Posted on September 04, 2025.
I firmly reject essentialism. Nothing in this world is entirely natural or a product of forces exerted at its conception. On the other hand, constructionism takes another form in the reality of humans - every single attribute of ours must've been impacted by our social interactions between each other, which in turn must've been a result of the social positions of agents in existing structures.
My question is what is identity, and what constitutes aspects of it? In queer feminist contexts, many, many times, one hears the phrase "gender identity," and if you were told to describe your identity, to the fullest extent, it's likely you'd also mention whether you're a man or a woman or a non-binary person.
In line with the opening paragraph, identities don't exist in a vacuum. Gender has long been a subject of debate, and it's been accompanied by norms that are oppressive, restricting, and producing dominance or submission. It's in our parents' commands, "that's not a boyish/girly thing to do!", it's transmitted through silent signals in the media, it's on product labels. Hardly does it make sense to suggest that gender is a natural, biological construct or a fake social construct - in the face of mechanisms that push people into conformance with norms surrounding their sex-assigned-at-birth/perceived gender identity.
A common criticism of the focus on gender identity is that it leans into an individualist matter that's not as worthy of discussion. What I insist on, however, is that I see the queer, non-conforming identity as a response to the patriarchal society, in which we live in. From here, it follows that if one can spot the way identities are entangled with social structures, it opens the doors for wider analyses of hierarchies.
Gender comes with norms that are systemically imposed on the natural. Such an imposition frames gender as belonging to the individual and thus, gender gains power in society. Over time, gender and sex become two concepts that become quite attached to each other. Hence, even without knowledge of a person's genitals, society enforces gender norms on individuals based on their perceived gender identity. Finally, gender, because of its power, becomes an aspect of identification - whether it correlates with societal expectations of sex or not.
This identification tends to be felt the strongest in transgender people because society, having accepted the rigid assignment of gender, locates transgender people outside of the gender identity they identify with and attaches them to their sex-assigned-at-birth, which causes immense stress to transgender people. Hence, a revelation is made: Gender is not natural but powerful and real.
Some cisgender people report feeling no sense of gender. For this, I propose the question, "if you, a cisgender person, under a transphobic society, could transition without any side effects and financial expenses, would you?" Quite unlikely would you transition because you're more often than not perceived as what your gender identity is, and you've probably been as such since childhood.
This imposition is undeniably valuable for constructing the patriarchy because after which people are categorized into two categories, it's now the time for establishing norms for these categories, which in turn spread dominance and submission power dynamics, along with stereotypical beliefs to justify them. It's now set in the script that men are stronger, more aggressive, and more violent while women are softer, unresistant, and servants.
Transgender people are perceived as the immediate warriors against this structure - for challenging what's been assigned to them, rejecting the roles associated with that assignment, irresistibly living out their diversity, exposing regulation as what's unreal. Gender comes with this strict imposition into hierarchical categories, and that's why we cannot end the patriarchy without abolishing gender itself.
Disappointingly, intersectionality has been misunderstood in discrete, personal vacuums informed by the different factors, all of which it claims play a role in shaping people's oppressions: race, gender identity, class, sexual orientation, and so on. Yes, these attributes are indeed very solid constructions that are impactful in combinations, but they're certainly not limited to their individual experiences.
Oppression, entangled with all the factors that intersectionality considers, is the solidification of power structures that target specific groups. It is with dismantling these systems and abolition of its tools that we battle oppression, and those tools are the very axes intersectionality proposes.
Should white people be nicer to black people, or should we abolish race? Should men treat women more kindly, or should we abolish gender? Should bosses praise their workers more, or you know, maybe, we should abolish class itself? It's these contrasting pairs of questions that diverge liberal identity politics from the radical understanding of intersectionality.
Liberal feminists posit racism, sexism, and... "classism," as though the discrimination between races, sexes, and classes were the problem, and not these attributes themselves, which were designed to be inseparable from their cruelties.
Those isms seem especially striking for "class" because, deprived from social playfulness, it's almost impossible to imagine class without exploitation. However, this shouldn't excuse the oppression of gender and race, the tools of the patriarchy and white supremacy, as any less profound, considering their at-birth rigidity, cultural authority, and consequent abusive damages to people.
Quite related to the topic, there exists the famous "born this way" argument. While this quote is helpful for understanding queer experiences by emphasizing the unchosen nature of sexual orientation and gender identity, it falls short on realizing that our queerness is our contrasting situation within and adaptation to a highly gendered society.
Would there be straight, gay, or bisexual people if the powerful concept of gender hadn't existed in the first place, or is sexual attraction purely biological, unaffected by how people present themselves by gender norms, with a magical radar that can spot people's anatomies? Would there be cisgender and transgender people if gender wasn't shoved into our throats since we've been born, or does the idea of "gender" naturally emerge in the body of a transgender person outside of a genderless society?
The articles below have curated successfully-articulated points on gender abolitionism and radical intersectionality, respectively. They've been majorly helpful and inspiring to me.
As a heads-up, when I refer to gender abolitionism, it should not be confused with the anti-gender movement. The former accepts the existence of gender norms and gender identity and aims to erase the gender binary as a means of liberation. The latter is offended by the divorcement of gender from sex postulating gender essentialism and conservativism.