The Transgender Question in the West Seen Through a Historical Lens
There seems to be a transgender issue, but is this normal?
There is a problem with the transgender conversation in the West. Needless to say, it’s a controversial and divisive topic. But why? Compared to issues such as war, poverty, and the state of the economy, it would seem like a relatively inconsequential issue. Even compared to other social issues, the focus on the transgender question in mainstream media raises some eyebrows. Transgender people make up a tiny minority of the population and — contrary to what fearmongers might say —it’s not commonly talked about in other realms other than the political. So why has it become such a hot topic?
Throughout history, societies across the world haven’t had this” problem”. Sure, gender roles and distinctions between the sexes arise along with culture, but most cultures never had a significant issue with trans or GNC (Gender non-conforming) people. Most native cultures in history have had special places for these individuals. They were often assigned to a specific third gender, and many saw these individuals as spiritual guides or shamans. Many even presented deities as integrating both sexual characteristics. Even in modern times, societies across the world don’t have as strict gendered expectations as in the West. And given this, transgenderism is not a particularly important issue for them.
I believe this issue could’ve only attained such magnitude in the West. I’ll explain how its particular philosophical and religious foundations have led to this. That is, the historical origins of Christianity that permeate the Western ethos. The same ethos that influences you, I, and most people in the developed world.
How Religion Affects Everything
Humans are animals born with a deep desire to understand the world. In our striving to understand, we quickly realized that the world is far too vast and complex to fully understand it with our limited capacities. The mysteries of nature perplexed us, but we were determined to explain the mystery. Spirits, supernatural phenomena, and other beliefs helped us explain a pre-scientific world. While a lot could be said about how these tie into truths about our psyche, among other subjects, for our purposes these arose as primitive religions. Eventually, these grew into more organized forms of belief encompassing Gods, Goddesses, and rituals Karen Armstrong puts it: “…lacking empirical tools, early humans attributed natural phenomena to the gods.”
Religion also served as a tool for societal building and cohesion. As societies grew and their institutions became more complex, so did their problems. Most religious systems were created with moral codes, like the Code of Hammurabi or the 10 Commandments. Religion also helped combat existential dread. Human mortality has been the main source of belief in the divine, as it gives hope to people that their lives have inherent meaning. Sometimes religion even promises eternal life in paradise as a reward for good living (or, on the other hand, a cruel promise of eternal suffering for bad behavior.)
No conceptualization of human society fails to take some religion into account. Religion is the main factor that defines every culture and civilization, including the West. This is because it underpins complex societies at inception, where they make the leap from small hunter-gatherer communities to creating a cultural tradition. In other words, its ethos. The three major monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have influenced the development of the West; which can be defined as the largely Christian culture that developed in Europe. The main philosophical idea influencing Western philosophy and beliefs arose from the monotheistic nature of these religions. If God created the world perfectly by his design, that means he is the arbiter of reality. As seen in Genesis: “In the beginning was the Word (logos), the Word was with God.” Logos can be equated to reason, wisdom, and knowledge. In the Western tradition, logos could be said to be akin to truth. As Jesus said: “I am the way and the truth and the life.” This focus on truth as it relates to God makes truth objective. There’s an absolute, single truth, just like there’s an absolute single God. A binary system; good and evil, right and wrong, male and female.
“Western civilization’s understanding of truth has been inseparable from its religious past. Even as secularism has risen, the frameworks of moral and ethical truth are still deeply tied to Christianity, especially in their emphasis on human rights and the moral order of society.”
Charles Taylor — A Secular Age
Yet “bare bones” Christianity only provided broad spiritual beliefs. The major ones being the inherent worth of human life, the existence and repercussions of sin, and the world being created by a perfect deity. For most of Christian Church history, earthly topics such as the way humans should run their societies have been left to “secular” governments. These worldly governments, however, were still deeply influenced by the Church. The history of Church and state is very complex, but for the most part, the Church focused on the theological side rather than the worldly side of the law. Christian philosophers such as Augustine didn’t make their important contributions by discussing laws such as the mixing of linens. Rather, they expanded upon Christianity to develop the Western philosophical tradition. By declaring “all truth is God’s truth, whether found in Scripture or nature,” Augustine further linked worldly matters to God’s creation. Thomas Aquinas followed Augustine’s beliefs, with the exception that he believed certain truths were only accessible via divine revelation. This conception of nature would go on to become very important for societal debates.
