Zhana Vrangalova, PhD
Conservatives are celebrating Trump's Executive Order to erase gender identity as the basis for any law or policy and replace it exclusively with biological sex. This comes in response to years of liberals trying to erase sex as the basis for any law or policy and replace it exclusively with gender identity. Both approaches are wrong. While the "sex only" approach will solve some of the problems created by the "gender only" approach, it will create a different set of problems. Why? Because while biological sex and gender identity are related (and sex greatly informs gender identity), they are not the same. They are distinct concepts, they both exist, and they both matter (albeit in somewhat different ways and for somewhat different purposes). The optimal solution to maximize happiness for everyone in society is to decide certain societal policies based on sex, others based on gender identity, and others still on a combination of both. We're not ready to get to this more nuanced position just yet. After existing for some time in one extreme, society often over-corrects by swinging the pendulum too far in the other extreme. We experienced the problems caused by the "gender only matters" extreme, now it's time to experience the problems caused by the "sex only matters" extreme. It will take some time for all of this to play out, and some people will suffer in the process. But eventually we'll collectively figure out that the truth lies somewhere in between. My hope is that it will happen during our lifetimes.