Essay:Gender Abolitionism is Inherently Transphobic

I've been noticing a trend with certain comrades, where the comrades (particularly whom are cisgender) are supportive of transgender people, yet their analysis of the woman question didn't change much since the 1960s. Particularly on new ideas such as:

• Gender studies;
• the separation of sex and gender;
• Gender Identity and Expression;

All of these are terms may have been conceived initially by liberal theorists, yet nonetheless I still use them all the time. Does this mean I am a postmodernist, since I abstract gender away from sex? Furthermore I ask, are these term synonyms? And if they are, why do they need to be? These questions I raise and ponder to myself, as I try to reconcile and understand that women's oppression still exists while understanding that I am still assigned male at birth. Maybe I am one who oppresses women after all, since I am not "born" a woman.

These are some of the thoughts I conceive of, and from within the current of society I am in, which oppresses trans people, both trans women and trans men and not forgetting every person under the trans umbrella too. A common thought within marxists (and radical feminists too) is that not only gender and sex are synonyms, and the abolition of sex is necessary, means that the abolition of gender must be done as well. Gender abolitionists believe that gender oppression is the root of cause of oppression. That the sexual/gendered division of labour made the formation of exploitation and thus the formation of class society. Despite the conflicting the nature between radical feminists and marxists, there seems to be an overlapping boundary (i.e. they're not mutually exclusive) where they have some agreement between each other, and not just in the fact that they believe in the liberation of women. This sentiment means that it is not only shared by cisgender people, but transgender marxists too, making this question more difficult to analyse.

Thus begins the question. What even is Gender Abolitionism? And why do I suggest that it is inherently transphobic? To understand this, we must first begin to understand the first roots of Gender Abolition.

Understanding the Roots of Gender Abolitionism

Gender Abolitionism, like many other ideologies, has not came from nowhere. To understand Gender Abolitionism, it's more important to understand its roots so that we can understand what it advocates for. In fact, some people in this section may not describe themselves as Gender Abolitionists, either because the term did not exist at that time, or because they were advocating for a different ideology. However it's important to see how it comes to fruition.

Within that point, let's start with Friedrich Engels, a Marxist who in circa 1884 wrote the "Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State". This book was revolutionary as it shows the roots of private property, family, state, and oppression as a whole. However what this book stattes is not perfect, andd it is most definitely outdated today. I bring this book up, precisely because most Marxists don't change their views on Feminism, and cling to it dogmatically.

Engels, being a man of his time, clearly views gender and sex as being synonymous with one another. There is no doubt nor need to fact check about this. In his book, he denotes that there had always been a natural division of labour between a man and a woman.

To procure the necessities of life had always been the business of the man; he produced and owned the means of doing so.

This sentence may lead to an overly mechanistic overview of how oppression had existed in the first place. Engels was the very first marxist to denote that the sexual division of labour was the first form of oppression. In other words, 'biological sex' is the cause of women's oppression. Reading on, it shows that it is the case:

All the surplus which the acquisition of the necessities of life now yielded fell to the man; the woman shared in its enjoyment, but had no part in its ownership... The division of labor within the family had regulated the division of property between the man and the woman. That division of labor had remained the same; and yet it now turned the previous domestic relation upside down, simply because the division of labor outside the family had changed. The same cause which had ensured to the woman her previous supremacy in the house – that her activity was confined to domestic labor – this same cause now ensured the man's supremacy in the house: the domestic labor of the woman no longer counted beside the acquisition of the necessities of life by the man; the latter was everything, the former an unimportant extra.

So Engels believed that this division of labour in the first place was oppression, even if he did not say so. It is clear we can pinpoint our first view of gender abolitionism. And consequently, we can say how revisionists can argue for feminism, by simply citing Engels instead of doing their own work in anthropology.

Another thing of interest to note that in an earlier section, Engels noted that if women went into the workplace, the oppression in a proletarian household would be gone,

And now that large-scale industry has taken the wife out of the home onto the labor market and into the factory, and made her often the bread-winner of the family, no basis for any kind of male supremacy is left in the proletarian household – except, perhaps, for something of the brutality towards women that has spread since the introduction of monogamy.

