i don't owe you — The Away Place

I DON’T OWE YOU AN EXPLANATION

Education beyond the essentialist view of gender.

Biology The view of the essentialist is that that gender stems from sex: the binary opposition of feminine versus masculine corresponding to supposed ‘female’ and ‘male’ anatomy. However, this view does not appreciate the variation that exists within sexual anatomy, nor the complexities in defining what exactly sexual anatomy is (Butler, 1999, pg. XXII). There are six separate ‘layers’ of sex: external genitalia (penis, vagina), internal reproductive anatomy (uterus, cervix, fallopian tubes, prostate, epididymis, etc), hormonal (androgen, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, etc), chromosomal (XX, XY, XXY, XYY, XO), gonadal (ovaries, testes) and finally, brain sex (evident from puberty: brain cell stimulation of adult sexual maturation) (Fausto-Sterling, 2018). These layers do not follow the binary categorisation of male/female, and will loosely assemble themselves as they please within each individual body (Fausto-Sterling, 2018). This assemblage is not fixed and may be subject to medical change should the individual choose. Thus, the swarm of adults that observe a newborns genitals to decide their sex are fundamentally ill-informed (Blackless, Charuvastra, Derryck, Fausto-Sterling, Lauzanne, and Lee, 2000, pg. 151). Sex is non-binary, however the cultural pressure of the male/female opposition renders those who cannot be categorised as obsolete, other, invisible. It is impossible to give a statistic for those whose anatomy does not fit into male/female biology, firstly because these categories do not exist, and secondly because at least 1.6% of the population with noticeable ‘differences’ (intersex genitalia) may be subject to non-consensual ‘corrective’ surgery at birth (Blackless, Charuvastra, Derryck, Fausto-Sterling, Lauzanne, and Lee, 2000, pg. 151). This disgusting scientific practice is informed by fashionable cultural decision, not biological necessity. We must move to a place where the non-binary body is accepted as a matter of natural human diversity, not defected, not diseased, not disordered.

Culture
So, what is gender if not defined by genitals? Post essentialist, the social constructionist would say that gender is designed by culture, resulting in the political categories of ‘male’ and ‘female’. Though more progressive than the essentialist view that gender is defined by external genitalia, this view of gender also assumes the binary and then uses the binary as a tool of repression against those it excludes. It also frames the binary as inescapable, impossible to revise and untouchable by individual agency (Russell, 2020, pg. 15). Judith Butler’s seminal text Gender Trouble persists that gender is a performance, that ‘There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; that identity is performatively constituted by the very “expressions” that are said to be its results.’ This theory of performance frees the subject from politics and allows identity to be formed by agency (Butler, 1999, pg. 33). Therefore, the way in which one uses clothing, language, social expressions, etc form their ‘material basis’ for gender expression (Fausto-Sterling, 2003, pg.126). Though identity should never be reduced to a practice of fashion, the closeness that clothing carries to the body renders it an incredibly powerful tool in gender performance: ‘clothes mark the boundary between the biological world (the body) and the social world (society, cultural discourse)’ (Wilson via Kaiser, 2013, pg. 265). Clothing thus may be used to subvert, signal, conform, contradict, confuse, communicate, deconstruct, associate, etc. As gender is based in agency, it is important to note that the ‘misreading’ of one’s expression does not render it ineffective; any performance of identity is valid, with or without validation from others (McNabb, 2017, pg. 24).

