C U LT U R E A N D P O L I T I C S

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MAIMONIDES
TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S

6 L AU R A K I P N I S 178 N AT H A N I E L M A C K E Y
Gender: A Melee Song of the Andoumboulou: 266
25 D O R I A N A B B OT 186 RO B E RT C O O P E R
Science and Politics: Atrocity in the Garden of Eden: Myanmar
Three Principles, Three Fables
212 STEVEN M. NADLER
42 BERNARD-HENRI LÉVY Bans, Then and Now
After Babel
240 M O RT E N H Ø I J E N S E N
63 B RU C E D. J O N E S The Fiction That Dare Not Speak Its Name
Taiwan: Chronicle of a Crisis Postponed
260 CLARA COLLIER
106 D U R S G RÜ N B E I N Women with Whips
Expressionist Film
275 HELEN VENDLER
In Cold Arms of Water
Lumière Art Against Stereotype
Flea Market 296 H A R I S V L AV I A N O S

112 D AV I D G R E E N B E RG A Gift from Heaven

The War on Objectivity in Blake in Paradise
American Journalism Delirious Passion
Poetic License
147 I N G R I D ROW L A N D Cycladic Idyll
Thucydides 2022
304 C E L E S T E M A RC U S
158 D AV I D A . B E L L The Beehive
Marat/Zemmour
326 L E O N W I E S E LT I E R
Christianism

SPRING 2022
VOLUME 2, NUMBER 3
 LAURA KIPNIS some, breadwinning for others. Nature did not intend men
to clean toilets! Or women to go to work, needless to say. It
wasn’t just childbearing that society required from women; as

Gender: A Melee
the morally superior gender we were also meant to dragoon
reluctant men into playing patres familias, according to Gilder,
luring them into domestic cages like lion tamers at the circus,
civilizing their beastly sex drives into socially productive ones.
If we shirk the task, everything falls apart. Gay liberation was
thus another sore spot in Gilder’s catalogue of contemporary
woe, a world where women’s charms held no sway and male
carnality thus ran amuck.
How vulnerable the “primacy of the biological realm”
would turn out to be, how tenuous its hold on the species if
each of us had to pledge fealty to the gender binary to keep
civilization afloat. How confident can nature’s defenders
really be in the selling power of this story? After all, alarm
The king was pregnant. bells aplenty have rung over the last half century yet have thus
U R S U L A K . L E G U I N, far failed to herd those renegade female factions back into
THE LE FT H A ND OF DA R K NE S S their kitchens.
And look around now! Gender is more of a clusterfuck
than ever, and yes, civilization’s destruction indeed looms
6 It turns out the supply-side cheerleader George Gilder was nearer: birthrates have dropped below replacement rates 7
more correct than not when he forecast, in the poignantly around the globe, down four percent in the United States in
titled Sexual Suicide in 1973, that women playing at being men 2020 alone. Male breadwinner families are on the extinction
would spell the collapse of Western civilization and probably watch list. And the damned liberationists still aren’t happy.
the social order itself. What he meant by sexual suicide was Today’s gender vanguards — trans activists, the “genderqueer”
“the abolition of biological differences between men and — want to sever the link between biology and gender entirely,
women” — in his day, feminists demanding paychecks and letting men become women and women men, surgically
forcing men to do housework, and thereby selfishly violat- acquiring penises and cooches, rebranding important body
ing the pact they were supposed to be upholding with nature. parts with gender neutral language (“front hole” for vagina),
Nature had endowed humankind with different sorts of bodies, not to mention poisoning innocent children with cross-sex
from which different social roles followed: motherhood for hormones and puberty blockers. (Far more patriotic to mow