“Christianity provided Western civilization with a moral framework that goes beyond mere rules. It is a vision of human life as a journey toward perfection, guided by the virtues and a community centered on the transformative power of love.”
— *Stanley Hauerwas — The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics
Yet one cannot forget the role of the ancient Greeks. Much of the Greek philosophical tradition relied on the idea of reason. Most Greek schools of thought believed that people (not including women or slaves) could reach the truth by using their rational faculties. However, the competing Greek schools were faced with the same reality modern peoples–and all peoples across history– have been faced with. Different people reach different truths based on their own reasoning. The constant disagreements among Athenian thinkers were an example of this. Schools such as the Sophists and Skeptics believed truth was subjective and relative, as opposed to absolute and objective. Not only that, but many Athenians focused on different fields of knowledge, not just philosophy. The vast amount of contributions coming from Ancient Greece was partly due to the breadth of knowledge they covered. From philosophy to biology to mathematics, Greeks all found truths about the world in their respective fields — just like people nowadays find truth in their own political and moral views. The Greeks as a whole did not have a universal, objective idea of truth, yet they thrived as one of the most intellectually rich societies in history.
But this posed a problem for rationality: if rational people can arrive at many different truths, how do we know which reason is absolute? I won’t pretend to be a philosophical expert, but logically and historically speaking this has been an ongoing issue. In an attempt to solve it, once again, humans turned to religion. To reconcile Greek influence with Christianity’s teachings, the Church used the usual appeal to God’s objective truth. While people could make discoveries in the worldly areas of the sciences and humanities, none of these could stand in contradiction to God. The natural and heavenly world was ordained by him and by his word. The ability of religion to solve human needs for truth might be questioned by some moderns, but its influence cannot be understated. Without it, major events such as the Crusades, the persecution of the Inquisition, and the Reformation would never have happened.
Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.”
Cs Lewis — God in the Dock
Knowing the origins of the Western conception of truth allows us to understand how it shaped future events in history. Once we understand this, it’s only natural that the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution happened in monotheistic cultures. It could be argued that the Arabian caliphates made developments such as the first scientific method and early industrial technologies due to (Christian-influenced) Islam.
The Standardization of Everything
The Scientific Revolution, in particular, was an attempt to standardize worldly knowledge in the sciences and other disciplines. It rests upon the belief that one can get close to the truth with enough empirical observation and evidence. The Industrial Revolution was the continuation of this standardization of knowledge. In a way, machines created to manufacture identical goods standardize those goods. When shoes are manufactured, for example, the process takes away the subjectivity a shoemaker by trade would’ve imbued in his work. The handiwork of pre-industrial craftsmen gave products distinct qualities and allowed for the maker’s creative freedom. Once standardized by industrialization, even consumer goods lose their subjectivity. One can see a direct relation between this standardization and many Western school designs. The large classroom sizes where students have to ask for permission to do anything but sit, the school bells, and the separation of classes by age; all of these and many other aspects of modern education are modeled after industrial factories. Standardized testing and curriculums do away with subjectivity in education, clearly stating there is a correct set of knowledge to be had. They create the same system of binary thinking the West was founded on.
Perhaps an even better example of standardization in society was the creation of the nuclear family unit. This is a very recent conception arising from urbanization. Even in the West, extended families had been the norm until then. Yet societal expectations quickly changed to expect families to be smaller, atomized units of parents and their children. Propelled by capitalist social engineering, gender roles quickly became even more rigid than they had ever been. It painted a picture of a strict division of roles between men and women, whereas in smaller communities these roles were often shared. As any commercial in the 50s would show, there was a standard of clearly delineated behaviors and presentation any respectable family was expected to have. In this way, even gender dynamics had been standardized. There was a very clear, strict conception of what a man and a woman was.
This isn’t to say that gender roles were not strict in the pre-industrial West. Rather, the picture of the 50s took these to their logical conclusion. And in my opinion, this extreme level of strictness inspired a backlash that contributed to the social movements decades later. Western society, still influenced by its traditional beliefs, predictably wasn’t too keen on social movements attempting to “break” the gender binary. Movements such as LGBT rights and sexual liberation would strike a deep blow on Western notions of sex and gender. Stereotypically gay men, with their displays of femininity and sexual “passivity”, were a particularly unwelcome reminder of the limitations of this binary. This hadn’t really been seen prior to Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis. Before Freud, human sexuality was conceived more in terms of the masculine giver and the feminine, and passive, receiver. His concept of homosexuality and heterosexuality was an important factor in bringing LGBT dynamics to the forefront.
