Femboys and the structure of gender

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by Local Gay Communist - LGC
Published: 2025-10-17 (last update: 2025-11-14)
5-15 minutes

This paper discusses gender and it’s interactions, internal mechanisms and development through a dialectical-materialist lens, and is to be treated as a piece denoting a framework which must be developed upon collectively to further our understanding of gender and it’s interplay with society.

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An early attempt at creating dialectical material on the nature of gender and how it is structured, using the example of the antagonistic contradiction between femboys and transgender identity

Author: LGC

Foreword

This paper discusses gender and it’s interactions, internal mechanisms and development through a dialectical-materialist lens, and is to be treated as a piece denoting a framework which must be developed upon collectively to further our understanding of gender and it’s interplay with society.

The author views queer liberation as an integral tendency of class struggle and proletarian emancipation and anyone who disagrees is free to get pissy about it, the author really couldn’t care less.

(this is intentionally left blank so other writers can maybe learn a thing or two about keeping forewords short, thank you, please enjoy the paper)

Chapter 1: the primary aspects of gender

To understand gender in a manner which resolves all the contradictions imposed by a liberal analysis, one must break apart gender, into it’s two basic fields: the primary aspects; and the secondary aspects. Within this framework, the primary aspects of gender are what constitute the fundamental understanding of the self on a sub-societal level. In practice, this is the “feeling” of a gender, the innate property within us all which dictates who we identify as, as of yet it is unknown what constitutes this aspect concretely, but it is for now safe to assume it is neuroanatomical, due to the connections drawn to neuroanatomy by some of the primary aspects of gender such as biochemical dysphoria.

But what are the primary aspects of gender? We can safely conclude that the primary aspects of gender include all gendered aspects which aren’t socially imposed, notably, this disqualifies primary sex markers due to the uniquely variable nature of their connected gender dysphoria in trans people, that is, the desired treatments for trans people is not universally bottom surgery, per a 2021 study conducted by Bita Tristani-Firouzi, Jacob Veith, Andrew Simpson, Kelly Hoerger, Andy Rivera and Cori A Agarwal, many trans people do not actively desire bottom surgery. Among trans women the amount of people who desire bottom surgery is ~87%, among trans men it's ~54%, among afab non-binary people it's ~28%, among amab non-binary people, 64%. Furthermore, a majority of trans people never get gender affirming surgery, in the 2019 study “Demographic and temporal trends in transgender identities and gender confirming surgery”, Ian T Nolan, Christopher J Kuhner and Geolani W Dy find that only an estimated 25-35% of trans and non-binary people in the US get GCS (Gender Confirming Surgery) which include: Hysterectomy, Phalloplasty, Metoidioplasty and Chest/breast surgery

Furthermore, per a meta analysis entitled “Do hormones and surgery improve the health of adults with gender incongruence? A systematic review of patient reported outcomes” authored by Kelsey Ireland, Madeleine Hughes and Nicola R Dean, “For hormone treatment, gender dysphoria was found to improve significantly in the three prospective studies that met criteria. Surgery also resulted in improvement in gender dysphoria, specifically mastectomy and facial feminization surgery. [...]” This emphasis on mastectomy (top surgery for ftm individuals) and facial feminization surgery indicate that bottom surgery could be a more socially influenced choice than other forms of transition (most notably hrt).

Here we see the contradiction present in the primary aspects of gender, we see the thesis: the neuroanatomical patterns which define how we see ourselves and what hormone balance we crave (I.e the gender identity) and a set of bodily features associate with them (I.e the biological sex), within trans people, this contradiction is antagonistic, resulting either in the victory of the gender identity (transition) or the victory of the biological sex (not transitioning) Concretely, the gender identity contradicts the biological sex in such a fashion that one has to either suppress the gender identity or embrace it. The nature of being trans is in the fact that to embrace ones gender identity is to transition, thereby gaining new understanding of gender and the self.

Chapter 2: the secondary aspects of gender

Within the framework used in this paper, the secondary aspects of gender are those aspects which are socially imposed, commonly referred to as “gender expression”, “gender roles” and etc.

To understand the contradiction present in the secondary aspects of gender, we must understand their relation to the primary aspects of gender, we have understood that the primary aspects of gender are a contradiction between the gender Identity and the biological sex, but we must understand the secondary aspects of gender as a contradiction between the social expectations of accepted genders and the personal will of the gendered individual (the gendered individual being a person who experiences gender)

To understand this contradiction we must understand it’s components. The accepted genders are the set of gender identities which are viewed as “normative” by society, within the west, this is largely the binary “male” and “female”. Note how this leaves non-binary people largely out of the equation. The personal will of the gendered individual is a bit more interesting, as this is notably not inherently a reflection of the individuals gender identity, but rather their socially informed personal desire to express themselves, when in contradiction with the social expectations of their gender identity (given the lack of embracing their gender identity) this can cause dysphoria, I.e people who have not embraced their gender identity can get dysphoria from abiding by the gender expression of another gender identity.

Chapter 2.2: How do gender queer people fit into this?