Power
To exist outside of the binary, we must first understand how and why the binary came to be so large we cannot see it’s edges (Russell, 2020, pg. 63). Simply put, the binary falls out of a heterosexual matrix that exists to minimise and oppress women (Butler, 1999, pg. 57). Biblically, women exist 'in sorrow [to] bring forth children; and [their] desire shall be to [their] husband [as] he shall rule over [them]’ (King James Bible, 1989, Genesis 3:16). Though this is not the origin of the binary, it proves evidence of how the social construction of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ were not designed with equal power: every inch of the female body is marked by masculine discourse, down to the labelling woman, female. She is his absence, the sight of his penetration, the bearer of his child that will carry his name (Butler, 1999, pg. 56). The assumption of compulsory heterosexuality thus defines women by their reproductive capability, disguised as a natural necessity (Butler, 1999, pg. 118). This also essentially sees women as little beyond their gentiles. Homosexual/bisexual desire is culturally repressed to reinforce compulsory heterosexuality (Kaiser, 2013, pg. 271). Thus, supposed natural desire for the ‘opposite’ sex can instead be seen as a behaviour learnt from existing within the heterosexual matrix, and its necessity as obsolete as the label man/women (Butler, 1999, pg. 96). Desire is desire and does not require reproduction. The division of the category’s man/women, heterosexual/homosexual therefore only exist to allow for patriarchal economical and socio-cultural dominance (Russell, 2020, pg. 87). The patriarchy will take up any space is allowed to fill, gender being its foremost colonisation (Russell, 2020, pg. 23).

Language
We are fully immersed within culture yet fail to understand it without language; a conversation, a book, the constant discussion with oneself inside one’s head. Though, like gender, language is not absent of politics. The signification of the chosen word shapes how one sees the signified. Any and every object is reduced to its cultural metaphor, a reduction of itself to a word which becomes the object’s primary definition in that culture. Thus, social reality is constructed and maintained through an exchange of language (Wittgenstein, 1958, pg. 20). Understanding this, we can immediately recognise the issues that exist surrounding the language of gender. As mentioned previously, the female is inescapably marked by the male; she does not exist without he, though he is gifted with agency (Wittig,1986, pg. 80). The design of the labels man/woman purposefully and effectively integrate the patriarchy within culture. The idea of inequality then becomes naturalised through use of this language, until it is declared unquestionable. The categorisation and labelling of gender is a weapon that attacks those who do not subscribe to it correctly (Russell, 2020, pg.58). To exist beyond gendered oppression, we must deconstruct language. Wittig suggested the change of the personal pronoun to be fundamental to this shift, alternatively offering the pronoun elles; a combination of female pronoun elle and masculine derived plural pronoun ills. The goal being to render categories of gender obsolete, a universal singular pronoun to be used for all bodies (Wittig,1986, pg. 85-87). When translated to English elles becomes singular they, which is now frequently used by queer and non-binary bodies. (I must note that though this is a grammatical shift from plural they, the aversion to usage of singular they must be seen as transphobic action. Dictionary definitions and have since changed to accommodate for singular they, thus the argument against it does not concern grammar, but prejudice (Oxford English Dictionary, 2018).) The neopronoun (ze/ae/fae) entirely reconstructs language, allowing pronouns to be indicative of personality, agency, individuality, interests, anything the subject wishes, rather than gender (McGaughey, 2020). This is an incredibly powerful rebellion.

Revolution
Non-binary identity is an umbrella term for those who choose to exist outside of the binary opposition male/female. Queer identity is to advocate for burning these categories to the ground and gloriously rising from its ashes (Carlson, 2001, pg. 301). To identify as queer is to protest, a political and (un)gendered identity that understands the two are fundamentally interconnected. Originally, the term ‘queer’ was used to derogatorily describe those who were visibly and unapologetically ‘out’ (Carlson, 2001, pg. 301). The slur was then appropriated by the community in a scream back: WE ARE HERE, WE ARE QUEER, WE WILL NOT BE RENDERED INVISIBLE. To be ‘visibly out’ thus became a form of daily resistance to the homo/trans/queerphobic mass. This rebellion uses fashion as its weapon, aiming to plant confusion and confliction regarding gender ‘norms’ within the essentialist’s psyche. This protest is fought back with violence, as the essentialist view of gender is so fragile, if they see one contest, they must break it, rape it, ‘correct’ it (McNabb, 2017, pg. 20). To exist as queer thus puts body at risk whilst freeing identity to a playground of opportunity. Members of the queer community are perpetually aware of this risk, even in safe spaces it is a silent reality that reasserts itself with every signpost saying ‘homo/transphobia will not be accepted’. We are reminded of the cis/straight/essentialist hegemony, and though we rebel we do not have power. This said, to be queer is not the be the other to the cis/straight/essentialist community, we WILL NOT forge more binary oppositions. To be queer is to ignore it all and exist anyway, no apologies.