This is simply untrue. Women nowadays are doubly exploited under capitalism, both for their reproductive and their productive labour. Putting women into the workplace, allowing them to partake in STEM projects and embrace gender equality, does not rule out reproductive labour. Engels is stating that women's oppression disappears if the woman goes to work. We have seen women working, however, and this form of the work-day means they are exploited in the sense of domestic labour, and performing labour at their workplace.

So now one might think: Why is it bad that Engels states the cause of women's oppression is biological sex? Well the truth of the matter is, Engels and Marx still remain foundational that the cause of women's oppression is class, not the sexual division of labour. Despite of this notion, there are marxists and radical feminists who argue that biological sex is the primary contradiction of women's oppression.

Let's consider the Radical Feminist side. Radical Feminism, a product of removing class from feminism and being an essential part of the New Left. In one case let's look to 1970, where Kate Millet, a Radical Feminist who wrote a book titled 'Sexual Politics', could be officially considered one of the first gender abolitionists. An Indian Maoist Anuradha Ghandy who wrote on the situation in the US New Left stated:

Here [Kate Millet] made the claim that the personal was political, which became a popular slogan of the feminist movement. By the personal is political what she meant was that the discontent individual women feel in their lives is not due to individual failings but due to the social system, which has kept women in subordination and oppresses her in so many ways. Her personal feelings are therefore political.

In fact she reversed the historical materialist understanding by asserting that the male female relationship is a framework for all power relationships in society. According to her, this ”social caste” (dominant men and subordinated women) supersedes all other forms of inequality, whether racial, political or economic. This is the primary human situation. These other systems of oppression will continue because they get both logical and emotional legitimacy from oppression in this primary situation. Patriarchy according to her was male control over the private and public world. According to her to eliminate patriarchy men and women must eliminate gender, i.e. sexual status, role and temperament, as they have been constructed under patriarchy.

Ghandy also talked about Shulamith Firestone, another radical feminist who made the book known as the "Dialectics of Sex".

Firestone focused on reproduction instead of production as the moving force of history. Further, instead of identifying social causes for women’s condition she stressed biological reasons for her condition and made it the moving force in history. She felt that the biological fact that women bear children is the material basis for women’s submission in society and it needs a biological and social revolution to effect human liberation. She too was of the opinion that the sex/gender difference needs to be eliminated and human beings must be androgynous. But she went further than Kate Millett in the solution she advocated to end women’s oppression. She was of the opinion that unless women give up their reproductive role and no longer bear children and the basis of the existing family is changed it is not possible to completely liberate women.

It's interesting how someone like Firestone believes that women must stop bearing children in order to liberate women. We can see how these Radical Feminists can and do plague movements. Even if they don't affect Marxists, the fact Marxists can link with Radical Feminism at all in regards to the cause being biological sex is concerning.

Nowadays, trotskyist groups like the Revolutionary Communist International (RCI, formerly known as the International Marxist Tendency) state a question in their articles such as: "[W]hat is the point of denying the existence of the male and female sex, with all their anatomic and biological differences?", alongside with their trotskyite nonsense which includes thing such as blaming anti-LGBT notions on "Stalinism".

The Ideology of Gender Abolitionism

Finally, we understand the initial roots of Gender Abolitionism. That being the idea has its roots out of biological essentialism (also known as biological determinism). Marxists may argue that women's oppression comes from class, but they may also argue about the biological standpoints (or the sexual dimorphism) in regards to the division of genders, in the same way as Radical Feminists do, thus making them no different from Radical Feminists.

In other words, to view the eyes of Gender Abolitionists: Sex and Gender are synonymous; the primary social contradiction of women's oppression is biological sex, not class; therefore to truly liberate women, abolition of gender is a necessary goal. However this presents an issue. What happens when we abolish gender? Does this mean that everyone must be androgynous? Perhaps lacking any gender whatsoever? Does this mean that sexual differences can be eliminated by utilising some form of transhumanist philosophy?

It is truly a bizarre thing to see, where people argue about the sexual division of labour. To see more of this nonsensical worldview, we should consider the concepts of gender abolitionism in more details, and perhaps understanding the "postmodernist" terms too.

