#73 - On Gender and Gender Nonconformity

With this episode, we begin a series of episodes addressing the topics of gender, gender nonconformity, gender dysphoria and transgenderism.

In this episode, Br. Mobeen Vaid joins me in a discussion on gender and gender nonconformity in the modern world and from an Islamic legal perspective. Why are we witnessing an explosion of gender and sexual identities nowadays, and where is this expansion heading? Does Islam have a constructionist or essentialist view when it comes to one's gender? Does Islamic Shari'a allow flexibility in terms of our gender expression, or are we limited to strict and predefined “gender roles”? Does Islam allow for leeway in non-typical interests and pursuits for men and women? These and other questions are explored in this episode.

References mentioned in the episode:
- “And the Male Is Not like the Female”: Sunni Islam and Gender Nonconformity (Part 2)

Relevant writings by Br. Mobeen:
- On Openness
- Men, Women, and the Perils of Constructionism
- On Gender Wars, #Metoo, and Building a Program of Virtue and Dignity
- Appraising Motherhood
- On Muslim Masculinity
- Why Marriage Requires Meaning

Transcript

Waheed  00:39
Assalamu alaikom warahmatullahi ta’ala wabaraktuh, and welcome back to “A Way Beyond the Rainbow”, this podcast series dedicated to Muslims experiencing same-sex attractions who want to live a life true to Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala and Islam. I'm your host, Waheed Jensen, and thank you for joining me in today's episode. With today's episode we start a series of episodes dedicated to the topic of gender, gender nonconformity, intersex, gender dysphoria and transgenderism. Joining me, again, as a guest speaker in this episode is Br. Mobeen Vaid. As you guys remember, Br. Mobeen joined me earlier this season when we talked about revisionist arguments in a two-episode series, and in this episode, Br. Mobeen and I are going to be exploring the concept of gender and gender nonconformity, gender as a social construct, as well as the concept of gender roles. So let's get started, inshaAllah.

01:39
Assalamu alaikom, Br. Mobeen.

Mobeen  01:40
Wa alaikom assalam warahmatullah.

Waheed  01:42
Jazak Allah khairan for joining me again, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast.

Mobeen  01:46
The pleasure is all mine. 

Waheed  01:49
Barak Allah feek. Alright, so Br. Mobeen is going to be joining me, inshaAllah, on the series of transgenderism gender dysphoria. And in today's episode, we're going to be tackling the topic of gender and gender nonconformity. As you guys know, Br. Mobeen has written two articles, part one and part two of the article “And the Male is Not Like the Female: Sunni Islam and Gender Nonconformity", and we will be focusing today mostly on gender constructs and gender nonconformity. 

So, if we may begin, I'm going to read part of the part two article, basically from the beginning of the article where you quoted David Frank and Nolan Phillips, who wrote that “The expansion of sexuality in society is self-reinforcing. The legitimation of each new identity engenders others. Thus, the old gay center on campus morphs into the lesbian and gay center, and then the LGB center, and then the LGBT center, and then the LGBTQ center, and at some point the LGBTQI center, and now even the LGBTQQIAAP center (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, allies, and pansexual).” So, my question to you, why are we seeing this explosion or expansion of new identities? And what do you think would be the ripple effects of this - where are we heading? If you can tell us more about this. 

Mobeen  03:18
Jazak Allah khairan. So there are, I think, a number of different theories as to why we're seeing the burgeoning proliferation and growth, especially in young people, but people across the board who are affiliating with these identities and taking them on as their own sort of identity that they define themselves off of. There are a couple of arguments that tend to get made here. One of the arguments that I think is quite common is the argument of destigmatization, which is to say that these identities and psychosocial individual profiles have always existed, but because they were stigmatized, because they were taboo, people felt as though they had to censor who they were in the public square, and they had to learn to suppress their own internal beliefs and the psychological makeup with which they were sort of constantly wrestling. And so they grew accustomed to living in a perpetual state of psychological oppression, the prison of their mind, so to speak. And that what we've had in the last couple of years, through the acceptance and affirmation of gender nonconforming identities, has actually permitted and allowed those people to come out of the closet, come out of their shell, really embrace those identities in fuller ways, in ways that would not have been acceptable or tolerated just a decade ago. 

That's one argument that tends to be made. I don't buy that argument only because the rates at which we're seeing this go up tend to outstrip, even if we were to account for some sort of marginal part of population, or even a large population of people who previously felt that they could not sort of publicly identify in this way, you're still looking at numbers that are very, very high. In 2018, for instance, there was a study of Minnesota teens where I think that 3% of all teens identified as non-cis (i.e. non-cisgender). I think, 2017, the year before that, the number was 0.7%. And prior to that, we're talking about 0.1%. So these numbers are growing exponentially, and I think that part of what this entire framework and discourse does is that it not only accommodates gender nonconformity for people who may already be dealing with that individually, but it also induces gender and sexual confusion, and it fetishizes, in many ways, the non-conforming individual. It sort of celebrates and valorizes that identity, and it creates a community around it, a sense of belonging, a sense of purpose, that a person can acquire if they're part of that movement, if they're part of that community, if they openly proclaim that identity. 

And so, you know, in a world where I think many people do feel alienated, do feel alone, do feel ostracized, may have body issues and anxieties related to their own body image in sort of this highly sexualized society that we live in. I don't think it’s particularly surprising for people to seek an out through which they can be affirmed, through which they can be really supported publicly, and made to feel as though they are part of this sort of burgeoning community that is up against the odds. But they're doing that in a way where they're receiving a lot of mutual support and reinforcement in the public square and, obviously, from their surroundings as well. So I think that we're getting a lot of this happening very, very rapidly, not only as a function of organic factors that are happening within the individual that comes out as nonconforming, but also as a function of environmental factors and social factors that are promoting, in some ways, and encouraging people, especially young people, to really abandon the traditional “gender binary”, and to look at that as a sort of oppressive structure, as a function of hegemony and patriarchy, and a tradition that they’re no longer bound or tethered to.

Waheed  07:49
Absolutely. Subhan Allah, I agree with what you said with regards to feeling a sense of belonging, like a lot of people who come from very traumatic backgrounds, or family dynamics where there was a lot of complex trauma growing up. And regardless whether they identified with the LGBTQ community or not, a lot of them would not even have issues with gender conformity or sexual orientation, they would identify as cis or heterosexual, but then because of all of these, a lack of connection with others, feeling alienated and bullied, they want to belong to a community, and they find themselves gravitating towards the LGBT community. And then it would be attractive, and they're encouraged to discover what their sexuality or gender identity is, and they take it from there. So this is a very important point that we see more in the West, but now it's picking up pace also in a lot of Muslim countries, unfortunately.

Mobeen  08:48
Yeah, I'm not particularly surprised by it in some ways, you know, you can just think about how there is an extent to which it does feel at times as though we are being inundated and submerged within a particular environment as to how human beings are presented to us, as sexualized and objectified beings. When you just look at marketing and the media, images that we’ll come across online. The promotion of the sexualized and promiscuous woman, the sort of unrealistic images of men and what they look like, and the fashions that they're supposed to subscribe to. I think there are ways in which a person can really feel a deep sense of inadequacy. They can look at themselves and feel like they're failing in a lot of deep ways, and that they come to regard themselves as ugly, you know, a person can really hate what they look like, hate who they are, and that can manifest itself in different ways - whether that is self-harm, whether that is an eating disorder, which we have a lot of problems with, that those are particularly acute issues these days for young people. 

