The second chapter of Material Girls, titled as above, is worth the price of the book. Her main aim is to briefly explain the different theoretical and cultural developments that led us to the current mess, which she does brilliantly in a series of eight “moments.” We also get this helpful analysis of what she calls “four axioms of modern trans activism”:

1. You and I, and everyone else, have an important inner state called a gender identity.
2. For some people, inner gender identity fails to match the biological sex – male or female – originally assigned to them at birth by medics. These are trans people.
3. Gender identity, not biological sex, is what makes you a man or a woman (or neither).
4. The existence of trans people generates a moral obligation upon all of us to recognise and legally to protect gender identity and not biological sex. (p. 11)

She points out that these are philosophical claims. Indeed, they unambiguously are. None is answerable using only the resources of some other human discipline, and none is really answerable using empirical evidence. Any one of them sets us off down an inquiry into what there really is (metaphysics) – claims 1-3 – or what ought and ought not to be (ethics) – claim 4.

The historical summary is brilliant, helpful, and without drama. Our author is very restrained even when mentioning, e.g. the morally outrageous behaviour of Dr. John Money (p. 16).

Towards the end she points out 4 uses of the word “gender” and makes the point, essentially, that just about anything we want to say using that word can be more clearly said using other words. In brief, the four meanings are (1) a more polite word for biological sex, (2) social norms regarding masculinity and femininity, (3) having to do with the distinct social roles which according to some theorists define what it is to be a man or a woman, and (4) this newfangled “gender identity” idea – mentioned in 3. above.

Finally, she briefly discusses the lazy, well-poisoning charge of “transphobia” that is so widely used to stop critical thinking about these topics.

It strikes me, reading through the brief history of this chapter, that we philosophers are collectively guilty of ignoring the junk philosophy of Butler and company in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s. Many of us, myself included, sized up “queer theory” and radical feminist philosophers as mere activists who were not serious about what is true or right. Their objectivity seemed to have gone out the window, and much of their interest in moral norms seem to be just in heroically “queering” or transgressing them. They seemed to ignore most of the great questions of Philosophy, and so the rest of us chose to ignore what are in fact important human questions about sex, and about what it is to be a man or a woman. These silly theorists have now, assisted by activist groups, clueless politicians, and an army of cowardly professionals, given birth to a Godzilla that is now out there eating people. It’s a disaster we did not see coming.

But as they say, “Better late than never.” Philosophers who are serious about the search for truth are now delving into these issues and subjecting these radical activist philosophies to long-overdue critical scrutiny, notably Stock, Byrne, and Bogardus. The cure for bad philosophy is good philosophy, not no philosophy. Rubbish theories are being revealed as such. And the lives and health of many depend on escaping these confusions.