Is there a Gender Ideology? The answer might surprise you (or not)!

Gender ideology is a phrase we have seen appear in media, political debates, and maybe it even got to be a topic of conversation at your dinner table. In this episode, Dr. Alex tackles the question of whether there is a gender ideology at play currently and, if so, how do we define it, and how does it impact our day-to-day lives?  

*Spoiler: this episode is about cisgenderism as the dominant gender ideology in dominant culture.* 

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A couple of articles in the media about some of the topics touched on: 

Fausto-Sterling, A. (2018). Why sex is not binary. The New York Times, 25. 

Fuentes, A. (2023). Here’s Why Human Sex Is Not Binary. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/heres-why-human-sex-is-not-binary/ 

Heggie, V. (2015). Nature and sex redefined – we have never been binary 

https://www.theguardian.com/science/the-h-word/2015/feb/19/nature-sex-redefined-we-have-never-been-binary 

A few references! 

Ainsworth, C. (2015). Sex redefined. Nature, 518(7539), 288. 

Ansara, Y. G., & Hegarty, P. (2012). Cisgenderism in psychology: Pathologising and misgendering children from 1999 to 2008. Psychology & Sexuality, 3(2), 137-160.  

Ansara, Y. G., & Hegarty, P. (2014). Methodologies of misgendering: Recommendations for reducing cisgenderism in psychological research. Feminism & Psychology, 24(2), 259-270.  

Ashley, Florence has several relevant articles and most of their writings online at: https://www.florenceashley.com/academic-publications.html 

Barker, M.J. & Iantaffi, A. (2019). Life Isn’t Binary. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. 

binaohan, b. (2014). Decolonizing trans/gender 101. Biyuti Publishing. 

Blumer, M. L., Gavriel Ansara, Y., & Watson, C. M. (2013). Cisgenderism in family therapy: How everyday clinical practices can delegitimize people's gender self-designations. Journal of Family Psychotherapy, 24(4), 267-285.  

Fine, C. (2010). Delusions of gender: How our minds, society, and neurosexism create difference. WW Norton & Company. 

Iantaffi, A. (2015). Gender and Sexual Legitimacy. Current Sexual Health Reports, 7(2), 103-107.  

Iantaffi, A. (2021). Gender Trauma. Healing cultural, social, and historical gendered trauma. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. 

Iantaffi, A. & Barker, M.J. (2018). How to Understand Your Gender: A Practical Guide for Exploring Who You Are. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.  

Iantaffi, A., Barker, M.J., van Anders, S., Scheele, J. (2019). Mapping Your Sexuality: from sexual orientation to sexual configuration theory. Zine available to download at: www.alex.iantaffi.com The original paper and this zine translated in various languages a

Feedback? Topics you would like me to discuss? Contact me through my website here! Thank you! Don't want to miss a thing? Subscribe to my newsletter here. Grazie!

Transcript

Alex Iantaffi (they/he/lui) (00:01.346)
Hello and welcome to another episode of Warm Take Wednesdays with Dr. Alex. Thank you for your patience, waiting for another episode. Tried to get them out weekly, but at the moment life is life-ing, so I appreciate you hanging in there. So today I really want to talk about gender ideology. Why do I want to talk about it? Well, funnily enough, it's a word that we've all seen thrown around in the media quite a bit lately. And it's usually talked about in relation to transgender identities, in other words,

sometimes come together with this discussion of gender ideology are words like social contagion and the idea that there is a social contagion of young people, almost like transgender people have a secret agenda to recruit more and more people amongst our ranks. So is there really a gender ideology that is spreading transness all over the land or is there maybe something else at play? Let's talk about it. Well, before we get into gender ideology specifically,

I really want to take a moment to define what does the word ideology means, right? It's not just about any ideas. It's a specific word with a specific meaning. according to the Cambridge Dictionary, an ideology is a theory or set of beliefs, especially one in which a political system, party or organization is based. So it's a theory or set of beliefs. So is there a theory or set of beliefs about gender? Well, absolutely there is, but before

we get into that? I also want to make it clear that when we're talking about gender ideology or any ideology, we're not talking about people's individual identities. And in the case of gender ideology, we're not talking about individual gender identities. We're talking about ideology because ideologies is larger than individual identities. It's about a theory or set of beliefs, like I just said. And why am I saying that? It's because

Sometimes certain words like for example cisgender, some people have started to say that to talk about cisgender people as cisgender is a slur or is something that cisgender people have not chosen for themselves. So first of all, I want to address what does trans and cis even mean in case you've seen those words but you're not sure what they mean or where they come from. Both transgender and cisgender have Latin prefixes.

