Sex and Gender

A Moderate Libertarian View

This might invite controversy; it’s meant only to lay out a plausible moderate view libertarians—and, really, all liberals—should endorse. It’s also a bit longer than my average post. So Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah! Happy Holidays all around!

I take it everyone today believes women are as valuable as men and that all of us, male, female, or other, are sources of equally valid moral claims and so ought to be treated as equal before the law.

With Wollstonecraft, Mill, and others, we should also accept that society influences us in significant ways and that women were long socialized in ways that had an impact on their lives (and those of men), including limiting the careers they could pursue. It also limited the way genders were present (and, so, the way people presented themselves). Again, with Wollstonecraft, Mill, and others, we should accept that these things can change. Not, though, without limit. Biology does matter.

How we socialize people changes and those changes lead to changes in how people lead their lives. On my view, things have changed substantially for the better, though more change is likely (and shouldn’t be feared). Importantly, as the ways we raise boys and girls have converged, women have gone into the same sorts of careers as men. This has helped make society better by making equality (or opportunity and of resources as well as equality before the law) more prevalent and by increasing the voices and talents contributing to work in different fields.

Thus far, I think, nothing too controversial. But…

*The Current Debate

The left and the right often seem to be at war about gender, with the far left (sometimes) claiming not only that gender is socially constructed, but that sex is as well, and the far right claiming it’s all just biology—both sex and gender, which they may think are one and the same. I think the most plausible position, though, is that sex is determined by biology, that sex and gender are different things, withgender, but not sex, being socially constructed.

*Social Construction

What does it mean to say something is “socially constructed”? There are many ways to understand the term, but for our purposes, we can understand it to mean “at least partly created in and by the social interactions of agents, especially (but not only) the linguistic interactions, rather than occurring by nature alone.”

Some may accept pretty wild versions of the social construction thesis. One sociologist I know accepted that if we all looked at a solid wall (I pointed to a wall to ask the question) and agreed there was a window there, there would be a window there. I assume that is false. The wall is constructed by people working together and that includes a set of social interactions, but once the wall is built, it occurs on its own with or without our agreement; its existence does not depend on us agreeing it’s a wall or on any other social interaction. (Perhaps our agreement that it is not a wall of a house would mean it is not part of a house—“house” may be a social construction—but agreement that it is not a wall, is simply confusion.). The important thing here is that what emerges from social interactions may exist on its own after those interactions, no longer needing social interaction for its existence. Walls are social constructs in that, weak, sense.

Money is a social construct in a way that is different from how a wall is socially constructed—it may be printed or minted just as walls are built, but the continued existence of money—unlike the continued existence of walls—depends on something like our continued agreement. If everyone stopped taking nickels, dimes, and quarters in exchange for goods and services, such coins would cease being money (they would simply exist as metallic discs). Money is the sort of social construct that requires continued social interactions. That is a more substantial form of social construction.

I suggest that human persons are more like walls than money in this regard—we continue to be what we are no matter what people agree to or don’t agree to. We are born human and have certain abilities regardless of agreement. The biological reality we instantiate exists, once it does, without need of continued social interaction—like walls. Agreement about this simply does not matter. (Differently from both walls and money, I think we also have moral value regardless of agreement, but I won’t go into that here.)

*Gender is not Sex: The Left is right

Now a controversial bit. I would suggest that sex is more like walls than money (in this regard—it is socially constructed in the weak sense) but gender is more like money (in this regard—it is socially constructed in the more substantial sense). What I mean is that sex is “built” once (like walls) while gender remains more dependent on continued social interactions.

To be sure, even sex can be less clear than some on the right seem to think. Calling the familiar sexes “male” and “female,” there are some people born neither straightforwardly male nor straightforwardly female (i.e. there are intersex individuals that have both ovarian and testicular tissue and so produce both ovarian and sperm). Still, the vast majority are either male or female by sex (roughly one in 20,000 have ovotesticular disorder of sex development; see this piece.)

Gender is not sex. Frankly, it now seems odd to deny that gender is socially constructed (in the substantial sense!). The sexes—male and female—are basically set by scientific facts that remain consistent regardless of social agreement; gender does not. Calling the familiar genders “masculine” and “feminine,” what it means to be either is worked out in one’s society by many many interactions.

Imagine a WonderWoman Amazonian society; there, I assume, many (or all) of the females would take on the tasks that would be done by males in earlier times of our society. That would be a matter of necessity since there are (somehow) no males available. Those taking on such tasks would presumably take on masculine traits—for those just are the traits of anyone doing the relevant tasks. (This is not to say those tasks are necessarily tasks done by males, but that they are tasks we associate with males because of the historical patterns we are aware of.)

