Exh 555334

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Transcript

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This video is sponsored by  Curiosity Stream and Nebula. Gender and sex have been at the centre of  public discourse for a few decades now.  

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And by the public, I mean gay people,  and by discourse, I mean arguing. If you, like me, were unfortunate  enough to be assigned online at birth,  

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you’ve probably heard the mantra repeated  that “gender and sex are different”.   That sex is your body, and gender is your brain;  or sex is your body, and gender is the way you  

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interact with the world. The catchphrase comes  from a good place: it's an easy way to explain   why gender identity matters, and why we should  respect trans people. But honestly… I’m kind  

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of over it. This take has been a fixture of  the queer discourse for over a decade now,  

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and I'm not gonna lie, it’s getting  stale. Like okay, sure, they’re different. AZEALIA BANKS: So... what now?

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Nowadays, distinguishing between sex and  gender feels so tame, it’s basically useless.

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But this wasn’t always the case.  In fact, for most of history,   the distinction between gender and sex  didn’t exist at all. Gender roles were  

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so tied to birth assignment that we didn’t  even have a word for them. Women were held   back because of their delicate constitution.  The social aspect of gender - what it meant  

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to live as a man or a woman - was explained  away by biology. It all came down to sex.

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In the English-speaking world, it wasn’t until  the 20th century that men and women’s places   in society really came into question. The  first wave of feminism had come and gone,  

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and it was mostly a success - for white  women. But after they won their battles,   and a handful of legal rights were  gained - for white women - it became  

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clear just how much more needed to  change before we could be equal. People began recognizing patriarchy as  more than just the natural state of things:  

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it was a system upheld in a million little ways,  and it was one they could try to dismantle. Simone  

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de Beauvoir’s book “The Second Sex” really kicked  this off in 1949, talking about how gender isn’t  

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innate, it’s drilled into us from childhood. She  calls out the church, the institution of marriage,  

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and the state of modern motherhood, saying  each of them are obstacles to equality. Later, in 1955, the sexologist John  Money coined the term “gender role”,  

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while on a break from scarring  children for life. F*** this guy! With the groundwork laid, we were  off to the races! Gender roles were  

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a major focus of second-wave feminism, and  they’ve been in the spotlight ever since. Sure, the concept feels stale now.  But in the 40s and 50s, talking about  

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gender roles as separate from biology - as  something we made up - was pretty radical!  

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Acknowledging gender as separate from sex means  things don't have to be this way. Your birth sex  

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doesn't have to define the rest of your life.  We recognize gender so we can criticize it.

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This is where the so-called “anti-gender movement”  comes in. A growing faction of the Catholic right,  

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especially in Eastern Europe and South America,  have been fighting back against gender as a  

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concept. They oppose it for the reasons  you’d expect: it goes against God’s will,   it threatens the traditional family, and so  on. The Christian right is deeply invested  

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in woman’s place in society, so of course  they don’t want us to challenge it. But it’s not just those reactionaries that  want us to stop talking about gender. It’s  

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also THESE reactionaries that want  us to stop talking about gender!   What a bait-and-switch that was! Well. I  guess it was in the title, actually. Aw.

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Trans-exclusionary radical feminists, or TERFs,  are an increasingly mainstream contingent of  

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feminists, and they say talking about gender  is a waste of time, because it doesn’t matter.  

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They prefer to talk only about sex, which  they say is simple, unchangeable and the  

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only real factor in sexism. Since gender is  out of touch with reality, biology is king.

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I know that to many in the trans community, this  line of thinking is distressing. If what they say  

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is true, trans people have no hope of being  accepted as our true genders. All of us are  

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doomed to be defined by our birth sexes forever.  But is it possible that TERFs have a point?

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No. No, not at all. Today, I’m here to examine  what TERFs believe about sex,  

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what they believe about gender, why they’re  bafflingly wrong about both. Buckle up, baby!

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(Title card: 1. The Abolition of Sex)

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TERFs put a lot of stock in sex - the biological  kind, not the kind their husbands keep DMing me  

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about. They argue that biological sex is  the root of all misogyny, from systemic  

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discrimination to casual sexism. They say  it's the determining factor in how we mature,  

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how we're raised, how we're targeted  and treated. And that the genders we   live in have little to no bearing on any of these.