Or, in certain cases, frankly, gender dysphoria, which is to say that “My problem is, the reason that I feel this way, the reason that I am sort of in this abiding situation of anxiety and stress and depression has everything to do with the fact that I am psychologically malformed, that there is this disjunction between who I am internally, and the body that I was provided with, as part of my makeup, and that I was born into. And the solution to this is a medical solution, and the medical solution also attends with it a broader social solution, which gives me the support that I'm looking for, it gives me the relationships that I'm looking for, it gives me the sense of identity and purpose and community that I've always been looking for. And it also helps me biologically reorient myself in a way that can help reduce and attenuate the anxieties that I've been previously straddled with.”

Waheed  11:13
For sure, subhan Allah. Beautifully said, jazak Allah khair. So, this is as far as the reasons as to why this explosion and expansion has been happening. As a person living in the West, you're outspoken about these matters, what do you think the situation is going to be looking like in a couple of years? Where are we heading, from what you can extrapolate based on what we are seeing right now?

Mobeen  11:41
That's a good question. Well, I think we're seeing a couple of things already happening. We're seeing fewer people come out and identify as lesbian or gay, and more people take on a more amorphous queer identity. So I think you're having more people who otherwise would be heterosexually oriented when it comes to their sexual activities, they sort of take on and sample same-sex dalliances and same-sex interactions. And so you're getting more people who are behaviorally bisexual, and they'll identify as queer as part of that, and take on the aesthetic of the queer label. I think alongside that, you're going to have more people that come out as non-conforming. I think “non-conforming” we'll see a lot more of that as a social phenomenon. So you know, people who simply have an alternative name, you know, an alternative way that they dress, and it may be something that they do part time, it may not even be a full time thing. Like “I'm sort of non-conforming on the weekends”, potentially, or “I’m non-conforming for half the month and I'm conforming for half the month”, or something like that. “I don't like to be put in a box.” So I think we'll see more of that. 

I think we'll see more social transitioning, especially amongst children and young people, and parents who feel like they're making a responsible decision by helping their children and encouraging their children as part of social transitions. I think we'll see more psychologists that encourage social transitioning, because the medical work is so invasive and carries so many side effects. And I think just the blemish of de-transitioning becomes a real bad black eye for the medical profession and psychological profession as well, that I think they're going to pare that back and perhaps encourage more of a social phenomenon, as opposed to something that really becomes a more invasive medical phenomenon. But I think we're going to see more of that, I think we'll find a sort of larger spectrum and perhaps even more identities that grow in addition to these. 

So, you know, today, when we talk about non-conforming or gender non-conforming behavior, we're really talking about men who sort of psychologically believe they're women, and vice versa. You know, we'll probably get other forms of non-conforming, where, you know, “Oh, I'm androgynous. My psychology is something that doesn't conform with the popular stereotypes of what it means to be a man or a woman”, or something like that. And so, there's probably things that we're going to see in the coming years that we haven't seen to date. But I think, at a minimum, in the coming years, what we should expect in sort of near term is simply the growth of this. I think we should fully expect that we're going to have more and more children that are going to struggle with this, especially young people, I think we're going to have more and more media that's targeting young people, especially in schools, but even outside of schools, that are going to be incorporating or integrating this type of messaging into programming. Sometimes that messaging is going to be explicit; in other cases, it's going to be more subtle. But literature, movies, TV shows, I think we're just going to start getting inundated with that more and more the same way that we saw all of that take place with homosexuality. And I think that project’s already underway, I think in the coming years we’ll just see it grow. 

So we'll see, like I said, I think the one area where we'll see a pullback is in the medical interventions, especially for young people. I think at some point, Western societies themselves will have to put some guidelines and guardrails around that, as opposed to today, where everyone just seems to be petrified and terrified of getting on the wrong side of activists, even within the medical establishment. And I think the growth of the de-transition movement is going to be what's going to drive that. I think, once they become liable financially, I think you'll probably get a couple of major lawsuits, the type of lawsuits that we're seeing now in the UK and other countries. Once they start merging in the US and other European countries, will see a bit of a decline and pullback in the medicalizing of children, but we'll still see a lot of the social nonconformity pickup and a lot of that continue.

Waheed  16:01
And by social nonconformity or social transitioning, just for the listeners to understand that, you mean cross-gender dressing, mannerisms, and all of that, correct?

Mobeen  16:14
Yeah, so the idea is like, if you have a young boy, and let's just say his name is Abdullah, a Muslim example, the idea is that the parents may say, “Oh, you know, your female name will be Fatima!” And it may be subtle to start things off, where it's, “Hey, does he like the name Fatima more? Maybe a couple of days a week, or on occasion, we'll call him Fatima and we'll see how he responds to it. And maybe at a young age, he grows to like the name. Then maybe what we'll do is we'll start mixing up his toys, and within the toys that he plays with, we’ll incorporate more typically female toys - whether those are dolls or other things - and then maybe what we'll do is dress him in clothing that's more feminine, and maybe initially, it's not explicitly feminine, maybe clothing that is a bit more gender neutral. But over time, we'll start incorporating that, on a rare occasion, just to give him a sense of whether he likes those clothes or not. We don't want to force him into this sort of boy identity for the rest of his life, we want him to experiment, we want him to explore, and we want him to make his choices for himself. We don't want to force things on him.” 

And so, social transitioning really refers to things that can really start in any one of those domains, it might start with toys or names or clothing, to the point where it might be, “Hey, you know, for three or four days a week, we're going to have a fully socially transitioned son. So three days a week, we're going to treat this boy as if he's a girl, end to end, and we're going to speak to him as if he is a girl. And we're going to dress him in girls’ clothing, and we're going to have him hang out with his girlfriends and all the rest, end to end. And then for four days, we're going to do this, and then it could be a bit of that. Although that could produce problems with ideas that, you know, depending on what he likes more, that's what we're going to make more dominant.” 

And so, social transitioning really refers to this sort of exploratory activity, which could sort of materialize and develop into something that ends up being a bit more stable. “We're now going forward, we've determined, in consultation with Abdullah, that really Fatima is who he really wants to be. He doesn't want to be Abdullah anymore. And so, at a very young age now, it's a full time Fatima. And if he ever wants to go back, it's his choice, but we're just going to encourage and be supportive.” And that's really what affirmative therapy is all about. Affirmative therapy is always about affirming the decisions that these young people are making and providing them support and encouragement along the way, such that even if they feel discouraged by what may be bad experiences or internally some doubts about what they're doing, you're continuing to provide them the support needed to continue moving forward along that path.

Waheed  19:25
When we go back and talk about the theme of sex and gender, so this is also in part 2 of the article at the beginning. You know, it was taken for granted up until a few years ago that gender is male or female, and we know that intersex is a separate category altogether. And we know that biology and religion see gender as a biological reality, it's a fact of life. There's a dichotomy between the male and the female. This is a sacred dichotomy, and we've spoken about this a lot during the podcast, about the Jalal (majesty) and the Jamal (beauty) aspects that Allah has that we also see in humans that He has created in us. So the men have more of the Jalali aspects, and the women have more of the Jamali aspects. And there are laws and regulations and everything in our Deen is based on the dichotomy of the male and the female. 

