Safe Issues for Complacent, Well-to-Do People
The politics of gender identity provide a perfect set of issues
for complacent, well-to-do, middle-class liberals and radicals. The issues include
questions that are currently widely debated. Who is a man? Who is a woman? Can
a person be “non-binary”? Is a person’s gender identity tied to his/her
anatomical structure, or is it a matter of self-concept? Is a person’s gender
identity permanent, or can it change during his/her life?[i]
These issues are safe for because progressive positions
concerning gender identity do not threaten anyone’s comfortable, social
position or indeed any of the basic institutions of power and wealth in our
country. People with large investment portfolios or successful businesses do
not need to fear that accepting non-binary gender identities would threaten
them with higher taxes or reduce the value of their investments. Politicians
who accept large donations from oil companies or pharmaceutical companies do
not need to fear that their donors would be hurt if anatomical boys who
identify themselves as girls were allowed to use girls’ bathrooms in schools.
Businesses would adjust easily to making money from transgender people. In
short, a middle-class liberal may safely espouse progressive positions on the
issues of gender identity without taking any serious risks. Their comfortable,
middle-class positions will not be threatened.
Risky Issues
Other political issues are much riskier. A serious commitment to fighting climate change would require big adjustments in our economy. People with investment portfolios would risk losing money in those changes, and some businesses would go bankrupt. A decent, national health insurance program would threaten the incomes of medical professionals and eliminate millions of jobs in insurance companies. A decent supply of affordable housing would require changes in zoning laws, and those changes would affect the value of millions of middle-class homes. Free post-secondary education would require most middle-class people to pay higher taxes and would subject their children to competition from the lower-class students who would be able to attend our universities. And, of course, any serious approach to racial justice would require us to act on all of these issues.
We Don’t Act on Risky Issues
We do little or nothing to about these risky issues, and in
fact, we do little to make life easier or better for the majority of our
people. Climate change, although it threatens us all, has become a political
football. Millions of otherwise sensible people oppose any kind of national,
health insurance program although our mediocre health care system is by far the
most expensive in the world. Our cities are full of homeless people, and
millions of families are groaning under the burden of educational debts.
While we are failing to act to resolve such important social
problems, we read serious
articles in major newspapers that discuss the question of whether or not it
is ok to use “they” as a singular pronoun, and our courts deal with lawsuits over
the question of whether an anatomical boy who considers himself a girl may be
allowed to use the girls’ bathroom in her school.
Liberals Get to Feel Virtuous
By espousing progressive positions on issues of gender
identity, liberals get to feel morally superior. They get to feel that they are
espousing freedom, the ability of an individual to express his/her true nature
and the creation of a truly free society. They get to feel morally superior
without taking any serious risks. Their positions and their wealth are not threatened.
What could be more comfortable? What could be safer?
[i] The
politics of sexual preference are another matter, and I am excluding them from
this discussion. There can be no doubt that gay and lesbian people are entitled
to the same freedoms and protections as straight people. Gay and lesbian people
should be able to live their lives openly without fear of retaliation or
prejudice. Gay and lesbian relationships should be portrayed in movies, plays
and TV shows as natural and acceptable relationships.
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