Into Social Change
In an attempt to solve this, psychiatrists and other clinicians attempted to prove that GNC behaviors were learned environmentally. Others would say gay men like Turing were “female souls trapped in men’s bodies” since they were unable to fathom men displaying behaviors associated with women. Homosexuals like Alan Turing were often given chemical castration and forced to undergo sex-change treatment — the natural order of things had to prevail. The practice of conversion theory also arose from this. In time, though, these theories would be proven wrong and the disastrous ramifications on their victims would be revealed. Homosexual people’s orientation is mostly impossible to change, and trying to suppress them is torturous and leads to negative health outcomes.
John Money–whom conservatives and trans opponents nowadays love to bring up– went to the other extreme to try to prove gender was completely fluid. While his contributions to gender and sexuality theory were important, he refused to believe people had an innate sense of gender and thus caused immense suffering in the infamous case of David Reimer. He attempted to raise Reimer as a girl due to a botched circumcision, but Reimer faced extreme psychological distress at this upbringing and eventually lived his life identifying as a man. Money’s failed experiment gave credence to the idea that people have an innate conception of gender. As much as this applies to a cis (identifies with their assigned sex at birth) boy, however, we have seen that transgender people often experience similar distress to him.
The failings of treatments such as conversion therapy are not surprising, given what we now know about gender and sexuality. The LGBT movement succeeded partly due to the acceptance that these characteristics weren’t changeable or immoral. A side effect of this success, though, was a crisis in the public’s concept of gender. If some gay men had a stereotypically feminine character, or some butch women acted stereotypically manly, what did that say about the nature of gender? What exactly defined gender if there were such examples of fluidity?
Changing Views On Gender
Perhaps you find it surprising that I’m linking industry to beliefs of gender. Yet by doing this, we can help explain the changing conceptions of gender happening in our society. The Industrial Revolution was both influenced by and influenced a materialistic worldview. Concepts such as labor, for example, are overlooked in favor of work that can be pointed out as a complete result. Construction workers completing a building are compensated, but the emotional and educational labor of women in the household isn’t. People — both critics and ac claimers — discuss the role of consumerism and its repercussions for society. Tangible, material goods have taken center stage.
The same applies to our shifting beliefs about gender. Many people nowadays, mostly conservatives and people on the right, will adopt a belief about gender based on mere biological characteristics. The problem with this definition of gender is it doesn’t take into account the complexities of biology. People’s genitals can be changed by modern surgeries, and so can secondary characteristics with methods such as Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). Further, even chromosomes don’t hold the answer. Chromosomes only serve as a blueprint for development, with a lot of variety within and between genders that can also be affected by genetic mutations. Even if we assume that chromosomes shape our gendered development and behaviors, the existence of intersex people puts that into question. Either intersex people are a third gender, or gendered realities aren’t as simple as “simple” biology. There is also the fact that transgender brains — both in those who took HRT and in those who didn’t — were found to resemble the structure of the sex they claimed to be.
Unfortunately, many trans opponents ignore the complexities of biology and still use the biological explanation as an excuse to reject transgender people. Yet these opponents, the type who portray trans women using insulting drawings of a man in a dress, will refuse to accept them even after they see bodily changes. Conservatives will criticize perfectly passable trans figures such as Blaire White, pointing out that no amount of bodily change will make her a woman. If they’re somehow forced to admit the biological explanation is not reliable, they might nod to some idea of gender essentialism. That is, the idea that a person’s gender is based on how well their internal self matches to the concept of their gender. But this poses another issue: neither they nor any clinician, politician, or any other agent with power could determine a person’s gender without getting to personally know them. This is a particularly relevant issue for lawmakers, as it stands to reason they shouldn’t be passing any legislation that affects people based on these assumptions of gender.
Clinicians following the DSM-5 follow a reasonable strategy for treating transgender people. They leave the definition of gender to the individuals’ subjective feelings on it, diagnosing them based on how strong their feelings of gender dysphoria are. This approach, although not perfect, is much better than assuming one knows a person better than themselves know. An even more reasonable approach is the process of informed consent. It puts the power in the patient’s hands, rather than on a clinician who might be a bad actor or negatively skew their decisions with biases/human error. Instead of relying on an evaluator who has the power to limit a patient’s bodily autonomy, the patient is educated on the effects of their treatment and given the freedom to accept the treatment.
