“It will be like learning that the Earth is flat” – on gender categories taught in schools

Consider the following statement by the leader of the Norwegian Christian Democrats, Dag-Inge Ulstein, objecting to the way gender identity is currently taught in Norwegian schools:

Today, it is emotions and identity politics that set the standard for teaching. It is biology that must be the basis. It is serious that we are teaching our children things that are obviously not true. It will be like learning that the Earth is flat.

Dag-Inge Ulstein, quoted in (Dyrkorn, 2024, para. 19) (author's transl.)

In making this statement, Ulstein does not only voice a political opinion, but also makes claims that fall within the purview of philosophy of science: Firstly, that fields such as biology (Ulstein also mentions ‘medicine’ elsewhere in the article) should be considered authoritative on the question of what gender is and which gender distinctions there are. Secondly, that any understanding of gender which does not align with that of these fields is, in some sense, not correct.

But why should biology be considered authoritative? One likely response is that biology – as a natural science – is “objective”: it is a disinterested study of the workings of nature, detached from human interest and concerns, and in the end only beholden to nature itself. An understanding of gender informed by biology is therefore similarly objective, unlike the understanding of gender currently taught in schools, which Ulstein claims is based on ‘emotions’ and ‘identity politics’, i.e., it is value laden. For this reason, the categories employed by biology carve nature as its joints: they track naturals kinds that exist independently of human interests and concerns. Any understanding of gender which does not align with that of biology would not track the natural kinds and, the argument goes, is therefore incorrect.

Though science often draws much authority from its pretentions of objectivity and disinterestedness, this conception of science has faced criticism from feminist philosophers of science like Helen Logino and Elizabeth Anderson. In the paper “Knowledge, Human Interests, and Objectivity in Feminist Epistemology”, Anderson argues that it rests on an overly simplistic and misguided view of the goals of theoretical inquiry. She notes that theoretical inquiry not only aims at an accumulation of true statements, but at an “organized body of truths which can lay claim to some significance” (Anderson, 1995, p. 37). Theoretical inquiry is therefore question-driven: what counts as significant depends on the questions we want the inquiry to answer, and these are typically motivated by contextual values and interests. In playing a deciding role in which questions we ask, these values thus also shape the inquiry. In particular, they inform the classifications and categories used in science: to be appropriate for a given inquiry, the categories must be able to track the aspects most relevant for answering the question driving the inquiry.

The case of gender classifications illustrates how the questions we want to answer inform the categories we develop. Biological inquiry into gender (or, more appropriately: sex) might be guided by questions about sexual reproduction within and across species, and thus the categories employed track the aspects which are most relevant for sexual reproduction in general organisms, like gametes. Medicine, guided by the aim of promoting the health of human beings, might adopt a classificatory schema that tracks anatomical, chromosomal and hormonal differences between groups of humans. Social science, being more interested in how individuals relate to each other in a society, might employ a schema which tracks social roles.

These schemata can and do come apart: due to the complexity of human biology, categories based on anatomy will not fully coincide with categories based on hormonal differences, which again can deviate from categories based on gametes (Dupré, 1986; Khalidi, 2017). What makes the case of gender extra contentious, is that the issue is further complicated by the fact that the same word is applied in the different contexts and by the interconnections between the various schemata: gender distinctions used in social contexts partially track and are partially caused by differences associated with different roles in sexual reproduction. There is thus a pressure towards regarding one of these schemata as “the correct one”, with the others being imperfect, and in the end incorrect, approximations to the correct schema.

But, in recognizing that the different inquiries are driven by different questions, we also lose any justification for treating the categories employed in one inquiry as the correct one: it should not come as a surprise if the categories employed to study sexual reproduction in general organisms are inappropriate for the study of human social behaviour. To still insist on doing so would be to mistake the map for the territory. Even if the categories of biology were tracking natural kinds as opposed to those of social science, it does not follow that these are the appropriate or “correct” categories to employ when answering the questions that motivate inquiry into social phenomena.  

What bearing might this have for how gender is taught in schools? Schools present a challenging arena, in that they are not only tasked with teaching pupils in widely different subject areas and fields, but also supposed to aid in the development of the social competency and language children require to navigate a complex society. The teaching must therefore also be highly context-sensitive and tuned to the primary needs of the child at their various stages of development. It is questionable if this purpose is best served by limiting the teaching to a classificatory schema developed for the study of sexual reproduction in general organisms.

 

References

Anderson, E. (1995). Knowledge, Human Interests, and Objectivity in Feminist Epistemology. Philosophical Topics, 23(2), 27–57.

Dupré, J. (1986). Sex, Gender, and Essence. Midwest Studies In Philosophy, 11(1), 441–457. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4975.1986.tb00508.x

Dyrkorn, T. M. (2024, November 18). KrF-lederen vil ha kjønnsidentitet ut av skolen: – Det avviker fra medisin og biologi. https://www.aftenposten.no/norge/politikk/i/nyM3q5/krf-vil-ha-slutt-paa-undervisning-om-kjoennsidentitet-i-skolen

Khalidi, M. A. (2017). Are Sexes Natural Kinds? In S. Dasgupta, B. Weslake, & R. Dotan (Eds.), Current Controversies in Philosophy of Science (pp. 163–176). Routledge. https://philarchive.org/rec/KHAASN