Are sex and gender synonymous?

To consider this question would mean that a man and woman are themselves defined by whatever standard. So the next question becomes: What does it mean to be a man and a woman?

We have these conceptions of a man or a woman yet we don't exactly know what they are. We could surely define it from the standpoint of those with the ability to reproduce. This would mean that men are those with a penis, and women are those with a vagina. That should be it, right? However defining men and women from the standpoint of reproduction would exclude intersex people. Intersex people are often assigned a particular gender in the modern day, and intersex people don't necessarily have either genitalia at birth. Even if they do have presenting genitalia, their chromosomes may be different, and we cannot currently change sex chromosomes. So if their reproduction capability should take precedent, we can't have a proper definition of a man and woman without excluding intersex people. Another question brings up, considering I mentioned sex chromosomes. What about combining common characteristics, such as hormones, sex chromosomes and genitalia? That would be better but it would mean that transgender people wouldn't fit either that's due to their transitioning through means of hormones or surgery. Some cis people wouldn't fit either, as some cis people have the opposite sex chromosomes of their assigned birth.

We can't define sex in the manner which society does nowadays. Most of the "marxists" consider sex, only in the fact they consider the majority, in other words by excluding trans and intersex people. Leslie Feinberg, a person who made the book "Transgender Warriors", had a conversation with an indigenous person of that societies had more than 2 genders:

Chrystos, a brilliant Two-Spirit poet and writer from the Menominee nation, offered me this understanding:"Life among First Nation people,before first contact, is hard to reconstruct. There's been so much abuse of traditional life by the Christian Church. But certain things have filtered down to us. Most of the nations that I know of traditionally had more than two genders. It varies from tribe to tribe. The concept of Two-Spiritedness is a rather rough translation into English of that idea. I think the English language is rigid, and the thought patterns that form it are rigid, so that gender also becomes rigid.

"The whole concept of gender is more fluid in traditional life. Those paths are not necessarily aligned with your sex, although they may be. People might choose their gender according to their dreams, for example. So even the idea that your gender is something you dream about is not even a concept in Western culture—which posits you are born a certain biological sex and therefore there's a role you must step into and follow pretty rigidly for the rest of your life. That's how we got the concept of queer. Anyone who doesn't follow their assigned gender role is queer; all kinds of people are lumped together under that word."

It's clear that in pre-class societies, there was a conception of more than 2 genders. If people in pre-class societies could abstract gender from sex, we can as well. Therefore we can dismiss the concept that sex and gender are synonyms, refuting one point of the Radical Feminist talking points. It also means we cannot exclude trans or intersex people nor talk about a gendered division of labour as if its a given or a rigorous and strictly-defined entity.

Does there exist a Gender Identity?

Marxists seem to struggle with the concept of a gender identity. In fact, they call it idealist, because it states that social consciousness precedes reality! Or so the marxists who do not have any idea about the self.

The self, identity, personality, whatever we may call it, is an essential aspect to the human person. It is not individualist to try and analyse the self, it is only individualist if it is prioritised over the needs of the collective. Note that collective here means the collective of all peoples, including trans and intersex people. In other words, to liberate the self, we must first liberate the collective.

Our identity is material, it is conditioned within our society, and based on our means of subsistence. Then comes Gender Identity. When we argue that Gender Identity is itself a part or an aspect of identity, we are suddenly called "unmarxist", because gender is a social construct. A construct. As Marxists, we wish to deconstruct. We don't believe that things exist for the sake of existing. Capitalism exists not because it is human nature, but because it developed at such a point that capital became the dominant form of society. So gender, must be deconstructed as well, if we wish to rid of gender. The act of calling gender a social construct is the crucial act of the gender abolitionists. To put it plainly, everything about gender is fake. Nothing about gender is real, it's just as made up as sex is. Therefore gender identity is not real either, and if you argue it's real, you are an idealist!

We can certainly agree that sex is socially constructed, and therefore we wish to abolish the current model of sex, but is gender a social construct as well? Calling gender a 'social construct' would only harm trans people. It harms trans people by stating their existence, the way they portray themselves is nothing more than just them reducing their body dysmorphia. Yet this rhetoric is popular all the time. All the time on subreddits such as r/MtF I see the term all the time that gender is socially constructed.

