo erotic undercurrent of male groupings. I particularly enjoyed her siting of football in the culture of male separatism.But I still instinctively support my local team,and feel affinity!
Thanks. Very though provoking essay. But I wonder is it right?
I would have thought in general transgenderism is an ideology of progressives, especially younger progressives of middle class backgrounds (I liked Rowlings 'luxury belief' quip the other day), more or less irrespective of whether they are whether male or female.
It's striking to me just how many young women are involved in this.
Being a mostly middle class movement, no matter how much they deny it, it's understandable social justice is not the greatest concern of these people. They may not be at the top of the economic system but for most it works reasonably well enough, giving them at least adequate assurance of being adequately well-off either now or at least prospectively in the future, such that for all their ritualistic complaining there is little genuine priority or agency accorded to discussion from this part of the left about really trying to change the current economic system.
But if they don't really crave more money, they do crave status. And in this day and age and for people in their socio-economic position that mostly involves garnering peer approval by signalling virtue.
We're all familiar with how this plays out across echo chambers across the piste, left and right, from Corbynism to Brexit ideology to MAGA devotees:
1. Construct your ridiculous Aunt Sally 'Evil Other' (TERFs want to literally erase all Trans People! TERFs want to strip trans people of all rights! etc etc)
2. Endlessly and tediously denounce your creation to your fellow echo chamber inhabitants
3. Thereby prove your virtue to yourself and your fellows, and garner upticks and likes from your fellows to feed your insecure, childish and needy personality.
All these movements involve people who are or who believe themselves to in some sense insecure and marginalised - be they adolescents, Brexiteer pensioners in the suburbs and countryside of 'Middle England', MAGA devotees in flyover country. etc.
When it comes to transgenderism, adolescents are of course particular needy when it comes to peer group approval, swapping parental control for sheep like conformity to peer group nostrums, so it is not surprising just how strong the movement is in that age group, especially when clustered in progressive values group environments like higher education.
Likewise, when it comes to older supporters of transgenderism, it is not hard to see why it should appeal to persons with a strong identity as self-styled progressives, and a constant need to prove and demonstrate that identity, both for personal and sometimes professional reasons (think 'progressive' journalists, career academics, etc) - or to HR departments engaged in bureaucratic Empire building.
And for all these people it is absolutely not a problem that the ideology may be ridiculous. In fact that's a plus! There is little cachet to be had in just believing things that are moderate and common sense and everyone else agrees with anyway. Even, heaven forbid, Tory voters! That would never do! Believing loopy stuff however, well, wow, you really must care. That marks you and your group our from the mainstream as truly radical, truly caring, in just the way you wish!
That's also why GC feminists are singled out for attack rather than conservatives or male opponents - more points in the virtue stakes. Taking on a stale male Telegraph columnist? Ho hum. Taking on someone like Bindel or Rowling or a defenceless female student guilty of wrongthink though? Wow, what a radical you are! How very brave!
I'm not denying the particular benefits for particular Beta males identifying as trans (e.g. getting to win in your sport).
I'm not denying it is good cover for violent male mysogynists to indulge their hatred of women.
I'm also not denying that for insufferably pompous male newspaper columnists wearing their virtue on their sleeves, it provides a heaven sent opportunity to talk down to women and override their views without being accused of male condescension. .
It's clearly all these things and thus holds broad appeal.
But in terms of locating the centre of gravity of this phenomenon it's obvious that there are vastly more transactivists than there are trans people, and it has a very large female component. And I am saying the relationship between the two, between transactivism and actual trans rights, is essentially one of parasite and host. The underlying issues re trans rights are simply a convenient platform for many transactivists for what Judith Butler might call 'a performative creation of identity' that satisfies a genuine psychological need on their part, a craving for group belonging and acceptance and the acquisition of status through demonstrated virtue.
And that's why while it's often possible to have perfectly sensible conversations about how to deal with clashing rights with actual trans people, with trans activists that is never, ever possible, and you are simply wasting your time trying. Reaching a reasonable agreement or practical solution would negate what's in it for them.
