Notes on “Gender Heretics”

• I liked the refutal of Conservatism as a “non-ideology”, a negative landscape of thought. That’s, as expected, a chauvinist bias of underestimation of reactionary thought. I’d rather understand all the ways the enemy is appealing than undercutting its philosophical roots.
• Funny that Rebecca Jane Morgan links Evangelism to the roots of Enlightment thought. I never thought about it that way.
• Wow, Spain reference! “Susana Linares”, “trans woman and fervent Catholic”, pleaded to be re-baptised as a woman… and the bishop of Madrid didn’t agree, but, since “the soul has no sex” (!!??), he sent the case to the Pope for consideration. That attitude didn’t last much in the Vatican, unfortunately.
• Oh, a Shaun reference!! (I mean the youtube comentator). He’s excelent in his analysis. So glad to see him qouted on his deep investigation into the belly of the anti-trans hate groups. Also, Contrapoints. I like this book already.
• The point of connection between Evangists Conservativism and TERFs not being only binarism/gender essentialism, but “an appropiation of Zionist annihilation narratives”, is intriguing: “articulations of extinction phobia” (reference to check: Schotten). As the author says, a deeply USA-centric analysis though.

Gnosticism

• The main thesis of the book: the unholy (ha!) allience between Evangelics and TERFS in the UK stems from an opposition agains Gnosticism, “a direct phenomenological antecedent to trans identity” (…!!!). As a theological doctrine, it emphasises Mind/body dualism. An interesting penny of thought here:

Political theorist John Gray goes as far as to state thar ‘Gnosticism created the secular religions that fashioned the modern world - [..] everything from Jacobinism to Bolshevism to Nazism’.

(Not very sold on this front though, I heard John Gray was a bit wishy-washy)

• The mind/body dualism of Gnosticism is seen as weapons of destruction against “objective knowledge” (ah, the classic yada yada postmodernism bad).
• Of course, this hinges on the simplistic idea that all trans narratives fit mind/body dualism. The “soul trapped in the wrong body” kind of tale, you know the cliched spiel. See also Mia Mulder’s recent videoessay on the triple interpretrations of identity (as societal/presentational, innerself/identitarian and bodily). Great stuff, full of, precisely, refinements of “Gnostic charge” I guess.
• The gospel of Thomas as an example of a Gnostic text with a markedly trans lecture (see Keith Sharpe)
• A quick summary: post-modernism, “as a mutation of Gnosticism”, ocuppies the same position as the dualistic mysticism of yore did in theological debates. “Post-modern systems of knowledge-production threaten to render all claims to absolute truth inoperable”, thus the claimed ontological erasure. It’s obsession with facts and biological realities is nothing but “a masquerade of [scientificly-centered, ] realist philosophy”, with a pinch of “consequentialist […], prescriptive [ideology]”.
  • This. Absolutely nails it.
• Funny to hear all the argumentative hoops to argue that body modification is, in deep theology, Very Wrong, while somehow minor modifications like earrings where sufficiently common that the Queen Elizabeth II herself had her ears pierced in 1951 to wear earrings (yes of course I had to check this very very specific fact).
  • I have Thoughts about this but I’m sloshed because I had some fine wine reading this section so maybe they are better left for the future?

Communicant vases

• The appropiation of feminist discourse for evangelist reactionary arguments is well docummented (see: sex work, abortion), but the contrary, though, is not.
• “Religious freedom” as a Troyan horse of bullshit. Again, and possible real very subtle nuances appart acknowledged by the book, the paradox of tolerance at hand.
• Actually, great point: why does the state register sex/gender? I liked the example of sexual orientation, not formally registered anywhere yet still protected of discrimination. This point never ocurred to me, but it’s great from the legalese perspective. Duly noted.
• Biblical exegesis / “text proofing” / systematic theology doesn’t necessarily have to lead to anti-trans interpretations.
• I have to resist a very unfair, constant urge to be dismissive of these whole theological debates trying to reconcile religion and trans identities. I have cultivated a very decidely anticlerical view in my life, so my first instinct is maybe not great. It never occured to me to interpret early Genesis, or the bible in general, with a trans eye.
• I see a point that I wanted to articulate before in a comment much clearly here: that bodily autonomy is frowned upon only on the very selective case of hormonal replacement therapy and gender-affirming surgeries, but not in any other case (such as: other medical interventions or body modifications). In essence it’s an esoteric theological debate used to justify preexistent biases. Bussiness as usual!

Strategies

• Ah, a Zinnia Jones reference. That name rings a bell from my scarce Twitter days, ages ago. Judgment snake! Her blog is cool.
  • Very quick detour: there’s a… judgment snake website?
  • I must admit I never understood the judgment snake thing. Must be an inner joke?
• Gender atheism, a term for the likes of Richard Dawkins and that class of Very Sceptical Men Just Asking Question (TM). I wasn’t aware it was so pervasive. Unfortunately I’ve had terrible conversations with certain people in these terms, and I’ve learned this crowd boils down to thinly veiled conservatism.
• The “fight for free speech”, a classic of reactionary DARVO. The proposed term is mirror propaganda, accoring to Natacha Kennedy (Open Democracy).
• Do we have authentocracy, in the sense of the masking political strategy mentioned in the book, in Spain? I’d argue yes, thought it’s not very common.

Refs I might check out

• The Gnostic Empire Strike Back
• Voegelin, on Gnosticism and XXth century ideologies. Though I suspect he casts too wide a net
• Natacha Kennedy (see above)
• Joe Kennedy: Authentocrats (2018)