Queering Development and the Quest to Pathologize Normalcy to Normalize Pathology

How to Respond to a Common Trans Rights/ Queer Theorist Argument

Tweet text reads: Claiming that a person without gametes is still male or female when appealing to a purely gametic definition of sex because "they would have produced gametes if they developed properly" is a counterfactual claim which assumes that there is an objectively correct way to develop. This argument relies upon a subjective assessment about how they believe an individual ought to have developed rather than how they actually did develop, making it completely non-functional from a scientific perspective.This argument is an example of a queer theorist applying queer theory. In queer theory, the aim is to disrupt a categorization system and therefore obstruct your ability to reason about reality.

In this example, the queer theorist is disrupting the categories of healthy and unhealthy, normal or abnormal, and intended or unintended, as it pertains to human development across the lifespan. This QT is asking you to pretend that the functionally defined categories of male and female might not really exist, even though they must exist for the QT to have developed from one male and one female gamete. They rely on the fact that many people cannot immediately articulate why sex categories rely on gametes but do not require gametes at all times to still exist.

Tweet reads: Saying that development has gone wrong is a subjective assessment. Suggesting that they should be a certain way be cause they may have otherwise developed differently under different circumstances is counterfactual.

The way to respond to this argument is typically to ask where babies come from. Whether you believe in evolution or a divine creator, you understand that the only mechanism for continuing to exist as a species is for a male and a female to develop in such a way as to eventually mature into sexual fertility. So, either nature or a deity created this indication of successful development. Only this form of development can be normally inherited. If you inherit a genetic condition that causes sterility, something went wrong. If sterility develops some other way, something went wrong. There's no mechanism for a lack of fertility to be passed on normally.

We know from other QTs such as Pfeffer that the reason they are seeking to queer development to normalize developmental disorders is in part so that trans identifying women can continue to take testosterone, a known teratogen (birth defect-causing agent) that affects placental functioning, during pregnancy, no matter the harm it inflicts on the baby that results. Who is to say what is a disability? So say the QTs.

Tweet reads: The thing is, this method of classifying sex inadvertently validates trans people. For example: “trans women are female because they would have produced large gametes had their ovaries developed properly.

This user went on to claim that men would have been women had their ovaries developed properly, which somehow makes them the same as women with developmental disorders. They've queered normalcy, disrupting your sense of the categorical difference between normal male and abnormal female development, as though the fact that the end result for both is a lack of ovaries means they are the same. It's the visceral version of being socially accepted as female.

The fact is that there are two classes of human: male and female. If maleness is the reason you did not develop as a female, that's not a pathology. That's normal male development.

I'm a person with a congenital malformation called Eagle syndrome. It's subtle and invisible but it's greatly affected my life and continues to cause pain and other issues that require ongoing management. This circumstance should not be seen as some alternative normal. Disability rights in general rely on a recognition of functional impairment. In sexual development, normal is defined functionally. The functions are interactive and reproductive. We must not let them pathologize normalcy to normalize pathology.