And you have written that modern gender theorists call the conception of gender into doubt, arguing instead that gender is something that is cultural that we become “through a complex process of socialization”, and there’s anthropological evidence showing various cultures and societies which recognized three or more genders, and many differences in “gender binary” cultures. Factors like social norms, customs, socialization, media, school systems and parents reinforcing differences of male vs. female expectations towards children at a young age. So here comes the argument that “the sex of the body does not bear any necessary or deterministic relationship to the social category in which that body lives.” In other words, gender denotes social expectation alone and not biology.

Now, keeping this in mind, how do we respond to this, as Muslims: Are we as Muslims gender essentialists and we say that one's biological sex or gender is grounded in biological reality, or are we constructionists and say that gender is a social construct, or are we somewhere in between? How do you answer this?

Mobeen  21:42
Yeah, that's a good question. So, I think, we probably have to unpackage a couple of things. So when we talk about the dichotomy between essentialism and constructionism, we have, especially today, sort of philosophically, intellectually, in different queer and trans scholarly circles, even people who take sexual constructionism. And by sex constructionism (not sexual, but sex constructionism), just to say that not only is the gender constructed, even the sex is constructed. The argument there is not that there isn't an objective biological reality, this is to say that when we start giving labels to that biological reality, we are in fact bringing it into existence. So the question is, why do we have to identify a person, male or female, on the basis of their reproductive organs? Why are we giving a life to that? Well, we're giving life to that on the basis of this sort of label that we've created. And that if we wanted to produce alternative labels, or, in fact interact with people's anatomy in a different way, we could, in fact, classify and categorize people entirely differently, even in their relationship to their biology. And so that becomes an argument itself. Are we going to be sex essentialists or sex constructionists? And there are some advocates today who do argue for sex constructionism, that even that sort of biological reality is something that is not nearly as stable or essentialized as people are making it out to be. 

Waheed  23:25
Subhan Allah! This is more and more confusing as the time passes. 

Mobeen  23:27
Yeah, yeah, they say the rabbit hole keeps going deeper and deeper, right? And then you have gender essentialism vs. gender constructionism. Which is to say that, there's a question of what does gender denote. And I think the challenge with gender is that we have so much language that is now essential to the definition of gender, that has in fact been produced and continues to be reproduced within a larger framing that presupposes constructionism as well as a number of other philosophical premises that we may not necessarily want to commit ourselves to. So what they tend to talk about gender today, especially when you talk about gender studies, and you talk about transgenderism, that gender is what we perform. So performativity becomes the framework within which gender is understood. 

Waheed  24:24
So the “gender role” in other words? 

Mobeen  24:26
Absolutely. So it's a role, you know, if you think about society and the world we're in as this Grand Theater that we're a part of, we all take on certain roles. And those roles are things that are not deterministic, right? These are not things that are essentialized. For instance, a woman might have a child, and she gives birth to that child. Being a mother is a role that she has put herself in, and she has put herself into that role through a complex process of socialization. Being a “mother” is not an essential reality to the constructionist. In fact, it could be a form of oppression, because what you're doing is you're stifling that person in plenty of ways. And you are pigeonholing them into a very narrow way of understanding themselves and their relationship biologically with their own progeny or offspring. Who's to say that that woman has to be the mother? What does it mean to be a mother? And why does that have to - if we're just saying that all that motherhood does is it denotes a specific biological relationship, well, okay, fine, that's just descriptive. But if we're going to assign to that something greater and deeper, where we say that motherhood actually encompasses a much larger reality of love and care and nurturing, and, you know, the child has duties towards his mother and all of that, now what we're doing is we're constructing something, we're constructing a role, and we're constructing performative roles that are both being applied. We're casting characters almost in this play. So now, here's the role for the child, here's the role for what we're calling the mother, we're calling the child. 

And all of this is now playing out in a way that is predefined and prefabricated. Now women who have children are, essentially, without choice, their volition to escape this prison of motherhood becomes exceedingly difficult, right? Because what they've done is that they've entered themselves into a conception of who they are in the world around them through the tentacles, the nefarious workings of society and their environment that has told them “This is who you are, and this is what you have to do!” So they would not accept that something like, well, normatively, a woman going through the process of having a child isn't just sort of arbitrarily going through these biological processes; she's also going through something that is very profound. And part of that process is developing a relationship to this human being that she gives birth to, that she is going to be bound to, through the act of love and care and mercy. And there's something essential to there that is not arbitrary, that is not constructed, that is essential. 

Evidence of that is the fact that we see it, transculturally, transnationally, we see it trans-historically, as far back as we can go, we can see the lives of mothers with children. We see it in animal life, and we see how mothers tend and care for their children. Now someone comes back to us and says, “Well, you know, there's this insect and this animal where this insect actually doesn't do a whole lot, she just abandons her child. And this one actually eats its kid. And there's that…” And you'd say, “Okay, fine, like these exceptions exist. But what we're talking about is a broader norm. And that norm is something that human beings have always maintained and honored.” That it isn't just a performance that's going on, no one has cast these human beings and animals and everything around us into these roles. What we're doing is we're seeing the natural mechanics and workings of Allah's creation. That Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala has put this in us, and He has put certain predispositions in us, such that we don't need to be taught those things. These are things that we arrive at naturally, and some of those things are quite beautiful, right? And they're the type of things that we reflect upon in this world, because they're virtuous things to see.

And so I use the motherhood example, because I think it's the type of example that many people see as a little more obvious, right? Most people won't contest that outside of gender studies and the whole discourse around motherhood and what motherhood is and all that. But sort of everyday people can sort of appreciate and acknowledge something like “mother”, even if they may not have the greatest relationships with their moms, right? That sort of institution of motherhood is something that they very much value and admire and appreciate and recognize, it’s really a pivotal part of the human community, right? 

Gender, in some ways, you want to think about it like that, if we're thinking of gender as saying, “Well, gender is the acknowledgement of male and female difference, not merely as a biological difference, but as something that is socially reflected in the way in which we live.” Which is to say that being a man is not just about how you are biologically made up, but it is also about experiencing a great number of things in the world, and having certain predispositions that are normatively masculine, there's something that we can identify called “masculinity” that is related to by biology – not just one's anatomy, but hormones and everything else - and it's also related to by the way men think, what they prefer, what they do, right? And likewise with women, that there's something called “femininity” that we can identify as a normatively feminine. 

And we recognize that there's a bit of a spectrum on both, right? Not all men are going to fit into very narrow stereotypes of what it means to be a man. But, nonetheless, the idea that there is something called “masculinity” is not just a stereotype. It's actually reflecting something much deeper and intrinsic in the male being. And it's very interesting to me, because, in many ways, and in many parts of the world that we live in, we actually recognize the differences, we recognize how different the male and the female experience is. And at times, I actually find it very interesting the tension in gender studies, queer theory, and trans studies and all of this, how much tension and contradiction there is at the heart of so much of what is discussed, because on the one hand, there is this recognition that things are gendered, we have to read things through gender-critical lenses, we have to realize how much the female experience differs from the male experience. The mere fact of being female is seen as so radically different, that a man and a woman can't do two things the same way; they don't read books the same way, they don't think the same way, they don’t talk the same way. Everything about them is so different, that to have certain aspects of our life and our world, where norms exists for both men and women as simply human norms are almost looked at as inconsiderate or oppressive, right? They look at those things as de facto patriarchal, because they're not recognizing the uniqueness of the female and the feminine. 