We can understand that gender queer people, having embraced their gender identity, create a new and creative synthesis of the Socially expected gender expression and their personal desire. This allows a solving of the contradiction without abiding to societal norms, such a synthesis often includes the prominent subversion of liberal expectations of biological sex, for instance, the fusion of facial hair and make-up or the wearing of feminine clothes on a “male” body.

It is however notable that such expression is often found in trans individuals, whether or not they are gender queer stems from their own understanding of themselves, and this should be respected.

Chapter 2.3 Sexuality as a Secondary aspect of gender

Some trans people report a “change in sexuality” post transition, this could be an instance of sexuality behaving as a secondary aspect of gender, either in the sense that the previously inhabited biological sex repressed their true sexuality due to societal pressure, or that the newly inhabited biological sex abides by the socially expected sexuality, in order to attempt to resolve the contradiction between societal expectations of sexuality and individual sexual preference.

It is also possible that pre-transition trans people abide by a queer sexuality in order to reconcile their identification with queer experiences without acknowledging their trans identity

Chapter 3: the femboy dissection

Now we come to a particularly interesting phenomenon: the femboy. The femboy is in this paper, someone who self identifies with the label femboy as if it were a gender, not people who identify with it as a sub-category of their gender-queer expression. So, what is a femboy? A femboy is a feminine presenting man/boy who identifies with the term “femboy”, they often exhibit femininity through the shaving of body hair, adopting stereotypical feminine attire (I.e maid outfits, striped thigh-high socks, dresses, dolphin shorts, pink hoodies, etc.) and by exhibiting sexually submissive behaviors. Leaving aside the problematic definition of “femininity”, these are notably all secondary aspects of gender, stylistic and/or behavioral features, not assignable to the concept of gender identity as laid out. Despite this, femboys identify as femboys as if it were a gender identity, they embrace it not through transition of any sort (despite many of them claiming the trans label) but through the adoption of western, white, stereotypically female gender roles and expressions, adopting a hyper-sexual objectification of the self.

But why? Let us examine the contradictions once more: we see the primary gender contradiction between gender identity and biological sex, this is not inhabited by femboys, the secondary contradiction however, is inhabited by femboys, the contradiction between the socially accepted gender of “male” and the feminine will of the individual. Femboys, unlike gender-queer people, do not creatively synthesize a new gender expression, but rather view the contradiction as antagonistic, and attempt to invent a new socially accepted gender, despite the lack of the primary contradiction, to make up for this, they supplant the the gender identity with gender expression, thereby sharpening cis-normative conceptions of gender & sex, to justify their own existence therefor, they must uphold traditionalist, cis-normative conceptions of gender.

Chapter 3.2: the contradiction between cis-normativity and gender diversity

This exposes a deeper contradiction yet to be touched on by this paper: the contradiction between cis-normative frameworks of understanding gender and the more accurate understanding of gender diversity.

We see through the femboy, an attempt to resolve the antagonistic contradiction between cis-normativity and gender diversity by the creation of and affirming of the petty gender: the petty gender is a gender constructed without a gender identity, I.e one in which the only material thing is the expression of itself. Such a gender necessarily acts in the affirmative of the cis-normative framework by reinforcing the denial of the gender identity and the affirmation of the idea of gender as a performance, an idealist conception which necessarily makes renders all trans identity invalid due to it’s assertion of the non-existence of an inert gender identity.

Chapter 3.3: The damage caused by the femboy identity

It is vital to this notion that we understand the damage caused by the femboy identity, as a perversion of gender diversity it has brought about a wave of obscuring the reality of gender especially online, where people now float ideas of the femboy gender and the nature of gender as a performance. This is to be understood as a subversion of correct understandings of gender and ultimately regressive to the community as a whole.

Chapter 3.4: Why do people end up identifying as femboys?

This is a particularly interesting question, as, given the obvious absurdity of the claim of femboys being a gender, why do some non-the-less still identify as femboys?

Well, this can be attributed to many factors such as the attempt to resolve the gender contradiction as a non-binary person or a trans person without a proper framework of understanding, or as an attempt to side-step identifying as trans. There are also those who identify as femboys due to their attempt to reconcile their individual desire for gender expression with their socially accepted gender, I.e as a byproduct of the very cis-normative structures it reinforces.

Conclusion

In conclusion we now understand the nature of gender as being constituted of two parts: the primary aspects and the secondary aspects. We also understand their inherent contradictions and their resolutions. Namely the contradiction between Gender identity and biological sex, resolved through the embracing of the gender identity or the victory of the biological sex for the primary aspects of gender; and the contradiction between the socially accepted gender expressions and the will of the gendered individual, resolved through the abiding by the socially accepted gender expressions or the creative synthesis of new gender expressions as most often seen in gender-queer individuals for the secondary aspects of gender.

We now have a framework from which to analyze gender and it’s interactions with society and the individual and how cis-normativity and gender diversity contradict each other in an antagonistic fashion. We understand the Femboy petty-gender and it’s implications, it’s base in cis-normative society and it’s internal mechanisms and how they contradict gender diversity and trans identity.

We must use this framework and develop it and further it to perform dialectical analysis of gender and identity in the future to gain a better understanding of ourselves and those around us.