Gender is a spectrum

The argument

One's gender is not intrinsically tied to the biological sex to which they were born, and once that link is loosened the binary stops being the only available description of what gender is. There is variance in how gender is defined, with some illustrating it as a spectrum between male and female and others defining it in three dimensions within the axes of biology, orientation, and identity. The two accounts differ in structure but agree on the substance. On the first, a person can sit anywhere along a continuum rather than at one of its two ends. On the second, the three axes vary independently, so knowing where someone falls on one says nothing definitive about the others. The latter argue that it is confining to think of gender in a cis-normative way, on a male/female spectrum, since even a continuum still takes the two familiar categories as the poles from which everything else is measured. Whatever the definition, gender dysphoria should not be considered a mental condition. Persons with it are simply different, and difference from a statistical majority is not by itself disorder. The precedent is homosexuality, which was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in 1973, and which society has long since come to regard in exactly those terms. That reclassification did not follow any change in the people concerned; it followed a recognition that what had been treated as pathology was variation. On the same reasoning, Gender Identity Disorder and gender dysphoria must also be removed. If the range of gender is genuinely wider than two categories, then occupying part of that range is not an illness but evidence that there are more than two genders.

Context

Gender dysphoria is characterized in the DSM as follows: “For a person to be diagnosed with gender dysphoria, there must be a marked difference between the individual’s expressed/experienced gender and the gender others would assign him or her, and it must continue for at least six months.”

Premises

Counter-arguments

Laws against misgendering individuals is a dangerous precedent. In New York City, a $250,000 fine can be levied against businesses for refusing to accommodate whatever demands are made, with vague and subjective language substantiating it. Against the cis-normative spectrum model, George Gillett commented that ”...belief in a gendered spectrum still upholds the idea of one-dimensional variation between two extremes of maximal “masculinity” and “femininity”. Most perversely, creating an array of gender identities to pick from doesn’t eliminate the apparent need for society to establish pre-determined moulds for people to draw their identity from.” Removing gender dysphoria from the DSM is a slippery slope. Where does it stop? What other mental conditions should be stricken from the manual?

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] This problem is not solved by ensuring people are disproportionately punished for not completely accepting another's identity.