Alex Iantaffi (they/he/lui) (02:30.896)
trans and cis respectively. You also see them used in science and all that trans mean is across from and cis means on the same side as. So when we're talking about transgender people is people whose gender identity is somewhere else than their gender assigned at birth. And when we're talking about cisgender people, all that it means is that their gender identity aligns with

their gender than they were assigned at birth. And the reason why the word cisgender was created was really to challenge the idea that any one gender identity is better or worse than the other. And this is actually going to be relevant to what we're going to talk about today. So I kind of wanted to start from there. So it's not better or worse to be cisgender or to be transgender. Really, my desire is that we all live in a liberated world where we

we can all be whichever gender identity we want or we don't want. There are some people who are agender, right? They don't identify with the idea of gender at all.

and everybody can express their gender as freely as they want. So this is not about one gender identity being better or worse than the other. Like I said, this is actually not about individual identities at all. It's about ideology, a theory or set of beliefs. So let's go back to the topic. Is there such a thing as gender ideology? Well, actually in dominant culture in the so-called United States, I believe there is a gender ideology at play, but in my

be what you think or maybe it's exactly what you think. I don't know who you are, dear viewer or listener. And so I posit to you in this video today that actually cisgenderism is the dominant gender ideology in the so-called US and in many other Western countries as well. So what do I mean by cisgenderism? What is cisgenderism? Again, this is not about individuals, it's not about individuals, individual cisgender people, it's about

Alex Iantaffi (they/he/lui) (04:42.052)
systems, it's about theory, it's about ideology. So the term cisgenderism as an ideology is really first used by scholars Gavi Ansara and Peter Hegarty And this is how they define cisgenderism. A prejudicial ideology rather than an individual attitude that is systemic, multi-level, and reflected in authoritative cultural discourse.

Cisgenderism problematizes the categorical distinction itself between classes of people as either transgender or cisgender, or as gender variant or marked. We consider cisgenderism to be a form of othering that takes people categorized as transgender as they fact to be explained. That's pretty heady, but I really wanted to give you the definition of cisgenderism as Gavi and Sarah and Peter Heggert

talk about and have talked about it for well over a decade. So this is not a new idea. It's been around a minute or two or five or over 10 years like I just said.

Okay, so let's go back to this idea of cisgenderism. What does that mean in practice? What does it mean when Peter and Gabby talk about...

systemic, multilevel and that's reflected in the cultural discourse. So let's really think about it in practice. what that means in practice is that cisgenderism as a theory, as an assumption that the baseline for humanity is to be cisgender. So to have a gender identity that is aligned with once gender assigned at birth. And that means that folks who are transgender,

Alex Iantaffi (they/he/lui) (06:36.709)
binary, gender-experientive, to spirit, depending on definition of to spirit that people might use for themselves, really deviate from this norm. And as such, are a phenomenon to be studied at the very least, or the worst, they're really defined as...

having a mental disorder, in air quotes, of some kind, right? Because if the baseline is to be cisgender, so to have a gender identity that is aligned with our gender assigned at birth, then anything that deviates from the norm is deviant, in air quotes, right, is different from the norm. And we see that in a lot of ways. For example, when a baby is born, right, we assume that the baby is cisgender,

unless they tell us otherwise later in life, right? And that's really interesting too, because often one of the things that I hear when working with younger folks is that, well, how can a child know that they're trans when they're like five or six or seven or eight years old or even 12 years old? Are they not mature enough? And yet we never ask ourselves, how does a cisgender child know at five or six or 12 or 13?

or 14 that they're cisgender, that is that they're a boy or a girl, for example. How do they know, right? So when we apply common sense, we're starting to see maybe some gap in this ideology, right? But also it really makes it clear that there is an assumption that...

cisgender identities are the norm and therefore they don't need to be questioned, they don't need to be studied, they don't need to be challenged. There is an entitlement to that identity, right? And an assumption that that is the baseline, that is what is natural in air quote or normal in air quote. I don't like to use either of those words in this context, but I really wanted to put across what I'm talking about, right? Whereas if somebody

Alex Iantaffi (they/he/lui) (08:45.967)
is trans, gender-experientive, non-binary, to spirit within Western dominant Anglo-culture, there's an assumption that they deviate from this norm, right? And this starts from birth onwards, and actually I would say even before babies are born. Often when people are pregnant, they get asked, is it a boy or a girl, right? And...