And yet, on the other hand, within the transgender discourse, you have a discourse that says “No, that entire gendered reality that we're looking at is simply a performative space that we have constructed, and that we have forced people into and we've placed them into. And, in reality, if we divested of all of this, if we dispensed with all of this gender madness, we would actually have a sort of a variegated reality, sort of open, blank slate of androgynous human beings, when it comes to their behavior that they could fit into, and they could be a part of in so many different ways, and perhaps even unpredictable ways, and those things would not be bifurcated on the basis of one's anatomy. But we may have ways in which human beings come to live with each other that are so diverse, so multifaceted, so variable, that it just becomes this complex mix, this cocktail of everybody being their own unique selves”, and things like that. And so that that becomes the type of constructionist framework that, at times, gets advanced. 

And now the question is how do we think about this as Muslims? I think, in some ways, there are aspects of the gender critical framework that we might even find some agreement with. For instance, when it comes to the way that society at times can present for us what it means to be a man or what it means to be a woman. In fact, you know, this is something I've written about myself independently, this whole notion of “Okay, like, you know, if you're a young girl growing up today, in the modern West, you have a certain expectation of how you're supposed to dress.” And that dress, even for young girls, is rather promiscuous, right? I mean, it's actually quite tough to shop for girls. I have a daughter, she's young, even if I go to - and I'm not talking about specialty fashion stores; even a Walmart or a Target or just a generic department store that has clothing. For young girls, the clothing is much more form fitting, it's very tight. And, you know, I don't want to dress my daughter in that clothing. So I buy her loose clothing. Now, women wear looser clothing, and, in some ways, they're not conforming to what society expects of them. There's an element of that we look at and say, “Okay, like, what we're expecting and hoping for people to do in many ways is to not conform to the social expectations of society around us, insofar as they've determined what it means to be a man and a woman.” 

You know, even when it comes to the whole notion of extended adolescence, for boys, especially, there's this valorization of men who grow up and live with their independence, and just have a good time and party and do this type of stuff. And the idea of really becoming an adult and taking on adult responsibility, that is something that's very central to Islam. The idea of takleef, you’re accountable as a man or a woman once you've gone through adolescence. And so, for us, your sort of adulthood begins much earlier in life. You can't be 27 or 28 years-old and still behaving like a child, and expecting everyone to treat you like a child. You've got to grow up, right? 

And so all of those things, it becomes very difficult in some ways to situate ourselves vis-à-vis the discourse that has two poles that are both alien to us. Even with the foreign nature of that discourse, I'd say certainly one is perhaps something that we are more amenable to and can work within, because this sort of gender critical framework is one that produces the whole transgender movement and everything else, which intersects much more difficult issues, so to speak. But in any event, just getting back to this, having said that, in Islam, we do have a notion of men and women being different biologically but also behaviorally. And we do have a notion of sort of rujula and manhood and what that entails. And we do have ahadeeth that speak about women’s behavior. And we do have differentiated responsibilities and duties towards Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala, and those differentiated duties and responsibilities are not arbitrarily applied. It's not something that just has simply been assigned to women, or this has simply been assigned to men. No, there are actual and specific obligations and commands that reflect our differentiated natures. That is precisely it.

And one of the things that becomes very difficult for Muslim men and women in an environment like ours is appreciating male and female difference in its fullest form. Because when you are so offended by the reality of female and male difference, what begins to happen is that Revelation and the Divine Command that brings forward and brings forth gender difference, that begins to be seen as an artifact of oppression, an artifact of domination, right? An artifact of patriarchy, and everything else. And so it's a very, very complex topic in many ways. But it's the type of topic that I think we have to try to find our own footing within, and our own discourse that is not wedded or tethered to the sort of cultural war environment that we see in front of us, or even the popular social narratives of gender essentialism/constructionism, which at times can manifest and materialize in ways that are actually problematic to us on both sides. And that's just sort of my general view of it. And Allah knows best. 

Waheed  38:03
Indeed, barak Allahu feek. Subhan Allah, like when you were saying all of that, in particular, as far as even saying that sex is actually a social construct, and trying to deconstruct all of that. I look at that, and I find it very ironic or actually hypocritical of people assigning labels when they deem that to be fit, like “queer, gay, bisexual, transgender”, you know, “Label yourself the way that you want it.” But then things that we take for granted that are grounded in biology, no, we tend to deconstruct that, and then it becomes a subjective experience. Because all in all, the way that I find it is that the common denominator to this and that is that we are putting the self first and foremost, and we are putting our own subjective interpretation of things, and whatever I see fit, whatever I feel to be the way that I want to describe myself, you know, it's all about “me, myself and I”. When that becomes the god that I worship, then everything becomes relative.

Mobeen  39:06
You’re absolutely right. And I think one of the things that really needs to come out with a lot of the scholarship on this is that it relies so heavily on certain anthropological realities, where they'll examine and do fieldwork or draw on studies that have reviewed aboriginal tribe X or Y, and some of the ways in which men and women participate in those societies may not be as firmly gendered, or may include a third gender, right? But even when we talk about third gender, even in those aboriginal societies, you're usually looking at some amalgamation of male and female. And so it's actually not escaping the binary; oftentimes, it's still acknowledging that binary and just giving life to it in a different way. 

Moreover, you know, just sort of highlighting a 50-person tribe in the middle of nowhere, you know, to me seems not enough proof or evidence to override 99.9% of humanity since time immemorial, right? Now has gender manifested in the exact same way in every single society? No, it doesn't do that today! But the idea that the work of gender has not been done, that there hasn't been this gender bifurcation between men and women, and that that isn't something of meaning and consequence to us, to me is a very tendentious and specious argument. But it is the type of argument that becomes the pivot point for the entire discourse of transgenderism today.

Waheed  40:41
For sure. Yeah. So if you were to answer the question, “Why is biology thrown out the window when we discuss gender - or even sex, as you have said, even sex is being deconstructed?” The reason is because there is a subjective interpretation to all of that, and there's a movement that is taking place, which wants to pave the way for a particular social constructionist way of looking at life that brings forward a dismantling of things that we have taken for granted. Is that what this is about?

Mobeen  41:14
Absolutely. And I'd say, you know, one of the things that we see in Islam, in the Quran and Sunnah, is that they're deeply gendered, right? They're deeply gendered in obligations, in the way in which Revelation communicates to us. There is lots of Revelation, many, many commands that apply to men and women equally in ways that are not gender differentiated. But it's not uncommon at all to come across versus to come across ahadeeth where the male and the female are spoken to differently, and they are instructed differently. And, you know, a person just looks at all of that and says, “Well, it's just arbitrary.” 

