Anthropology rule
A common anti-trans response would be: if gender is a social construct, then perhaps people are influenced by social media into becoming trans. This is the debunked notion of "social contagion", it assumes gender identity is subject to social influence.
I agree with you that the "gender is a social construct" is ultimately an ontological claim, about what gender is. When I hear "gender is just a social construct", especially from an anthropologist, I am entirely expecting a social constructionist account of gender, that's what they are communicating - what gender is.
Clearly there are social elements to gender, like the color we associate with a gender, which has changed over time and is arbitrary. There is nothing intrinsic about gender-color associations, no reason "blue" means "boy" and "pink" means "girl".
Regarding gender expression not only being performance: some people use Butler's performative theory of gender as a social constructionist account of gender. It's not really a coincidence in my mind that Butler shares some intellectual roots with the psychoanalytical sexologists who popularized social constructionist views in the 1960s, so while I'm sure you could parse several social constructionist accounts I don't think it's unfair to lump them together as a broad camp. The Julia Serano article I linked even does this:
Look, I know that many contemporary queer folks and feminists embrace mantras like "all gender is performance," "all gender is drag," and "gender is just a construct." They seem empowered by the way these sayings give the impression that gender is merely a fiction. A facade. A figment of our imaginations.
Notice how she lumps together views like "all gender is performance" and "gender is just a construct". I think this article is a relevant response to "gender is a social construct".
And yes, it depends somewhat on what people actually mean when they say "gender is a social construct", but I generally take them to mean that they believe in a social constructionist account of gender, i.e. that gender is entirely arbitrary, the result of how we are raised, and the result of socialization. If you are raised a boy, you are a boy because of how you were raised.
The idea that gender identity is biological, which is what that Safer meta-analysis concludes, contradicts the social constructionist account because it claims that a person's gender is intrinsic to them in some way, for example you can't just take a boy and raise them as a girl without problems (as the case of David Reimer illustrates, when the sexologist, John Money, who believed gender was just a construct and tested that theory by trying to have a boy raised as a girl).
Gender seems to have psychological, social, and biological components. Julia Serano covers this territory fairly well in Whipping Girl, esp. chapter 6 "Intrinsic Inclinations":
... [T]he fact that gender expression is so highly regulated in our society has led many to argue that femininity and masculinity are merely social constructs (i.e., they do not occur naturally, but rather are inventions or artifacts of human culture). According to this social constructionist model, boys are socialized to become masculine and girls feminine; we learn to produce these gender expressions via a combination of positive and negative reinforcement, and through imitation, practice, and performance. Social constructionists point to the fact that the words “femininity” and “masculinity” do not merely describe human behavior, but represent ideals that all people are encouraged to meet. To demonstrate this, they focus much of their attention on socially influenced manifestations of gender expression (often called gender roles), which include feminine and masculine differences in speech patterns and word choice, mannerisms, roles in relationships, styles of dress, aesthetic preferences, interests, occupations, and so on. Social constructionists also argue that the fact that these gender roles can vary over time, and from culture to culture, is indicative of their constructed nature.
On the other side of this debate are gender essentialists, who believe that those born male are simply preprogrammed to act masculine, and those born female are preprogrammed to act feminine. Evidence to support their case includes the predominance of femininity in women and masculinity in men, in our culture and other cultures; the fact that girls tend to behave in a girlish manner and boys in a boyish manner from a very early age; that even in prehistoric humans, women and men seemed to perform different sets of tasks; and that species other than humans also show signs of gender dimorphic behavior. Among gender essentialists, it’s generally assumed that genetic (and subsequent anatomical and hormonal) differences between females and males are the ultimate source for these behavioral differences. Despite their insistence, such direct links between specific genes and specific gendered behaviors in humans continue to remain elusive.
As someone who both is a geneticist and has experienced firsthand the very different ways in which women and men are treated and valued in our society, I believe that both social constructionists and gender essentialists are wrong (or at least they are both only partially right). The fatal flaw of the gender essentialist argument is the obvious fact that not all men are masculine and not all women are feminine. There are exceptional gender expressions: There are masculine women, feminine men, and people of both sexes who express combinations of femininity and masculinity. People who have exceptional gender expressions (like those with exceptional subconscious sexes and sexual orientations) exist in virtually all cultures and throughout history, which suggests that they represent a natural phenomenon. Gender essentialists often try to dismiss such exceptions as anomalies, the result of biological errors or developmental defects. However, exceptional gender expressions, subconscious sexes, and sexual orientations all occur at frequencies that are several orders of magnitude higher than one would expect if they represented genetic “mistakes.”2 Further, the fact that we actively encourage boys to be masculine, and ostracize and ridicule them if they act feminine (and vice versa for girls), strongly suggests that were it not for socialization, there would be even more exceptional gender expression than there is now.