Gender: A Melee
 them down with assault weapons, at least according to the child (feminists, hermaphrodites) snapping at them from the abyss,
welfare experts of the GOP.) Some members of the younger then we’re in the realm of what the fairy tale expert Marina
generation want to abolish gender entirely, demanding the Warner calls the monstrous imagination. Aroused by scenes
whole English language be revised to accommodate them and of chaos and emergence, it mirrors our lack of understanding
their impossible-to-remember pronoun preferences. back to us in the form of menacing hybrids, typically depicted
Where gender distinctions blur, monsters seem to lurk, as scary inhabitants of dark underworlds. Among the chaotic
like those snarling creatures at the edge of the world on emergent things no one much understands (especially these
sixteenth-century maps warning sailors away from the abyss. days) is gender, despite everyone supposedly having one. Yet
I was thinking about the monster problem recently while what is it, where does it come from? Certainties abound, yet
reading an interesting history tracing the relation between somehow they keep changing. With Western civilization itself
the invention of endocrinology and the growing demand a rickety boat navigating these tumultuous waters, perpetually
for gender reassignment treatments. Called Changing Sex: about to sail over the edge into some posthuman future, no
Transsexualism, Technology, and the Ides of Gender, from 1995, wonder the conversation gets a little shrill.
it opens with the author, Bernice L. Hausman, a mostly Revolutions are threatening, and what Hausman calls the
lucid writer, confessing in the book’s preface that she’d been “new forms of being human” that emerged in the twentieth
pregnant while revising the manuscript, and was “perhaps one century were revolutionary, especially once “hormones” —
of few expectant mothers who worry they will give birth to a so named in 1905 — were extracted (from glands) and then
hermaphrodite.” I was therefore not surprised when the book synthesized, leading eventually to new possibilities in gender
takes an anxious anti-trans swerve in its epilogue, though reassignment procedures. Oddly — though maybe this is just
prior chapters provide fascinating facts about the discovery the usual blinkers of an academic with nose pressed to his own
of glandular therapies in the late nineteenth century. This research subject (in this case, transsexualism) — Hausman fails
8 includes the story of a researcher named Charles-Édouard to mention that the ability to synthetize hormones also led to 9
Brown-Séquard, who in 1889 found, by injecting himself the development of birth control pills, first marketed in the
with canine (or possibly monkey) testicular tissue, that what United States in 1960, which prevent ovulation in women. It
would later be called testosterone had sexually rejuvenating strikes me as weird that Hausman doesn’t see that far more
effects in men. Thousands of men were soon arranging to have widely implemented gender-altering technology as part of
themselves likewise injected, though whatever rejuvenation the same story, also ushering in new ways of “being human”
followed was later thought to be a placebo effect — the testes for roughly a hundred million women worldwide. (Estrogen
don’t actually store testosterone, it turns out. both figures in hormonal contraception and feminizes men
If commentators as disparate as Gilder and Hausman who wish to change sex.) Maybe her pregnancy made her less
are, in their different ways, a little panicky about the gender attuned to this aspect of the narrative, but it’s hard to think of
system collapsing, if both envision nature-defying creatures anything more consequential for natal females than the ability

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 to effectively control fertility, which radically contested one income, not the two or more that are now the norm for vast
the existing gender regime, not to mention fundamentally swathes of the country, often sans benefits.
transforming the experience of heterosexual sex. (See under: But why not finger-point at feminists, those sexual
Sexual Revolution, The.) gargoyles, chewing up men and spitting them out, though
But how did the old regime manage to uphold itself in between the union busting and the job exports, capitalists
the first place when it disadvantaged so many? Conservatives were doing a lot more chewing and spitting than women ever
will tell you that gender comes from nature and sits firmly on managed, not that we wouldn’t have enjoyed it. Oh, and the
top of biological sex; these sexual differences are imagined declining birthrates? The majority of those recently surveyed
to be binary. But this binary was always rather imaginary — in the United States cite childcare costs as the foremost reason
the incidence of intersex babies was always higher than was not to procreate, along with climate change, another of free
generally acknowledged. Doctors made capricious medical market capitalism’s great accomplishments. (France, the EU
decisions and interventions to assign those babies to one sex country with the highest birthrate, also funds eighty percent
or the other, precisely because gender ideology dictated that of childcare.) Obviously blaming women, homosexuals, and
binary gender had to be preserved. (Apparently intersexed pornographers for macroeconomic shifts is a better yarn.
babies are as common as red hair.) Behind the monstering process lies an appetite for thrilling
In other words, a certain bad faith seems to come with this perversity, Marina Warner observes, for “lurid scenes of
territory, by which I mean a refusal to know what you know. other people’s sins” — titillating even while they purport
Look at Gilder, famous for touting the very economic policies to condemn. (Speaking of titillation: along with feminists
which crushed the single-paycheck family that Sexual Suicide Gilder has a peculiar animus about sexologists, who come up
was trying to corral America back into. The signature program frequently, though they can, admittedly, be creepy.)
of these guys (the Bell Curve author Charles Murray was another What if we were to put it as a question instead of an answer:
10 of the big guns) — suppressing wages and cutting taxes for the why has the traditional gender order lost so many adherents 11
rich, shifting income shares from workers to capital — was a these days? A less hysterical version of Gilder’s laments may
program so successful we’re still living with the consequences. be found in Francis Fukuyama’s account in The Great Disrup-
Everyone’s seen the stats about upward redistribution of wealth tion: in his telling, late capitalism no longer required gender
in the last half century, and the gap keeps widening. As Gilder differentiation for the technology and knowledge-based jobs
must know, it wasn’t feminism that catapulted women into the that a post-industrial economy needed to fill. Women didn’t
labor market in the 1970s, it was stagnant male wages, post-in- suddenly rise up and demand economic independence —
dustrialism, and the expansion of the service sector; and then Fukuyama goes so far as to call feminism an epiphenomenon
came the economic hits of Reaganomics. When labor was of the information society, a symptom of social disruption
winning, as it had been before 1973 (a bad year, between an oil and not its driver. The explosion of late twentieth-century
crisis and a recession), a middle-class household could survive on liberation movements — the sexual revolution, second wave