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This belief in sex above all sets them apart  from most modern feminists. It’s ostensibly  

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what makes them radical, because the world is  trending towards gender-neutrality in a big way.

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The shift is most obvious when we talk about  bodies - if we’re talking about periods,   you might hear “people who menstruate”  instead of “women”, or “birthing parent”  

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instead of “mother”. I think this shift  in language is unequivocally a good thing;  

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it invites more people to the table. It  lets everyone with a stake in this stuff   know that they’re welcome in the conversation.  It's also just more accurate! The old language  

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left out cis women who don’t get periods, and cis  mothers who didn’t give birth birth to their kids.

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Unsurprisingly, this shift in how we talk about  bodies has sparked some major backlash from  

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the anti-gender crowd. They often say it’s  inappropriate or objectifying to talk about  

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bodies in this way. Take it from someone who  definitely knows things about women’s bodies. BEN SHAPIRO: How about the assertion that men and  women are essentially social constructs? That even  

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biology is a social construct. This is  the most extreme form of the argument,   that there are men with  uteruses and women with vaginas.

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There are women with vaginas?  I had no idea! Hot take, Ben! BEN SHAPIRO: CNN, the other day, headlined  that individuals with a cervix should  

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make sure they are... cervically  screened... for cervical cancer.   I have no idea what an  individual with a cervix is--

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We know, buddy. We know. Anyway, they seem  concerned that gender-neutral language excludes  

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more people than it includes. Like if we describe  the struggles faced by “people with uteruses”,  

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we’re suddenly no longer talking  about women with uteruses.   I’m gonna say something really brave  here, but I think women are people.

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(Canned applause) Thank you! TERFs seem especially concerned that we’ll  abstract words like “man” and “woman” into  

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meaninglessness. They argue that if we  approach biology in a gender-neutral way,  

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we won’t be able to talk about sexism or  discrimination anymore. As it’s often put,  

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“How can we talk about misogyny  if we don’t know what a woman is?” And of course, what a woman is  to them begins and ends with sex.  

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So clarifying the meaning of sex - again, not the  kind their husbands keep DMing me about - has been   a major priority of theirs. Janice Raymond’s  book The Transsexual Empire, from 1979,  

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addresses this question right at  the start. It’s a foundational   text of anti-trans feminism, and it has  been hugely influential in the movement.

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That said, Raymond defines  sex in a pretty sensible way.   She used a pre-existing definition of sex that  was outlined by the gender role creep himself,  

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John Money. She has some criticisms of his  definition, but mostly goes with it anyway.

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Money defined sex based on six criteria:  chromosomal, anatomical/morphological, genital,  

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legal, endocrine/hormonal, and psychological,  which Raymond calls psychosocial. The idea is that  

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the archetypal woman has XX chromosomes, feminine  fat distribution and bone structure - this has  

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nothing to do with eugenics, I SWEAR. Ovaries,  a female sex marker on her birth certificate,  

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lots of estrogen in her system, and the behaviours  and attitudes women are conditioned to have.

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And sure. I mean, obviously people who  tick all those boxes are widely thought   of as biologically female. Endosex cis women’s  womanhood is really not under question here,  

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so the only thing these rigid  definitions do is help us decide who   isn’t a real woman. They can only suggest  who we should exclude from our feminism,  

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not who we should include. And why  should exclusion be the starting point? The genderqueer activist Riki Wilchins  called this out in 1997, in their book  

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“Read My Lips”. The language has evolved since  this book came out, but it’s still really good. RIKI WILCHINS (voiced by Sarah Feldman):  Even momentarily putting aside the issue  

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of intersexual women, doesn’t reliance on  “equipment” return us to a definition of woman  

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in which biology becomes destiny? Doesn’t it  return us to the classic oppressive construction  

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of woman which defines her strictly by  reproductive organs and function? Will we   replace consciousness raising with crotch checks,  complete with the edifying spectacle of us all  

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squatting and pointedly inspecting each other’s  genitals, as if we were a group of chimpanzees?

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Worst of all, we started out to liberate women. We  wanted to represent their political interests and,  

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in so doing, open up whole new horizons for them.  Yet our first act is to fence off all the things  

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they cannot do and still be considered women.  Our message is no longer "You are free to become  

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whatever your talent and heart allow", but rather,  "You are free to become whatever your talent and  

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heart allow as long as it’s not too masculine or  too much like men, as long as you continue to look  

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and act like a woman.​​“ And it appears that the  woman you will look and act like is based on that  

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traditional, limiting, heterosexual-based  model we hoped to chuck for good.