As for the social base for this, I guess we look at the massive expansion of higher eduction and the middle class progressive values communities that has created with their attendant identities and psychological needs.
In one form or other these look set to persist so these platform issues will as well.
Thus in the UK Corbynism offered one such platform for a while to demonstrate virtue. With its demise another platform had to be found to fulfil essentially the same role. Just like Stonewall needed something after gay rights was (more or less) done. Probably when transgenderism disappears another will be found as well. The need persists.
If you're interested you'll see this argument developed much further and much better than I can in Will Storr's recent 'The Status Game'.
Anyway, I really liked your piece, I agree a lot of it, but I'm just not sure it's at the heart of this phenomenon.
Fascinating. I’ve been banging my head over the very issue you open with: how on earth do self-proclaimed Marxists support such a wildly anti-materialist movement as gender identity activism? I figured the collapse of the Soviet Union and “death of communism” demoralization basically drove them cuckoo, but you’ve provided so many other ways to think about why this misogynist movement appeals to the left. Brilliant.
Brilliant. I've been wrestling with the sense that Marxism does not really explain our current moment well -- for all its incisive analysis of capitalist dynamics -- and this is hugely helpful for thinking through that feeling.
The idea of transgenderism conferring instant social / political capital is absolutely essential to understanding this regressive and frankly batshit crazy ideology. I really enjoyed this, thank you Jo.
I'll admit to not knowing much about UK labor history, but this is deeply insulting to US women labor leaders, organizers, and socialist thinkers. "Socialism was popular not because it worked, but because it worked for men. It centred them. While the socialist brothers told women to make cakes to raise money for the strike fund which would bring on the revolution and a better future, the men were getting what they wanted there and then, which was to be the hero, he who must be supported in the struggle. The women were to focus on, look to, dream of a future paradise." Men have "centred" themselves for millennia - whether in socialism, capitalism, mercantilism - you name it. But you have here invisibilized the history of the struggles, sacrifices, and triumphs of working class women to organize for better pay and conditions on the job. How very feminist.
This whole essay is nonesense. The Left are not, 'an interest group for oppressed, beta male'. There's scientifically, no such thing as alpha and beta males in human beings. That idea has been debunked by research over and over again: link for a summary of why it doesn't apply to human behaviour here: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_myth_of_the_alpha_male
Even using 'beta male' in the context of the incel, internet meme... to describe all working class men in industrial society as 'betas' is just snobby and judgemental.
Also the phrase' they bet of the wrong horse in 1917 and aren't about to do that again...' What the hell are you talking about? 1917 was over a century ago? That was before our grandparents were born. Why would that have the slightest bit of impact on the motivations of any one on the Left today?
And transgender feminism doesn't let capitalism off the hook - Shon Faye's The Transgender Issue is the best illustration I can think of that. It basically comes to the conclusion at the end of the book that you have to tackle capitalism first, before you can have trans liberation or women's liberation ( I actually don't agree with her on that, but there's no escaping it's an anti-capitalist book.)
I am a woman and a feminist, I think women's issues and rights are important. I will also agree that sometimes, allogations of transphobia where none exist, can be used to silence women and distract from the actual issues or derail the discussion. That said, this essay is just nonesense. There's no such thing as beta and alpha men.
Have you seen Miss Marx 2020? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDMeV4TIPtI Some of her socialist activist contemporaries believed she did not commit suicide but that Edward Aveling, the man who co-wrote The Woman Queston with E M, murdered her.