It's odd to me that the arbitrariness of gender is being advanced so aggressively, especially given the extent to which we understand how deeply the biological differences between men and women are today. You talk about what the current state of science is with neuroscience and studies of the brain and the difference between men and women there. Talk about just even empirical psychology and all the studies that have been done observing male and female difference. We look at male and female difference in the way it manifests in front of us, just about every single day. And a person can look at all of that and just say, “Well, there's no real material to this, this is just performative!” Or “The random, whimsical, capricious happenstance of a modern Western society and patriarchal society that's been inherited through Victorian and traditional norms that came through religion”, and all of that. I just find that discourse to be so unsatisfying and even bizarre. That’s my two cents on all of it. And Allah knows best.

Waheed  43:09
I absolutely agree with you 100%, subhan Allah! It's becoming more and more ridiculous, you know, as time elapses. God help us! I don't know what's going to happen in a couple more years. 

Mobeen  43:19
Yeah. And it's very tough, because even though like there's all this philosophical complexity, what sort of exists underneath the surface, at the surface level, at the extent to which the average person is really interacting with this, it's a challenge, because it's, in many ways, it's kind of like the way we've spoken about homosexuality, where there's this identity discourse and all these things happening. But in the public square, what you're really dealing with is sort of this identity community that's coming in front of you and saying, “Well, you know, people are coming out of the closet, and they just want to be who they are, what's your problem? Why can't we just affirm and be happy for these people? Like, what difference does it make to you? This is their decision, this is their choice, let them live however they want to live.”

And, in many ways, that's kind of what's happening with transgenderism, you're getting this big public movement, you're getting all of the media, you're getting all of the sort of social inundation of now gender nonconformity at this very fetishized, lionized, valorized reality, and people who object to it are being hit in many ways, same thing, “Well, so what? Let people choose how they want to dress, let them choose the name that they want to take on, let them choose the pronouns that they want to go by, let them choose what bathroom that they want, let them choose all these things. What big difference does it make to you that people are just choosing a lifestyle that differs from your own? That seems to be quite judgmental, even bigoted and hateful!” And when that is the frame of reference, when that is the discourse that is dominant and pervading, when that is the established discourse for talking about issues like this, what they're able to do is situate what's going on right now into a broader chronology of human discrimination and hatred. 

So we go back and we look back at who we were as human beings, and the way in which we were so terrible vis-a-vis racism and tribalism, that, you know, human beings used to have tribal wars and fights, and they couldn't tolerate people from different tribes. We had these bitter feuds and battles, and then we had these religious wars, then we had all these racial differences that manifested in the gross oppression of slavery and chattel slavery, and the way in which it dispossessed and dehumanized scores of people. And we sort of have this narrative of human progress and tolerance. And it doesn't ever come easy, and there are always people who are struggling and being withheld and staying back. And, you know, there are always the late comers, right? It takes them time. But the idea is that we have to continue to work with people to get them moving along, because this is the work of being a human being. This is the difficult task of trying to stand alongside justice and love and enlightenment. This is sort of the way that people look at this in many ways, and homosexuality and transgenderism are just the next iteration, rather the latest iteration, on this sort of chronological spectrum, the timeline, if you will, these are the latest causes. 

And so, the idea is that the people who are rejecting this, the people who are resisting the force of what's occurring are in many ways looked at and perceived as being like a southern slave owner who doesn't want to acknowledge and give Black people their full humanity. Because what you're not doing is giving trans people and giving homosexuals their full humanity by affirming them, loving them, really embracing them as part of the human community on terms that they desire. And that becomes a really, really difficult place for religious people to be in the middle of, because now the sort of question that society has to figure out for religious communities that take the types of positions that we do, as Muslims, is how long can we tolerate a religious community that has such offensive and horrible beliefs and positions? At what point can we tolerate prudential differences with religious communities? What exceptions should we provide for them? How much can we just tolerate these people within our midst overall? 

And, you know, over time, people just have less and less tolerance for communities like ours, because they begin to see us the same way that they do that sort of southern slave owner and say, “Okay, look, you sort of had your time, you had your moment, we gave you enough of it, we gave you enough latitude to hold on to your bigoted beliefs, but now we have to go on. Now it’s over.” It's like, that's how slavery happened, right? There was the three fifths compromise, there's this, there's that, and then we just had to draw a hard red line in the sand and say, “It's over, no more slavery. If you're in favor of it, you talk about it in your house, but you don't bring it anywhere else. We're not going to tolerate anybody, anywhere, that's in favor of it.” And it's like, okay, yeah, like we actually agree with the way that antebellum south was horrible, right? Like, we can look at it that way. But these phenomena are qualitatively different. It's not the same. We shouldn’t just cobble them all together. And yet, that's what the social discourse has done in many ways.

Waheed  48:46
Because it turned it into an issue of social justice and civil rights. And that's when the argument took a radical shift, right? 

Mobeen  48:53
Yes, social justice, civil rights, humanity, affirming the humanity of other people, right? Are they fully human to you or not? That's the question. Because by disagreeing with the decisions that they're making, and actually making moral charges against what they're doing and saying that they're acting in profoundly immoral ways, what you are doing is you are dehumanizing them. You are dehumanizing them. And that act of dehumanization is, in fact, violent. The question is, how long can we sit back and allow people to exhibit violence against marginalized peoples before we stand up and say “no more”?

Waheed  49:41
Subhan Allah. May Allah help us, all of us.  

Mobeen  49:43
Ameen, Ameen. 

Waheed  49:45
Ameen ya Rabb. Before moving forward with this discussion, a brother actually sent me this question, and he said that the sex-gender distinction was something that was mostly popularized in the late 1900s, more precisely by the mid 1980s, maybe 1970s, at a time when religion had already lost its force as an institution in the West, and medicine and claims about biology were the main obstacles to feminists and trans people. And so, the sex-gender distinction served mainly as a tool against biological determinism and not God, to be used - theology or God as an argument against that. So now, as Muslims, when we reintroduce God and theology into the equation, you know, does that kind of change the dynamic of the debate and offer a third view, or does it not do that?

Mobeen  50:36
So I guess it's a good question. Let me try and sort of unpack a couple of things there. So there's a huge debate about the origins of gender and sort of how did gender emerge socially, as a phenomenon, the way that we look at it today, with a tightly distinguished gender as a sort of performative, psychosocial reality that is distinct from one’s biological sex. Many gender theorists and scholars trace it back, I think, to the 1970s, if I’m not mistaken, I know you said, 1980s. I think John Money is the figure, and they say that he actually invented the concept of gender identity. That's John Money who invented this concept, Money being a very influential scholar of sexology, a sexologist really based in Johns Hopkins - a very controversial figure for different reasons. But the introduction of this, even in the 1980s, did not happen because religion had lost its force. It simply happened in academic quarters, where you had a lot of experimentation and things like that, that were being done on these types of issues and topics. And so, you've always had these types of things happening. 

In some ways, it was just the development progress of a certain discourse on sexuality and gender that had been taking place. Certainly religion had less force in the 1980s than it had in the 1900s. But, you know, religion was still a very popular phenomenon in the 1980s. I mean, it's very dominant in the 1980s, certainly 1980s West and in America, an extremely, extremely religious society. Now, in some ways, the evidence of how religious a society was can be seen in the aftermath of the sexual revolution, the 1960s and ‘70s is sort of the opening of the sexual revolution. The 1980s actually witnesses a pullback of a lot of that, where you have a return to some notion of propriety, not to what the 1950s look like, but certainly in a way that dispensed with and rejected much of what had occurred in the 1960s and ‘70s. And you had a more critical discourse that emerged, again, in a way that restrained or pulled back some of what had taken place in that time. 