Gender: A Melee
 feminism, gay liberation — that freed individuals from the to be named. “In other words: if endocrinology makes bodies
tethers of traditional norms and morals were likewise sparked malleable, and families instill (slightly) less repression this
by the transition to a post-industrial society. century than in previous ones, why not explore those possibil-
Capitalism smashes things while ushering into existence ities instead of bemoaning the situation? Preciado suggests
all sorts of new human freedoms. (Economic equality unfortu- regarding gender disobedience as a model for social transfor-
nately not among them). If the male-female binary is losing mation. Why not start implementing “A Day Without Gender”
its grip on the human psyche as a social organizing principle, in schools, hospitals, homes, museums and see what happens?
and the premise that gender roles are rooted in nature has Gilder obviously wasn’t wrong that paychecks and the
been crumbling for the last century, the causes are obviously sexual revolution gave women more access to what had
multiple: an increasing focus on personal fulfillment, the traditionally been male prerogatives. (As to whether these
decline of patriarchal authority that accompanied men’s were or are “freedoms” is a more complicated discussion.) But
declining economic fortunes and women’s economic indepen- the question that Gilder and followers never get around to is
dence, and resulting changes in the family structure. Or go this: if capitalism no longer requires gender differences (and
back further: as Eli Zaretsky points out in Capitalism, The soon will barely require workers at all, except for really shitty
Family, and Personal Life, the gender order has been breaking or “public-facing” jobs), why is it up to the rest of us to keep
down since Freud unwittingly hastened its demise by undoing upholding these differences? What’s in it for us?
the “knot that tied the sexual instincts to the difference
between the sexes.”
My point is that maybe feminism and transgenderism
aren’t separate stories. Maybe the rising reports of gender That the snarling creatures at the edge of the gender abyss were
dysphoria and plummeting birth rates aren’t separate stories once feminists now sounds quaint, since for today’s gender
12 either. There have always been people who did not fit easily liberationists (trans activists, “enbys,” intersectionalists) the 13
into normative categories but were herded in by threat and feminists are toothless and mainstream, also complicit in
force, and who are increasingly breaking loose. Because yes, monstrous historical crimes. At least four books with “white
the old structures are ever more enfeebled, unable to demand feminism” in the title were published in 2021 alone; the term is
fealty. Conformity to their dictates is waning. For some that not used with approbation. In the updated version of the story,
spells catastrophe, for others it’s a circus of possibility. Paul B. white women are the ones responsible for electing Donald
Preciado, author of Countersexual Manifesto and Testo Junkie, Trump — even those who voted or worked for Bernie — and
billed by Vice as a “punk trans philosopher,” says that “we’re will forever be saddled with the humiliating label “Karen” as
transitioning from being a society which is organized by payback.
sexual difference.” We’re moving from a binary gender and In another twist, weirdly it’s now feminists — well, a
sexuality regime “to a new and different regime that has yet certain breed of feminist, mostly the dreaded white ones —