we've seen that. That's kind of part of everyday life, right? But what does cisgenderism mean at its heart, right? It means that there is an assumption that if a baby is born with a vulva, for example, that baby is female, and if the baby is born with a penis, that baby is male. It seems like straightforward enough, right? But actually, it's not really that straightforward because attributing certain characteristics as inherently masculine or feminine, it's not

necessarily the way we have always done things everywhere at all times, right? It's just a way that we are categorizing people in fairly modern times. There's so much more to say about this. In fact, I have so much to say about this that I wrote a book about rigid gender binaries as traumatic and as part of colonial legacy. And if you want to read it, the book is called Gender Trauma, Healing Cultural

social and historical gender trauma and actually I'm gonna read a little bit from the very end of the book at the end of this video because I feel like it's really relevant and honestly I don't think I can say it as well as I did when I was writing the book a few years ago.

But what does it mean? know, people might be like, hello, Calix. This is pretty straightforward. A baby's born with a vulva, that baby's a girl. A baby's born with a penis, that baby's a boy. What is the big deal, right? Well, the big deal is that it doesn't stop there, right? I was saying that cisgenderism is also attributing certain characteristics as inherently masculine or feminine. So for example, we're going to start talking to those babies and then those toddlers and

Alex Iantaffi (they/he/lui) (10:56.464)
children and teenagers in ways that are different according to the gender that we perceive them to be. Because there are lots of ideas about what men should be like and what women should be like in our culture, right? And of course, these ideas, we know that they change across time with history. We know that they're dependent on social context. We know that they're dependent on familial context.

there are also some common denominators, right? So for example, in popular culture, often men are depicted as the stronger sex and women are depicted as the weaker sex. And we could say that that is not the case anymore because it's 2025 and our challenge of that often is still the case. And we're also seeing a resurgence in the so-called US of the idea of like tradwife, for example, which, hey, if that's who you wanna be, I love that for you.

But if you're trying to impose that on everybody, then I've got questions. Like, when you're trying to impose that on everybody, means that you truly believe that women have certain characteristics and men have certain other characteristics. And this is an idea that is very pervasive in popular culture. Think about how many millions of copies books like John Gray's Men Are From Mars and Women Are From Venus have sold.

I remember about 20 years or so ago there was this show, Why Men Can Tyrone and Women Can Read Maps, right? And there's an old...

cadre of comedians who have made their fortune, usually cis white male comedian, on making jokes about the difference between men and women, right? And often men are seen as more dominant and aggressive and naturally so, here's that, in air quotes, here's that word again, and women as more passive and caring, and we could...

Alex Iantaffi (they/he/lui) (13:01.806)
write this off as stereotypes, right? But the problem is that they're not just stereotypes. They are so pervasive, not just in popular culture, but in our society and in our culture in the West, that they also influence the way we manage the judicial system, for example. If there is a violent crime, if it's perpetrated by a woman, a woman is much more likely to

to receive a harsher sentence compared to a man. Why is that? Because it's seen as a natural, in air quote, that a woman that is supposed to be caring and nurturing would do something violent or that is perceived as uncaring or not nurturing, or that it is not caring or nurturing, right? And of course there are some exceptions, but really those differences are not just stereotypes, are not just about

you know.

Isles of pink clothes and isles of blue clothes. It runs much much deeper than that. And that's why we're talking about cisgenderism as in ideology because it's a system that basically sips in every structure in of our society and it influences things that are as serious as the judicial system or the prison industrial complex or the education

and so on and so forth. So we're not just talking about sports or clothes or music or movies. We're really talking about very important aspects of our life and very important aspects of how systems work.

Alex Iantaffi (they/he/lui) (14:58.64)
And this ideology of cisgenderism, it's kind of housed under the much larger umbrella of biological determinism. And biological determinism, it's an ideology as well. And it's a set of beliefs, it's a theory that really tells us that certain biological characteristics are associated with psychological, emotional and behavioral traits. So for example, like I was saying, if women are perceived to be

naturally in air quote, caring and nurturing. That's because we're associating what we see as certain biological characteristics with psychological, emotional and behavioral traits, right? And we've already talked a little bit about why this is problematic, but this is so problematic in so many ways and for so many reasons that go way beyond the scope of what I tried to keep as shorter videos. So this is genderist ideology.

is housed under this bigger umbrella of biological determinism and other things that are born out of biological determinism, for example, are things like...

ideas about IQ, intelligence quotients, right, which we know are also like deeply racist and generally biological determinism is very racist, very patriarchal. It's really not an ideology that is conducive to collective liberation, I would say. And cisgenderism is a manifestation of biological determinism, specifically in relation to gender. And of course, it also connects with race and...