So the 1980s becomes a very interesting period of time. The 1980s had also seen a lot of industrialization, and things like that. And so, you know, I don't think that at that point they're saying, “Well, you know, feminist and trans people have these obstacles of gender.” I think what they're doing is they're trying to explore different modes of human living and how gender relates to that. And so John Money is one of the first people who really theorizes this whole notion of gender being essentially arbitrary. And that if we want, we can really assign people and cast them into totally different roles and raise them differently without any problem whatsoever, which accounts for the types of experiments that he carried out in the famous John/Reimer study that he did on that young boy.

Waheed  53:50
Which you talk about in the article, part two. 

Mobeen  53:53
Yes, we spent a lot of time sort of writing about and highlighting that particular story, because it's a significant one. You know, this boy took his life later in life when he became an adult. If people want the details of that, they can see that in the part two of the article. But, you know, that was him [i.e. John Money] effectively carrying out his theory and giving life to it. And so, I think that, in many ways, Money was one of the early forerunners in this whole notion of gender being something that is simply assigned and constructed socially, and because it's constructed, it can be deconstructed and reconstructed in different ways, and we can assign it arbitrarily to anybody we want in ways that have no relationship to and no concern for how they are biologically made up. 

And in some ways, much of the outcome and the sort of traumatic consequences of those studies militate against many of his theories. But, you know, nonetheless, it seems like gender identity and a lot of that continued to persist. And it's really been in the past decade or so that we've seen it really aggressively foregrounded and given life in sort of our trans discourse moment. So, the question is, you know, reintroducing God and theology, does it change the dynamics of this debate? It could, I mean, certainly, Money and all these people were not operating in the theocentric domain, and the popular sciences are not sort of theologically concerned. They're materialist fields, more or less. Now, you know, the question of, if we begin to introduce God, as I said, I think it can possibly offer an alternative to the way in which people think about essentialism, and the way that they think about constructionism. But I don't know that that's necessarily going to be satisfied with people who don't want the essentialist discourse. And that's just my own two cents. 

The fact of Islam being so deeply gendered is still going to be something that's very difficult for people who grade and chafe at gender difference. And so, I think people have to be willing to accept a deep and thick notion of gender difference, but they just have to be willing to accept it and perhaps think about it in terms that depart from the way that gender essentialists talk about those things today. And that is something that I think we have to develop a little bit more, both in our scholarship and writings, as well as the way in which we talk about and discuss gender. And I've tried to do that a little bit, even in my own blog. When I write, I have an article about what I call the “perils of constructionism”. And I try to advance the discourse that takes a very thick notion of gender difference, that what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman is very, very deep, and it's very profound. And it is a lived reality, it is something that we witness. 

Virtue is really taking and honoring those differences in a way that accentuates the good of masculinity and the good of femininity, right? The things that we can look at and say, “Well, there's feminine and masculine beauty in this world.” And Revelation gives us instruction that really accentuates all of that. It doesn't diminish it. It doesn't look at those differences as something that's embarrassing, or something that we need to shove away, but, in fact, it looks at as something that should be radically affirmed in so many different parts of our life, especially our theological and religious life, let alone our social life and everything else that it is giving us instruction and guidance around. At the same time, it recognizes the fact that there are aspects of the human life, of being a man or a woman, that can actually be destructive, and it tries to attenuate and mitigate our vices. It tapped into the types of temptations and the types of difficulties that men and women have, and it's sensitive to that. 

And so, that framework, in many ways, you know, we shouldn't be surprised that God understands us so well, He created us, Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala understands His creation, and He has provided us a Revelation that coincides with His creative purpose, in a way that is in keeping with our differences, acknowledges those differences, provides us some variability in the ways in which we can live so it's not stifling, but it's really deeply affirming. So when we talk about affirming human beings and affirming our humanity, I think what really does that is a life of Revelation, not a life that's rejecting Revelation. A life that's rejecting Revelation is not affirming humanity, what it's doing is affirming the subjective psychological identifications that an individual is being told that they should have. And they're told that they should have it through a set of actors that have constructed for them and identity that they now have a lot of difficulty thinking outside of. And, so in some ways, it is the trans discourse and the gender critical discourse that can be so stultifying in its rejection of the gender binary and its rejection of, at times, things that even we'd look at and say are absolutely legitimate. 

If they take issue with the way in which women are presented to women, the whole sort of notion of what it means to be a woman, and they say, “Well, I don't identify with that!” And I'd say, “You know what, that's actually not all bad, because of how toxic those representations can be.” Just the same way that the representations of what it means to be a man can be very toxic, this sort of macho, uncouth, profane buffoon, right? Like this type of man that they present in the media. I don't want to be a guy like that! Right? Like why should that be the type of man that we're presenting as sort of the honorable, dignified man that we want young men to grow up and be like? And we see this amongst the Sahaba and the Sahabiyyat, there are different types, in the sense that, you have some Sahaba, some men that take on martial valor and are known for their accomplishments in the battlefield, and you have other companions of the Prophet (PBUH) that are belletrists and enjoy poetry, and some are scholars and their life takes on a more scholarly flare, so to speak, right? And all of this comes together in the life of the Prophet (PBUH) himself who acknowledges all of these things, and acknowledges the ways in which, “Okay, you know, you love poetry, conduct your poetry in a way that gives it virtue, that’s honorable, that speaks about the higher things in life.” So it’s not debasing to the human condition. “You are a person who is accomplished physically and you are accomplished in in combat, well, you know, channel that in a way that is just.

Waheed  1:01:28
And virtuous. For sure. 

Mobeen  1:01:30
Yeah, absolutely right. And so these are the types of things that we see Revelation guiding us towards. And we see that for men and women. And so, I think in some ways, we really have to reckon with all of that, that requires us to think a lot more deeply about Revelation, as well as the way in which Revelation speaks to us about our gender differences.

Waheed  1:01:53
Absolutely. Beautifully said, by the way, jazak Allah khairan, I'm really enjoying this episode and learning so much from you, barak Allah feek. You actually beat me to it, because this is the next question that I wanted to ask you, and it's more to do with the “predefined gender roles” in terms of the Shari’a and our Islamic understanding. So a very common question that we get, and, inshaAllah, I will explore it more with Sh. Mustafa, but I would like to hear it from you as well, which you've already alluded to in your previous answer: Does the Sharia give us kind of more room in terms of our gender expression, or are we limited to these “gender roles”? You know, is it narrow or is it wide compared to the contemporary understanding of what it means to be a male or a female? That is one question. And a follow-up question would be like, if I have non-typical interests, like men, for example, who are not into sports or combat or whatever, but they're more into the arts and music or like, staying at home and helping out with the house, etc., or the women actually being in sports or in combat or the army. Is there a leeway in Islam? Is there room as long as particular red lines that we know are not crossed, like cross-gender dressing, or mannerisms, etc., this is a separate conversation. But as far as gender – well if we want to call it “gender expression”, but rather me following my own personal interests that may or may not be typical to my masculinity, let's say or a woman's femininity, if that makes sense?

