Yes, I do want to end gender

Reposting a comment I left on this blog post. The original post, I don't have a problem with--haven't read either of the articles it's talking about, and the one being criticized does sound awful.

But a couple of the comments hit an old nerve--reiterating this idea that somehow people who want to "do away with gender" can't be part of the trans community.

The way I experience gender is fragmented and doesn't fit either dominant models of (genitals == penis ? man : woman) or of somehow "knowing" that you're a man/woman/whatever and feeling severely dysphoric if this isn't recognized or doesn't "match" your body (whatever gender has to do with anatomy), so my political belief that imposing or requiring gender is tyrannical and unnecessary actually fills out a lot of the core of what I'll call gender identity because other people decided gender identity was a thing. Unfortunately, to a lot of people apparently politics is an unacceptable explanation for being trans. They feel threatened because anti-trans people have used politics against them in at least two ways:

1. Developing a straw-trans who's basically a "laughable" rebel and using that to dismiss the authentic and seriously-effing-important experiences of actual trans people. This is what Nat's article is speaking out against.

2. Dismissing many aspects of trans experience, such as transitioning from one [perceived/presented] gender to another, by saying we should just "do away with gender" instead of promoting trans rights. I was unaware of this phenomenon until reading the comments that I'm replying to.

I've basically been collateral damage in other trans people's fight against these attacks. It's not necessary, though--you can seriously want to abolish gender while respecting trans rights and perspectives. The necessary distinction is really simple, actually: The gender that should be abolished is coercive, other-imposed gender, while the gender that should be respected is personal expression, identity, self-definition, and experience.

So, here's the comments:

makomk said:

Think this is part of a running pattern of cis people using the idea that trans and non-binary folks are an obstacle to ending gender/gender roles/gender rules/... as a way of dismissing them, whilst actually relying heavily on binary gender and everything that traditionally goes with it. By now I may even visibly twitch when someone suggests doing away with gender

I was twitching at the "twitch" comment, but still not really objectionable since it's personal experience and clearly attacking the attackers, not me.

Rani Bakr replied in a way that took it too far, IMO:

 Yeah, when people say things like "doing away with gender" there's a 1000% chance they mean the elimination of people that don't display a masculine (aka "default" in our sexist, heteronormative world) gender expression.

So I said (and btw disqus is really annoying, was trying to post under my real name and failed):

 Umm, no? If I say something similar to "doing away with gender" (and I try not to, even though it's what I believe, since I know I'll offend people), what I mean is ending societally imposed gender labels and other forms of gender coercion. That includes but is not limited to:

Never assigning gender to a baby at birth
Using gender neutral pronouns as the default for all people unless someone expresses a preference otherwise (simply "looking" physically and socially female/male isn't an expression of a preference)
Not having gendered public facilities like bathrooms and locker rooms
Never putting gender on legal documents or ids
Actively fighting prejudice and inequality based on gender/sex
Prejudice based on gender/sex includes prejudice against interests, traits, and communication styles considered "feminine"
Not giving children names that carry heavy gender connotations (like "Alicia" or "James")--for that matter, I'd prefer if children routinely chose their own names upon coming of age
Ending all segregated activities like Boy Scouts/Girl Scouts, choirs, etc

Yes, around the time I came to identify as non-binary, I was also discovering that I believe gender is an illegitimate form of social control. I am not sure whether the concept of gender would exist if we'd never tried to control or oppress people based on it, but certainly body dysphoria would exist anyway, and certainly preferences for certain styles of self-expression would exist anyway. In any case, that's hypothetical, and "gender" also has another meaning of involving personal identity and expression, and that's fine. It took me a couple years to realize the two ideas--respect for people who value being a certain gender and opposition to coercive gender--aren't actually contradictory. So I'd rephrase "gender is an illegitimate form of social control" as "imposing gender upon people or using it to control them is an abusive practice that's often made obligatory in societies and governments."

I don't think I should have to prove that my non-binary identity is based on something other than my political beliefs for it to be recognized as legitimate--and I'm tired of feeling that I do. I think it's pretty easy to make the connection that a teenager who doesn't understand the point of gender and doesn't feel that the gender binary as imposed by society is a real thing at all probably isn't experiencing their own gender in a normative way, and so I'm not saying that it *isn't* about self-expression and reducing discomfort and all that for me (now in my mid-twenties), but I am rejecting the idea that those personal factors are good reasons to be genderqueer while all the political ones are embarrassing and backwards and I should keep them to myself.

I'm not okay with other people who want to do away with gender using that opinion to erase or dismiss trans people. But I'm not okay with other trans people using stereotypes to erase or dismiss my own beliefs (and in doing so my gender identity, since I connect my non-binary identity very strongly to my beliefs), either.