Gender: A Melee
 wielding the “nature” card, demanding that the old binaries In a statement articulating these anxieties, Rowling
be kowtowed to, otherwise monsters will get us. In Gilder’s revealed that she was herself a survivor of domestic abuse
iconography of gender catastrophe, the monsters were women and sexual assault, citing this history as a reason for opposing
in pants; in the updated version they’re wearing skirts, but gender reforms. She regards herself as a vulnerable party in
disaster still beckons. J.K Rowling has been mounting alarms the emerging gender order. Yet she doesn’t appear to have
about the monsters in skirts — that is, trans women (assigned been assaulted by a trans woman or a man masquerading as
male at birth but who identify and live as women), who are a woman. Then why shift responsibility for male violence
supposedly haunting women’s bathrooms and changing against women onto trans people who, it is widely acknowl-
rooms, intent on sexually assaulting natal females. None of edged, are disproportionately victims of violence and harass-
this has been great for her brand, but she seems undaunted. ment themselves, especially when forced into facilities that
Among Rowling’s fears are that if gender self-identification don’t align with their chosen gender? Rowling did acknowl-
laws go into effect in the United Kingdom, trans people will edge that the majority of trans-identified people pose no
be allowed to change the gender on their birth certificates threat to anyone, yet the gender self-recognition movement
without going through the previous gauntlet of psychiatric was still “offering cover to predators like few before it.”
diagnosis and permission, and then any man who says he Are there really legions of roving trans women predators
identifies as a woman would be able to get a Gender Recogni- out there attacking other women, aside from “problematic”
tion Certificate and state sanctioned access to gender-segre- Brian De Palma homages to Hitchcock? (Dressed to Kill is the
gated facilities. locus classicus — spoiler alert: the psychiatrist did it.) Like
To inject a bit of reality into this anxious morass, the fact Rowling, the feminist philosopher Kathleen Stock seems to
is that no one is stationed at the changing room entrances and think so. Until recently a professor at University of Sussex,
public bathrooms checking birth or gender certificates now, Stock voluntarily resigned her post in 2021 saying that she had
14 so how would banning gender self-identification keep trans been subject to bullying and harassment because of her views 15
people out of non-state-run segregated spaces? There are, to be on transgender identity, and indeed, there had been a student
sure, no shortage of vigorous informal policing mechanisms campaign calling for her dismissal. Even her receipt of an OBE
not infrequently inflicted on trans people who don’t — Officer of the Order of the British Empire — was protested
sufficiently pass muster (are “clocked” as the wrong sex) in by over six hundred fellow philosophers, though a counter
civic spaces, gender-segregated and not. Among the pernicious petition signed by two hundred philosophers supported her,
things about Rowling’s statements is the likelihood of them or at least supported her academic freedom to say what she
empowering other women to make scenes when in proximity wanted about gender.
to anyone whose gender presentation is not to their standards, Reading Stock’s essay, “Ignoring Differences Between Men
people who just needed somewhere to urinate when out for and Women is the Wrong Way to Address Gender Dysphoria,”
the day. from 2019, it’s easy to see why she is controversial. Things start