Mobeen  1:03:34
Sure. So that's a good question. So I'll say a couple of things. What the Shari’a accounts for, in some ways, is more narrow, and, in some ways, is more expensive. So you're seeing a little bit of both. So I'll start with a couple of things. First and foremost, there's a recognition within the Shari’a for sort of dispositional nonconformity. And, you know, that really is specifically located in the way a person speaks and the way that they walk. And this notion of the mukhannath and the mutarajjila. We'll talk about it in more detail next time, but the whole notion that there are, in fact, certain individuals that are constitutionally made a certain way, and that if, let's say, a man has a more feminine voice, there's no blame on him for sort of just talking that way, right? Talking how he speaks, or talking how he talks, there's no blame on that from a Shari’a perspective. Nor is a man blamed for walking in a way that is sort of maybe looked at as feminine in his sway and everything else. 

Now, having said that, there's a distinction that the scholars make between what is constitutional (i.e. non-elective, I’m not electing to do this, this is just how I am), and someone who is conscientiously electing to behave that way, that it is affective. And when a person is making that conscientious determination, it is blameworthy. Now the specific red line, and the hardest red line, is really around dress. That a man can't just dress like a woman, a woman can't just dress like a man. Now, someone might ask, “What does that mean?” We'd say that there is some social determination around that, i.e. men and women dress differently in different societies. And they'd say, “Well, you know, if there's a society where men and women dressed absolutely identical”, then, at a minimum, a man shouldn’t wear hijab, and things like that. Things that are specific to women a man should not take that on, and vice versa, right? 

We really don't have any societies where men and women are just absolutely like, you cannot distinguish between them at all, in terms of how they dress and everything else, by and large. Just in about every society, there is some difference between male and female dress, although they're different, right? They're socially relative. So they're relative to the specific social contexts that we're looking at. And those can be quite different, right? So, in some ways, there are things that we would draw firmer lines on, whether it's men putting on sort of female makeup and dress and cosmetically putting themselves in ways that look feminine, or vice versa. Those are things that are disapproved of, immoral, and even sinful. 

At the same time, when it comes to “gender expression”, let's use that term, how men express themselves, and how women express themselves, I'd say that there's an acknowledgement that men and women are going to normatively express themselves in certain ways, that there is a male and female norm of expression, and that norm is, I'd say, relative in different spaces. So we may say certain things are, you know, like 80% or 90% of men sort of take on this, while with other things, maybe 60% to 70%, right? It just depends. So different things, maybe things that more or fewer men simply end up doing, and those are things that organically occur as part of just natural masculinity. Now, not every last man is going to be interested in those things, right? So if we give an example, let's just say, using a popular stereotype that men are more interested in football and watching football - which means a different thing to us in the US than it does in the rest of the West and the rest of the world - so I'll just use American football specifically. Like American football is looked at as a very macho pastime, in terms of a very violent sport, like a gladiator activity to watch. 

Guys like football, right? Is it impossible for a woman to like football? No, right? There's some women who like football, I'm sure many of them follow football and things like that, and play fantasy football with their friends and all that. So it's not something where it's like only men can do this, nor is it something that every last man has to enjoy. It is entirely possible and acceptable for a man to say, “You know what, I have no interest at all in football. Like I don't even see what guys see in it. It just seems to me like a waste of time. The game is going on forever. I don't like seeing guys beat each other up on a field and brutalize themselves this way. I actually like watching gymnastics or something else that people might look at and say is more of a female interest sport.”

Waheed  1:08:56
Right, or more like something more artistic or musical, for example, that may be deemed different [by popular culture].

Mobeen  1:09:01
Absolutely. Yeah, “I have a more artistic interest, and I like to do this and I like to do that.” Okay, well, you know, your sort of parochial likes are not something that are, you know, as long as there's no moral blameworthiness associated with them, there's no problem. The only time there's a problem is when a person's likes and their behaviors actually includes or is attended to, or attended with, or comes alongside an explicit violation of an obligation or duty that they have religiously, vis-a-vis Islam. And so, if a guy says, “You know, I sort of like staying at home.” Well, you know, at the end of the day, if you're married and you have children, you actually have a duty to take care of your family, right? And that's something that is in fact quite explicit religiously, that a man is supposed to caretake and provide. Now if he doesn't have to provide, let's just say he inherited a truckload, a brinks truck of money, he is still sort of providing, they’re provided for, and so he wouldn't be derelict in his duties if he didn't go out and get some like difficult nine to five type of job, and instead chose to just pursue other personal interests, let's say, as long as he's sort of still attending his family and taking care of them and all of that with his time. 

But the idea that a person could just say, “Well, you know, I'm sort of married and have kids, but my model of what that's going to mean is very different, because I'm just going to take it easy.” And that’s like, no, now you're being derelict of your own religious duties. And your dereliction of those religious duties, in fact, carries with it moral implications and religious implications in the eyes of God, that you are now not taking care of your responsibilities as a husband or as a father. And those are really specific things, right? Now, you know, what that might mean in a specific situation might differ, but the idea is that being a good, caring and protective husband and father is something that's really important in Islam, and it's not something that can just be dispensed with, because of [an argument like] “I don't really have that much interest in doing it!” 

Now, you don't have to get married, and you don't have to have children. But if you do that, then you can't just abandon the responsibilities that come with being part of that social context, right? Now you're bound up in it, you have obligations with that. Likewise, for women, the idea that, “Okay, well, you know, I want to do this and that…”, okay, you can do what you want to do, but at the end of the day, you have certain responsibilities that attend to being a mother or a wife and things like that. And if you're not violative of those or abandoning or derelict to those, and you have a social situation in which your sort of parochial pursuits are accommodatable, then okay. 

But the problem with the modern world is that it so radically foregrounds the subjective interests of the individual, that it almost considers the relative duties that that individual has, especially when it comes to their own interdependencies, and the related duties that they have, through biological relations and other relationships, they see those as, in fact, being things that are not entirely or seriously meaningful. And I think that that becomes a real difficult point for us, the idea that, “You know, I don't have obligations or commitments to my parents”, for instance, as a child. Well, you absolutely do! Bir al-Walidayn (بر الوالدين) [i.e. being dutiful to one’s parents] applies to every last child, even if your parents are not good parents, even if you don't like your parents, you still have certain obligations and duties and fidelity towards them that has to be maintained, and a respect that you're supposed to have for them. And you have certain tasks that you have to take on as a child towards your parents, irrespective of how they treat you. Now, there are limits to that, it's not as if they can just railroad you, and you don't listen to your parents when they try to force you or instruct you to do things that are displeasing to Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala. But short of that, you actually have a fair amount of duties and responsibilities towards your parents that abide and are bound. And, you know, as a good Muslim, what you try to do is be a good son, be a good daughter, and be a good child. Likewise, being a good husband, a good father. Like these are all things that are not generically sort of defined, these are things that actually have really discrete and specific obligations and responsibilities associated with them that we can't simply abandon, because we have individual pursuits of fun and happiness and joy that we want to sort of pursue and carry out. 