I don't see transgenderism as a beta male movement. I'm not a socialist, so there's a lot I don't know about socialist history. I also think that trans women are quite different from all the other current transmutations of gender identity. The Woke movement and the gender movement give lip service to anti-Capitalism, but they're also closely connected to the corporate world, and don't seem to have a firm connection to socialism. As I understand transgenderism, there are 2 kinds of m to f transgenders: those who identify as transgender and transition very young, and are primarily male-sex attracted; and autogynephilic (AGP) men who are primarily attracted to women, and who usually progress through transvestism to identifying as female, often in middle age, after marrying and having children. Transwoman activists tend to be AGP. AGP men, who transition later, are often men who have experienced male privilege, accumulated it throughout life, and have no intention of giving it up once they transition. Olympic gold medalist Chris Jennings and Admiral Rachel Levine (current U.S. Assistant Secretary of Health - first "woman" to hold this position) are good examples of AGP trans women, who are often high achievers. They often eschew bottom surgery, call themselves lesbians, and seek female partners. Trans women of this type sometimes have money, and some are billionaires and big funders of the movement. Jenifer Pritzker, a billionaire transwoman is often mentioned as this type of big donor, but there are others. There is also a huge lobby of medical and pharmaceutical interests that stand to benefit financially from transgenderism. This all seems very far from socialism to me, and a very different sort of movement from the original LGB movement, or from the gender spectrum community of the non-binary and 1000 different genders. Transwomen (m to f transgenders) are anything but non-binary. For them, it's all about sex stereotypes and sex. Transmen (f to m) are often non-binary however (however much that may not make sense). And a lot of trans activism is anything but Socialist, even though the left has co-opted and makes full use of the transgender movement.
What seems consistent over time is that the left ends up undermining feminism. Women make up more than half the population, and, unified, women could be very powerful. Socialism, which has always so far been controlled by male activists, must see the potential political power of women as something to strictly control, and to move in directions that benefit socialism.
I think you're absolutely right. This is a men's rights movement. A beta men's rights activism. We can see that very clearly in sports. Actual athletes can't think of competing against women: winning would be too easy for them, hence there would be no merit or glory in their victory. Only beta males, the underdogs, are changing categories, like Lia Thomas. They are not good enough to compete with the best men in sports, plus they resent women and want a comeback. It's the revenge of the incels.
Criminals in prisons are another example.
Jo makes a bold sweeping attempt to place Transgenderism in the context of socialist history. She is mostly successful.For a jaded lefty feminist such as me,the essay gives a lot to chew on.Her argument is tethered to a materialist world view,which I would say is “correct”,while also pointing to the homo erotic undercurrent of male groupings. I particularly enjoyed her siting of football in the culture of male separatism.But I still instinctively support my local team,and feel affinity!
Thanks. Very though provoking essay. But I wonder is it right?
I would have thought in general transgenderism is an ideology of progressives, especially younger progressives of middle class backgrounds (I liked Rowlings 'luxury belief' quip the other day), more or less irrespective of whether they are whether male or female.
It's striking to me just how many young women are involved in this.
Being a mostly middle class movement, no matter how much they deny it, it's understandable social justice is not the greatest concern of these people. They may not be at the top of the economic system but for most it works reasonably well enough, giving them at least adequate assurance of being adequately well-off either now or at least prospectively in the future, such that for all their ritualistic complaining there is little genuine priority or agency accorded to discussion from this part of the left about really trying to change the current economic system.
But if they don't really crave more money, they do crave status. And in this day and age and for people in their socio-economic position that mostly involves garnering peer approval by signalling virtue.
We're all familiar with how this plays out across echo chambers across the piste, left and right, from Corbynism to Brexit ideology to MAGA devotees:
1. Construct your ridiculous Aunt Sally 'Evil Other' (TERFs want to literally erase all Trans People! TERFs want to strip trans people of all rights! etc etc)
2. Endlessly and tediously denounce your creation to your fellow echo chamber inhabitants
3. Thereby prove your virtue to yourself and your fellows, and garner upticks and likes from your fellows to feed your insecure, childish and needy personality.
All these movements involve people who are or who believe themselves to in some sense insecure and marginalised - be they adolescents, Brexiteer pensioners in the suburbs and countryside of 'Middle England', MAGA devotees in flyover country. etc.
