Why Is The Conversation Around Gender Identity Regressing?

As someone who came of age in the 90’s golden era of third-wave feminism, there are some things I find hard to understand when it comes to the discussion around gender identity. Growing up I was taught that one’s gender, however they may define it, wasn’t all that important to understanding who a person is as an individual. Beyond that, one of the main purposes of third-wave feminism was to do away with the gender binary and outdated gender roles. Women were taught that there is no one correct way to exist as a woman, that one is free to live her life without those old constraints. 

Which brings us to this HuffPo op-ed by Abby Lee Hood that has been making the rounds on social media titled “I’m Not A Woman Or A Man And Existing In This Binary World Is Really, Really Hard.” 

Sigh.

There is something that is a bit disturbing in the conversation around gender and identity - this idea that there is a certain way to be feminine and that if you don’t fit into that mold you need to question whether you are indeed female. Take, for example, this paragraph:

“Still, in a room full of women I often feel othered, out of place. I don’t identify with feminine qualities, traits or characteristics. While it’s often hard to place exactly what I do identify with — we live in a culture that erases LGBTQ people and robs us of even basic language to help us define ourselves — simply put, I don’t feel like a girl. I don’t feel like a boy, either. I’m neither.”

What, precisely, are these “feminine qualities, traits, or characteristics” that Hood does not identify with? Is there now some list that women must be able to check a majority of the boxes on to be considered a woman? For that matter, does it mean to feel like a boy? Is there a similar checklist for them? 

Do those who make this argument not realize how insanely regressive these ideas of “femininity” and “masculinity” are? How antithetical to individualism they are?

The rejection of the work second wave feminism did in making this space for women to exist outside of traditional gender roles seems bizarre to me. The feminists of the 70’s and 80’s started the job of erasing gender norms and the feminists of the 90’s finished the task - why are young women so intent on fighting a battle that has already been won? Why the push to revive these outdated notions of “feminine” and “masculine”?

More to the point - why does gender identity matter so much? Coming out of the generation that fought so hard for gender to not matter this bothers me greatly. We rejected the idea that gender is a shorthand for understanding who a person is and what their interests are; I certainly don’t want to see that idea brought back. 

On the topic of gender being used as a shorthand for understanding a person’s interests, Hood tells a story meant to illustrate how they have known they are nonbinary since childhood.

“I knew I was nonbinary in childhood, although it took more than two decades to understand and define what it means for me, and I’m still not done learning. I remember being in the car with my grandmother when I was a kindergartner and declaring I wish I’d been born a boy. I got in trouble for saying it. It probably had more to do with the fact that I couldn’t play how I wanted and I was already feeling held back, but cisgender people (or those who identify with the gender they were assigned at birth) generally don’t wish they are another gender.”

Setting aside the assumption about what cisgender people do and do not do, this story displays the superficiality of the current gender identity conversation. I would expect a kindergarten aged girl to blurt out “I wish I was born a boy” in response to being told she couldn’t play with the Lincoln Logs; a child doesn’t have the vocabulary to have a nuanced discussion about unfair gender norms surrounding who gets to play with which toys. I would not remotely take a statement like that as an expression of being nonbinary, and Hood admits to the root problem, but still holds up the anticdote as some sort of bonafide. 

Hood gives us another glimpse into her nonbinary journey:

“Shortly after moving to Nashville in 2017, I became deathly afraid I was a boy. What would it mean to transition, to tell my family they had a son? I cried while looking at dresses hanging in my closet I didn’t want to wear anymore. I still don’t wear dresses much, but I also know I’m not a boy.”

I’d like to know more about this period - why did Hood feel that way? What was it that made they think they were a boy and what changed? I hope it was something beyond not wanting to wear dresses (which I imagine is part of “femininity”) because you can certainly choose to not be female in that way without it equating to being male. 

I do believe that gender dysmorphia is real and that, much the same way there are people who knew from a young age that they are not heterosexual, that there are people who know from a young age that the gender they were assigned at birth doesn’t match with who they are.  Increasing what I’ve seen reported however is not true gender dysmorphia but instead young people, especially young women, questioning their gender because they don’t fit into some preconceived notion of what a woman should want to look and act like. 

And when it comes to the experience of womanhood Hood takes a rather dim view of it.

“For me, an AFAB nonbinary person, the consequences are simple: I get the worst of both worlds. I get to enjoy all the sexism, misogyny and catcalling cis women do. I’m terrified to walk alone at night. I can’t afford birth control. Men hop in my DMs with unsolicited pics and my male friends have all tried to sleep with me at some point — a couple of them succeeded, and it was mostly never very good. And it’s not that I’m special, or look like a supermodel. That’s just what being a woman is like.”

If that is what Hood thinks being a woman is like, no wonder they have no interest in being one - Hood paints womanhood as a life of constant fear, pain, and dred. 

Hood doesn’t paint a nicer picture of the experience of being nonbinary either:

“I also get to enjoy being targeted with homophobia and transphobia because some non-queer people hate the LGBTQ community; they hate gays and queers and they especially hate folks like me that don’t fit neatly into their notions of how gender works or what it looks like. They’ve called me “it” and “a sin.”

Even within the queer community things can be ugly for those of us who exist outside the lines of specific, often surprisingly rigid subgroups of identity like Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender. As disappointing as it may be to admit it, sometimes the people who should understand what being different is like the best do the worst job at being supportive.”

I would think the obvious response to this would be to reject the increasing amount of labeling that comes along with defining oneself through their gender and sexuality in favor of presenting oneself as an individual who is more than the sum of those things. Then again, I grew up with a completely different framework on gender and sexuality and where those two things rank in one’s personality hierarchy than those younger than I am. 

Reacting to pieces like Hood’s can seem to be a bit of a tempest in a teapot but it’s when you’ve seen what is basically the same piece with the same sentiments pop up regularly that it starts to become disturbing. I worry that young people, women in particular, are being encouraged to give up on defining themselves and instead trying to find a box to fit themselves into. That is a regression that isn’t going to lead anywhere good.