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 out reasonably enough, with Stock delineating the difference gender minorities (trans people), and feminists (Stock and
between what she calls “sex eliminationists” — those who Rowling are both speaking as feminists) do not always align.
argue there’s no difference between biological women and While you might be a trans lesbian-feminist, some trans-iden-
trans women because biological sex isn’t a meaningful category tified people are also quite attached to the kinds of binary
— and “gender eliminationists,” who hold that distinctions gender distinctions that some feminists would like to abolish.
between men and women aren’t meaningful, and we should Natal women and trans women have different health and
treat all humans the same. From there things become, to my reproductive issues. I don’t think natal women need to hold
mind, exceedingly fuzzy. Stock argues that because “there will onto some proprietary definition of womanhood, but there
always be some social stereotypes about the sexes that remain are political reasons, in the current political climate and with
programmed in our minds, if only because they correspond abortion rights under threat, to acknowledge that biological
to statistically recurrent empirical truths about biological womanhood disadvantages biological women in ways that will
men and women,” then the most we can reasonably hope for, always defeat equality if not addressed. (Trans men, too, can
when it comes to damaging social stereotypes, is to be “gender get pregnant and require abortions.) In any case, no one has
critical” — “consciously critical of the particularly damaging to be monstered. Nor does cisgender (not being trans) need to
social stereotypes we collectively uphold, aiming to replace be a slur, or “cishet” a synonym for clueless, nor “older genera-
them over time with better and more socially useful ones.” tion,” though no doubt these disagreements are generation-
This slides rather fast from social stereotypes to empirical ally inflected. But even lumping “cis” women (a term I don’t
truths. I find myself wondering how Stock, a lesbian active in love) into one pile overlooks a lot — for instance, pro- and
LGB organizations, can speak so confidently about the empirical anti-abortion cis women see their interests very differently.
realities of gender, while mysteriously oblivious about how Race complicates things even more.
recently so-called experts defined a reality in which homosex- Trans men and trans women are also not always allies.
16 uality was a pathology — psychological in origin and thus, In fact, the age-old war between the sexes has lately been 17
notoriously, “fixable.” Or one where women were unsuited transposed to intra-trans disputes, with trans women calling
to the professions. Nothing is less stable (or empirical) than out trans men for transmisogyny on Twitter. A trans man
social stereotypes about gender, as anyone who reads a work of I know recently accused certain trans women in our circle of
history or anthropology knows. The traits associated with one being “hard core bros until like a year ago” and moving through
or another gender bounce around and reverse over the centuries the world expecting the same privileges while moaning about
and between cultures: sometimes men are the more sentimental being victims of institutional sexism. The intra-trans tensions
ones, elsewhere women; men are the lustier ones, no actually it’s broke into public in 2020 in the academic journal Transgender
women (amoral and multi-orgasmic); and so on. Studies Quarterly, when trans theorist Jack Halberstam
Where I have some sympathy for Rowling and Stock is reviewed trans theorist Andrea Long Chu’s book Females: A
that the political interests of sexual minorities (gay people), Concern (in a piece funnily titled “Nice Trannies”) and accused

Gender: A Melee
 her of being the Allan Bloom of trans studies, while having “a violence takes more hidden forms, for instance violence
deep antipathy” to trans men and butches. (Chu was recently against children), but the majority of men are not violent. It’s
appointed book critic at New York magazine.) men, in fact, not women, who are far more often the victims
Personally I’m more interested in political alliances than of violence. The week that everyone was talking about the
in gender- or identity-based ones. Clearly identity doesn’t in Gabby Petito murder case (the missing travel blogger who
itself predict anyone’s political affiliations or savvy. A surpris- turned out to have been killed by her fiancée) and the grim
ingly high percentage of trans people surveyed — 36% — prevalence of missing women, the FBI annual murder statis-
were Trump supporters in 2016, according to a peer-reviewed tics for the previous year were released, according to which
study a year later in the journal Politics, Groups, and Identities, to roughly seventy-five percent more men were murdered than
choose one of many available examples. Trying to make sense women (14,146 men, 3,573 women, 35 gender unknown).
of this, the study’s authors explain that one of the unifying Obviously women are subject to violence by men, frequently
themes in Trump support was anti-feminism; a big way that their husbands, boyfriends, and exes, but men are vulnerable
the GOP has attracted adherents is by signaling that rejecting to violence by men, too. (As are trans women, especially sex
feminist positions is part of what it means to be a Republican. workers, assaulted by straight men who can’t own up to attrac-
The trans versus feminist tensions are hardly new: open tions that might make them, in their minds, “gay.”) Somehow
warfare was long ago declared between the brand of feminist we prefer telling stories about endangered cis women.
some label TERFs (“trans exclusionary radical feminists”) Stock, along with Rowling, also seems bent on shunting
and the trans community. (Stock and others regard TERF as blame for male violence onto trans women. Stock offers the
a slur and insist on “gender critical” as the correct label.) This case of a pre-operative trans woman named Karen White who
often unpleasant standoff commenced with a vicious little sexually assaulted two female inmates while housed in a British
tract published in 1979 by the radical feminist Janice Raymond woman’s prison. Described by her neighbors to The Guardian
18 titled The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male, which as “volatile and violent,” White was also a convicted pedophile 19
argued that trans women are closet patriarchs who want to on remand for grievous bodily harm, burglary, multiple rapes,
colonize women’s bodies by parading all the worst stereo- and other sexual offenses. Does Stock think White is a typical
types about them. In the decades since, trans women were trans woman? Is this even typical cisgender male behavior?
often excluded, in not particularly kind ways, from feminist Stock seems to think yes. Arguing against those who say that
spaces, because feminists such as Rowling declared themselves excluding trans women from women-only spaces is analogous
vulnerable parties, at risk of assault by trans women who came to excluding lesbians from women-only spaces, Stock counters
equipped with inborn male aggression despite presenting as that there’s no “analogous pattern” of lesbian aggression
women. comparable to patterns of male violence. In other words:
Natal men may indeed perpetrate the majority of the trans women are men and must shoulder the blame for male
violence in the world (though it’s been argued that female violence. And one violent trans woman is a pattern.