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And really, what does this rigidity even  serve? We know we can talk about biology,  

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and things that are usually considered women’s  issues, without falling prey to bio-essentialism.  

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We do it all the time! In fact, TERFs' arguments  that “we can’t even talk about biology anymore!”  

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usually come up when queer people are talking  about biology, just in a gender-neutral way.  

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Conversations about “chestfeeding” instead  of breastfeeding, or cancer screenings for  

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“people with prostates” instead of men, are  usually what rile them up in the first place. But we need to have these conversations, because  of course, trans people know that “sex matters”.  

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We know this because all people have sexed  traits that impact our lives. For a trans woman,  

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this could look like having broad shoulders,  or having breasts - or it the unique way  

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you’re treated if you have both. We aren’t  ignorant of biology at all. In fact, I think   trans people have a really valuable, unique point  of view on sex, and the many things it entails.

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For instance, I have some traits that  aren’t considered female - like I can’t   get pregnant - and I have a good sense of when  they matter, and when they don't. It matters when  

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I’m talking to my doctor, and when governments  pass draconian abortion bans. It doesn’t matter  

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in my daily life as a lesbian partnered to  someone who couldn’t get me pregnant, anyway.   It doesn’t confer privilege in a job interview,  or when I’m walking alone, late at night.

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I wish people trusted that trans people  know what our own lives are like,   and how our bodies impact our struggles.  I mean hell, a lot of us have changed the  

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traits you use to determine a person’s sex,  and seen it change the way we're treated.  

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Medical transition is an expensive, years-long  process, and we don’t do it for no reason.  

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If we thought sex was irrelevant, why  would so many of us change our own? (Title card: 2. The Case for Gender)

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The Transsexual Empire came out over 40 years  ago, and it doesn’t perfectly reflect what  

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modern transphobes have to say about sex. I read  a fair bit of it while researching this video,   and I was shocked to see how  measured it is in a lot of ways,  

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at least compared to the hateful stuff  coming out right now. Don’t get me wrong,   it’s a deeply hateful book, but at the same  time, one of the criteria it used to define  

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sex was “psychosocial”; the way you feel  about your sex and your place in the world.  

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And that's just... gender? The Transsexual Empire  was gender-critical, but it did acknowledge gender  

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as real and at least occasionally relevant.  You would never see that now! Today’s TERFs  

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are rabidly anti-gender. They’ve made it clear  gender has no place at all in their analysis. 

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For modern TERFs, sex is simple, immutable and  objective, where gender is just the opposite. It's  

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imaginary; it's immaterial. It's far too slippery  to be of any use. Most contemporary TERF writing  

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posits that genders are nothing more than  harmful stereotypes, and that by living in our   preferred genders, trans people perpetuate these  stereotypes. They’re especially quick to come  

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for the girls over this: “Oh, you think being a  woman is just about being beautiful and feminine!”  

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It's like they don't even see us. You think if I  thought that, I would look like THIS right now?! They argue that trans women are  all hyperfeminine and shallow,  

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and that we perpetuate the idea that you  need to be those things to count as a woman.   Claiming a gender at all is  seen as misogynist violence.

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However… they don’t really apply this idea  evenly. While they'll often judge trans women  

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for presenting as female, that judgment is  rarely turned inward. Cisgender transphobes,  

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most of 'em at least, never seem to question  their own gendering. Why do you have long  

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hair? Why do you wear makeup? ‘Cause if my  womanhood is oppressive, surely that is, too. And Riki Wilchins actually confronted  Janice Raymond on this point in person.  

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Here’s an excerpt of a speech  they gave at an event in 1994: “You say we want to "pass" as women. Well,  I don’t pass. I wear this Transexual Menace  

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logo everyplace I go. Between the  two of us, only you pass as a woman.  

