[dragonwriter]

> Strictly speaking, they did - but then for a time in the West (70s to about ten years ago) they just observed sex at birth and indoctrinated against the social imposition of normative gender expectations …

Nope, that didn’t happen. Socially ascribed gender, with important social consequences (most importantly, ones coercively imposed by, or with support of, the power of government), did not go away.

If it had, though, the grounds for the dispute would be somewhat different, but the overall character would be the same, since the side opposing ascribing gender in accord with identity is also fairly universally in favor of coercive discrimination and/or segregation on the basis of (their preferred form of) ascribed gender, which is a fairly central point of their argument.

[atq2119]

You're right, socially ascribed gender didn't go away across society, but there was a string conscious effort by many - still is, by the way - to make it go away or at least make it significantly less impactful.

Importantly, the normative consensus among progressives was as GP describes. The trans activism movement is a move backwards in that regard, since it tries to shift the normative consensus back towards gender being important and that gender should be impactful. It's no wonder they clash with some feminists.