If gender is socially constructed, why had gender existed before the form of any oppression? Why construct something that wouldn't be used for anything other than oppression? But then they argue that "Gender has been oppressed since the sexual division of labour!" which we already can dismiss since I addressed it earlier.

I think it is time us trans people dismiss the term 'social construct' for gender and instead call it a social phenomenon. It hit me when I realised it hurt another trans person when I tried to educate them about how it feels to be a particular gender. I stated it is a social construct, and their eventual response was "I just want to keep the idea of always being a girl, as I was finally accepted as one. I feel like now my feelings aren't valid". It was clear that I was not correct at the time. Some may state, "sure it may be a social construct, but your feelings aren't". As if that eliminates the problem of it being a social construct. Suddenly, I feel like I'm not a woman anymore, because it is made up. My feelings still exist, but I cannot say why they exist. Saying that I am a binary trans woman makes it better for me, than just saying I am a particular person. It is reducing their identity when you eliminate their gender identity.

Does the Queer Identity come from Oppression?

I expand from a trans to a queer identity solely because this issue applies to queer people as well. The thought of Gender Abolitionism, and how gender is a 'social construct', means that if gender identity is a social construct, so is sexual or gender orientation, meaning many LGB people are affected by this too. For queer trans people it's even worse, they're not gonna be a transbian (transgender lesbian), or gay trans person, they won't be gay nor trans anymore, because those terms that exist form out of the basis of oppression!

In other words, the existence of these labels, gay, bisexual, trans, pansexual, asexual, aromantic, these labels don't exist anymore in our future society, supposedly. One gender abolitionist stated a woman is: "that which is not a man and is oppressed by a man, and only exists in relation to the man." I responded: "Are non-binary people women too?" The existence of non-binary people merely makes their definition worthless, regardless of what dialectic they could make up. We can argue either: non-binary are oppressed, therefore they are women, or they are not oppressed, therefore they are men. Either side lands in a direct contradiction because non-binary people are neither man nor woman.

Then the goalposts shift, now instead of a woman, it's a non-man. So now non-binary people are included, right? Then the question becomes "what about trans men? or non-binary people who present masculine?" Are they oppressors? Do they want to be oppressors? What about genderfluid people? They want to be masculine or feminine or neither! Just because the goalposts shift doesn't mean we can't see this is a flawed argument.

Man, Woman, Non-Binary, Agender, etc. are not defined by their oppression, but rather through gender being a social phenomenon, as I stated earlier. We can state that gender, by itself, is not inherently oppressive.

We can dig into this further. Maybe this gender abolitionist (by intention or not) would put trans men or masculine non-binary people into the non-man category. In that case, they would be transphobic, because trans men are clearly not women. Despite their 'good fortune' of trying to make trans men appear to be oppressed.

Imagining the Future of No Gender

Let's ignore our arguments and just assume, for some reason, that gender abolition is a logical position. In that case, we will try to be as beneficial to these gender abolitionists, we will assume that gender sublates, not necessarily abolishes (although that is a direct contradiction to the label "Gender Abolitionist") and future in time gender ceases to exist. Let's say I, a trans woman, now belong in this time period.

We don't need to know the background (although it would be in a "communist society"), and we can assume that technology had developed at such a point where sex abolition is done (there is no difference between surgical and "naturally born" genitalia). Even with this in mind, there comes the question: "What about my dysphoria?" I have changed my penis to a vagina, I can now be a woman, oh wait, I cannot because the term "woman" doesn't exist anymore. Neither does the term "male", or "AMAB", since these terms don't need to exist. Okay, I haven't heard these terms before (or I may have in history and think it's stupid that humanity must've been using gender) and that means I'm okay since my identity is still there. However I still yearn to express myself. What can I express myself as a person? Just a person? A person with a vagina? That would be fine in academic contexts, but not when people are directly communicating with each other. What do I express myself in a society where, I have estrogen in my body, I have a vagina, and my body is shaped in a way that is... feminine? That's where the issue lies.

