What Even is Gender? is an academic philosophy book written by B. R. George and R. A. Briggs, freely accessible online. Unusually, the book belongs to the analytic philosophy tradition (i.e. the tradition that includes Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein), rather than the continental philosophy tradition (whence comes Judith Butler and Michel Foucault).

The authors take a trans-positive view, while expressing skepticism towards the concept of gender identity. To be clear, they are arguing for conceptual reform rather than language reform—their issue with “gender” is not the way the words are arranged in English, but rather that “gender” presently refers to several distinct concepts, and that the equivocation of these concepts ultimately hurts trans people

Gender feels

In place of gender identity, George & Briggs propose an alternate framework that they call “gender feels”. Gender feels are attitudes towards oneself having (or the possibility of having) certain gendered traits. They discuss three broad categories for gendered traits: sexed biology, gendered behavior, and gender categories.

Their framework atomizes gender identity into a collection of different attitudes about different things. In practice, there may be some correlations between a person’s feels about wearing dresses and their feels about being a woman, and we might theorize that there is an underlying all-encompassing “gender identity” that explains these connections among some people. But that’s unnecessary metaphysical baggage. One does not need a gender identity to deserve access to gendered traits such as flat chests, flannel shirts, or pronouns

This framework is not entirely novel, and is built upon things that trans folks have been saying for a while. For instance, of particular interest to readers here, there are multiple citations to Natalie Reed on FTB, such as this article. We could see this book not as proposing a new idea, but selecting among existing ideas to establish a framework that is defensible to analytic philosophers.

Gender Norms

The next element in their framework is the concept of gendered norms. These are public norms about the relationships between different gendered traits. For instance, there is a norm that a man wearing a dress is strange. This is an example of a category-behavior norm, because it relates a category (being a man) to a gendered behavior (wearing a dress).

Now, when discussing the three types of gendered traits (biology, behavior, and categories), they are very keen to emphasize that the typology is arbitrary. They could have used a finer or coarser typology, or divided gendered traits along entirely different lines. But it seems to me that category feels are particularly important to understanding the framework, because almost all gendered norms are mediated through categories. While we could say there’s a norm relating breasts (biology) to dresses (behavior), it’s not a direct relationship, it’s a norm that’s clearly mediated by a gender category (i.e. women).

My observation is that category feels are frequently missing from gender critical (i.e. TERF) frameworks. GCs accept that people with “male” bodies may legitimately prefer feminine things, but do not accept that female pronouns and terminology may be among the feminine things they legitimately prefer.

When trans people express an affinity towards their chosen gender categories, GCs are forced to adopt false-consciousness theories of what trans people really want. To GCs, it does not make sense to want to be in a gendered category for itself, so they believe that trans women are simply trying to get access to femininity. GCs find this unacceptable, because they believe trans people are reinforcing the the gendered norms that bind women to feminine behaviors. On the other hand, GCs blindly accept the gendered norms that bind categories to biology, because they believe they are conceptually inseparable.

Many GCs, and feminists as well, are interested in the goal of abolishing gender. George & Briggs feature an interesting open-ended discussion of what that would even mean. Does it mean getting rid of gendered traits (e.g. throwing out your makeup)? Getting rid of gendered categories? Or gendered norms? They observe that while many gendered norms are objectionable, there are some that seem broadly unobjectionable, e.g. the norm that women have she/her pronouns. Feminists who are serious about gender abolishment could benefit greatly from the more precise framework here provided.

The ontology of gender

While their framework explains the ideas of gendered traits, gender feels, and gender norms, that leaves the question of the gender categories themselves. That is to say, what even is a woman?

The book saves this question for the very end, because they first want to argue that it isn’t actually relevant for most practical purposes.

I appreciated an analogy to a person who wishes to change their name to Emily. We could ask: What even is an Emily? But of course, it doesn’t really matter. it’s not necessary to understand the ontology of “Emily” to accept it as someone’s name. Anyways, the most compelling hypothesis is that “Emily” doesn’t have any particular meaning. One can imagine all sorts of personal connections and resonances that an individual might have with the name Emily, but it doesn’t necessarily mean anything, nor does it need to.

Throughout this long discussion, a reader may feel a build-up of anticipation for the eventual revelation of what gender really is.  But such a reader may be disappointed.  This is the most technical section of the book, written with the analytic philosopher audience in mind.  If I were to imperfectly summarize it, it amounts to saying that gender is empty, but it’s philosophically okay that it’s empty.

For instance, in response to the idea that self-ID is a circular way to define gender, they point out that analytic philosophers already have a toolset to deal with circular definitions (widely extant in language, not a special feature of gender). I’ve read Wittgenstein and *I* totally agree, but this argument may be a difficult sell to the average reader.

As philosophers do, they invent new terms for the purpose of more precise discussion. They talk about the categories of M and F, which loosely correspond to men and women, but leaves open the possibility of a distinction between people who are F and people who are women. They make a further distinction between “being an F” and “being gendered as an F”. The distinctions between these three concepts (being an F, being gendered as an F, and being a woman)allow for a variety of theoretical possibilities. For instance, one might argue that when we say someone is a woman, we’re really claiming that they ought to be gendered as F, which does not necessarily mean that they are actually gendered as F, nor does it imply that they “really are” F. But what even is F? Is it relevant to our decision of who to call a woman?

The closest thing they offer to a positive definition of F, is the idea of a historical lineage. I’m very fond of historical lineage definitions myself! For instance, when defining feminism, many people like to lay out a set of principals that feminists believe. But in practice, any set of principals are likely to leave certain feminists out, or else include lots of people who aren’t really feminist. So personally, I would define feminism in terms of a historical tradition that has transformed significantly over time. Likewise, gender has meant many different things throughout history, and what connects the different things is a historical lineage and not any particular set of rules.

Conclusion

What Even is Gender? is not likely to, and not intended to persuade people who are already hostile to trans people. While there are several sections dedicated to countering GC arguments, I did not feel that these sections were offering much that I had not already seen.

But for those who are philosophically inclined, What Even is Gender? is a great exploration of the many possible distinctions between different senses of gender. The difference between gendered traits, gender feels, and gender norms will stick with me and influence my thinking going forward.