We'll talk a little bit about that, but I feel like that deserves an episode to talk about as well. But I find that it's impossible to talk about gender without talking about also colonialism or the way we're racialized and so on. So this is genderist ideology so pervasive that we see it pop up everywhere from...

Alex Iantaffi (they/he/lui) (17:03.609)
you know, people being pregnant and being asked, it a boy or a girl, to the different language that we use for boys and girls. look at that man, they're so handsome, or you know, that boy is so strong. Look at that girl, she's so pretty. look at her smile, know, it illuminates a room. It's pretty rare that people say that boy's smile illuminates a room, right? But also expressions like boys will be boys and all the implications of that.

you

I feel like I could probably do a whole episode just on the ideas of boys will be boys. And if you want me to do that episode, just tell me in the comments or let me know. Or the idea that, you know, girls are cuttier, right, with each other or they're in competition with each other. And so it's reflected in our language, but it's also reflected in the way we organize almost everything in the way we organize legislation and also in the way we organize

public access buildings, for example, the way we organize bathrooms. At home, we don't have men's bathroom and women's bathroom, but yet, some houses, when we go to public access building, like government offices or...

you know, restaurants or airports, right? All of a sudden we find ourselves with women's bathrooms and men's bathroom. And traditionally, for example, certain things like diaper changing stations were only found in women's bathroom. Now you can find them in an increasing number of men's bathroom as well. But they're...

Alex Iantaffi (they/he/lui) (18:42.767)
There's much larger issues at play. And again, that could be its own episode. I'm trying to really summarize something that is so much bigger than like the half hour, 40 minutes that I'm trying to keep those episodes to. But hopefully you're getting the gist of what I'm saying, right? And that kind of separation is not just in language, it's not just in the way we organize bathroom, but it's also in the way we organize sports, for example, or the way we separate kids in school. boys line up over there, girls line up over there.

the kind of sports and activities that girls and boys might have access to, the way we separate girls and boys for things like sex education, for example, which also doesn't make a lot of sense because it's really helpful to know about sex education from every perspective, right? But again, there are a lot of assumptions being made about why we separate boys and girls, why we separate men.

and women in certain regards, right? And even clothes, there are clothes that are considered for men and clothes that are considered to be for women, right? That's often a little bit of an uproar if a man is wearing a skirt or a dress in a Western dominant culture, of course, right? And it impacts the way we look at people's mannerism, right? If somebody walks or talks or moves in a way that is not seen as congruent,

the gender we perceive them to be, there can be some judgment around that, right? There can even be bullying and harassment. In fact, we know that there is often when people don't conform to certain gender ideals that are kind of embedded socially and culturally. And of course, like I said, those ideals do change across cultures, they do change across history, but it's this idea that there are ways to

be a man and ways to be a woman. And even though there is a little space in each one of those categories, that space, it's not infinite. That space is finite and it's contained, right? And we see that in the workplace as well, right? Which kind of genders dominate which professions, right? Professions that are seen as more caring and nurturing, whether it's nursing or being a kindergarten teacher.

Alex Iantaffi (they/he/lui) (21:12.338)
are usually more dominated by women, even though interestingly, when men enter those professions, they are usually, they go up the ladder of promotion much faster. That's the same in therapy, for example, which is more of a women-dominated industry, and yet often men find it faster to be promoted or to move into position of leadership soon after licensure. So all of those ideas of kind of

who men are and women are, are not just stereotypes. They're things that permeate every aspect of our lives in ways that we may or may not notice, right? And they really soak into the culture, they soak into the language. I gave the example of handsome versus pretty, for example. But there are so many other things that we can think about when it comes to language. But they really kind of come into our lungs and they're like the air that we

breathe and just like we're not aware of the air that we breathe at every breath, right? We breathe all the time, we breathe automatically, we do not always breathe intentionally. Sometimes we might breathe intentionally. In fact, I'm going to take a little intentional breath and a little sip of water right now.

but they're so pervasive that just like those invisible, you know, elements of hair that we breathe in and out every day, we don't even notice it, right? And so cisgenderism does get into all aspects of our life, right? And some of you, as you're listening to this, might be thinking that, Alex, what about biology? Isn't sex different from gender? Okay, I can

of get onto this concept of gender the way you're talking about it. But what about sex, right? Sex is distinct. We're not talking about gender. What about sex, right? It's very clear from biology that there are men and women, right? Well, actually it turns out that separating sex from gender is not as helpful as some of us initially thought. And in fact, sex is also not a binary. And biologists...

