I came across the term “gender nihilism”. And only recently
did I think to look it up. And after reading up on the ideology. I
thought I could potentially have a dialogue about it with people. Feel
free to share your own resources, views and what not either through
asks, IM or a reblog. Here is an essay I found on gender nihilism and my
main source for this informal essay. https://libcom.org/library/gender-nihilism-anti-manifesto Is
what I often see people linking to and refering to, so I thought it’d
be a good idea to also use it as a source. This post is simply to
explain gender nihilism more than anything, to be honest.
How should we approach gender abolitionism?
Often the concept that gender is but a social construct that we need rid of, is a concept often used within right-wing ideologies to discredit the trans experience. “For them, we must abolish gender so that sex (the physical characteristics of the body) can be a stable material basis upon which we can be grouped. We reject this whole heartedly. Sex itself is grounded in discursive groupings, given an authority through medicine, and violently imposed onto the bodies of intersex individuals. We decry this violence.”
It is important to acknowledge
that some may try to use gender nihilism with ill intentions, and we
should all make it clear from the beginning. Gender is a dangerous
concept, it is the source of oppression of many. “This is not to say
that those who identify as trans, queer, or non-binary are at fault for
gender. This is the mistake of the traditional radical feminist
approach. We repudiate such claims, as they merely attack those most
hurt by gender. Even if deviation from the norm is always accounted for
and neutralized, it sure as hell is still punished. The queer, the
trans, the non-binary body is still the site of massive violence. Our
siblings and comrades still are murdered all around us, still live in
poverty, still live in the shadows. We do not denounce them, for that
would be to denounce ourselves. Instead we call for an honest discussion
about the limits of our politics and a demand for a new way forward.” One should keep in mind what abolitionism truly means, it is to reject assimilation completely while also acknowledging, “There is no essential human. There is no human nature.”
Is gender nihilism the ideal perspective we should all adapt with gender?
In general, socialists have attempted to go for liberation. Many may believe that equality is as important as justice and liberation. More often than not though, mainstream liberal ideology ignores this and focuses on equality. Does this work with gender? And does lack of liberation also potentially mean pro-assimilation? “The current movement within trans politics has sought to try to broaden gender categories, in the hope that we can alleviate their harm”, “All we do when we expand gender categories is to create new more nuanced channels through which power can operate. We do not liberate ourselves, we ensnare ourselves in countless and even more nuanced and powerful norms. Each one a new chain.”
Does gender exist as a concept beyond personal preferences and systems of power?
According to this gender nihilist manifesto, it is often simply a concept of linguistics and culture to be a “man” or a “woman”. “Man and Woman do not exist as labels for certain metaphysical or essential categories of being, they are rather discursive, social, and linguistic symbols which are historically contingent. They evolve and change over time; their implications have always been determined by power.”
Gender as a concept has caused too much damage, and due to its fluidity, inherently means nothing, “we have come to believe that there is some internal truth to gender that we must divine.” Maybe we might as well abolish it due to lack of any gain. “We
are radicals who have had enough with attempts to salvage gender. We do
not believe we can make it work for us. We look at the transmisogyny we
have faced in our own lives, the gendered violence that our comrades,
both trans and cis have faced, and we realize that the apparatus itself
makes such violence inevitable. We have had enough.”
What does gender nihilism mean?
Gender nihilism is a concept of not just rejection of sex essentialism, but also rejects the general idea of any form of an essential human, “It is the point from which we begin to understand our present situation; it is crucial. By antihumanism, we mean a rejection of essentialism. There is no essential human. There is no human nature. There is no transcendent self. To be a subject is not to share in common a metaphysical state of being (ontology) with other subjects.”
However,
many may misunderstand what this all means, it is not taking away
gender, but it is to be against the idea of pushing gender onto anyone, “It
is imperative that this be understood. Antihumanism does not deny the
lived experience of many of our trans siblings who have had an
experience of gender since a young age. Rather we acknowledge that such
an experience of gender was always already determined through the terms
of power. We look to our own childhood experiences. We see that even in
the transgressive statement of “We are women” wherein we deny the
category power has imposed onto our bodies, we speak the language of
gender. We reference an idea of “woman” which does not exist within us
as a stable truth, but references the discourses by which we are
constituted.”
Our ideologically oppressive
and aggressively pro-assimilative centered society is not the fault of
our trans comrades. It is imperative not to make this fallacy with
gender abolitionism. “Each trans woman murdered, each intersex infant
coercively operated on, each queer kid thrown onto the streets is a
victim of gender. The deviance from the norm is always punished. Even
though gender has accounted for deviation, it still punishes it.
Expansions of norms is an expansion of deviance; it is an expansion of
ways we can fall outside a discursive ideal. Infinite gender identities
create infinite new spaces of deviation which will be violently
punished. Gender must punish deviance, thus gender must go.”
What will happen afterwards?
What will happen? What will be the product of gender being abolished? This is a very uncertain thing, “All the previous attempts at positive and expansionist gender politics
have failed us. We must cease to presume a knowledge of what liberation
or emancipation might look like, for those ideas are themselves grounded
upon an idea of the self which cannot stand up to scrutiny; it is an
idea which for the longest time has been used to limit our horizons.
Only pure rejection, the move away from any sort of knowable or
intelligible future can allow us the possibility for a future at all.”
It may be the best option, though reinforcing gender by diversity has not worked, “While this risk is a powerful one, it is necessary. Yet in plunging into
the unknown, we enter the waters of unintelligibility. These waters are
not without their dangers; and there is a real possibility for a
radical loss self. The very terms by which we recognize each other may
be dissolved. But there is no other way out of this dilemma. We are
daily being attacked by a process of normalization that codes us as
deviant. If we do not lose ourselves in the movement of negativity, we
will be destroyed by the status quo. We have only one option, risks be
damned.” We should risk it for our future comrades, we must embrace
this nihilism and queer anarchism, abolishing may be the best option, “And thus we must take a leap into the void.”
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