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celebratedrecluse wrote

well, I would consider that to be the difference between a petit bourgeois distributivist economy (many genders) versus a collectivist mode of production/"the commons" (no gender).

my understanding of gender is that it is like a border. gender is a system of boundaries which exclude and include individuals on the terrain of performativity, which in turn shapes the material conditions of society. Thus, making a shit ton of genders, so that everyone is distinct from everyone else, is a sort of quixotic neoliberal way of trying to abolish capitalism-- you just end up stabilizing the system, preferentially dividing the oppressed (gender nonconforming people of various identities are more likely to define themselves as "snowflake genders" compared to the cis), and inevitably it does not challenge dominant power or privilege.

Another way of looking at this: would any of us seriously suggest abolishing the class system by paying working class people in company stock? I hope not, that's ancap bs. what about abolishing race by making a million new racial subcategories for POC to fit themselves into? nope, that smacks of whiteness. How about abolishing stimga against immigrants, by making every person the Head of State of their own little micronation? My point is, in general it is not helpful to oppressed people to double down on the logic that is oppressing them in the first place.

i am trans, but that descriptor is a reference to my material conditions (experiencing transphobia/ the trans experience in society). I'm not "essentially" trans, it's a completely sociocultural contextual thing, and if i was in a different society i would be using the (hopefully, lack of) gender terminology that relates to that society. For example, another comparison: there is no "essentially black" racial category that can be biologically determined, it has no meaningful genetic or scientific basis, but blackness still exists as a social force, an experience that certain people have and others do not, but which still profoundly shapes the material conditions of people marked as "black" or "not black". The essentialism of identity is simply a neoliberal, "end of history" ideology dressed up as neutral rhetoric. It masks that these identitarian categories are created by social processes, and ergo obstructs our ability to address those social processes.

frankly, i'm convinced that gender abolition is the only thing that can change those material conditions, and eliminate the entire oppressed category of "trans" and the privileged category of "cis". it is a transformative program of action, which addresses the root epistemologies of gendered oppression.

other trans people express that "gender is essential to my wellbeing". I think this is imprecise-- it seems in my perspective that these folks confuse the things colonized by gender for gender itself. In my view, this is a critical difference.

In fact, without a system of boundaries demarcating everything into the dominant binary, let alone some incipient polymorphic and individualistic new conception of gender, people could enact these performativities and identities without reference to a colonized system of discipline, exclusion, and power. If you want to wear makeup, you can, it doesn't define you as a woman. If you have large and visible biceps, you are not immediately classified as masculine. If you take hormones to supplement your estrogen levels and lower your androgen levels, you're just somebody using medication-- not a trans woman, or a menopausal cis woman, or whatever else category you would be forced/incentivized/coerced into in this current toxic sociocultural milieu.

You can just...be. Without categorizing yourself, or being categorized by others, for every little thing you do. It's the only way out of the panopticon, that I can see.

It is an extremely long-term project, and my critique might be flawed. However, I am interested to hear a rebuttal to my perspective from trans comrades

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this_one wrote

hi yes i am trans and i agree with me :) but i dont like ur last sentence and how it implies im not trans :(

im really tempted to leave it at that but i cant resist,,

what about abolishing race by making a million billion new racial subcategories for POC to fit themselves into? nope, that smacks of whiteness.

Yeah, because you don't do that; you make a million billion new racial classes for white people too.