Alex Iantaffi (they/he/lui) (23:28.944)
I've been talking about this for a long time and in the episode description there's a bunch of references and a bunch of articles. If you want to check them out, please be my guest. There is like peer-reviewed papers in Nature about how sex is not binary, right? And also, as well as the fact that sex is not binary, when we separate sex from gender, it's actually kind of tricky.

It's tricky because the characteristics that we label as male or female are not inherently male or female. We have decided to call them male or female. So for example, there are no male hormones or female hormones. There are hormones. Some bodies are testosterone dominant and some bodies are estrogen dominant and that actually can be changed.

across the lifespan. Even cisgender people are not going to have a consistent level of testosterone and a consistent level of estrogen in their bodies throughout the lifespan. That's why there is like puberty and perimenopause and menopause and underpause, Our hormones do change and fluctuate. They are not static. And again, they're not male hormones or female hormones. They're hormones, right? So language and culture...

and social norms have meant that we have labeled some things as male or female, but they're not inherently male or female. So for example, we call a penis male genitalia, but we've decided to call it male genitalia. It's not inherently in itself male genitalia. It's just genitalia, just like chromosomes are just chromosomes and hormones are just hormones.

And at some point we decided not only that those things are inherently gendered, but that they are so important that they dictate all these other differences between us humans.

Alex Iantaffi (they/he/lui) (25:40.148)
And sciences really challenge that. know, like I already said, our hormones are so much more complex than we often think about. And honestly, just talk to a hormone researcher that works with humans for like 10 minutes and you'll understand how complex hormones are and how even science doesn't quite fully understand how they work all the time. And chromosomes, similarly, right, we have found out more and more about chromosome and

chromosomal makeup and how it is not quite as straightforward as we think it to be, right? Sometimes on social media I see people going, well, you're either XX or XY. I was like, oh, so much more complicated than that. Again, check the references that I've put in the episode description. I know I've put a lot of references, but I feel like this is an important topic and I want people to see there is such an abundance of peer-reviewed literature and actually I had to kind of stop myself from putting more references.

So, you know, is it useful to distinguish sex from gender? A lot of us don't think so anymore. And believe me, I used to do that too. I used to say, you know, sex is different from gender. I use words like natal sex or biological sex and I don't do that anymore because I know better, right? Not only sexism binary, but also this distinction between sex and gender is very flimsy at the

and maybe really unhelpful or even harmful at its worst. And some of you might be thinking, well, but what about those brain differences? Okay, fine, hormones are complicated, chromosomes are complicated, maybe we don't want to gender bodies according to genitalia, but what about brain differences between men and women, right? Maybe that channel four TV show why women,

can tear and women can read maps was right. Actually, again,

Alex Iantaffi (they/he/lui) (27:46.706)
neuroscientists have proven more than once that brain differences between men and women at birth are actually much smaller than we think. And in fact, they're so small that differences between individuals, so between just different people, whether in the same gender categories or across gender categories, however we want to define gender in this moment, are greater than differences between men and women or

boys and girls. But of course, like I was saying earlier, because we interact with boys and girls so differently throughout the lifespan, from when they're, you know, in utero to when they're babies and then all throughout the lifespan, we often refer to boys and girls and men and women in different ways. Those differences then are

deepened and broadened by nurture. But in terms of nature, so to speak, those differences are pretty micro. And actually the differences between individual brains much greater than gender differences. So...

Given all of that, where does the cisgender ideologist even come from? Like, why do we even have it? If all of this is true, obviously don't take my word for it. That's why there's a lot of references in this episode description. Please educate yourself. I love it when people are curious and want to find out more and want to reflect on those things more.

I love that for you and I love that for us as humanity, right? So where does this cisgenderist ideology come from?