When it comes to transgenderism, adolescents are of course particular needy when it comes to peer group approval, swapping parental control for sheep like conformity to peer group nostrums, so it is not surprising just how strong the movement is in that age group, especially when clustered in progressive values group environments like higher education.
Likewise, when it comes to older supporters of transgenderism, it is not hard to see why it should appeal to persons with a strong identity as self-styled progressives, and a constant need to prove and demonstrate that identity, both for personal and sometimes professional reasons (think 'progressive' journalists, career academics, etc) - or to HR departments engaged in bureaucratic Empire building.
And for all these people it is absolutely not a problem that the ideology may be ridiculous. In fact that's a plus! There is little cachet to be had in just believing things that are moderate and common sense and everyone else agrees with anyway. Even, heaven forbid, Tory voters! That would never do! Believing loopy stuff however, well, wow, you really must care. That marks you and your group our from the mainstream as truly radical, truly caring, in just the way you wish!
That's also why GC feminists are singled out for attack rather than conservatives or male opponents - more points in the virtue stakes. Taking on a stale male Telegraph columnist? Ho hum. Taking on someone like Bindel or Rowling or a defenceless female student guilty of wrongthink though? Wow, what a radical you are! How very brave!
I'm not denying the particular benefits for particular Beta males identifying as trans (e.g. getting to win in your sport).
I'm not denying it is good cover for violent male mysogynists to indulge their hatred of women.
I'm also not denying that for insufferably pompous male newspaper columnists wearing their virtue on their sleeves, it provides a heaven sent opportunity to talk down to women and override their views without being accused of male condescension. .
It's clearly all these things and thus holds broad appeal.
But in terms of locating the centre of gravity of this phenomenon it's obvious that there are vastly more transactivists than there are trans people, and it has a very large female component. And I am saying the relationship between the two, between transactivism and actual trans rights, is essentially one of parasite and host. The underlying issues re trans rights are simply a convenient platform for many transactivists for what Judith Butler might call 'a performative creation of identity' that satisfies a genuine psychological need on their part, a craving for group belonging and acceptance and the acquisition of status through demonstrated virtue.
And that's why while it's often possible to have perfectly sensible conversations about how to deal with clashing rights with actual trans people, with trans activists that is never, ever possible, and you are simply wasting your time trying. Reaching a reasonable agreement or practical solution would negate what's in it for them.
As for the social base for this, I guess we look at the massive expansion of higher eduction and the middle class progressive values communities that has created with their attendant identities and psychological needs.
In one form or other these look set to persist so these platform issues will as well.
Thus in the UK Corbynism offered one such platform for a while to demonstrate virtue. With its demise another platform had to be found to fulfil essentially the same role. Just like Stonewall needed something after gay rights was (more or less) done. Probably when transgenderism disappears another will be found as well. The need persists.
If you're interested you'll see this argument developed much further and much better than I can in Will Storr's recent 'The Status Game'.
Anyway, I really liked your piece, I agree a lot of it, but I'm just not sure it's at the heart of this phenomenon.
Thanks again.
Fascinating. I’ve been banging my head over the very issue you open with: how on earth do self-proclaimed Marxists support such a wildly anti-materialist movement as gender identity activism? I figured the collapse of the Soviet Union and “death of communism” demoralization basically drove them cuckoo, but you’ve provided so many other ways to think about why this misogynist movement appeals to the left. Brilliant.
Brilliant. I've been wrestling with the sense that Marxism does not really explain our current moment well -- for all its incisive analysis of capitalist dynamics -- and this is hugely helpful for thinking through that feeling.
The idea of transgenderism conferring instant social / political capital is absolutely essential to understanding this regressive and frankly batshit crazy ideology. I really enjoyed this, thank you Jo.
TRUTH.
what is the optimum or acceptable level of identity politics the left should embrace? presumably enough to liberate women...