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If, as de Beauvoir held, "One is  not born a woman, but becomes one,"   if femininity is an invention of men foisted on  women, if feminine behavior is a learned cultural  

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performance of hair, clothing, voice, gesture,  and stance so one is perceived as a female,  

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then by presenting yourself as a woman it is you  who have been co-opted into traditional sex roles,  

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you who serve their institution,  and you who are performing here.” (Crowd cheers, bad-ass music plays)

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Trans people are marked by our  active choices about gender.   Think of all those cliched images of  trans girls coming into their own:  

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spotted trying on their mom’s clothes through a  crack in the door. Viewed through a vanity mirror,   meticulously applying lipstick and false  eyelashes. And obviously, there’s nothing  

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wrong with doing these things; if any femme trans  girls are watching this… (mouthing "call me") My point is that even when  we’re accepted as women,  

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the whole dolling-up routine  is thought of as foreign to us. On the other hand, cis women applying makeup  is part of the expected daily routine.  

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In movies and TV, the effort cis women put into  their looks is utterly invisible. Women wake up  

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with perfectly curled hair and a full face  of makeup, and it’s never even acknowledged!  

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It’s like this pristine femininity is so innate  to their bodies that it happens all by itself.

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Of course, it doesn’t. Being AFAB doesn’t  mean you wake up every morning wearing lip   gloss and kitten heels. Cis women getting  dolled up is just as much a feminization  

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as it is for trans women. As a wise fracking  tycoon once said, we’re all born naked and  

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the rest is drag! What's that, you're on  estrogen? No, you can't be on the show! When cis people take on the  gendered behaviour expected of them,  

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it’s assumed to be a natural outgrowth of their  biology. "You like dresses because not because   you're a girl, but because you’re female,  and females are drawn to these things".  

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It could be that or, "You tease people  in your class because you’re male,   and that’s how males show affection". I can see  how, for some cis women, gender and sex might feel  

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like they ARE the same thing. All these gendered  traits are understood as extensions of their sex.

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That’s how you get people saying  shit like “I’m not cis, I’m normal”!   Or “I don’t have pronouns, I’m just a dude!”

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LEFT AT LONDON: Hey there! What are your pronouns? Oh, I'm cis. I don't have pronouns. No pronouns? Damn... another  victim of gender identity theft.

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Some cis people get so offended when you  point out that they, too, have a gender.  

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But they do! Their behaviours and  their choices don’t exist in a vacuum.   The belief that every part of a person’s identity  boils down to sex is... sexist. And to be fair,  

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it's not something all TERFs believe - many  say femininity is completely artificial.

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Some TERFs call for gender  abolition on a wider scale:   going beyond gender roles, they hope  to do away with gender altogether.  

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A prominent TERF we’ll talk about another day  named Kara Dansky put it this way in her new book:

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KARA DANSKY (voiced by  Laura Crone): For feminists,   gender is purely a social construction that is  loaded with various patriarchal roles, values,  

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and expectations [...] The reason feminists  have been calling for the abolition of gender  

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is that from a feminist perspective, gender  is a prison that keeps women in a position  

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of subservience to men. For feminists, in other  words, gender is the problem, not the solution.

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This argument's a kind of funny one. She says  trans people are part of the problem because  

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we have gender identities, and gender is a social  construct. The funny thing is, saying that gender  

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is a social construct isn’t a controversial  take in trans communities! Lots of us agree!

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I’ve argued against the innateness of gender  in a few of my videos over the past year.  

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I’ve argued against the importance  of identity in general! I mean,   I went viral for a take adjacent to this;  I owe my career to saying gender is kind of  

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silly sometimes. And having read like, thousands  of comments across my videos about gender…  

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I can’t remember many people disagreeing with me.  Because I acknowledge that even if gender is fake,  

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trans people are still here and we still  matter. As it turns out, being critical of  

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gender is actually pretty welcomed by a community  that’s marginalized because of their genders.

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For any TERFs watching, I’d like to offer a tip on  how to get the trans community to listen to you.

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Don’t do hate speech. Frankly, if anyone knows gender is fake, it’s us.   We’ve seen this shit from the inside, we know  just how inconsistent the rules are. It’s like,  

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I can see this shit in six dimensions, buddy!  You have no idea just how made up it is! But something can be made up and still matter.  “Social construct” doesn’t mean unimportant.  

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Money is a social construct, that doesn't mean  you can go around burning hundred-dollar bills.  Traffic laws are a social construct! You don’t  see us barrelling through red lights about it!