Unfortunately, a strict social constructionist model does not easily account for exceptional gender expression either. Many girls who are masculine and boys who are feminine show signs of such behavior at a very early age (often before such children have been fully socialized with regard to gender norms), and generally continue to express such behavior into adulthood (despite the extreme amount of societal pressure that we place on individuals to reproduce gender expression appropriate for their assigned sex). This strongly suggests that certain expressions of femininity and masculinity represent deep, subconscious inclinations in a manner similar to those of sexual orientation and subconscious sex. (I use the word “inclination” here as a catchall phrase to describe any persistent desire, affinity, or urge that predisposes us toward particular gender and sexual expressions and experiences.) While I believe that such inclinations are likely to be hardwired into our brains (as they exist on a subconscious level and often remain constant throughout our lives), I hesitate to define them as purely biological phenomena, as social factors clearly play a strong role in how each individual interprets these inclinations. In fact, in most cases it is impossible to distinguish our inclinations from our socialization, since they both typically point us in the same direction. Generally, we only ever notice our inclinations when they are exceptional—when they deviate from both biological and social norms.
Further evidence that gender inclinations represent naturally occurring phenomena can be found in other species. If one looks across a wide spectrum of mammals and birds (whose gender and sexual expressions are presumably not shaped by social constructs to the extent that ours are), one generally finds certain behaviors and affinities that seem to predominate in one sex, but which also occur at lower but substantial frequencies in the other sex as well.3 Thus, any model that attempts to explain human gender expression, sexual orientation, and subconscious sex must take into account the fact that both typical and exceptional forms of these inclinations occur naturally (i.e., without social influence) to varying degrees.
In order to reconcile this issue, I would like to put forward what I call an intrinsic inclination model to explain human gender and sexual variation. Here are the basic tenets of this model:
- Subconscious sex, gender expression, and sexual orientation represent separate gender inclinations that are determined largely independently of one another. (This model does not preclude the possibility that these three inclinations may themselves be composed of multiple, separable inclinations, or that additional gender inclinations may exist as well.)
- These gender inclinations are, to some extent, intrinsic to our persons, as they occur on a deep, subconscious level and generally remain intact despite social influences and conscious attempts by individuals to purge, repress, or ignore them.
- Because no single genetic, anatomical, hormonal, environmental, or psychological factor has ever been found to directly cause any of these gender inclinations, we can assume that they are quantitative traits (i.e., multiple factors determine them through complex interactions). As a result, rather than producing discrete classes (such as feminine and masculine; attraction to women or men), each inclination shows a continuous range of possible outcomes.
- Each of these inclinations roughly correlates with physical sex, resulting in a bimodal distribution pattern (i.e., two overlapping bell curves) similar to that seen for other gender differences, such as height.4 While it may be true that, on average, men are taller than women, such a statement becomes virtually meaningless when one examines individual people, as any given woman may be taller than any given man. Most people have heights that are relatively close to the average, but others fall in outlying areas of the range (for instance, some women are 6 feet 2 inches and some men are 5 feet 4 inches). Similarly, while women on average are more feminine than men, some women are more masculine than certain men, and some men more feminine than certain women. Because these inclinations appear to have multiple inputs and show a continuous range of outcomes, it is incorrect to assume that those with exceptional sexual orientations, subconscious sexes, or gender expressions represent developmental, biological, or environmental “errors”; rather, they are naturally occurring examples of human variation.
In terms of what you have asked me, I believe gender identity is biological in the sense that your subconscious sex (as Julia Serano would call it) is not something you can choose or that can be altered by social influence. I believe this to be grounded empirically, in the fact that conversion therapy does not successfully treat gender dysphoria while transitioning does. The conservative medical establishment would not back transitioning otherwise, if conversion therapy worked, our cis-normative society would absolutely endorse it as the main treatment for gender dysphoria. There is of course additional evidence in the MRI scans and the autopsies of trans brains which found trans women had structures in the brain like cis women, the brain-sex mosaic that was discovered and so on.
What this means for trans and non-binary folks is that our experiences are not the result of social contagion, delusions, or imagination, but instead a result of natural variation and our biology, even if the way that implicit gender identity manifests in our personal and social lives is clearly shaped by cultural influences.
It also means that conversion therapy, as established empirically, cannot be effective because it cannot change subconscious sex or the causes of gender dysphoria.
Gender identity is biological, and gender is not only a social construct:
https://www.advocate.com/politics/transgender/2013/10/07/book-excerpt-gender-more-performance
EDIT: this is clarified in the walls of text in my responses below, but to be clear here, I do not endorse a biological essentialist account of gender, by saying gender is not only a social construct and has biological components, I am disagreeing with a view that gender is just socialization / performance / etc., but this does not mean I endorse the view that gender is just your chromosomes / genitals / etc. Neither of these views work.
Please read the article I linked to, and for additional reading see Whipping Girl by Julia Serano, esp. relevant to this discussion is chapter 6, some of which I quoted in my responses below.
When I say gender identity is biological, I am talking about what Julia Serano calls "subconscious sex" which she also sometimes interchanges with "gender identity", which is basically that innate and unchanging sense of your sex / gender. What I don't mean by gender identity is the label you choose to identify with (or the concept that label represents).
