Existential Threats: A Review of Kajsa Ekis Ekman’s On the Meaning of Sex

By aurora linnea

Transgender ideology is infuriating because it is sexist and misogynistic; it despises and spurns the biological body; it advances navel-gazing narcissism as a noble virtue and replaces the collective struggle for social change with a neoliberal project of personal self-“improvement”; it endangers women and children while reaping massive profits for the medical industrial complex. It is also deeply stupid. Simply stated, it makes no sense. And although transgender ideology’s stupidity, the smug fatuousness that glazes it like an unction, is not its most damaging feature, it may be its most agonizing to contend with. Under scrutiny, the system of thought upon which transgenderism rests reveals itself to be a rat-king tangle of contradictions, within which words lose their meaning, common sense collapses, and substanceless sentimental platitudes are elevated to the level of Divine Truths. There are times when, forcing myself to sift through essay’s worth of transgenderist propaganda, my brain recoils from the inanity I’ve set before it with such violence that the risk of my head exploding seems a genuine concern. Worse still is the guilelessness with which otherwise intelligent people line up to cheer on transgender ideology, despite the glacial squalls the holes in its raggedy logic let come gusting in—a shock to witness, one that grows no less staggering or unbearable over time. 

Kajsa Ekis Ekman deftly captures the maelstrom of nonsense that comprises the transgenderist mindwarp in her new book, On the Meaning of Sex: Thoughts about the New Definition of Woman, released this month in English translation by Spinifex Press (a Swedish-language edition was published in 2021). Invoking the same razory analytical precision she applied to the sexploitation industries in her previous book, Being and Being Bought: Prostitution, Surrogacy, and the Split Self (2013), Ekman takes it upon herself to dismantle transgenderism’s theoretical house of cards, almost giddy in her verve for neutralizing absurdities as the edifice trembles, teeters, then topples down, unfit to withstand reasoned argument. 

On the Meaning of Sex reads like a forensic dissection, its forty concise chapters taking apart the corpus of transgender ideology piece by piece. No fallacy-wrapped riddle of a paradox is spared the nick of Ekman’s scalpel as she slits open all the standard trans talking points to point out the lethal flaws ulcerating their logic. The supposedly “progressive” return to retrograde Barbie-vs.-G.I. Joe sex-role stereotypes. “Overcoming” the gender binary through the reinforcement of a binary, dualistic gender system, the entrenchment of masculinity and femininity as the mainstays of human selfhood. The redefinition of biological reality (sex) as a “social construct” and of a social construct (gender) as a naturally occurring “reality.” Expunging essentialism by establishing gender as an “essence” emergent from one’s pink or blue brain. “Believing the science” of the scientifically unsubstantiated pink/blue brain theory. Individuality through conformity, corralling the “incongruent” individual into alignment with social norms. Being your True Self by changing yourself, by imitating others, trying to become something you are not. Self-acceptance through the rejection of your own body. Self-care through the infliction of self-harm through breast-binding or chronic-pain-inducing elective surgeries. Authenticity through artifice. Diversity through manufactured sameness. Transforming an oppressive culture by preserving that culture’s most foundational structures. Rebellion through compliance. Inclusivity through exclusion. Tolerance through violent threats against dissenters. Smashing patriarchy by re-centering men and demonizing women, courtesy of a “feminism” that prioritizes male feelings and desires. The lionization of men who pretend to be women by presenting themselves as caricatures of pornified, infantilized femininity, while white people who pretend to be black are condemned—and the slightest equivalency between the two practices is furiously denied. The “cis privilege” of women and girls to endure systematic birth-to-death, sex-based disenfranchisement, exploitation, and abuse. And then there is the refrain that echoes through our aching skulls: “Trans women” are women! Yes, “trans women” are exactly like other women in every single way, but also they must be acknowledged specifically, because to lump them in with other women would be to ignore their unique “marginality.” Men who say they are women are like other women in every single way, except more deserving of attention. They are also more womanly than “cis” women could ever dream of being, and more oppressed under patriarchy. But even these claims will be upended by the time we lurch, heads spinning, to the final analysis, when it is concluded that women do not, in any meaningful way, actually exist. 