And I think that's what happens a lot today, when we have discussions like this, someone can say, “Well, you know, I'm in this family, I’m a mom and I have these kids. But you know, it's not fun, and I'm not happy. And I'm just, you know, I'm never happy. What would make me happy would be if I can go out and do all these things, just like a single person, and go back and live the single life and all of that.” And it's like, okay, fine, you know, but life isn't just about having fun. And the fact that you're not having fun, or really enjoying and appreciating the times with your child – now there’s a difference between like, “Oh, I just need like a break or some free time in my day” or something like that, as opposed to someone who really just wants to abandon the entire enterprise, right? Someone just wants to abandon the entire enterprise altogether. 

And so, I think, in some ways, these are the types of things that we have to wrestle with today, because there is a sort of radical affirmation of the individual in a way that almost doesn't account for the types of responsibilities, obligations and duties that that person has. And so, when you talk about gender difference - I know this is a sort of a long answer - what we're sort of recognizing is that gender difference is going to naturally manifest, because men and women are different in ways that are, in many ways, predictable. In some ways, we can say that there are certain things that men are going to do that we can anticipate and expect; we can expect those things not because we have constructed a stereotype of how men are supposed to live, but we know that they're going to live that way, because they're men. And we know that something else is going to happen, because they're women, we recognize that male and female differences exist. We also recognize that not every last man is going to fit into that form, and not every last woman is going to fit into that form. And that's okay. That is okay, provided that they are fulfilling their religious obligations and duties, and not violating what Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala has told them to do, and how He has commanded them to live, in ways that are gender differentiated, that those obligations are being upheld and maintained. And Allah knows best.

Waheed  1:15:56
And this applies to everyone. For sure. 

Mobeen  1:15:58
Absolutely. And so like, you know, in some ways, modern society can be quite stultifying. You talk about the arts, and if the guy’s into the arts, it's like, “Oh, he's such a girl!” It's like, no, well, what does that mean? Like, what are we, five years old? You know? No, people can be interested [in different things]. And this can be really sad and unfortunate for young people, right? I remember that there was a young boy that I met once, and he was struggling with gender dysphoria. And I remember I was speaking to him, and I just asked him, “Why do you think you're a girl?” And he said, “Well, I have very girl interests.” And, you know, I kind of looked at him a little strange, and I said, “What are girl interests? What girl interests do you have?” And he said, “Well, you know, I like ice skating”, and he mentioned cooking, and I said, “You know, plenty of guys like ice skating. I don't, I'm not good at it. But there are men who like to ice skate. And there are plenty of men that like to cook and are chefs. That's actually not an exclusively female vocation. Nothing in the world should tell you that, like you can actually do both of those things and still very much be a man. Like that doesn't make you a woman. And you shouldn't be made to feel like you have to become a woman just on account of your interests being different from your classmates and friends that you're around!” Like that's a horrible way to make young people feel.

Waheed  1:17:32
Exactly! Exactly! I feel like a lot of this confusion is coming from that rigid understanding of Islam and these predefined gender roles. Like if you don't fit the norm, then you're automatically either someone who is gender non-conforming or you have gender dysphoria, because this is what we feel like [doing]. But no, I mean, if you really understand Islam, it's basically what you said, you know, we can deviate from the norm as long as we are abiding by the rules of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala. There is nothing wrong with that. 

Mobeen  1:18:01
Absolutely. And I think there's an article that we link to, actually, in our part two of the paper, a New York Times op-ed that was written a couple of years ago, it was by a mother, and she wrote this article called, “My Daughter is a Tomboy, She's Not a Boy.” She was so frustrated, this mother is just really frustrated in this article talking about her daughter who likes sports, and this and that, and how much her teachers and counselors and other people are talking to her about, you know, “Have you considered that your daughter might be a boy?” And she's saying “No, like, I know my daughter, she's a girl. She's just not the type of girl you think she should be. And so you're trying to tell her she's a boy, you're trying to tell me she's a boy!” And she keeps coming home asking her mom, “You know, Mom, why do people keep telling me I'm a boy?!” and she's crying and this and that is going on. “And maybe I am a boy!” and she’s getting all confused. And like, this mother is not even anti-transgenderism. She's like, “Look, if people want to transition, let them!” She doesn't care. “Just stop telling my daughter this stuff.” Like, this is absurd!

Waheed  1:19:05
Subhan Allah! Subhan Allah. Again, going back to the irony that, you know, as much as you try to stay away from labels and open the door, it just reinforces the labels or the things that you're trying to run away from. “Because you're not conforming to the predefined gender roles, okay, well, then you're the opposite gender!” Well, that doesn't make sense. It just doesn't have to be one way or the other, just trying to understand where all of this is coming from.

Mobeen  1:19:27
Yeah, I’ll tell you, for young girls, for instance, I've told you like just challenges with shopping and clothes. A lot of times the clothes that you'll find for young girls that'll be loose and fitting will be from the boys’ section. Because they don't even make loose shirts for girls. Sometimes, I'll find myself like buying a shirt from the boy’s section. And it's like, “Am I dressing my daughter in boys’ clothes?” No, I'm just trying to look for loose clothing, right? Just trying to find loose clothing. That's it! And I'm sure that for many sisters, that sort of resonates with them, right? 

Waheed  1:19:56
Because they wear the hijab and they need loose clothing. 

Mobeen  1:20:00
Yeah, they wanna wear the hijab and wanna wear loose clothing. And it's like, “Okay, where can I find it?” Well, there are like Islamic outlets specifically, but when you're younger, and you're just trying to like get, you know, a loose long sleeve shirt that's long and not form fitting and all that, “Well, maybe I'll find a shirt that I like in the men's section or something, because the women section is just a train wreck of like really tight, promiscuous clothing, and I don't want to go out looking like I'm naked and showing my form”, right? And it's like, okay, yeah, like I can appreciate that particular challenge and recognize, in some ways, just how oppressive the modern world is in all of this. 

And so, yeah, I think that's a lot of it, but when you think about just that sort of very narrow gender difference framework, combined with a social context in which people, especially young people, are being celebrated for being non-cis, you are going to get a radical rise in the number of people who come out and say, “Yeah, you know what, I want to be a boy now!” [for a girl] and “I want to be a girl now!” [for a boy], because now I'm receiving the type of attention and care and love and social support that I have never seen in my entire life. I'm part of this movement as a young person, and my teachers and counselors and everyone is sort of treating me in ways that I never imagined. And all of this is now starting to happen, and it becomes something that is very appealing and alluring and attractive. 

Waheed  1:21:29
And it reinforces itself as well.  

Mobeen  1:21:32
Absolutely. Absolutely. 

Waheed  1:21:41
And with this, we have come to the end of today's episode, which focused on gender and gender nonconformity, as well as gender roles and gender as a social construct. And in the next episode, inshaAllah, Br. Mobeen is going to be joining me again, and we will be talking about the concept of al-Khuntha and al-Mukhannath, intersex syndromes and disorders of sexual development, as well as cross-gender behavior. Until then, stay safe and healthy. This has been Mobeen Vaid and Waheed Jensen in “A Way Beyond the Rainbow”, assalamu alaikom warahmatullahi ta’ala wabarakatuh.