Tupperware Labels

Thanks to a set of circumstances involving relatives with small children and a scheduling error, I recently had a free hour during which I read the children’s book Frindle. The gist of the book is that a smartass decides to start saying “frindle” instead of pen, and his classmates jump on board to spite their teacher, who considers herself a venerable knight of Webster. Of course the teacher is powerless to stop the evolution of language, and in the epilogue she writes a letter to the smartass, now a young man, telling him that he was right all along. It’s an excellent book and your kids should read it — it will prepare them for the world to come, and also for Wittgenstein.

The value of Frindle lies in its intuitive destruction of language. Words carry meaning by mutual agreement, and the book lays clear the frailty of common language. It also belies the difficulty of moralizing on the subject of language — a tool may be useful or not useful, but the tool itself does not make an act good or bad. You can both harm and help with the same shovel. Words, as abstract thought-stuff, are even more versatile than physical tools, and more uncontrollable as well.

But enough preamble. Let’s discuss tupperware. What is gender? Two definitions from Merriam-Webster to start: 1) sex 2) a person’s internal sense of being male, female, some combination of male and female, or neither male nor female. Hmmm. What we have here is a reverse Frindle. Instead of inventing a new word for an old concept, we have attached a new concept to an old word. This conceptual collision is particularly egregious because it will not be cleared up by context, in the way that e.g. blunt can. (As in “knife” or “pass the,” only a couple words are needed to establish context.)

A shade deeper: under the logo genderspectrum we find the following claim:

Understandings of gender continually evolve… People tend to use the terms “sex” and “gender” interchangeably. But, while connected, the two terms are not equivalent. Generally, we assign a newborn’s sex as either male or female (some US states and other countries offer a third option) based on the baby’s genitals. Once a sex is assigned, we presume the child’s gender. For some people, this is cause for little, if any, concern or further thought because their gender aligns with gender-related ideas and assumptions associated with their sex. Nevertheless, while gender may begin with the assignment of our sex, it doesn’t end there. A person’s gender is the complex interrelationship between three dimensions: body, identity and social.

Leave aside the actual political ranting you may feel welling up inside you, whether for or against — decontextualize yourself and try to read the mechanics at play. What is going on here? The word gender is undergoing a semantic shift. The page makes a big deal out of the generational divide, millennials vs. the old folk’s home. At the bottom it reads “In order to bridge this gap, those of us who were raised with a more limited view of gender can take this as an opportunity to explore gender with new eyes, to read and ask questions to better understand gender’s complexity.” Keep that word “complexity” in mind for a bit later, but for now notice the moral imperative is placed on the old guard to change. Notice how Mrs. Granger eventually came around to frindlization of her own accord. Notice also how powerless she was to stop it.

To say that this moral imperative exists is a bridge too far. This framing is a rhetorical tool, more manipulative than descriptive. This is especially apparent once you source the basis for this moral claim:

Gender diversity has existed throughout history and all over the world. As one of the most fundamental aspects of a person’s identity, gender deeply influences every part of one’s life. Where this crucial aspect of self is narrowly defined and rigidly enforced, individuals who exist outside of its norms face innumerable challenges. Even those who vary only slightly from norms can become targets of disapproval, discrimination, and even violence.> This does not have to be the case. Through a thoughtful consideration of the uniqueness and validity of every person’s experience of self, we can develop greater acceptance for all. Not only will this create greater inclusion for individuals who challenge the norms of gender, it will create space for all individuals to more fully explore and express who they are.

It takes the heart of a true bureaucrat to try and make the world a better place through definition wrangling. What’s preventing the separation of these two impulses? Non-conformists have always had a rough time of it by definition, but it’s not difficult to imagine a society that refers to males and females as men and women respectively, while still allowing them to act outside of traditional gender norms sans harassment. “Experience of self” has nothing to do with pronouns — until you reach the third person, of course. What is the logical link between people’s behavior and the dictionary? Frindle not only destroys the sanctity of language, but also the sanctity of language. You can’t have it both ways. Or rather, you can, but only if you don’t let me see you.

I told you to remember “complexity” and I’ve mentioned tupperware three times now. I should wrap up these loose ends. Since we’re on the subject of gender, one more discursion, this time into thetaskforce.org:

Gender variance is not a psychiatric disease; it is a human variation that in some cases requires medical attention.

This sentence is so beautiful I almost want to stop here, but a little more context is probably appropriate.

For this edition of the DSM, because there is no other medical diagnosis available for transgender people to seek reimbursement of medical expenses under, we recommended that some version of gender dysphoria appear in DSM-5 as a stop-gap measure. There is a continuing need for the medical and insurance industries to update their procedures for reimbursement so that gender dysphoria can be removed entirely in the future.

Gender variance is not a disease because “disease” is stigmatizing and there’s no way around that. But it does sometimes require medical attention, in the same way that a variation in my car’s drive belt may require the engine to be replaced. We should call this concept “gender dysphoria” for now because of the aforementioned medical requirements, but only to hoodwink insurance providers and we must acknowledge that it is Still Wrong. Presumably the insurance providers are not invited to any redefinition parties. In the DSM-6 gender dysphoria shouldn’t be present, but we should include the same idea under a different name. (They suggest moving it to the endocrinology department which is a solution straight out of Big HR.) If we shuffle around the labels on all these tupperware enough, maybe we’ll finally understand what’s inside.

Of course not. How can any moderately intelligent person think language is malleable around the word “gender” but not the word “disease,” or that replacing “disorder” with “dysphoria” has a more than marginal effect on the underlying concept? The cynical answer is that they don’t — these tupperware labels are cryptic on purpose. “Complexity” is how you exclude outgroupers from an intellectual movement. “You just don’t get it, you haven’t done the prerequisite reading.” This isn’t social justice, it’s a social club. Charity workers feel no desire to exclude or antagonize potential allies, but high school cliques need exclusivity to feed their egos. Meanwhile, outgroupers, feeling defensive and a little stupid, try to reject the new paradigm: “two genders two terms two scoops gitfucked.” To be clear, this response sucks ass. It’s lame. Mrs. Granger is a perennial loser in every sense of the word. If you genuinely disagree with the concepts behind this new language, bickering over word choice is spinning wheels in the mud. And no matter who you are, stop campaigning politics at the dictionary. You’re trying to change the contents of your fridge with a sharpie.