Gender: A Melee
 Is this intellectually honest? I don’t think so. As someone teenth century (it was well into the twentieth that child labor
pithily tweeted about the sorts of fears circulated by Rowling laws went into effect). It also took a decline in infant-mor-
and Stock, “The reason predatory men aren’t becoming trans to tality rates for mothers to start regarding their offspring with
prey on women? It’s a lot easier to become a cop.” In other words, much maternal affection. When infant deaths were high,
we panic selectively. Reports not infrequently surface about maternal attachment ran low. It was only as families began
mothers doing violence to, sometimes even murdering, their getting smaller — birthrates declined steeply in the nineteenth
children. To date there are no attempts to ban motherhood. We century — that the emotional value of each child increased,
see those episodes as anomalies, though non-anomalous enough which is where we find the origin of contemporary ideas
that there are laws and (generally understaffed) child protection about maternal instincts and fulfillments.
agencies, and of course a thriving memoir sub-genre devoted All I’m saying is that what we’re calling a “biological”
to abusive mothers. But motherhood is also supposed to be the instinct is a historical artifact and a culturally specific develop-
“natural” condition of things, thus maternal abuse, no matter ment, not a fact of nature. An invented instinct can feel entirely
how many cases a year surface, is always an exception. Whereas real. I’m sure it can feel profound. As can the kinds of fears and
an isolated case of a violent trans women is a pattern. vulnerabilities that Stock and Rowling are leveraging. But if
Let me press a little harder on the maternity analogy. Both we’re getting empirical, let’s acknowledge that childbirth has
Rowling and Stock worry that transness is contagious, and killed far more women than murderous trans women ever did,
young girls will get the idea that changing genders is a good though I suppose the sentimental premise is that all those dead
solution to the inherent problems of being female. But all mothers died fulfilling their gender destiny, not defying it.
our ideas about gender are contagious — that’s how culture The point is that a lot of behind-the-scenes conceptual labor
works — including deep seated ideas such as “maternal goes into establishing the “naturalness” of gender, not to
instinct.” Except that it’s not an instinct, it’s a concept that mention the vulnerability of gender critical feminists.
20 arises at a particular point in history, circa the Industrial As far as nature goes, the reverence for it is pretty selective. 21
Revolution, just as the new industrial-era sexual division of We’re happy to take cholesterol blockers, mood elevators,
labor was being negotiated, the one where men go to work and and erection enhancers as needed without worrying whether
women stay home raising kids. (Before that everyone worked at it’s what nature intended. The other day a pig kidney was
home.) A new story arose to justify the new arrangements: that transplanted into a human. Technological possibilities on the
these roles were handed down by nature. As family historians horizon include uterine transplants for sterile women, which
tell us, it was only when children’s actual economic value raises the possibility of uterine transplants for trans women —
declined, because they were no longer necessary additions to maybe eventually for cisgender men too. Why not? Humans
the household labor force, that they became the priceless little have always made it their business to conquer, alter, and
treasures we know them as today. The romance of the child repurpose nature — and then to invent monsters lurking at
didn’t get underway for the middle classes until the mid-nine- the crossroads.