Alex Iantaffi (they/he/lui) (29:37.333)
Those of you who know my work, think are gonna be pretty not surprised by my answer. Colonialism. Colonialism has done and continues to do a real number on us as human, right? And part of colonialism, and there's so much more to say about this so much that I wrote an entire book about it. Look at me, I'm getting so much better at promoting my own stuff. But seriously, gender trauma doesn't

take my word for it as two awards. One from the Nautilus Award, the gold seal in its category, and also from ASIC, the American Association for Sex Educators, Counselor and Therapists as a sexuality professionals book of the year in 2023. And even though the book is written mostly for therapists, counselors, educators, I've written it in a way that I hope is pretty accessible to the general public. So

Cisgenderism, in a way, just like biological determinism, goes hand in hand and is deeply connected to colonialism. And in colonial...

practices and policies we see, you know, from the beginning this, you know, if we want to be benevolent, misunderstanding, but then I think the benevolence stops there because we see the degradation, erasure and the violence towards gender-expansive people. And we keep seeing it, right? If we think about the rates of missing and murdered indigenous girls, women and to spirit folks, we can see very clearly.

the impact of colonialism and the systemic violence which continues under the ongoing settler colonial project in the so-called US. And so, you know, when we're thinking about a rigid gender binary and cisgenderist ideology as part of colonialism, some of you might think, but...

Alex Iantaffi (they/he/lui) (31:46.497)
in some indigenous cultures there are still gendered roles and absolutely I am not arguing with that in any way shape or form but gender has not always been defined on the basis of biology. I'm gonna say that again in case it's not clear gender

was not always, and is not always in every context, defined by biology. But gender can also be defined through social, spiritual, interpersonal, and cultural lenses and cultural roles, right? And so the reality is that if we wanna look at science, let's look at all the sciences, including history, which is its own science, social science, bacillus science, right? And the reality is that

have always existed outside of rigid gender binary. What we would now call trans people or non-binary people or if you want to use a more expansive term, gender-expansive people, have always existed across time or space. So we do not as humanity exist within the confines of the strict cisgenderist rigid binaries of male and female. We just aren't historically, right? And there is so much more to say

on why cisgenderism is a colonial ideology and goes hand in hand with colonialism. And again, I am trying to make episodes that are not always an hour long, so bear with me. And if you wanna learn more about this, please let me know. And I can always do more episodes. So as I was saying, the reality is that folks have always existed outside of

of this rich gender binaries and that has been the case across time and space. And of course, intersex people have always also always existed, which again, really challenges this idea of separating sex from gender, but also this idea that there is a dimension that is binary somewhere, right? And, you know, I'm not trying to recruit anybody or convince the world that everybody should be trans.

Alex Iantaffi (they/he/lui) (34:07.499)
Honestly, especially right now, if you're not trans, you're safer, you know, and if you're trans, it's not a great time, you know, to be trans at the moment. And for a lot of people, it's never really been a great time. But what I'm trying to say is that don't be fooled by this idea that...

to just think that there are men and women and that that's how it's always been and that to be trans is some new-fangled modern idea, that is a lie. Gender-expensive people, trans people, to spirit people, folks of sight, gender binaries, intersex people, we've always existed across time and space. And there is no agenda to make anybody trans or not trans despite what some people

would have you believe through their scare tactics and the weaponization of people's fears, right? And the other reality is that the weaponization of fear is often telling folks that...

trans, non-binary, or gender-expensive people are mentally ill, in air quotes, and as such we're dangerous, right? But the reality is that the spirit folks, trans folks, non-binary folks, gender-expensive people are much more likely to be experiencing violence than to enact violence. And the numbers, the statistics are very clear on this. And of course, often the people who

are the receiving end of most of that violence, especially the more extreme violence, are trans-feminine people and black, brown, indigenous and immigrant trans-feminine people in particular because of that combination of misogyny, transphobia, racism, xenophobia and so on.

Alex Iantaffi (they/he/lui) (36:09.029)
So, you know, while trans people are not out here trying to recruit anybody, we're just trying to fight for our lives and our right to exist just like everybody else, I suggest that on the other hand, cisgenderism is an ideology. And it's an ideology that is being increasingly upheld within, you know, systems through organizational violence. And what do I mean by organizational violence? Such as we're seeing

you know, increasing number of legislation that wants to punish people, for example, for using a public bathroom that doesn't align with their documentation, which is dictated by their gender assigned at birth that...

some doctor decided on the basis of the visible genitalia, which we've already seen, it's kind of problematic for a lot of different reasons, right? So there's legislation that has been not just introduced but passed in many states and in other countries too, punishing people for using the wrong, in air quotes, public bathroom or arresting parents and caregivers who want to support their children to be who they are and want to support their well-being.

of their children by validating whoever they are in terms of gender or criminalizing health care providers for just doing our job as a behavioral health provider when I'm providing gender-affirming care. And if you're not sure what gender-affirming care is, there is a whole episode that I've done with Dr. Colton Schenke about gender-affirming care for gender stories. But we're seeing also legislation

that is attempting to criminalize healthcare providers, whether it's behavioral health providers like myself or colleagues who are medical healthcare providers, for just doing our job and following research evidence and international guidelines and standards of care that numerous researchers, scholars, and healthcare providers with decades of experience in the field have poured hundreds of hours into creating, usually as part of volunteer efforts and as a service,

Alex Iantaffi (they/he/lui) (38:24.042)
to the profession as well as a service to society.

