Gender norms
Gender norms are social expectations about how men and women are supposed to behave, dress and present themselves. That such norms exist, vary and do not follow one-to-one from biology is a sociological observation that is hardly contested. What is contested in the current debate is the step in which not fitting a gender norm is presented as evidence for an underlying deviating 'gender identity' – and as a justification for medical intervention.
What are gender norms?
Gender norms are culturally determined expectations: boys are supposed to be tough, girls caring, men rational, women empathetic. Such representations vary by culture and era. Over the past century they have been considerably loosened in Western societies: women work, men raise children, and stereotypical role divisions are increasingly seen as anything but self-evident.
That norms vary does not mean that all gender differences are socio-cultural. Cross-cultural and evolutionary-biological research consistently shows average differences in behaviour and preference between men and women that cannot be explained by culture alone. These differences are statistical (on average), not absolute, and say nothing about what an individual should do or be.
The influence of gender norms
Rigid gender norms can be harmful: they restrict individual development, they stigmatise non-conformists, and they can cause psychological distress in those who do not comply. The appropriate response is to leave people free in how they dress, behave and present themselves – not to alter their bodies medically to fit what they believe their 'real' gender to be. The difference between a 'boy who likes to wear dresses' and a 'boy who is really a girl' is fundamental.
One of the worrying developments in the current discourse is that strict gender norms are being reintroduced through a back door. When a girl who does not behave femininely is told that she 'might actually be a boy', the stereotype is implicitly confirmed: only boys can be rough or mechanically inclined. Many feminist authors (Sheila Jeffreys, Kathleen Stock, Helen Joyce) have pointed this out.
Gender norms and upbringing
Children receive gendered messages from birth onward. There is much to be said for parents who give their child room to play and do not adhere rigidly to stereotypes. At the same time, there is no scientific basis for the stronger claim that all gender is a social construct – a claim presupposed in some variants of 'gender-neutral upbringing'. Research on newborns and toddlers shows consistent average differences in preference that are hard to reduce entirely to socialisation.
Another concern is the application of gender ideas in education. In more and more schools, young children are taught about 'gender identity' as if it were a clearly defined scientific fact. It is not. It is a contested concept, and presenting it to children who are still in full development is a choice that may be critically scrutinised.
Gender norms in the debate on transgender care
Central to the criticism of the 'gender-affirmative' care model is precisely the confusion between gender non-conformity and trans identity. A large proportion of pre-pubertal children who struggle intensely with gender roles develop, when left undisturbed, into homosexual or simply gender-non-conforming adults – not into trans people. Anyone who 'affirms' these children early risks sending them down an irreversible medical pathway on the basis of what was in fact an expression of gender non-conformity.
The Cass Review (2024) points to the absence of reliable diagnostics to distinguish between these, and to the harm that can arise when children are prematurely placed on a social or medical transition pathway. See: Cass Review (2024) and the pages Cass Review and Detransition.