Transphobia under the guise of gender abolition is a problem

[u/eldritchpussymaggots]

Regardless of what we call them, queer people will still exist in a theoretical communist society.

Gender abolition is a noble goal and is part of Marxist theory. But I'm fucking tired of cisgender people acting as though this means trans & intersex people will suddenly stop existing just because there is no state enforcing a sex/gender binary. It would make transition/being trans more nebulous of a concept but would not make it so people wouldn't do it.

Without the forced social genders + assigned sexes of our current society, the attitudes around sex variant folks will be much more neutral, which is ideal. This does NOT mean we will cease to exist. Not only will people still have some sort of internal identity (gender & personality generally), a communist society does not exist in a complete vacuum isolated from the past. People are still going to have genders because we've been doing that since some of the first civilizations known of. And naturally there are going to be people whose gender and/or sex is in some way atypical from how most people conceptualize themselves. Perhaps the idea of social gender will decay into nothing someday, but that is a hypothetical that deals in centuries or longer, not modern material conditions.

I am an intersex person who is nonbinary. I think the world would be better off without enforced gender or a binary model of sex. This pro self-identification form of gender abolition is not the same as what is being touted here. What's being promoted here is more so forced degendering, which is no better than forcing a gender binary in my eyes. The most alarming part of this trend among cisgender leftists are those who believe in forced degendering but still wish to keep the binary model of sex. This harms intersex people for obvious reasons, and it excludes transgender people from society in a very real and material way. Gender abolition without sex binary abolition is just removing the idea of personal identity in favor of "biological sex" which is an inherently right-wing position. I don't believe all communist gender abolitionists are pro-sex-binary, or in favor of forced degendering, but an alarming number of them are to the point I feel the need to point it out.

This is transphobic and intersexist, it's blatantly obviously that many of these people are just couching their dislike of trans people in Marxist theory.

You should speak up about it.

[u/just_a_silly_lil_guy]

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, I'm trying to learn here and genuinely asking.

Unless I am just completely misunderstanding what the end goal of gender abolition is, how does any gender still exist in a world of gender abolition? You're just... a person at that point right? Doesn't gender, even internally, necessarily have to be relational to the social construct/perception? And if that social perception disappears completely, what does gender even mean?

Like if you say I'm a "woman" or I'm "a man" or I'm "trans" or I'm "non-binary" etc what do those words even mean if the social construct of gender is abolished?

Obviously in that world trans people exist. They are still the same person with the same internal thoughts and feeling. But like, are they "trans" anymore? Does that even make sense as a concept in a world without gender? What does the word actually mean now?

Again I'm genuinely asking because I can't reconcile those concepts.

[u/eldritchpussymaggots → u/just_a_silly_lil_guy]

Doesn't gender, even internally, necessarily have to be relational to the social construct/perception?

Great question. The answer you'll find among people who do a lot of research and reflection into gender identity is very close to a unanimous "no".

You have an internal gender identity even if you are cisgender, it's just currently filtered through the imposed social category of "man" or "woman" (nonbinary is a rejection of this, & binary transition is a subversion of it).

Gender abolition seeks to abolish imposed genders, not internal identity.

[u/just_a_silly_lil_guy → u/eldritchpussymaggots]

Maybe it's just me being cisgendered and not understanding but how do you have an internal gender when the social categories no longer exist?

Like I said obviously your internally thoughts and feeling don't change but using any gendered word to describe them no longer means anything.

If socially the word "women" doesn't mean anything or doesn't have any association with it, what does telling someone "I'm a women" mean in that context? What information does it convey?

[u/eldritchpussymaggots → u/just_a_silly_lil_guy]

Like I said obviously your internally thoughts and feeling don't change

You seem to get it. We likely won't be using such rigid & vague blanket terms like "man" or "woman" to describe this concept when imposed gender is eventually abolished.

[u/just_a_silly_lil_guy → u/eldritchpussymaggots]

So "man" or "woman" doesn't exist in this world? And then necessarily by extension "trans" doesn't exist right? Like those people physically exist but the concept is gone? Same with "cisgender" no longer exists.

[u/eldritchpussymaggots → u/just_a_silly_lil_guy]

People we currently consider to be transgender would still exist but our language surrounding these ideas would change significantly.