From Whipping Girl:
the phrase “gender identity” is problematic because it seems to describe two potentially different things: the gender we consciously choose to identify as, and the gender we subconsciously feel ourselves to be. To make things clearer, I will refer to the latter as subconscious sex.
I can smell this meme, and I don't like it 🤢
does she prowl the forests fighting bandits with her newfound møøse powers?
not sure why they would lie about that considering the other things they were honest about, lol
you also have to understand that this family tended to not hold back about sharing disparaging details, shame was an important lever for behavioral adjustment and even small mistakes were punished
I think it wasn't her first time getting caught, tbh
lol, glad to hear I'm not the only one - I felt like there was something really wrong with me 😅
weirdly I still feel guilty, but I think part of it is that I also was shocked by not understanding such a fundamental aspect of society, an aspect that is criminalized and carries such serious consequences. I had a step-aunt who was in my life much later, and she served actual jail time for getting caught stealing a Hallmark card for mother's day from like a Walgreens. Her ability to find a job when she was stuck raising her baby as a single mom was compromised and the legal system really fucks you even for petty stuff like that.
Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner
When I was a teenager I once started reading a newspaper and walked out of a grocery store, not realizing you had to pay for them. I was distressed and one of my parents called the store and explained the situation and we paid for the newspaper the next time we went in.
When I was a small child, I once ate a gummy between the bulk candy bins. When explained later that you aren't just allowed to take the candy and you have to pay for it, I panicked.
Neither of these were intentional thefts, but maybe they count.
of course, I assume most Europeans are not like my friend :-)
can't wait for congress to ban whole milk because it has trans fats
you know whatever lubricants they put on the drill-bit is not safe for consumption, that hotdog is contaminated now
You take your lööps for granted, Eurøpeans. Your Sïster grows weary.
I know someone who was fired after responding to a Slack message with an emoji that was interpreted as critical of the CEO of the company, lol. The emoji wasn't offensive or anything, it was just showing support for the message which was if I remember correctly was jokingly criticizing the CEO. I think the employee took up a legal battle after that.
I think it depends on the job and the culture you are in, how replaceable you are, etc. as to how to be instantly fired. I know people who have made mistakes in their job that cost the company lots of money and they weren't fired. I know people who watched TV all day in the open office environment in full view and who weren't fired.
just get it out of my sight
Can I ask which parts you feel most skeptical about? I'm not sure what your standards are for "100% solid science", I might agree with you but I'm not sure.
Thank you for the guidance on how to approach this topic, though I feel a little confused. I thought I clearly stated gender identity comes from a biological place and that gender is not just a social construct, linking to two articles that cover everything I was trying to communicate (esp. the Julia Serano article). I guess if you didn't read the articles and you just try to respond to my sentence it might not go well ... Maybe the idea is that I need to make it more about my own experience or something, since people might feel differently about those statements being made by a trans person, but that feels ... wrong to me somehow. We shouldn't necessarily care who says something as to whether it's a right view, even if who says what might be contextually relevant to interpretation. 🤔
Or maybe your point was that I need to connect the biological basis of gender identity more to the way social constructionism is problematic. (I don't like focusing on validating / invalidating, since I think we can choose to be validating to something we don't think is real or true, and truth might sometimes be invalidating. We probably can't separate the moral concerns entirely from our theorizing, but it's an important point that gender theories don't succeed or fail based on whether they are trans affirming or not, but on whether they accord with reality and are backed by evidence. This goes for Ray Blanchard's theories as much as Judith Butler's.)
Sorry, I feel like I'm missing your point, but I really appreciate the attempt and I think I am getting glimpses of your point. My original comment was admittedly too short and lacking a lot of important context, which I was trying to economically back-fill with the articles I linked to. (Admittedly, I was short on time, and since this was a joke tweet I wasn't taking it too seriously.)
Oh of course, to the contrary I think a lot of people assume social constructionism is validating, so many people will tell me "gender is just a social construct" thinking they are signalling they are trans-accepting. It makes me cringe, it's not a small part of why this particular thing upsets me and I bothered even linking to the article in the first place. I can't stand the misinformation, and I also hate how it led to real world suffering, like with David Reimer. This is a view that needs to be revised, even if it is well intended.
If someone hears a challenge to social constructionism they might assume I am endorsing biological essentialism, esp. if I'm talking about the biological basis of gender identity, so I get that. Partially I feel that is a problem with the reader, not a me-problem, but demanding people correctly parse and then read articles is probably a high bar and I should expect knee-jerk reactions if I'm not doing more work. Again, a lot of this was because I didn't have enough time and I was under pressure when writing the message.
I think I'll edit the post and try to clarify a bit. 😅
I can feel strongly about this issue, but it's also something I bite my tongue on over and over - it creates this instability where maybe I feel a building need to address it sometimes because I can only handle so much. I know most people are shallow in their understanding of most things and even though that bothers me, I feel like that's a problem with me, I am out of sync with everyone else. Still, when I'm not filtering or being quick I might accidentally slip into lecture mode. 😬
EDIT: oh, and I wanted to say - thank you for being so nice and patient with me, lol - you're a real human and I appreciate that so much ✨ 💞 😊