My point is, in general it is not helpful to oppressed people to double down on the logic that is oppressing them in the first place.

what i said is as far as im aware the primary strategy other trans people subscribe 2 so to say that its unhelpful when its what we have chosen is a bit yucky

maybe ur rite and it isnt the best way of freeing us or maybe it wont free us at all but i firmly believe that not only will 7.7 billion genders make gender meaningless (automatically abolishing gender) but also 'before the perfect society' matters too and 7.7billion genders is the best way ive heard to move towards 'the perfect society' while still making a positive impact and making life nicer for trans people 'before the perfect society'

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celebratedrecluse wrote

hi yes i am trans and i agree with me :) but i dont like ur last sentence and how it implies im not trans :(

Oh no, not my intent whatsoever. Sorry for the confusion lol. I am just telling non-trans people to stay out of this discussion. There have been a lot of problems with this lately on this site, people speaking about communities they have no lived experience in, and I have no interest in being party to discussions with those individuals.

what about abolishing race by making a million billion new racial subcategories for POC to fit themselves into? nope, that smacks of whiteness. Yeah, because you don't do that; you make a million billion new racial classes for white people too.

Isn't it easier to just...challenge, and eventually abolish, whiteness? When we speak of white supremacy, the problem is whiteness-- not a lack of adequate amounts of racial identities. Why do we need to create a cottage industry of individual identities? I think that only seems more realistic to us because we are having this conversation in an incredibly absurd and ideologically paradoxical neoliberal society. What I think we need, and what seems to me the only thing that will produce a break from neoliberal cis dominance, is a radical collectivist project, which contests identity itself as a terrain of inherent violence and alienation, and which seeks to transform our relationship with the things colonized by gender into something unrecognizable as gender anymore.

This is resembling, to me, a bit of the disagreement between anarchists and communists over how to accomplish revolutionary ends, if that clarifies the point i am trying to make at all

so to say that its unhelpful when its what we have chosen is a bit yucky

I think that is just raw groupthink, if dissenting trans voices must be silent simply because other trans people have spoken, then i no longer have interest in being part of that particular trans community. That's...well, authoritarian and is going to lead to sub-optimal political decisions and an inability to have serious discussions of how and why we fight for liberation. However, you'r right-- there's a reason I don't have these kind of discussions in person. Frankly, it's an intellectual point, and not material to the immediate problems facing me and the trans people i know: homelessness, lack of access to medical care, food insecurity, emotional trauma, alienation, stigma, violence...etc...so much etc...which is what consumes most of my energy that i give to the community, not usually having these discussions, at least not on the internet.

But these broader questions matter, and they affect how we solve these more immediate problems. If we can't even have these discussions over the internet, where stakes are low, then I think there's a larger problem that goes way beyond this particular, theoretical quibble. It means that a fraction of the trans community is leveraging power over the rest of it, causing people to feel unable to have discussions, even in total anonymity. This kind of internal power dynamic is nothing new: gatekeeping is a historical and contemporary force well documented in the trans communities i am connected to, and has had really divisive and toxic effects on the ability to organize people to fulfill our needs.

Let's not give in to that kind of fear, where we don't fully engage with ideas, but simply defer to what opinion or perspective currently prevails. I see that leading to nothing good...

7.7billion genders is the best way ive heard to move towards 'the perfect society' while still making a positive impact and making life nicer for trans people 'before the perfect society'

My point is that multiplying gender has negative effects in the here-and-now, as well. For example, encouraging people to self-identify their genders as "unique" sub-identities will 1) make more difficult the process of organizing people together, as it focuses everyone's attention on how they differ from others, and 2) it will cause some cis people to identify as "unique", making difficult a serious conversation about material and sociocultural privileges that these groups of people enjoy, because now it's all about creating new, special categories of people, to the point that everyone has their own little bit of identity property.

What I would suggest instead is to focus on challenging the categories of privilege, and substituting them with a world that liberates the things that gender has colonized. Again, it's a subtle distinction, but I think it makes a huge difference in the way we envision the future.

For example, do we want 7.7 billion bathrooms, or gender neutral restrooms? For practical purposes, trans activists have decided universalizing the existing infrastructure and communizing it, is way more practical. I think that logic extends in general for issues that concern trans people, and frankly people in late capitalist societies generally.

At any rate, thank you for the stimulating discussion, which i hope continues! <3

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this_one wrote

Hey, sorry for the late reply.