Is it any wonder that many people, having such a hideous snarl hurled at them, back away with their hands up, bewildered into submission, believing themselves too dense to comprehend something as complicated as all that? For aren’t very complicated things the work of very intelligent people? Better just to go along than risk appearing ignorant…

The truth, however, is that most truly intelligent things are rather straightforward, whilst it is the vapid and bogus ideas of the world that deck themselves in Byzantine complexity, as Ekman so brilliantly showcases. A clear, comprehensive, and sharp-witted takedown of the manic hodgepodge of reversals transgender ideology proffers in place of good sense, On the Meaning of Sex should be on the shelf of all students of feminist defiance seeking to develop their arsenal of at-the-ready counterarguments against the new doublespeak regime. 

But sowing stultifying confusion is merely the method, not the purpose, of the transgenderist mindwarp. The purpose, Ekman writes, is to “pull the rug out from under the women’s movement by eliminating its most central term.” Namely: “WOMAN.” This maneuver is part of what Ekman deems a “neopatriarchal backlash,” which has reaffirmed men’s right, as the ruling class, to define reality as a means to assert authority over and above their social subordinates (e.g., women) and subordinated nature. In the chapter “Every Man’s Right,” Ekman explains how transgenderism operates as male power campaign in the sheep’s (or, more pointedly, ewes’) clothing of a human rights movement. She writes, “Gender identity theory…can be described as consisting of three layers, where each new layer erases the previous one.” On the surface there is a friendly sparkly rainbow-spackled veneer of tolerance, openness, and “free-to-be-you-and-me” celebration of difference. Peel back that layer and one finds a strict allegiance to sex-role stereotypes, set in stone now, with only one choice remaining on the table: “to conform, if necessary through medical interventions” devised to bring the body into line with the gendered mind. And when that layer too is molted, at transgenderism’s marrow, we discover unadorned male dominion. Biology is erased, trounced by manmade fictions, in what Ekman calls “the triumph of idealism over materialism.” Mind over matter, as per standard patriarchal procedure. Women are what men say they are, and every man who says he’s a woman is one, there being no criterion for womanhood beyond a man’s word. After all, womanhood is without meaning beyond the definition he bestows upon it. “And so we hit a wall,” Ekman observes. “Man’s sovereign right. Sex has become his possession: it is what he says it is.” 

Transgenderism is an expansion of male dominion’s holdings, for it allows men not only to continue assuming proprietary rights over females as a subordinated sex class, but to claim absolute ownership over the concept of femaleness itself. Within manmade society, then, the female subject evaporates. We are no longer “this sex which is not one,” a la Luce Irigary, but this sex which is really nothing at all. Materially, females continue to exist, we continue to be used and abused by men, grist for patriarchy’s mil. But socially and politically, we are ciphers. The upshot, in Ekman’s words? “Males are perpetuated, females dissolved.” 

On these grounds, Ekman makes her case for feminist materialism. She argues that biological reality should be recognized as existing outside of, and prior to, manmade society. Sex is not a “social construct”; it is the nature of our animal bodies, for humans are mammals, and we reproduce sexually. Femaleness is a biological reality and females are oppressed on the basis of sex by males – maleness also being a biological reality – under patriarchy: a system of power in which sexual difference is harnessed and enlisted by ruling class males to concretize a political hierarchy of male dominance and female subordination. The redefinition of sex as immaterial – some amorphous plaything flickering gossamer and ghostlike through the minds of men – obscures these realities of sex and power, rendering patriarchy invisible and women’s oppression a mysterious, idiopathic condition, impossible to remedy. For Ekman, the women’s movement depends upon materialist analysis because the female sex class cannot be liberated from male dominion if we lose sight of who is female and who male, who is the ruled and who the ruler. 

Ekman formulates her arguments with admirable level-headedness, putting those Marxist dialectical chops to good use. Her logic is incisive, her rebuttals unfailingly reasonable, even in response to the most garishly ridiculous teachings of trans doctrine. Since it is Ekman’s clear-sighted approach that makes On the Meaning of Sex such an accessible, effective antidote to intellectual entropy, it seems necessary to highlight the text’s sole weakness, one which undermines the clarity that otherwise distinguishes Ekman’s work. Whether she is attempting to be “kind,” whether she intends it as an olive-branch gesture of good faith or an optimistic guard against charges of transphobic fascism, Ekman defers to the language of transgenderism throughout the book, referring to “trans people” and employing wrong-sex pronouns. A still more glaring break from her trademark logicality is the inconsistency of her capitulation here. Some people who claim “trans” status she appears to accept as “trans people,” while others she does not. Among those whose “trans identities” she respects are females saying they’re “trans” – perhaps because she rightly perceives “trans men” as getting the short end of the stick reserved for females within every social niche, and she’s treading gently in solidarity – as well as those males who say they are women without being too obnoxious, arrogant, antagonistic, or femicidal about it. 

