The Asterisk, or: My Obsession with Correcting Everyone, Including Myself

Thoughts from last weekend's Unspeakeasy

Last weekend, over 30 people gathered in a downtown Manhattan loft to talk about race, gender (whatever the heck that means), sex, policing, masculinity, journalism— and whether or not there were reasons to be optimistic about any of those things, or the world in general. Among other topics!

This was a two-day, co-ed Unspeakeasy, an event series put together by Meghan Daum—one of my favorite writers, one of my favorite people, and someone who has been instrumental in helping me figure out how to speak up about some of the aforementioned topics. Also, she is hilarious. (Please attend one of these retreats if you can.) My fellow speakers included John McWhorter, Mike Pesca, Peter Moskos, Ben Appel, Rob Henderson, Andrew Hartz, Ellie Avishai, Carole Hooven, and Alana Newhouse—yes, an amazing lineup—and the attendees included men and women from across the country.

I’m not allowed to name any of them, nor discuss what anyone said there, though I wish I could. So many speakers and participants alike said things that stretched my mind in new directions—which is what I want, far more than I want to hear my own voice reverberate in an echo chamber.

I will, however, focus briefly on the session I participated in with the wonderful evolutionary biologist Carole Hooven. Meghan and Carole discussed Carole’s latest piece in Tablet magazine, explaining why it is so important to adhere to the gametic definition of sex. If a clownfish changes sex, they’re changing gametes. A crocodile’s sex is determined not by chromosomes, but by temperature; that temperature is differentiating the gametes.

That is: some things are actually true, and where there are facts, we must stick to them. The gametic definition of sex is one of them.

But beyond that fact, what is unequivocally true about gender—a word with many definitions? Lately, I often find myself wanting to add an asterisk to much of what those around me say—not about the few clear-cut truths, but everything else we’re battling over.

A lot of once-nuanced people now insist “there’s no such thing as a trans person.” But to me, that’s like saying there’s no such thing as a Christian. You’re not born that way, but you claim that identity and live by those beliefs. If you believe in gender identity, and if it’s meaningful to you, and you exist, well, to borrow from Descartes: you believe, therefore you are. As Denise Caignon of 4th Wave Now has pointed out, Nicole Maines—one of Norman Spack’s early male patients, puberty blocked and now fully passing as female—is a TV star. There’s no going back. Maines will move through the world as a woman, despite the reality of sex, and will be counted as a success story.

Gender identity beliefs, I think, should be handled like any other religious beliefs: you have the Constitutional right to hold them close to your heart, as long as they’re separated from the state. The problem is, these beliefs weren’t separated from the state. They were institutionalized, taught in schools as facts, insinuated into law and policy and custom, and even into the definition of kindness. To not believe was to be a bad person. What could be more religious?

At any rate, I find myself these days almost, well, religiously correcting people when they make statements relating to gender issues that I interpret as too certain. Autogynephiles are all dangerous fetishists. A whole generation of gay kids has “been transed.” All the tomboys have disappeared. None of this is unequivocally true.

I personally want to be very careful about overstating evidence or making declarations that I can’t back up, because that’s what the “other side” has done—if the other side means those who institutionalized the religious belief of gender identity, rendered objection blasphemous, and promoted the medicalization of that belief in children, thus endangering families. I don’t want to be guilty of the same malpractice.

I don’t want to assert that we know how many trans women are autogynephilic—the scant research on that population occurred in a time before so many different kinds of people were transitioning or calling themselves trans—before trans included any deviation from gender stereotypes.

I don’t want to assert that we know what percentage of young people transitioning are same-sex attracted. We may know that almost all of the first transitioned kids were gay, in the original Dutch studies. But today? How would we even tell, when girls identify as boys and are still attracted to boys and think they’re gay?

I don’t want to say that we know for sure that young people who transition will be infertile or have no sexual function. Yes, if you never go through your natal puberty, you will be infertile, but that’s likely a small percentage of young people transitioning overall. I know people who transitioned after puberty and went on to procreate. I know people who transitioned and have sexual function. We have Marci Bowers’ off-hand remark in a Zoom, that boys blocked early in puberty don’t have sexual function—but that’s not evidence.

I try to be careful, to use “some” and “many” and “maybe” and “suggested” and “possible,” which drives some people crazy and certainly would not get me hired as an activist. But that’s because I’m not an activist for anything but the truth—and, with this issue, truth can be protean and slippery. I’m still going to try to catch it in my hands, but it may just slip through like water.

My first career was in the film industry. I started as a production assistant and worked my way up through various positions in the art department. I was crafty and a little bit handy, but sometimes I was assigned to do things and I had no idea what my boss was talking about. I recall being asked to pick out topiary and not knowing what it was—and this was before cell phones, so I couldn’t just look it up. I didn’t know how to use certain tools, and sometimes I’d just pick up a jigsaw and hope for the best. I didn’t lose any fingers, but I did a lot of things badly because I didn’t know how to admit what I didn’t know and ask for help. I didn’t want to seem stupid, so instead I seemed incompetent.

Maybe I’m now overcompensating, and maybe it’s not wise to be so wary of overstating something that I’m afraid to be associated with those who do. But the great thing about my job is that if I don’t understand something, I get to call somebody up who knows more about it than I do and ask them to explain it to me. And if they have not succumbed to thinking questioning is heresy, they talk to me, even if they don’t agree with me. It is the great privilege of my work that I have gotten to talk to far-right activists and the most zealous promoters of gender-affirming care, and so many people in between. I want to urge the others speaking up: Try to go to the original sources whenever possible. Try to get clarification. Try not to overstate. Are you running for office, or are you trying to get people to understand this issue?

Perhaps the most important lesson I’ve learned came from Dr. James Cantor: it’s not the expert you listen to, it’s the evidence. It’s not “Believe me,” it’s “believe the research.” We must always leave a bit of wiggle room—not just for the possibility of being wrong, but for the probability of needing to evolve.

Now look, evolving is scary. Three years ago, I went on the first-ever Unspeakeasy, to test out Meghan’s idea about combating cancel culture through in-person communing. There I met some of the most incredible women, who opened my eyes to ways of thinking that I had never entertained. And then I came back to Brooklyn and told various friends what I’d learned. To them, it sounded like I’d become a tradwife or joined a cult. They had absolutely no room for the possibility that there was any other way of seeing the world beyond what The New York Times had laid out for them.

That’s why I’m so desperate to get The New York Times to evolve, too. That’s why I’m so desperate to help other liberals evolve. And that’s why I’m always trying to add an asterisk when people overstate things about the gender culture war. I hope that when I overstate, others will do the same for me.