I've been thinking a lot and I'm having trouble putting those thoughts into words, so please bear with me. I think we might have been talking past each other a bit (and I think that's more my fault than yours). When I talk about 'expanding gender', I think of that in social contexts (for lack of a better word), but when you talk about 'abolishing gender', I think you're maybe thinking more of policy - stuff like gender neutral bathrooms, or removing gender from birth certificates/id, etc., which is definitely stuff I wholeheartedly support, even though I (obviously) think of myself as someone with the 'expand gender' perspective more than the 'directly abolish gender' perspective.

More importantly, I think actionable ideas and policy are much more relevant to almost any political discussion than more nebulous widespread cultural changes (not to say that you don't want widespread cultural abolition of gender, of course) because, well, they're actionable. So I think I've come around to the idea that your ideas are more relevant, but I still find myself believing in 'expanding gender' in that more vague context. You brought up two ways it would be negative: The first I just don't think it true, and if I wanted to go further I might even say that finding out that other people have the same (or similar) experiences of gender as you can be validating which can help give the motivation to organise (especially if it's with those people who have the same/similar gender to you). In my opinion (and maybe this isn't how most trans people think of the tactic, idk) the 'expand gender' strategy less about finding what makes us different than it is about just overwhelming the current system. The second issue on one hand is pretty valid, but on the other hand is to some extent kind of the point - when cis people stop existing as a class, they stop being able to oppress anyone - and to be honest I'm not sure how to reconcile those two ideas in my head.

I'm really curious what you think of my response to that first one from an 'abolish gender' standpoint, though. I can't think of an 'abolish gender' perspective on it that still lets people experience that solidarity and validation, which is something I value very much, and I think that's one of my biggest mental hurdles to being 'fully converted' by you :P

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celebratedrecluse wrote (edited )

I think we might have been talking past each other a bit (and I think that's more my fault than yours).

It's nobody's fault, in fact it is a good thing that we are having trouble understanding each other, because we are in turn being challenged on our ideas. I like that we are having a conversation about concepts which are difficult to articulate, because they are revolutionary in nature. :)

When I talk about 'expanding gender', I think of that in social contexts (for lack of a better word), but when you talk about 'abolishing gender', I think you're maybe thinking more of policy changes

Yes, but also I think it is useful to challenge gender as a concept socially. Which, on some level, we both seem to agree on-- at least, the current system of the gender binary, cishetero supremacy, these things should be abolished. The distinction is that I do not see it useful to define gender as an individual experience, but instead as something which is an inherently violent and divisive process, which is rooted in patriarchy, transphobia, and other things that I think are just too toxic to reappropriate. This leads us to our diametric approaches, aimed at accomplishing the same long-term end. On the one hand, we could create more genders in order to dilute the collective meaning of gender. On the other, we can seek to dismantle gender directly.

By seeking the abolition of gender directly, we can ground our trans positionality in the material conditions, rather than having to appeal to an essentialized trans identity, or siloing ourselves in individual (and thus, uncommunicable) qualia. This confronts the root of "truscum" internal gatekeeping in the trans community, as well as the external pressures of cisheteropatriarchy, by contesting the very idea of gender. Instead of conceiving of ourselves in terms of appealing to a platonic ideal form (gender), individually defined, unknowable to anyone, perhaps not even ourselves fully-- we define ourselves as our actual selves, and reject gender as a social system of control.

Thus, what would unite the trans community (a very diverse group of people) would not be any appeal to an essential trans identity, but instead the experience of the material conditions of cisheteropatriarchy-- the limitations on behavior, on communication, the higher rates of illness and death, the social marginalization-- everything that needs to be challenged, in order to have a successful revolution against cisheteropatriarchy. Additionally, we would be united by a shared struggle to change those material conditions, and would not be as easily divided by internal gatekeeping.

