Does Gladwell Represent the New Transgender Tipping Point?

Probably not. But maybe it's the start of a long-needed tilt.

Last week, bestselling author of The Tipping Point Malcolm Gladwell said that “trans athletes have no place in the female category.” Speaking on the podcast The Real Science of Sport, Gladwell admitted that he’d once said the opposite—not because he believed it, but because he’d been “cowed.” That is, he’d chosen public approbation over truth. Now, he was “ashamed of my performance.”

Photo by Austin Neill on Unsplash

Gladwell’s not the only liberal elite shifting his public stance on trans rights. In July, California Governor Gavin Newsom admitted: “When you get to the issues around sports, trans issues, that's now no longer about celebrating your rights. It's about denying other people theirs.”

These latecomers to speaking honestly about what is obviously true seem to have decided that because they’re doing so, the whole issue has blown over. Gladwell attributed his and others’ former support for uncategorically sticking with “trans women are women” as temporary insanity. The Covid era was “a period of profound cultural destabilization,” he said. “We all went crazy.” Now, we’ve “returned to normal.” Today, we’d all feel safe speaking the truth about sex and sports, because “the winds have shifted.”

Alas, he’s monitoring the weather in the one spot where he happens to be standing. Many who object to the institutionalizing of beliefs about gender identity—whether in sports, medicine, or education—remain afraid to speak up. Those of us who have spoken up still regularly face jeering protesters, with accusations of bigotry or committing “trans genocide.” San Francisco’s government website dismisses concerns about males in female sports as a “trans-panic.” Many parents of children who identify as transgender continue to hide their critiques and concerns. Or they speak out only anonymously, trying to maintain relationships; their kids still believe what they were told: that they should reject non-affirming parents.

Some who’ve been far braver than Gladwell and Newsom, and did face the subsequent wrath, didn’t react kindly to what they saw as these too-little-too-late mea culpas.

British writer Victoria Smith said, about Gladwell, that “it will never be enough.” Feminist Meghan Murphy noted Gladwell chose “not to speak truthfully on this matter in order to protect your career, while the rest of us risked it all—with much less power, privilege, and financial security—to speak out.” And JK Rowling lambasted Gladwell with: “Changing sides years late, and only after you’ve realised the non-elite opposition is winning, isn’t a mark of integrity but of arse-covering.” Gladwell wasn’t a hero, but a weathervane.

The reaction from many luminaries in the gender-critical movement has been to air grievances. It's understandable. After all, feminists like Janice Raymond have been warning of the dangers of men identifying as women since the 1970s. She wrote about increased health risks from cross-sex hormones, explaining that what we’d now call gender identity encourages children to define themselves according the kinds of gender stereotypes second wave feminists longed to explode. “A primary effect of defining transsexualism as a medical problem is to encourage persons to view other persons (especially children) who do not engage in normative sex-role behavior as potential transsexuals,” Raymond wrote.

Now, after all this time, we’re supposed to consider Gladwell a hero, when he was a coward before, and didn’t even note the decades of work, the resistance pushing back for years?

Well, no, not exactly. The former gymnast and vocal opponent of men in women’s sports Jennifer Sey gave him “mad props.” And I appreciate that she did. I myself prefer to welcome those who’ve come to the center—or to their senses—rather than shame them.

But I do think Gladwell’s one-appearance apology tour missed the mark in a very basic way. We don't have to give him or Newsom of any latecomers to the party a medal. But why not first thank them for speaking the truth, and then educate them on what they still get wrong?

Gladwell, for instance, suggested that the changing directional winds “had nothing to do with Lia Thomas,” the trans college swimmer. Thomas famously not only bested his female teammates in many races, but changed in the locker room with them, male genitalia and all. (One swimmer changed in the janitor’s closet for privacy). Ivy League universities and athletics groups censored and shamed the girls and women who wanted to complain. That launched a bipartisan backlash, which included famous female athletes like Martina Navratilova, along with several new organizations and even a clothing company, started by Sey, to combat men in women’s sports.

Yet Gladwell attributed the change in public opinion to parents realizing that “trans-inclusive” translated to, as he put it: “Oh my god, that just means my daughter has to compete against a biological male.”

Those newly speaking up may fail to see that such parents, along with the feminists, liberals, old school transsexuals, and gays and lesbians who’ve been sounding the alarms for years—in some cases, decades—have been silenced and shunned by establishment journalists like Gladwell himself. Some of these people faced not only public condemnation but visits from child protective services, threats of having their children taken away, losing jobs, friends, their livelihoods, to speak the plain truth: men are not women.

The madness didn’t start during Covid. The foundations have been laid carefully over decades, with changes to Title IX and tweaks to the Affordable Care Act, with the Obama administration. The madness sprang both from policy and from pressure for liberal elites to tamp down their own instincts.

I should know. I, too, chose belonging over truth for several years—something I vow never to do again. But rather than simply absolve myself once I spoke up, I dedicated myself to understanding how we got here. Temporary Covid insanity couldn’t have happened without many structural and cultural shifts to create the conditions for it.

Those now admitting what others have been screaming into the wind for decades may not recognize that those who’ve pushed back against establishment media, against liberal institutions, against the unspoken restrictions of their own communities weren’t just walking on eggshells, but stomping through a minefield of vitriol. Gladwell and Newsom’s clear path is in fact because of all their trailblazing.