At this point, some of you might think I’m advocating for extremist measures. You might believe these approaches are too laissez-faire, that they neglect patient safety in favor of freedom and autonomy. But this approach could only be viewed as an extremist one under a modern, Western view. Historically speaking, the attitudes towards gender that clinicians are taking are being normalized, not radicalized. Western, monotheistic-influenced culture stands in contrast with most cultures in history when it comes to gender beliefs. The rigid, highly categorical conception of gender in our societies differs from the more fluid and changing conception held by the rest of the world; this includes even the Greeks and Romans.
Adopting a Non-Western Perspective
Before monotheism, most societies in the world were polytheistic. The Mesopotamians, Greeks, Romans, Hindus, and the Pagan tribes in Europe all believed in a myriad of Gods. The Greek Gods were infamously irrational and capricious. They acted just like any other human, with their vices and virtues, but they were Gods. Gods such as the Greeks represented different aspects of the world. The Viking Gods mirrored this, and so did Gods in Eastern cultures such as the Hindus. This shows a stark contrast to the monotheistic belief of a perfect, all-encompassing God that stands for everything. Polytheistic societies held a foundational belief in truth that was anything but rigid, absolute, or objective. While many people such as the Greeks theorized that objective truth did exist, there was no single unifying proof that could universally be referred to. Instead of a unifying Logos, there was a collection of Gods with different truths and perspectives about them. The Oracle of Delphi, for example, always delivered prophecies in vague and ambiguous terms. The Bhagavad Gita said there were multiple paths to truth. Many European pagans even added the icon of Jesus to their altars. They saw no issue with putting Jesus next to other pagan Gods, as they were open to truth being subjective. In this context, it’s not surprising to see that these cultures were much freer in their societal conceptions.
In these cultures, as well as many Native cultures in the Americas and other places, there was a lot more acceptance of people engaging in cross-gender behavior. While gender roles have almost universally existed, non-monotheistic societies never viewed them as absolute since they were not ordained by an absolutist God. Even if they viewed them to be natural, they also acknowledged the existence of people who were different from the norm. Many Native American cultures had specific roles for “third gender” people, who often held special spiritual positions as shamans and healers. The Mojave thought there were 4 genders, 2 of them traditional and the other two for men who acted like women and vice versa. Indian avatars were usually presented as hermaphroditic, just as many other deities from religions around the world. Indian society in particular has held a historical role for transgender and GNC people. Indian Hirjas have always been part of Indian culture and society, being considered people who aren’t male or female. Surprisingly, even the Talmud defines over 6 genders — likely as a relic from the early Jewish religion that had both a male and a female God. These are all examples of the conception of gender being more subjective and context-dependent than that of monotheistic societies.
The general consensus in anthropology is that gender is far more complex than our Western conception gives it credit. Some evidence such as Margaret Mead’s study of New Guineans give reason to believe ‘primitive’ humans didn’t even have a concept of this binary. She found one tribe where both sexes displayed feminine behaviors, one where there was a mix of gendered behaviors, and one where they were completely reversed. Others have claimed the concept of gender didn’t exist for most of history. Rather, humans were defined by their reproductive capabilities. Some languages around the world, such as Japanese, don’t have official grammatical use of gender. Others such as the Romance languages schizophrenically assign gender to inanimate objects. This shows the variance in gender perceptions within even modern cultures. Even though I’ve framed this essay from a religious explanation, other theories in this field are more varied. From militarization causing patriarchy to civilization itself enforcing gender roles, these aspects likely also affect gender beliefs and how they relate to the trans question.
Overall, it’s not surprising that modern society is adopting a more fluid conception of gender. With the drop in religiousness, migration of people from other cultures, and the popularization of alternative spiritual beliefs such as Buddhism, the rise in alternative conceptions of gender is inevitable. And not all of these point to transgender people either. Similarly to other contemporary cultures that never let go of their gender fluidity, such as the Philippines Baklâ, or the Thai ladyboys, Westerners have started playing with concepts such as tomboys and most recently femboys. These categorizations are fundamentally more non-binary, as opposed to transgender people who attempt to fit into standing gender roles.