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When we engage with these things,  we kind of make them real. When   Judith Butler says gender is performative,  that’s what they mean… I think? Honestly,  

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I read one sentence of Gender Trouble and  enter a fugue state, so who can say for sure. Gender is upheld by all of  us, and by so many systems!  

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I can’t just decide to stop being  gendered. The world wouldn’t listen.   I guess we could all collectively opt out;  start themming it up in every city on earth--

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In my last video, I made a joke that was  insensitive to the nonbinary community.   I am so deeply sorry. I'll be taking a step  back to learn and reflect. Thank you all.

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But I'm not convinced that would do much good. It  wouldn’t cancel out all our gendered experiences.  

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I can’t imagine patriarchy would  vanish the second all our genders do. Not everyone feels this attachment to gender, of  course. There are agender people out there living  

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their best lives, miles away from this stupid  discourse, and I love it for them! But letting   go of mine would feel like a genuine loss. Being a  woman is important to me, and not just internally.

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When reflecting on how my gender has mattered,  I think of all the gendered bonds I’ve formed  

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with people: as a sister, and a daughter, and  a friend. I think of the career opportunities  

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that dried up the second I came out, the  schooling that became impossible to finish.  

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It wasn’t because of my sex. All this  happened before I’d changed anything   about my body or my birth certificate.  It was about my gender. I was a woman,  

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and a trans one at that. It wouldn’t do  me much good to ignore that, would it? I think deep down, TERFs must know the genders  we live in are relevant. It’s so obvious that  

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they must see it. They usually feign ignorance,  and insist that trans women never face misogyny,  

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because we’re male, and that trans men remain  inescapably female in every way that matters.  

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But their tactics tell a different story. I mean, they really fight to keep trans people  in the closet, right? They want books banned  

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and spaces un-safed and clinics shut down.  They want conversion therapy legalized,  

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and God, I wish that was hyperbole,  but they literally do. All this,   despite their insistence that nothing can  change a person’s sex. That this dangerous  

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gender ideology can only change people’s gender  identities. Something doesn’t add up here.

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If sex is all that matters, and nothing can  ever change it, who CARES if people want to  

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transition?! Who CARES if people want to  change their gender? By their own logic,  

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everyone from catcallers to lawmakers should  see through the facade and treat us as our  

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true sex. If gender doesn’t matter, someone  changing theirs should make no difference.

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But that’s bullshit, and they know it’s bullshit.  Just listen to how TERFs talk about transmasculine  

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teenagers, even the ones who don’t want hormones  or surgery. They act so concerned that young girls  

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are transitioning to escape misogyny and the  challenges of girlhood - and they concede that  

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it tends to work! They admit that people  treat you differently based on your lived   gender; sometimes better or worse, but  often just differently. It’s a quiet  

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admission that the genders we live in are  materially relevant, independent of sex. LIERRE KEITH (voiced by Laura Crone):  The transgender movement would have  

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us believe that sex does not exist as a  material reality and should be replaced  

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by the utterly incoherent concept of  'gender identity'. they are winning.

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Their current line only works if trans people hold  gender in high regard, and think it’s this thing  

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that is deeply, persistently true. And some people  think that, but I don't. The feelings and actions  

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we describe as gender as real, and the things we  use to decide sex, like hormones and chromosomes,  

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are real, too. I don’t think the cultural  meanings we prescribe them are real. I don’t   think a person’s sex should matter! But as long  as it does, it’s worth talking about. Much to the  

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chagrin of TERFs everywhere, I ultimately  believe in sex. The question is… do they?

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(Title card: 3. What Is Sex, Really?) Through my research, I kept coming  back to the definition of sex   used in The Transsexual Empire,  the one with six criteria to it.  

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I know this has been a pretty dense video, so  I’ll refresh you on what the criteria were: Chromosomal, anatomical, genital,  legal, hormonal, and psychosocial.

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Janice Raymond using this definition struck  me as a real weak point in her reasoning.  

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Because, despite her insistence that  trans women will never be female,   transitioning can change nearly all  of these criteria! And I say women  

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because that’s who the book's about,  but this applies to trans people. Working up the list backwards: Psychosocial. We identify as women,  

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and could be said to have the “attitudes  and behaviours” associated with women.  Hormonal. We can easily change the dominant  hormone in our bodies with HRT. Hi baby! Hi! 