I would say that cisgenderism is an ideology because it's trying to really uphold its set of beliefs through very restrictive and violent and carceral ways of maintaining it. And quite frankly, if cisgenderism was the natural, in quote, state as well,

Would it take so much legislation and so much punishment to uphold it? If you never asked yourself that, just ask yourself that for a moment. While I sip my water.

If cisgenderism was so natural, what's the problem? Why do we even need all this legislation and all this punishment around it? Why do we need to all these laws and practices to enforce it, reproduce it, and protect it? We shouldn't need to if this is a natural, inter-quo state of being. So, I don't know. Just ask yourself some questions if you haven't asked yourself those questions. Finally, when we're talking about cisgenderism,

Even though, like I said, trans-feminine folks and especially trans-feminine folks, folks who are assigned male at birth, identify somewhere away from male, so they might identify as trans women or women of trans experience or just as women or as femmes or non-binary femmes and so on. Trans-feminine people were black, brown, immigrant.

Alex Iantaffi (they/he/lui) (40:08.98)
disabled indigenous are much more likely to bear the impact and the violence of cisgenderism and we can see that in the higher rates of violence and murder. That doesn't mean that other gender identities are not impacted, right? In fact,

Another thing that I talk about in my book, look at me, lifting up the book three times in one episode. Maybe I'm overdoing it, but anyway. One of the things that I talk about is the fact that cisgenderism hurts everybody.

You know, and there are so many examples of how cisgenderism hurts everybody. We've seen some of those examples in the news as people are trying to enact those very restrictive laws about who can use which bathroom. We have seen people who are cisgender, so whose gender ascent assigned at birth aligns with their gender identity being challenged in bathrooms, feeling, you know, and this includes like young people, minors,

are being bullied by adults to prove their gender in air quotes. Minors who want to just play sports, are being asked to prove in air quote that they are the gender that the say they are. And often that means, you know,

those children basically being told to like reveal parts of themselves like their chest or their genitals to full grown adults. Isn't that abusive?

Alex Iantaffi (they/he/lui) (41:44.937)
I think that that's abuse. To me, that's pretty clear that that's an abuse of power, right? And so when we're talking about cisgenderism, we're not just talking about trans people getting harmed. Really, everyone is harmed by cisgenderism, from people who don't comply to standards of gender for whatever reason, being challenged in bathrooms to prove that they are the gender that they are.

as well as athletes, especially black women athletes, being challenged to prove again that they are the gender that they say they are. And that's where that kind of racism, anti-blackness, misogyny, misogynoir all come together, right? And again, we see examples of that pretty much at every Olympic game, I feel. And even, you know, those are larger examples

and of course there are more extreme examples of violence.

But even in our everyday life, when I talk to people about gender, there are so many cis people who carry so much gender pain about even simple things like which toys they were allowed to play or not play with, which clothes they were allowed to wear or not wear at home or school or a church or places of worship, Which friends they were allowed to hang out or not hang out with.

which sports they were allowed to play, which books they were allowed to read or not read. So like I said, this is not just about trans people. This is about all of us. This is about our freedom, if you care about freedom. Our freedom to be ourselves, our freedom to express ourselves, our freedom to fully embody who are, no matter what our gender identity is. That's what we are talking about.

Alex Iantaffi (they/he/lui) (43:46.626)
to constrict ourselves into those tiny gender roles, gender boxes that may or may not suit us regardless of what our gender identity is, right? And, you know, there are some very real inequalities that are based on gender and race in particular, as well as other factors, of course, in health care and education, to name just a couple of domains. But again, those inequalities when it comes to gender and race,

just to name two variables, are not inherent to biological facts. They are a byproduct of social and cultural norms, biases, prejudices, and structural and historical oppression. And that's what we really need to tackle if we want to live in a more liberated world, right? And like I said, cisgenderism really does hurt everybody, including cis white men, including even

cis white straight man, even cis white straight Christian man, which seem to be able-bodied, cis white straight Christian man, right, we should be at the top of the mountain in terms of power and privilege in the so-called US. They are also hurt by cisgenderism.