Dysphoria is biological, but it is also social too. Dysphoria exists as we trans people are born with it, we are born with levels of discomfort with our bodies. In that case, it wouldn't be "dysphoria" but body dysmorphia instead. Trans people are now merged with cis people (note that trans and cis don't exist as terms since they both refer to gender), and we don't have anything unique about us. We have nothing unique because we cannot converse about how our dysphoria is different from body dysmorphia. Neither is euphoria, which I argue first is that what makes people transgender, since our euphoria, our enjoyment for our identities, is locked away. Leslie Feinberg describes this feeling better.

"No wonder you've passed as a man! This is such an anti-woman society," a lesbian friend told me. To her, females passing as males are simply trying to escape women's oppression—period. She believes that once true equality is achieved in society, humankind will be genderless. I don't have a crystal ball, so I can't predict human behavior in a distant future. But I know what she's thinking—if we can build a more just society, people like me will cease to exist. She assumes that I am simply a product of oppression. Gee, thanks so much.

Thanks so much indeed. Our euphoria, our desire to be trans because we are not comfortable with ourselves, is what our identity is based on. Being trans is often treated as a cause for concern, especially by cis people, and even within ourselves, but we trans must realise, that us being trans is not a cause for concern, it is not something we wish to avoid. It is something we strive and want to strive for. We should be proud of being transgender, we do not need to look cis. Think of it another way: if I was born cis, I wouldn't be trans, I would lose a part of myself, and I would not be myself anymore.

Gender Roles and Passing is the Product of Oppression, not Gender

Gender is often misattributed to what we call "Gender Roles". Gender Roles, which stem from Gender (supposedly), is the product of gender itself, to which we should abolish along with gender roles. This line of thinking is overly simplistic. First of all, if gender created gender roles, would class oppression not be the foundation of the world's issues, thus making us a part of the radical feminist and liberal camp? Secondly, if gender roles did stem from gender, why do trans people need to exist? The existence of trans people innately demolishes gender roles, because it no longer has a rigid layer, therefore there can be no role attached with gender. Not all trans people want to be part of the opposite binary, after all.

But then there comes a certain topic which relates to gender roles, Passing. Passing is what we humans perceive as being cis, if a trans person can easily look the part of a woman or man and their desired gender. This is where the real oppression lies.

Trans people have always existed, and the existence of the rigidness of the gender binary has not always existed. The rigidness stems from slave society, from class struggle. Even in the bible we can pinpoint examples of transphobia:

A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this.

He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord.

The rigidness comes at a point where it exists: Passing. A man and a woman have now defined roles, no longer as they are peasants, they are now factory workers with defined roles. Woman works the spindle, the sewing machine, and the man works with metallurgy, while children work the chimney. This meant that trans people were, more or less nonexistent during this time for many people. The need to pass, became more and more of a priority since with each mode of production, the level of oppression succeeded the last, the level of oppression became greater and greater.

I am not the first nor most likely the last to state that passing is a production of oppression rather than gender. Leslie Feinberg argues the same, arguing that passing is what leads to trans oppression, not gender:

I have lived as a man because I could not survive openly as a transgendered person. Yes, I am oppressed in this society, but I am not merely a product of oppression. That is a phrase that renders all our trans identities meaningless. Passing means having to hide your identity in fear, in order to live. Being forced to pass is a recent historical development.

It is passing that is a product of oppression.

Gender abolitionists ignore the aspect of passing, how one trans person needs to pass in order to not be actively oppressed. Their oppression still exists if they successfully pass, because if they do not belong to the roles of their gender, they will not pass. If this "passing" thing is abolished, in other words fully erased, trans people can finally fluorish as to what they want to be. In other words, trans oppression ceases to exist when passing no longer becomes an issue. This may also fix cis people too, but to what extent is irrelevant to me.

Trans Men are an Enigma to Gender Abolitionists

If we consider gender abolitionism to be true, the question becomes how do trans men fit into this?