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Legal. In many countries, we can change our legal. Genital. You can’t change the gametes your body  

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has, but you can get rid of them altogether.  In fact, it’s fun! I highly recommend it. 

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Anatomical. We can change our  bodies with hormones and surgery.  (Chromosomal) The last one is the most fixed.  There’s no way to change the chromosomes in  

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your cells, nor would it really be worthwhile  if you could. More on this in a little bit. It’s funny: in what’s basically the  founding text of anti-trans feminism,  

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five of the six definitions of biological sex  acknowledge trans women as not being male. The  

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one that doesn’t was discovered in 1882, and I’m  pretty sure sex has been around longer than that.

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Janice Raymond’s definition of sex  lets trans people off pretty easy.   No real gotchas to be found. To her credit,  it was honest, and scientific for the time,  

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but starting your book about how trans women  are men with several ways trans women are   women is didactically pretty weak. It’s  also not nearly as catchy as it should be,  

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if you’re trying to build a mass movement.  You're telling me sex is these six things,   and some aren’t binary, and some are a social  construct? How am I gonna fit that on a T-shirt?!

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Unsurprisingly, this approach has fallen  by the wayside in recent years. In the  

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four decades since The Transsexual Empire came  out, the TERF line on what sex is has actually  

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shifted quite a few times. Sometimes it changes  meaning more than once in a single conversation.

25:14

To start, they might say “sex is  what’s on your birth certificate”.   A single, binary data point. Easy to  understand, impossible to change… That is,  

25:24

until you do change it. From there, it might move  to “Sex is what’s in your pants”. Of course, you  

25:29

can change that too. In that case, saying, "Sex is  really just your chromosomes” should do the trick.

25:35

In the past year, I’ve noticed  them shifting towards the position   that sex is only your gametes: whether you  produce sperm cells or egg cells. I think  

25:43

they’ll settle on this one for a while,  though the others still pop up sometimes. For a supposedly objective thing, transphobes’  definition of sex is real slippery. And if  

25:54

it’s so fundamental to their movement, you'd  think they would've agreed on it beforehand. According to TERFs, we should talk about  sex, not gender, because sex is objective,  

26:04

and totally separate from culture. They say sex  is really what determines the struggles we face;  

26:10

that sex is inherently more in  touch with material reality. But that doesn’t gel with the simpler  definitions they’ve latched onto lately.  

26:18

The thing about chromosomes and gametes  is... they’re invisible. Microscopic. If  

26:24

someone walks by you on the street, they  don’t know what your chromosomes are!   Even a doctor can't say for sure without  running tests. How could chromosomes be so  

26:32

essential to the oppression of women when most  of us don’t even know for sure what our own are?

26:37

Well. Chromosomes are important for sex  determination because they tell your body   what to do as it matures: what happens in  the womb, during your puberty, and so on.  

26:47

They’re instructions. And when you medically  transition, you’re kind of deciding to flout  

26:52

those instructions, and follow your own,  instead. And I love that for you! So fish! Now this may surprise you, but I’m not a  scientist. I am some lady who read a few  

27:01

books and set up a camera in her bedroom. But,  having maxed out my levels in gender and sex IRL,  

27:06

seeing this shit in six dimensions and solving  gender in my head like it’s times tables,   I feel like I should still put this out there.

27:13

When we’re talking about sex in a social context,  I don’t see why chromosomes should matter more  

27:19

than the way our bodies actually are in the  world. What they look like, how they function,   how it feels to be in them. Cause if we’re talking  about sex as a way to cut through the bullshit,  

27:29

and talk material reality, DNA  is kind of a distraction. People   don’t exempt me from misogyny based on  information they don’t have access to.

27:38

TERFs use “biological sex” to lay claim to  some special relationship to material reality,  

27:44

some impartial observer position, where they  just tell it like it is. But their prescription  

27:49

of trans people’s bodies as male or female has  nothing to do with how we live, how treat each  

27:55

other, or how we interact with institutions. Hell,  it barely has anything to do with bodies at all.

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Case in point: gametes. A widely  used yardstick for sex in science.  