And there is so much to be said about this, but again, I am trying my best to be more concise. Let me know how I'm doing in the comments or by contacting me directly. And if you don't wanna read a bunch of peer-reviewed papers or books or book chapter, have a look.

have things like the TV series with DC comic book character Peacemaker, for example. Peacemaker season one really explore issues around masculinity and white masculinity in particular and the trauma that can come from rigid gender binaries, not just individually but...

Alex Iantaffi (they/he/lui) (45:56.0)
in terms of intergenerational trauma and the pain that comes from upholding those kind of binaries. And the little content note, if you have not seen Peacemaker, that it is very violent and there are lots of kind of racist and misogynistic comments being made. But I've watched it recently and I was really surprised.

actually what an interesting take it is on the intersection of toxic masculinity and white supremacy. It was...

you know, it's both a show that is ridiculous and profound at the same time. I don't know how they managed it, but they managed it. If you've watched it or if you have ideas, let me know what you think. I love to know what you think. I think the popular culture often really is a refraction, right, of dominant culture, but it can also help us rethink messages in dominant culture. And I think that Peacemaker does that pretty well when it comes to that intersection

toxic masculinity and white supremacy but again content note for very graphic violence and also for racism and misogyny being sprinkled all throughout the show and probably other issues as well. So that is a lot to digest and a little bit longer than I expected this episode to be. Sorry about that.

Apparently I had a lot to say about that. So if you want to learn more about all of this, there's a few resources and references in the episode description that I want to end this episode with actually doing something that it's a little bit different, which is reading the very last couple of pages on my book, Gender Trauma, which really talk about

Alex Iantaffi (they/he/lui) (48:00.547)
kind of envisioning new possibilities beyond a cisgenderist ideology. What is, though, a decolonial understanding of gender? We cannot bathe in the same river twice. I don't believe that we can go back to a mythical pre-colonial past.

We cannot erase history, trauma, and just pretend it never happened when it's still happening. As a trauma therapist, I witnessed these desires on an individual basis almost daily. So many of my clients wish to just forget, pretend whatever painful thing happened did not happen, or think that eradicating the perpetrator in some way might bring them peace.

However, when there's been a wound, the wound needs to be tended to. It needs to be noticed, cleaned up, and treated, and it takes time to heal.

What would a pre-colonial past even look like for many of us who were involuntarily or voluntarily displaced in a number of ways, including due to gendered violence? I think that comfort and connection can be found in the past, but I am not sure that our future can be found there. I've written elsewhere that to think about the future directions of non-binary genders is science fiction. And a number of much better authors than I have engaged in

to engage in those questions. I do know that healing from gender trauma is a landscape that I do not know if we can even begin to imagine. However, it is a critical feeling of a possibility that has not come to be yet.

Alex Iantaffi (they/he/lui) (49:40.277)
I sense into it when I'm around other people who actively challenge normative ideas of gender in favor of authenticity, no matter what their own gender identities and experiences might be. I taste it when I'm in communities where consent, healing and relationships are at the center, the heart of what we're doing. I smell it in the wind of younger generations who often no longer think like us when it comes to gender, but are still shaped and impacted by

trauma. I believe that healing from gender trauma lives in the spaces between us, the spaces across which we try to reach for one another when we dream of community, when we create structures centered around healing, justice and liberation, when we strive for disability justice and access, when we dare to envision truly radically inclusive spaces.

There is no definitive answer here, no listicle I can give you or magic formula for how to fix the painful impact of this historical, cultural, intergenerational and social trauma of cisgenderism, of a rigid gender binary.

However, I believe that if we can start to notice the wound, engage with it critically, start to clean it up within and between ourselves, we can start to plant seeds for another world of possibilities. This is a world in which we are connected to the past, where we do not deny or erase our history, but we do not get stuck with it either. Rather, we move forward, reclaiming what is ours and creating anew what was destroyed. This book is

long open-handed invitation to this dream of gender liberation for our collective healing. How will you respond? And I guess that this is the question I want to leave you with today as well. This video is another invitation to really challenge everything we've been taught.

Alex Iantaffi (they/he/lui) (51:40.64)
and that we think we know about gender and see if there are more expansive possibilities when we approach this with curiosity and critical thinking. And until we meet again, keep breathing as deeply as you're able, take good and gentle care, and ciao, e alla prossima.