Plus, it becomes easier to organize for productive purposes with cis people as well. This is because the abolition of gender becomes not a question of "how am I special and unique" for the potential cis ally, but instead the much more relevant question of "how am I benefiting from the current oppressive circumstance, and how can I help stop that oppression"

However, I'll definitely acknowledge that you can still do very much good by attacking gender from the "blowing it up" perspective, I'm not ruling that out, but I think it also brings up a lot of potential roadblocks as well, that can present difficulties for transforming social relationships both in the short and the long term. For me, language is about what is most effective at accomplishing revolution-- that's the only concern I really have, honestly.

The first I just don't think it true, and if I wanted to go further I might even say that finding out that other people have the same (or similar) experiences of gender as you can be validating which can help give the motivation to organise (especially if it's with those people who have the same/similar gender to you).

Oh for sure, I want people to discuss their experiences with gender! However, for me, the logical conclusion of sharing experiences with gender (from a trans perspective) is that we would benefit from doing away with this traumatic horrorshow. Unfortunately (from my perspective), not everyone comes to this conclusion, and it's my opinion that this is where certain problems begin.

For analogy, consider the tension between industrial unions (IWW, "one big union" for all workers) and trade unions (every type of worker has their own union, which then might compete with the other unions), and in turn between both of these types of unions and individually constituted neoliberal contract workers who have no rights (lots of working people today are in this position). By dividing people into individual units, the systems of social dominance (capitalism, cishetpatriarchy, etc) can perpetuate and even strengthen/entrench themselves. By dividing people into 7.7 billion genders, we can easily lose sight of the material conditions which are the real issue to be addressed, and thus it becomes more difficult to remedy those inequalities.

So what I am suggesting is that people talk about their negative experiences with gender, and speak of how to eliminate those negative experiences, rather than trying to create new, either individual/unique or collective, gender identities that are rooted in something other than the material world. Because when you start pushing that line, the cultural conversation starts to slip from your grasp, and it's really difficult to articulate a political change-- instead, lots of cis people assume that changes in discourse (liberal identity politics) is sufficient for social transformation, when in reality what trans people need is for cis/het people to step up and give up their social power, including their assumptions, expectations, and yes their identities around gender and sexuality. Moreover, they need to help us challenge the emplaced forces of reaction, such as the Protestants which run "conversion camps" all over the world for queer people, or governments that roll back reproductive rights/anti-discrimination legislation, etc.

Changes in discourse are great, and should happen, but they are far from the only thing that needs to change, and by centering the discussion around the abolition of gender we are better able to do this. Our community has been pretty successful in changing the dialogue (in certain parts of the developed world, anyway), but we are not making enough progress on changing the material conditions experienced by people in our community. If we want trans people besides noted conservative/homophobe Caitlyn Jenner to feel liberated, one thing I think that we need to do is unshakably ground trans activism in the contestation of that which oppresses us-- the system of gender itself.

when cis people stop existing as a class, they stop being able to oppress anyone

Yes, and we are united in wanting the abolition of the cis! Lol. but you cannot "define" cis people away (if only! lmao). Cis privilege is a material condition, and is not something that is remedied by encouraging people with that privilege to define themselves as a gender minority. Instead, what I think would work better is to focus on challenging gender itself, which necessarily forces the conversation away from cis introspection, and towards a greater attention of what is happening to people who are subjugated by the dominant systems of gender.

I can't think of an 'abolish gender' perspective on it that still lets people experience that solidarity and validation

I kind of addressed this earlier, but to be clear: I think people should talk about how they experience gender, but I think it should be identified as an external force, a system of control which violently defines our daily lives. I don't think it's helpful to identify with any part of the system or concept of gender, because what is problematic is that gender is a way of categorizing people and putting them into boxes. Even if people are boxing themselves up, that is a very peculiar and constrained form of agency-- and it solidifies the concept of gender itself, by legitimating it. A liberated community, to me, is one in which people identify their oppressors, not one in which people identify with the oppressor, or engage in an attempt to control oppressive systems as deeply rooted as gender. Do you catch me?

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