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If a trans woman is on hormones long  enough, she stops producing them. Hold up. Okay, that's not quite  right. This is true for some people,  

28:13

but it doesn't always happen. Hormone therapy  is not a reliable contraceptive. Anyway. If she gets bottom surgery, her body can never  produce them again. If TERFs used gametes as  

28:23

their definition of sex and stuck with it…  that would mean that post-op trans women  

28:29

are no longer male. But, and this will surprise  nobody, they don’t. Instead, they opt to call us…  

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eunuchs. Sterilized males. And I’m just like...  where do you see that?! On what grounds?!

28:42

According to transphobes, the most important thing   about your body is defined not  by what your body looks like,  

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but by how it might have looked like when you were  born. Or not by what your body looks like, but by  

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reproductive cells you may have no intention of  using - cells you might not even have anymore!

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So what’s up with this? How can TERFs claim  this special connection to material reality,  

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while denying the realities of trans people’s  bodies? Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret.  

29:12

Transphobes’ definition of biological sex  has nothing to do with biology. In fact,  

29:19

it has nothing to do with anything observable  at all. They don’t really believe that sex is  

29:24

your chromosomes, or your gametes. They  don’t believe sex is your legal marker,   or your hormones, or your body type.  What they believe - the only thing they  

29:33

believe - is that sex is how you’re born,  and that it can’t change. It’s that simple.

29:39

And they used to be upfront about  this! Trans-exclusionary feminism   branded itself as being for “womyn born womyn”  until like, a decade or two ago. It was exclusion  

29:50

for exclusion’s sake. They only shifted gears  recently, when their unabashed prejudice came  

29:55

under fire. But modern radical feminism  is still like that. The only thing that’s   changed is they’ve fortified their prejudice with  scientific jargon to make it look reasonable.

30:05

And this is why their definition of sex  is so slippery. It’s hard to define sex   in a single, simple way that is both true and  categorically invalidates trans people. Because,  

30:15

in most ways that count, trans women  are female, and trans men are male!   At least we can be. But TERFism can’t survive a  conclusion like this, because the whole purpose  

30:26

of defining sex is excluding us: deciding  who doesn’t get resources or community.  

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Deciding who isn’t female, more than  deciding who is. If trans people fit into   their theory of sex in any way, the theory  doesn’t work anymore, so it has to change.

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And here’s the truly galaxy-brained shit, the take  I’ve spent the last 40 minutes priming you for.  

30:48

TERFs don’t believe in biological sex. They  believe in the inescapable power of birth  

30:54

assignment, powerful enough that its impact  endures even when no trace of it remains. They  

31:00

believe that birth assignment dictates whether you  are a pure person who's destined to be victimized,  

31:06

or a threat who’s not to be trusted. They  believe that your assigned sex at birth   should determine what you can do, what you can  call yourself, and who you can associate with.

31:16

This belief is a rigidly idealist one, and  doesn’t hold up to real-world scrutiny,  

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but it’s the core of their whole movement. It  needs to be true, or everything else falls apart.

31:28

The thing about treating sex as the most important  thing, and imparting deep cultural meaning onto  

31:34

people’s bodies, is... You’ve just invented gender  again! That is literally where gender came from  

31:41

at the very beginning. That' what gender was 2000  years ago, and it's what gender was in the 1920s.  

31:47

I thought these people were supposed to be gender  critical! It seems like they want us to step back  

31:52

several decades into the past, when gender did  exist, but we had no language to talk about it.

31:58

We named gender in the first place to talk  about how gender roles are artificial.   How women’s place in society is not natural.  

32:07

And I think this has worked! Nowadays,  calling gender a social construct   is so tame, it barely feels worth saying. But  TERFs want us to stop using this language.

32:16

They identify themselves as the most principled,  strident radical feminists. But to borrow a page  

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from their playbook: I don’t give a shit how you  identify, I care about what you are! And the vast   majority of TERFs are, at this point, fighting to  control the bodies of women, and people they think  

32:33

are women. They’re fighting to reinstate the old  order, where men and women inhabit separate worlds  

32:38

that can never touch. Where gender is ignored,  and so-called natural sex differences justify all  

32:45

kinds of discrimination. Setting aside whatever  ideals they claim, this is the world they’re  

32:50

trying to build. This is what happens if they win.  You want to talk material reality, there you go.

