Gender in the Void

How many genders are there? If you Google it, you will get varying answers. Medicinenet.com says there are 74. Google’s AI says, “There are many genders, and the number is infinite. Gender is a person’s internal identification and is not determined by genetics.” What does this ultimately mean? It seems illogical to say that by separating gender from genetics, there are an infinite number of genders; instead, it seems more reasonable to say there are none.

The following analogy might help us understand why this view of gender does not multiply them but eradicates them. If I say there are a limitless number of possible ice cream flavors, therefore, there are no ice cream flavors, you would be right to point out the flaw in my logic. Even if there is no limit to the number of ice cream flavors, that does not mean that each scoop of ice cream does not have its own unique flavor. But this is not what critical gender theorists are doing. To make it fit, we need to adjust the analogy a bit.

A more accurate analogy would be to say there are a limitless number of possible ice cream flavors, but the taste of the ice cream has nothing to do with its ingredients. It is entirely psychological. One’s internal experience solely determines the flavor of the ice cream. In other words, there may be a limitless number of ingredient possibilities that would change the objective makeup of the ice cream, but since ingredients do not determine flavor, each objective recipe has an unlimited number of subjective flavors depending on who is doing the tasting.

In this analogy, the flavor of ice cream has been entirely untethered from any objectivity, which also means it becomes irrational to talk about flavors because any shared experience becomes unattainable. It is no longer possible to point to any ice cream and say it has a specific flavor, as flavor has lost all common reference points and meaning.

This freedom from objective reality is what many proponents of this view of gender find appealing. It feels like liberation. If nothing external to me, not even my biological makeup, dictates my gender identity, I can be whatever I want. The problem is, if gender identity is an internal consciousness, then you cannot be whatever gender you want because gender has lost all meaning.

If we determine our own gender identity based on an entirely internal identification, then our gender is nothing more than meaningless words we throw around without any common reference points. This lack of common reference points and meaning is why it is impossible for people who hold this view to define the word “woman.”

In attempting to define “woman,” proponents of this view must either be circular in their reasoning and use the word “woman” to define “woman” or admit that no rational definition exists. This same irrationality exists in the creation of new genders.

Here are a handful of the new “genders.” Ceterogender, mirrorgender, duragender, and healgender. First, we notice that the word “gender” must be included in the term for anyone to know they are referring to gender. On Medicinenet.com, 59 of the 72 new genders contain the word “gender.” All others must use the term gender in the definition. By contrast, in the traditional understanding of male and female, both can be defined without circular references to male, female, or gender.

The problem with this new understanding of gender, disconnected from genetics, is that gender itself can no longer be defined because all specific genders have lost their meaning. Some attempt to give gender a common reference point by claiming it is a person’s alignment to cultural gender roles, but you cannot have “gender” roles if you cannot define gender in the first place. Once again, it is circular. If you press this question, you will eventually get down to feelings. But we have all kinds of feelings. Which feelings are related to gender, and which ones are not? We must have a definition of gender to make that determination, which this view cannot provide.

There is only one reason gender still has meaning in our society, and that is because all of our discussions about gender are still relying on the foundation of male and female as it has been historically understood. This reliance on the old categories is why they must use the word “woman” to define “woman.”

Gender exists, and it is a real thing. That is why the sexual revolutionaries have the footing to speak rationally about it; we all have an objective point of reference. They must borrow from the traditional worldview to make any sense of their own. However, they refute themselves when they lean on the historical understanding of gender in their attempts to undermine it.  

The new definition of gender does not allow us more freedom to have more genders. It throws the very concept of gender into the void, causing all genders to lose all meaning. Of course, that is precisely what a handful of critical gender theorists want. Still, many believe their gender gives them certain rights and protections under the law, but if gender goes, so do their rights associated with it. We cannot separate gender and sex without slipping into absurdity.

-D. Eaton