Gender: A Melee
 untangle it five months later in Los Angeles Magazine, there
actually was a (possibly) trans person in the spa that day. Police
Not surprisingly, Rowling’s and Stock’s brand of panic-mon- issued a warrant for 52-year-old Darren Merager for indecent
gering soon became fodder for the fringe right in America. In exposure; Merager does have a penis and is a convicted sex
July 2021, QAnon followers staged two weekends of violent offender. But is Merager actually trans? It’s unclear — he
protests in Los Angeles after a customer at a Koreatown spa or she seems to have a female driver’s license, though until
(Instagram handle: “Cubana Angel”) filmed herself complaining recently was identifying as male, according to acquaintances,
vociferously to the manager about a trans woman supposedly and McGahan isn’t sure which pronouns he or she uses. Is
using the jacuzzi in the woman’s area of the spa. “He’s a pervert,” Merager a predator? He/she has a criminal record for theft,
shouts Cubana, “waving his penis and testicles around!” The but it appears that his/her previous sex crime arrests were for
sight was traumatizing for her. “His dick is out!” says Cubana’s exhibitionism which, according to the psychoanalytic view,
friend, voice trembling. “His dick is swinging left and right!” typically does entail wanting to be caught. (Robert Stoller calls
She repeated the word “swinging” so many times it led me to these scenarios “scripts” in Observing the Erotic Imagination.)
wonder if these were rehearsed lines. “What about women’s In this view, exhibitionism is a pathology of gender identity,
rights?” shrieks Cubana, as the manager patiently tries to not a sexual behavior. The motive is courting humiliation and
explain that California’s Civil Code prohibits businesses from punishment, not getting off sexually. It’s a (not very successful)
discriminating against anyone on the basis of gender identity remedy for gender dysphoria, not predation.
or expression. “We’re concerned about women’s safety,” yells Still, there it was, a penis in the woman’s pool. Did this put
Cubana. “We’re gonna take it worldwide!” natal women at risk? It is the case that many (or most, or lots
Which is exactly what happened: the video went viral. of) cis women have been socialized in ways that can make the
Tucker Carlson aired a segment about it, the first of seven sight of an exposed penis in non-private settings feel alarming.
22 on Fox over a week. Antifa showed up to protest the QAnon Perhaps that will someday change, though I don’t imagine 23
protesters, evangelicals and the Proud Boys showed up, a such feelings are exactly voluntary — any more than gender
reporter was clubbed, protestors threw smoke bombs at cops dysphoria or compulsive exhibitionism is voluntary. But once
and pepper sprayed each other, riot cops fired projectiles again, to what extent is it possible to be intellectually honest
and beanbag rounds into the crowd. Amidst all this, reports about the distinction between an anomaly and a pattern?
appeared in Slate, The Guardian, the L.A Times, and other liberal Perhaps it’s not, especially when there are competing interests
outlets suggesting that the report about a trans woman in the and clashing vulnerabilities at stake. Especially when titillating
spa was likely a hoax, and according to a spa employee there monsters hover — and Merager made a wonderfully convenient
had been no trans patrons with appointments that day. one — feeding the “appetite for thrilling perversity.”
But the story turned out to be more complicated. Why is gender such a melee? Can’t it be a comedy instead
According to the journalist Jason McGahan, who tried to of a tragedy, a playground and not a police state, with room

Gender: A Melee
 for experiments and transformations? You don’t have to be
some sort of pomo-structuralist to think that no one knows
what gender is or where it comes from. Clearly all we have are
stories about gender and sexual difference, which shift with
the winds, the centuries, and political-economic contingen-
cies. Why not see gender the way we do other human variables
— personality for instance, capacious enough for thousands of
permutations and infinite mutability?
“Smash the family!” feminists used to declare. Look
around: it’s smashed. As far as who done it, it’s not that big
a mystery — could Gilder and cohort not see its demise up
ahead when they tanked wages and trashed the safety nets?
They were so caught up in their deregulatory zeal that they
couldn’t imagine the S&L crisis, the housing bubble and
evictions, Enron, and the opioid epidemic. No, the only thing
they wanted to regulate was gender!
Yes, capitalism breaks things while ushering in all sorts of
great new personal liberties — expressive individuality, your
very own idiosyncratic unconscious, unisex clothes. It brings
whatever you want right to your door at all hours (if you’re
among the lucky “haves”). Shopping for things, including
24 identities, is the great modern consolation. Is having a gender
identity — another recent development in the annals of
modern selfhood — a trap or a freedom? Yes.
To those who fear trans women in the ladies room: make
sure to pee before you leave the house. Those immutable laws
of nature you’re attempting to enforce today will be dust
tomorrow, and soon enough so will you.
Other nations of different habits
are not enemies: they are godsends.
Men require of their neighbors
something sufficiently akin to be
understood, something sufficiently
different to provoke attention,
and something great enough to
command admiration.
A L F R E D N O RT H W H I T E H E A D

Liberties Journal Foundation

Copyright 2022
ISBN 978-1-7357187-6-7
ISSN 2692-3904
libertiesjournal.com