32:56

(Title card: TERFS ARE WRONG ABOUT  BIOLOGICAL SEX (AND EVERYTHING ELSE))

33:02

Ouf! Oh boy. Hey, so on a lighter note,  we're coming up on a year of the channel now.   It's funny to say that, because I  actually started this channel about  

33:10

6 years ago. I have been trying  at this on and off since 2012,   and I never expected it to work in the way  it has been. In the past year, I've been  

33:17

trying really hard to make this sustainable,  and to make this community a healthy one. That’s why I’m really excited to announce  that my videos are now available on  

33:26

Nebula. Nebula is a streaming platform owned by  its creators. There are a lot of upsides to this:  

33:32

creators on Nebula aren't bound to the algorithm,  so we can explore the topics we care about. We  

33:38

can talk about sensitive topics like this  one, without fear of getting demonetized.   Nebula doesn't even have ads - even the one  you’re watching right now! And there is so much  

33:47

good stuff on there. Nebula has Lindsay Ellis, FD  Signifier, Hbomberguy, Kat Blaque, I could go on!

33:54

And it gets better. If you follow my link  in the description, you can get Nebula for   free right now, because there’s a  bundle deal with Curiosity Stream!

34:02

If you don’t already know, Curiosity Stream  is an educational streaming service with   thousands of documentaries on all sorts of topics,  

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from food to psychology to wildlife. If you like  learning about badass women throughout history,  

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and who doesn’t, you might enjoy Calculating  Ada: The Countess of Computing. It’s about Ada  

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Lovelace, the visionary who wrote the first  computer program all the way back in 1843.

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If that sounds like your kind of thing, you  can use my link and get a discount on an annual   subscription. If you sign up before December  25th, you’ll get a staggering 42% off! A whole  

34:36

year of Curiosity Stream and Nebula for less  than 12 bucks. It’s a ridiculously good deal.

34:42

To sign up for Curiosity Stream, and get  Nebula for zero extra dollars, head to  

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curiositystream.com/lilyalexandre. Thanks again  to Curiosity Stream for sponsoring this video.

34:54

And, for that matter, thanks to all of you for   your support over the past year. I  can't tell you how much it's meant.

35:00

Ugh, I can never manage to  do the credits in one go.   I also wanted to thank Laura Crone and Sarah  Feldman for lending their voices to this video.  

35:08

They both have excellent YouTube  channels, so definitely check them out. I'm looking back at where I was a year ago, and  it is absolutely wild how much has changed. I  

35:17

couldn't do that without all of you, and  especially my supporters on Patreon. So,   as always, a huge thanks to  my top Patrons, including:

35:25

TheNumeralOne duck grows chilis  Pascal Isaac (Izzy)  Mattie Mamode Lillian Butler 

35:33

Rebecca Gail Sasha Karbachinskiy  Katelyn  Hannah Leichnitz Dan Lizotte 

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Rikka Koi Scott (Sometimes Lucy)  Margaux Boivin Gene 

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Cherre Mongiovi Ruby Landau-Pincus  DetectiveMeowMeow autogynamelia

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There's always one that's just like,  the best username you've ever heard. Alejandro Hernandez Gen Pseudonym 

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Vivi wren  June Fox Auslander  Mary Wishart TheRecognitionScene 

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Jane Malcolm Darla Butler  Sammie Cohen xbanbeares  Winona Honey Henry Rachootin 

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Christopher Stillson Celeste Blossom  Linda Jewers Mariah 

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Teresa Tutt smaz vee  Taylor Hardy Kieran McMullin 

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Clara Griffin Emily Martins  Sam Braley kiki✨ 

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Lee Slothpope Dr Hayley-Isabella Cawley  conna Q Lilian Revell 

36:34

Jasperi Wirtanen Mathilde  Delia the Snake Luna Jade 

36:40

Kate Chappell Hot Girls Read Lenin  Erica Peterson Guillaume 

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Jesse Kempkes Madeline Mausoleum  Quillwerth Tracy Sim 

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Ari Runanin-Telle Charlie H.  MegaHertz (ˈme-gə-herts) Ivy 

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Chloë Jane Mel Cat  Gwen Lofman Rose Dale 

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scatterflower midtierart  wimbleimble Imogen Campbell

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and that's actually the last one. Thank  you all so much for making this possible,   and for making 2021 a shockingly good  year for me! See you in the next one.