I'll admit to not knowing much about UK labor history, but this is deeply insulting to US women labor leaders, organizers, and socialist thinkers. "Socialism was popular not because it worked, but because it worked for men. It centred them. While the socialist brothers told women to make cakes to raise money for the strike fund which would bring on the revolution and a better future, the men were getting what they wanted there and then, which was to be the hero, he who must be supported in the struggle. The women were to focus on, look to, dream of a future paradise." Men have "centred" themselves for millennia - whether in socialism, capitalism, mercantilism - you name it. But you have here invisibilized the history of the struggles, sacrifices, and triumphs of working class women to organize for better pay and conditions on the job. How very feminist.
This whole essay is nonesense. The Left are not, 'an interest group for oppressed, beta male'. There's scientifically, no such thing as alpha and beta males in human beings. That idea has been debunked by research over and over again: link for a summary of why it doesn't apply to human behaviour here: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_myth_of_the_alpha_male
Even using 'beta male' in the context of the incel, internet meme... to describe all working class men in industrial society as 'betas' is just snobby and judgemental.
Also the phrase' they bet of the wrong horse in 1917 and aren't about to do that again...' What the hell are you talking about? 1917 was over a century ago? That was before our grandparents were born. Why would that have the slightest bit of impact on the motivations of any one on the Left today?
And transgender feminism doesn't let capitalism off the hook - Shon Faye's The Transgender Issue is the best illustration I can think of that. It basically comes to the conclusion at the end of the book that you have to tackle capitalism first, before you can have trans liberation or women's liberation ( I actually don't agree with her on that, but there's no escaping it's an anti-capitalist book.)
I am a woman and a feminist, I think women's issues and rights are important. I will also agree that sometimes, allogations of transphobia where none exist, can be used to silence women and distract from the actual issues or derail the discussion. That said, this essay is just nonesense. There's no such thing as beta and alpha men.
Have you seen Miss Marx 2020? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDMeV4TIPtI Some of her socialist activist contemporaries believed she did not commit suicide but that Edward Aveling, the man who co-wrote The Woman Queston with E M, murdered her.
I don't see transgenderism as a beta male movement. I'm not a socialist, so there's a lot I don't know about socialist history. I also think that trans women are quite different from all the other current transmutations of gender identity. The Woke movement and the gender movement give lip service to anti-Capitalism, but they're also closely connected to the corporate world, and don't seem to have a firm connection to socialism. As I understand transgenderism, there are 2 kinds of m to f transgenders: those who identify as transgender and transition very young, and are primarily male-sex attracted; and autogynephilic (AGP) men who are primarily attracted to women, and who usually progress through transvestism to identifying as female, often in middle age, after marrying and having children. Transwoman activists tend to be AGP. AGP men, who transition later, are often men who have experienced male privilege, accumulated it throughout life, and have no intention of giving it up once they transition. Olympic gold medalist Chris Jennings and Admiral Rachel Levine (current U.S. Assistant Secretary of Health - first "woman" to hold this position) are good examples of AGP trans women, who are often high achievers. They often eschew bottom surgery, call themselves lesbians, and seek female partners. Trans women of this type sometimes have money, and some are billionaires and big funders of the movement. Jenifer Pritzker, a billionaire transwoman is often mentioned as this type of big donor, but there are others. There is also a huge lobby of medical and pharmaceutical interests that stand to benefit financially from transgenderism. This all seems very far from socialism to me, and a very different sort of movement from the original LGB movement, or from the gender spectrum community of the non-binary and 1000 different genders. Transwomen (m to f transgenders) are anything but non-binary. For them, it's all about sex stereotypes and sex. Transmen (f to m) are often non-binary however (however much that may not make sense). And a lot of trans activism is anything but Socialist, even though the left has co-opted and makes full use of the transgender movement.
What seems consistent over time is that the left ends up undermining feminism. Women make up more than half the population, and, unified, women could be very powerful. Socialism, which has always so far been controlled by male activists, must see the potential political power of women as something to strictly control, and to move in directions that benefit socialism.