Ekman also seems to believe that embarking upon hormone “treatment” and body modification substantiates trans identification, though many trans-identifying people are hostile to the view that this or that surgery or drug course makes someone more or less truly “trans.” Finally, Ekman also asserts that those whose identity claims she holds suspect – opportunistic men wanting in on women’s spaces, for example – are “pretending” to be “trans,” but since transgender ideology maintains that to say one is “trans” is to be “trans,” any person saying they’re “trans” is “trans” and not, by doctrinal definition, pretending to be. The unfortunate effect of Ekman’s selective affirmation is that “trans” is elevated to an earned status one achieves by means of self-identification together with an unspecified set measure of sincerity, good behavior, and medicalization. It’s rather vague—and utterly illogical. 

Additionally troubling is Ekman’s eagerness to cast “trans people” as a category of Innocent Victims manipulated by scheming (“cis”?) masterminds external to the movement, be they the dark lords of patriarchy’s deep state, captains of industry, or careerists in Big Pharma, politics, media, and the academe. “Trans people,” she writes, are “pawns in the justification of a neopatriarchal backlash.” But are they, really? And if so, who exactly is at the helm? Just who are these dark lords, if not the men who’ve set themselves up as the torchbearers and foot soldiers of the trans movement? It is true that vulnerable people – especially young women and children – are being cruelly scammed in the name of transgenderism, for the sake of male power and corporate profit. And, yes, there are many people who, though not True Believers, have joined the crusade with ulterior motives. But it is equally true that many of the movement’s leaders – men like Martine Rothblatt, Jennifer Pritzker, Janet Mock, and Julia Serano – appear devoutly faithful to the ideology they advance. In her contortions to protect “trans people” from criticism by shifting the fault to faceless nameless bad eggs floating somewhere offstage, Ekman reproduces the trope of the put-upon, perennially victimized “trans person” and lets off the hook those “trans people,” most of whom are men, who have made themselves invaluable as transgenderism’s loudest, most viciously woman-hating and abusive enforcers. 

Despite Ekman’s criticisms of transgender ideology’s logical fallacies, despite her demands for clear, reality-based thinking, she submits to the delusion-based, deliberately duplicitous and obfuscating language of transgenderism. By doing so, she unleashes an incoherence into her text that, while it does not void the value of her work, does undercut its integrity. Deferring to the language of the opposition – out of respectfulness, politeness, or because their terms make for easy shorthand – we legitimize what we mean to discredit, and we add to the confusion that intimidates most people out of the conversation in the first place. Transgenderism is a dangerous game of make-believe that men are playing to win. Who do you suppose benefits when feminists make nice and play along? 

The clarity necessary to counter the transgenderist mindwarp is available only through materialism, as Ekman insists—and materialism includes the use of materialist language. The term “trans people” is without any consistent material referent, because there are no “trans people”; there are only female and male and intersex people, and everyone who says s/he is “trans” is, materially speaking, one of the above. People do not transform into new creatures by giving themselves new names, nor by altering themselves surgically. Feminist critics of transgenderism are accused of a violence so extreme that it deprives “trans people” of their existence, obliterating them on the spot. This accusation is, in a certain sense, accurate. It is accurate because feminists’ materialist analysis does negate “trans existence,” since unlike sex – which remains a biological fact regardless of what’s thought about it – “trans people” exist exclusively in theory. Take away transgender ideology and you’re left with a bunch of plain old males and females, alienated from their bodies and dissatisfied with the personality/costume/affinity prescriptions meted out to them according to their sex, seeking solace or validation, narcissistic gratification or sexual kicks. 

Ekman is so bracingly crystal clear on everything else in On the Meaning of Sex. I only wish she would be clear on this, too. 

Thank you to Spinifex for kindly providing a copy of On the Meaning of Sex for this review. Spinifex will be hosting an online launch event for the book on International Women’s Day, March 8th, 2023. 

Aurora linnea is a radical lesbian (eco)feminist writer living at the ocean’s edge in the region of North America colonizers dubbed “Maine.” She strives to contribute to the global feminist struggle to end male dominion through poetic dissidence and uncompromising disloyalty to the necrophilic patriarchal empire presently destroying life on earth.