Has Andrew Sullivan found the only way to end the culture wars around gay and trans rights?

I’d never heard of Andrew Sullivan until a friend recently sent me an article by him entitled “Gay Rights and the Limits of Liberalism.” In it, Sullivan—a political commentator and former gay rights activist who’s largely shunned by the LGBTQ community today—takes a systemic approach to the issue of gay and trans rights, something which is incredibly rare today when it comes to any issue.

I’m not saying people don’t argue about what changes they think are needed in society—they certainly do—but usually in a one-sided way, from the perspective of their tribe. It’s incredibly rare for anyone to try to find a solution that could work for all sides, and even more rare for that solution to be “systemic,” in the sense that it addresses some basic, fundamental dynamic in society.

Though I think Sullivan does this imperfectly, nonetheless, he actually does do it. (Hallelujah!) He actually proposes a systemic solution that would create a totally different ground for our ongoing culture wars. It’s not that it would end our ideological differences—certainly not—but it would put them in their right place and avert the catastrophes we seem to be barreling towards. It’s a solution that I’ve also proposed at different times on The Whole Social (here, here, and here), but never in relation to the issue of gay and trans rights. So let’s take a look at it.

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Sullivan describes himself as a liberal conservative, though he could just as easily be described as a conservative liberal. On the one hand, he’s all for people identifying and expressing themselves however they want (making him liberal), but on the other, he doesn’t want people imposing their liberal identity on others (which seems a bit conservative). But really, he’s just kind of a classic liberal: he believes in individual autonomy—that the state shouldn’t regulate “people’s minds and actions”—and wants to rein in what he calls the “illiberal overreach and utopian ambitions” of people who want to force others to be like them. Here’s how he puts it:

Liberalism knows limits. A liberal politics does not seek to impose meaning on everyone; it creates the space for individuals to choose that for themselves. It doesn’t seek to deliver the truth about anything either; it merely provides the mechanisms for the open-ended pursuit of truth… It would not require us to come to one single understanding of reality; it would always allow diversity of opinion and encourage free debate. Live and let live. Remember that?

That all sounds good—only fascists would demand everyone think the same—but is he saying that we shouldn’t try to convince others of our opinion, that we should just keep quiet and let people “choose for themselves”? Not at all.

As Sullivan sees it, Liberalism is a kind of “settlement,” or “deal,” where religious fundamentalists are “free to deny the morality of (gay) marriages, to reserve religious marriage to heterosexual couples, and not be forced to participate in any way” while queer theorists are “in turn free to live their lives as ‘queerly’ as they want in society, to create culture that seeks to subvert and radicalize.” So it is quite simply “live and let live”—and not just for religious fundamentalists and queer theorists, but for everyone.

But still, it’s a bit confusing. He’s saying people should be free to try to bring other people over to their side—to “subvert and radicalize”—but they shouldn’t “impose meaning” on them. Hmmm. I think most people would intuitively agree with this, but where exactly is the invisible line between convincing someone and compelling them? It seems like a pretty slippery slope.

And here’s where Sullivan is at his finest. He actually defines the invisible line:

There is no slope in the case I made. There is a clear line: formal legal equality alongside cultural and social freedom on all sides.

Is that clear, or does it still need a little unpacking? What he’s saying is: When it comes to the political arena, we should fight for everyone’s full equality under the law, but we should never use the law to force our ideas on others; instead, we should leave them free to think their own thoughts and try to convince them within the cultural arena. The culture wars should stay in the realm of culture and not pour over into politics.

OK, this seems like a clear line, but what does it mean in practice? What does it actually look like in terms of LGBTQ issues?

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Sullivan describes the modern LGBTQ movement as a radical movement that in no way toes this line, that in no way respects the limits of the liberal settlement. Instead he sees it as imposing meaning on others, quashing diversity, and discouraging debate. For Sullivan, the movement is “illiberal” in a number of concrete ways:

And this is what I mean by “illiberal”: the use of public education, corporate power, and government fiat to enforce the postmodern doctrines of queer and gender theory…

So forcing an ideology onto others by injecting it into school curricula, by pressuring companies to declare their allegiance to that ideology, and by compelling social media companies to censor opposing views, is all a form of illiberal overreach according to Sullivan.