We can both agree that trans people are oppressed under capitalist society, but does that mean trans men are well? Gender abolitionists just fail to consider the other side of the equation, where there exists trans men who wish to be men. That means for the gender abolitionists, they state the following things:

1. Trans men are oppressed, because their sex is a woman
2. Trans men are not oppressed because they belong to the patriarchy
3. Trans men are just women who want to escape oppression

The first argument is transphobic, no question. It may be true they were assigned female at birth, it doesn't mean their genitalia are considered to match the typical vagina. Some may be intersex, for example. Secondly, this stems from the issue of passing. Some trans men do not pass, at all. Though passing may be less of an issue compared to trans women, trans men will be oppressed. And even if trans men do pass, they still aren't necessarily oppressing women, because they are oppressed by the patriarchy, not because they are women, but because they are trans. Third argument falls into TERFism. If is true that trans men are women who want to escape oppression, why aren't we seeing many trans men doing this? This ties in with my second argument which states that their oppression stays.

It's extraordinary to see that the only advocates for gender abolition are cis men, and trans women. It is strange to me, given that trans women are just basically saying they don't want to exist! It just shows a bit of cognitive dissonance to me.

Patriarchy Oppresses All People, Even Cis Men

What I may say in this chapter may regard me as a 'reactionary' or 'privileged' person, but I continue on.

Marxists don't know or care to recognise the existence of 'Toxic Masculinity', a term originally appeared within feminist circles. Toxic Masculinity, a term which describes masculine people, shows that men can also be oppressed by patriarchy, as ironic as that sounds.

The concept of patriarchy, not only divides women and trans people into the oppressed category, but it consequently presupposes that the role of the man is to oppress them. Of course, not all men are oppressors. Gay men are oppressed, often being compared to crossdressing. Gay men are oppressed because capitalism supports the eventual reproduction necessary to elevate itself, which gay men can't do. Gay men can be oppressors to women, and in fact sometimes are, but not all gay men advocate for this. Nonetheless, it shows that the concept of patriarchy is too binary, in other words, Men oppressors, Women oppressed, when patriarchy is itself a can of worms, which shows that trans men, gay men, feminine men (sometimes known as Femboys) can be oppressed too.

There is a tendency in Marxism to think in a binary manner, "Bourgeoisie oppressors, Proletariat Oppressed", yet when we see that some can be oppressors and some can be oppressed depending on national conditions (for example the national bourgeoisie can be oppressed, like what Mao described in China, and there are certainly oppressor proletarians described as the 'Labour Aristocracy' by Lenin). We must stop being reductive, especially when it comes to the patriarchy. Men certainly do benefit from the patriarchy, but it is not all men. Femboys, Gay men, Trans men, they are all 'classified' as men, yet they are oppressed, not oppressors, because they do not conform to the standpoint of patriarchy. Each and every one of them have their own reasons to not conforming to patriarchy, but despite the differing reasons, they are nonetheless, oppressed.

There is a systematic mode of thinking which generally says that men are indeed oppressors, but this systematic mode of thinking will and does alienate us from the masses. This systematic thinking is what Mao and Lenin opposed, Lenin outrightly stated this in regards to the Practicality of Self-Determination:

Insofar as the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nation fights the oppressor, we are always, in every case, and more strongly than anyone else, in favour, for we are the staunchest and the most consistent enemies of oppression. But insofar as the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nation stands for its own bourgeois nationalism, we stand against. We fight against the privileges and violence of the oppressor nation, and do not in any way condone strivings for privileges on the part of the oppressed nation.

If, in our political agitation, we fail to advance and advocate the slogan of the right to secession, we shall play into the hands, not only of the bourgeoisie, but also of the feudal landlords and the absolutism of the oppressor nation. Kautsky long ago used this argument against Rosa Luxemburg, and the argument is indisputable. When, in her anxiety not to “assist” the nationalist bourgeoisie of Poland, Rosa Luxemburg rejects the right to secession in the programme of the Marxists in Russia, she is in fact assisting the Great-Russian Black Hundreds. She is in fact assisting opportunist tolerance of the privileges (and worse than privileges) of the Great Russians.

[...]

The bourgeois nationalism of any oppressed nation has a general democratic content that is directed against oppression, and it is this content that we unconditionally support, At the same time we strictly distinguish it from the tendency towards national exclusiveness; we fight against the tendency of the Polish bourgeois to oppress the Jews.