Gender Theory and Queer Theory
What is Gender Theory and Queer Theory?
Gender ideology, which has its roots in Queer Theory, has radically altered society in the past decade. Adherents of this ideology believe that what makes a person a man, woman, boy, or girl is not the material reality of their sexed body, but rather an innate, internal sense of gendered self: their gender identity.
While gender ideology is relatively easy to understand, Queer Theory is anything but. In the simplest terms, Queer Theory sets out to liberate people from the “normal”. Queer theorists believe that power is reinforced through language, and that we are all policed by the existence of the normal/abnormal binary. They see such categorization as a form of oppression because that which is normal is considered to inherently have power over that which deviates from the norm. Therefore, queer theorists believe that by “disrupting” this by normalizing identities and behaviours which are seen as marginalized, those who do not or cannot fit into the category of normal will be liberated.
The word queer means everything that falls outside the binaries of male/female, masculine/feminine, and heterosexual/homosexual. A queer person can therefore be simultaneously male, female, both, or neither, or these identities can be fluid, changing at any moment. Queer Theory aims to eliminate the assumption that a woman should be feminine and attracted to men, or men masculine and attracted to women. To defy being categorized as normal is seen as a political act, one which unites the marginalized under the banner of “queer”.
Because Queer Theory is thoroughly rooted in Postmodern Theory, it comes with a deep distrust of science, which is seen as an oppressive force wielding power over us all. Therefore, queer theorists reject biology almost entirely and instead favour a social constructivist explanation for human behaviour. This means that queer theorists believe all aspects of an individual’s personality, preferences, desires, emotions, and actions, are socially constructed by social pressures, expectations, education, and media. In fact, they reject the concept of the individual, but instead see people as social actors who fall into identity groups. This is epitomized in Judith Butler’s well-known concept of gender performativity – the idea that gender is wholly learned, performed, and reinforced by performance. In other words, rather than being men or women, people perform manhood and womanhood, thereby creating the categories of man and woman. If this were true, perhaps the story of David Reimer, a Canadian who’s failed circumcision as a boy led his family to raise him as a girl, would not have ended so tragically. Reimer died by suicide at age 38, in 2004, after years of battling depression. Dr John Money, the psychologist who had advised the family to raise him as a girl, believed, like Butler, that biology wasn’t relevant.
Gender ideology goes a step further than Butler’s theory of performativity, favouring the idea of something akin to a gendered soul instead. From this comes the mantra transwomen are women, and the circular idea that a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman.
What’s Wrong With It?
Queer Theory caused little harm while it was confined to academic obscurity. But when it made the leap into the mainstream in the form of Gender Theory, the result is that western society has increasingly become untethered from reality – with devastating impacts on primarily women and children.
Persistent, loud, and well-funded trans activist groups have managed to wield significant influence on governments across western nations. Under the guise of human rights, trans activists have fought for liberties that go above and beyond equality. Rather, these newly acquired rights give self-identifying trans and gender nonconforming people privileges that are not enjoyed by the greater population. These rights often infringe upon the rights of others, in some cases even causing harm.
For example, new gender self-identification laws allow a person to change their legal sex simply by self-declaration. This removes the right women had to the safety and privacy of single-sex spaces, such as washrooms, changerooms, hospital wards, safehouses, and prisons. Worse, it has resulted in the relocation of male criminals – often violent sex offenders -- into women’s prisons, who, where they can find their next victim among their fellow inmates.
By far the most disastrous consequence of allowing Queer Theory to penetrate society is the devastating effect it is having on children. It has led to a generation of young people who believe that their gender nonconformity and their normal teenage angst are obvious indications that they are the opposite sex. These vulnerable children are subsequently affirmed by ideologically captured educational institutions, then medically transitioned in ideologically driven gender clinics, all throughout the western world.
The rising rates of detransition show that we are getting this very wrong, but those who raise the alarm, including detransitioners, are dismissed as transphobic bigots and often bullied into silence. Therefore, this medical experiment continues unabated.
Queer theory’s most sinister legacy will be tens of thousands of young people bearing the scars of mastectomies, hysterectomies, and castration, lacking fertility and sexual function, and living with a lifetime of regret.
