Gender confusion is a real phenomenon that should be treated with respect and charity. However, the intersectional feminists who monetize the issue are akin to the charlatans in Hans Christian Andersen’s classic fairytale The Emperor’s New Clothes.
Gender Dysphoria
Until a few years ago, psychologists universally recognized Gender Identity Disorder (G.I.D.) as a mental disorder, not too unlike dyslexia. People with dyslexia confuse the order of letters, whereas people with G.I.D. confuse their sexual identity. It’s a rare but real phenomenon.
However, in 2012 due to pressure from transgender activists, the American Psychiatric Association (A.P.A.) replaced the term G.I.D. with Gender Dysphoria and no longer described it as a disorder. It was not done for medical reasons, but for the sociological purpose of de-stigmatizing transgenderism.
While this was likely done out of care and good intentions, intersectional feminists seized on the classification change to attack gender by saying it’s only a social construct. You are not born a boy or a girl; you are assigned one or the other by social convention.
Unwittingly, the A.P.A. facilitated an ideological assault on the gender identity of more than 99% of the population.
Gaslighting
This narrative echoes The Emperor’s New Clothes. Andersen popularized the psychological mechanism that is today known as gaslighting. The term comes from the 1944 movie Gaslight, in which the culprit tries to make the main character believe she is insane.
However, Andersen’s version is more direct, folkish, and intuitive. In the fairytale, the Emperor was visited by two “weavers” who said they could weave cloth that was so fine that it was “invisible to everyone who was unfit for the job he held, or who was very simple in character.”
The charlatans could sell an obvious scam to the Emperor by appealing to his vanity and insecurity. Who wants to be “unfit for the job” or “very simple”? No one around the Emperor wanted to be labeled thus, so they all pretended that they saw the beauty of these non-existent clothes.
Transphobic
The intersectional feminists do a similar trick when they claim that “gender is a social construct.” Practically everyone knows that this is hogwash. Biological sex evolved more than one billion years ago, and if genders were mere social constructs, there is no way that any of us would be here today.
Until a few years ago, this was such a self-evident and obvious truth that it didn’t even need to be defended. People have known genders in all cultures long before they knew that Earth was round.
However, when cloaked in an academic veneer of respectability combined with a threat that you are “transphobic” if you do not accept their scam, people take it as truth out of a combination of fear, courtesy, vanity, and cognitive dissonance. Who wants to be transphobic? Better to play along.
Shared but not Common
Experimental psychologist Dr. Steven Pinker uses The Emperor’s New Clothes to explain the difference between shared and common knowledge. Two people share knowledge when they both know it without knowing that the other person also knows it. Common knowledge is shared knowledge that is also known to be shared.
[bookpromo align=”right”] One example would be if Jill has seen a movie and wants to describe a scene to Jack. Jack has already seen the film, but Jill doesn’t know this. At this point, it is only a shared experience. However, when she starts describing the scene, Jack says, “I’ve seen that movie.” Then it changes to a common experience. Both know the movie, and both know that both know it.
In The Emperor’s New Clothes, it was shared knowledge that the Emperor was naked until a little boy pointed at him and said out loud what everyone was thinking: “He has no clothes!” At that moment, it became common knowledge, and the scam collapsed.
The fairytale gives a valuable lesson on how and when the intersectionalist scam will be revealed. Everyone already shares the knowledge that it is nonsense, but most people believe they are in a deplorable minority. Only when it is credibly called out as an obvious scam will it become common knowledge.
Yes, gender is a natural phenomenon with a solid biological basis, and no, that is not an attack on transgender people. It is perfectly possible to acknowledge the reality of genders without being hateful.
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Read more from Caroline Adana.