The roles people play are necessarily worked out in society as we interact with each other. That includes roles stereotypically considered masculine and roles stereotypically considered feminine. That is what it means to say gender is socially constructed. This should not be shocking; it’s mundane.

*The Apotheosis of Individualism

Some dislike or even hate the idea that gender is more complicated than a simple binary that includes only masculine and feminine. I do not. Frankly, I think it’s great. It opens more possibilities for all of us, allowing more of us to be what we want to be, experimenting with life and becoming the individuals we wish to be. We should embrace this as a natural step in the apotheosis of individualism.

Notice that what I’ve just said would include the possibility of what might reasonably be considered “non-binary” gender roles. Such would be a rejection of the stereotypical binary understanding of masculine and feminine; it would entail an individual working out for themself how they interact with others on their own. (Many, but not all, of those others are likely to be on the binary spectrum. At least as of now.) This too would be part of the apotheosis of individualism.

*Gender is not Infinitely Malleable: The Right is right

Note that saying that gender is socially constructed does not mean that biology plays no role at all in its construction. Rocks have no sex because they have no biology. Absent a biology of any sort, they also lack any psychological basis on which gender can be constructed. We might call boats and cars “she,” but we don’t literally mean to think of them as gendered. We need some biological—or biological analog—basis on which to build genders.

Both biology and psychology play a role in determining gender. Biology can limit gender in some ways; one can’t have a gender that is “lizard” or “tree” but one can have a gender that is quite different from the standard “masculine” or “feminine.” Psychology matters also. How an individual thinks of herself, how others think of her, and how she thinks of how others think of her, all matter.

It is important that the fact that psychology matters means not only that gender is socially constructed but that that construction means one’s gender is affected by one’s society. Gender can’t be purely up to an individual and can’t change from hour to hour or day to day. It’s being socially constructedmeans it is created in dialogue or interaction with others and that will impact how one sees oneself, how others see one, and indeed, how one is. The social construction of gender is a process—one the individual may have a great deal of control over, but not unlimited control over.

If what I just said is right, we should accept that the outcome of the process—one’s gender—is mutable, so that changes can occur with a continuation of the process. Importantly, changes can onlyoccur with that continuation—and that takes time. That means one can’t have a feminine gender at one moment and, on a whim, have a masculine gender in the next moment, then a non-binary gender the moment after that. Over time, one might be any of these—but only with time. (One can be “gender fluid,” but within limits. One would presumably change in regular—for oneself—ways, perhaps depending on who one is with or something like that.)

*Conclusion

Given all of this, it seems we ought to conclude that there is a spectrum (or an open and changing set) of genders, but that there are limits (some clear, some less so). One’s gender is just the gender roles one operates with (voluntarily or not); these can be quite varied, but not without limits.

Some men are feminine, some women are masculine; that is, some men occupy more feminine gender roles and some women occupy more masculine gender roles. Once that is accepted, one realizes there can be a great variety—I doubt it’s even a single scale; some men will be more masculine in some ways and more feminine in other ways, etc. I don't tend to think of myself as feminine in how I present, for example, but I think I am fairly feminine in how I relate to people (I'm the caretaker in my birth family, for example) and, I think, in other ways as well.

I’ll end with a suggestion about what this means for libertarians. On my view, so long as an individual isn’t doing harm to others, they should be allowed to live their life as they see fit. If a person born sexually male happily behaves in feminine ways and wants to be gendered female (wants to present as, and be accepted as, female), we should be fine with it. If this person wants to dress as a woman, we should be fine with it. If they want to have surgery to have the physical appearance of a woman, we should be fine with it. Should it become possible to change the individual’s DNA, make them capable of having babies, etc., we should also be fine with that if they choose it for themselves. So long as no one is forced to participate in the procedures and no one (other than consenting participants) is harmed, we should have no problem with any of this. This is the obvious (and, I think, correct) libertarian view. There is simply no rational justification for any sanctions for any of these behaviors.

None of this means, of course, that people are going to choose well. As with all things, some will choose to live in ways that make their lives worse than they could otherwise be. Some choose to smoke marijuana in ways that make their lives better; some choose it in ways that make their lives worse. Some choose to pursue a career that make their lives better; some choose such that make their lives worse. Some will choose to express a gender that will make their lives better; some will choose gender roles that make their lives worse. We have to accept that. We don’t have to contribute to it; we shouldn’t. We should encourage them to live as they think best.

Let me know if you think I am wrong.