In addition, he feels that the transqueer ideology has damaged science and medicine—subjecting children to irreversible medical treatments and emotionally blackmailing parents into going along with them—and that the proposed Equality Act, which has been making the rounds of congress for the last 4 years, would smash the liberal settlement by “replac(ing) biological sex with gender in the law, and remov(ing) protections for religious liberty.”

For Sullivan, the current LGBTQ movement is in danger of breaking the liberal settlement altogether—and who knows what would happen then? People need to feel there’s a place for them in society. When they don’t, violence often ensues.

As I tried to insist from the start, a liberalism which can go “this far but no farther” is the only way to resolve this question in a free society, and always has been. The alternative to permanent, toxic culture war is a live-and-let-live society, in which science is never “settled” but always open to empirical revision; in which the law can account for varying gender identities without replacing the central reality of binary biological sex; in which public education about homosexuality and the trans experience should be as neutral and factual as possible, and begin in high school, not before; where experimental medical treatments for childhood gender dysphoria are allowed only in clinical trials, and with plenty of counseling (where Europe now is); and where the core morality of homosexual and trans experiences are forever open questions. Why? Because they remain mysteries of the human experience which we will never fully understand (and I hope we never do).

But the above summary of Sullivan’s perspective shows just how unclear he himself is on the line between politics and culture—on what should be decreed by the state and what should be left to the individual. He still has the state dictating people’s education and health choices—regulating their “minds and actions”—but now it’s just imposing Sullivan’s view of when things should be taught and treated. Here’s how I’d rewrite Sullivan’s summary in order to describe a truly liberal settlement:

The alternative to toxic culture wars (which are always in danger of erupting into violence) is a live-and-let-live society, in which science is never “settled”; in which the law can account for varying gender identities; in which education about homosexuality and the trans experience is left to parents and the teachers they choose; in which experimental medical treatments for children are left to parents and the doctors they choose; and where the core morality of homosexual and trans experiences are forever open questions because society can never close a question—every person needs to come to the truth for themselves; they shouldn’t be coerced and bullied into believing some “official” truth.

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Although Sullivan still lets his own biases blind him, he’s right that a live-and-let-live society is the only way out of the mess we’re in. And really, what’s the alternative? Should there not be a place in society for religious fundamentalists or gay and trans people? Are they so morally abhorrent that they shouldn’t be allowed to speak, that their views and way of life should simply be eradicated? Where would you draw the line?

If you think it’s alright for your side to censor the other side, to censor what you call “fake news” or “disinformation,” then you have to be willing to be censored by the other side when they’re in power. If you think it’s alright for your side to write school curricula or determine medical procedures, then again, you have to be willing to let the other side do the same when they’re in power. You can’t have it both ways. Of course, many will protest, “But my enemy’s views are actually wrong! They’re actually bad people!” And of course they think the same about you. Nonetheless, the rules of our civil engagement have to be above board, they have to work for everyone. We can’t change them for one side or the other.

The line between politics and culture, between the state and the individual, is already sketched out in the first amendment of the US constitution—there we find the individual’s freedom of thought, freedom of belief, enshrined in law. But we haven’t yet realized this amendment’s full potential. For instance, it really is a no-brainer that the first amendment should apply to education, that there should be no such thing as “public”—i.e. “state directed”—education, because it’s obviously in direct opposition to the first amendment to have the state tell us what and how to think. It takes a little more work to see that it should also apply to our own bodies, that what the first amendment is really about is freedom over our own selves, over our own development.

But if we look, that’s where we’ll actually find the line in our own souls. The founders weren’t just making it up. The first amendment isn’t true because they said so, but because we say so. When we look inside ourselves, it’s simply the case that we don’t want other people intruding on our personal choices—whether that’s the culture and religion we practice, or whether we decide to get vaccinated or have an abortion. These things should be up to us.

So we need to create a clear line—something which Sullivan at least attempts, to his credit. Really what’s needed is to separate culture and state, just as we once separated church and state. This is a crucial step in our society’s ongoing evolution. And it’s the only way out of the toxic and perilous mess we’re in.