Capitalism
Issues with using clothing as a form of subversion arise from fashion’s place as a capitalist mega-structure. Capitalism appropriates any subversion of the mainstream through a method of recouperation and resells the symbols of the rebellion back to the public. At this point the symbol is deemed safe from deconstructing the hegemony, and its power lost (Perdue, 2012). Subversive performances of gender are appropriated by capitalism, minimising queer bodies to clichés, stereotypes and a performance of fashion (Butler, 1999). Beyond this, subversion itself has become commodified, allowed as long as you pay for it, and as long as the profits return to some bug-eyed CEO that would probably cross the street should HE witness your subversion (Hadden and Warren, 2020). The situationists method of detournement offers some liberation until the detoured symbol is recommodified. So long as fashion and capital are intertwined, fashion does not and will never care for the consumer. Instead, it will persist that identity is purely defined fashion and the only way to perform agency, individuality, subversion, rebellion, and revolution is to buy it.

Appropriation
Capitalism silences cause and replaces it with product. The corporate appropriation of pride month is a clear example of such. The month of June was labelled pride month to honour the stonewall riots and reassert LGBTQ+ rights within the public eye (History.co.uk, N.D). However, in the 50 years since the riots, pride has transformed into a month long, rainbow covered, cash grab aimed at the heterosexual population (Champlin and Li, 2020). The act of ‘rainbow washing’ products in the name of social responsibility is offensive to the queer population, minimising protest to something that can be bought and sold. These brands carry out little to no action to support the community, yet appropriate symbols of pride to advertise their social responsibility: a commodification of a social issue that achieves little but raising the profits of the company (Clements, 2017, pg. 4). Pride collections have been shown to resonate more with the heterosexual population than the queer community (Champlin and Li, 2020). This is again because capitalism has appropriated, minimised, and packaged rebellion into something small that can be easily understood, and purchased, by the essentialist mass: ‘If I buy this rainbow mug, I am officially an ally, signed off by X corporation owned by generic old white man no.3. If I buy this rainbow mug, I’m forgiven for my transphobic comments though I didn’t apologise to the people I offended. If I buy this rainbow mug, I have completed my social responsibility.’

Recouperation
The non-binary community has come to be more publicly accepted over the past 5 years, as capitalism has found a way to profit from it. The creation of the ‘third gender’ is the reduced, consumable, and most importantly – sellable – version of the non-binary body. This body is the third in the ternary opposition: Man/Woman/NB. The non-binary body is stereotyped as androgenous, thin, white: a green coloured isle fitting perfectly next to the pink and blue, with its own strict rules to oblige by. Capitalism has not begun to accept gender difference, but rather forged a new category to market to. No example shows this better than the addition of an X along M/F on identity documents (passports/driver’s licences/etc) (Justice Connect, 2021). The X is a distraction – one you can pay for – from the original question: why does gender/sex need be on a passport in the first place? It is NOT relevant, especially seeing as medical sex is a soft assemble, and not fixed (Fausto-Sterling, 2018). To those who argue it’s for medical reasons, I ask the question: what emergency medical issue requires physicians know the subjects sex? Unless it is distinctly related to their sexual organs – in which situation, the physician would examine the sexual organs, again rendering labelling useless. The X/F/M division also reinforces pitching gendered bodies each other – something that capitalism profits from through reinforced and obligatory stereotypes. And yet, the addition of the X is applauded simply because non-binary bodies have been rendered completely invisible until now: X reinforces the system then rendered them invisible in the first place.

(Trans)cendence
Capitalism thrives on opposition, forging the ‘other’ (nature, animal, woman, homosexual) with the intention of appropriating and dominating for the sake of profit. Capitalism creates competition and exclusion, using stereotypes to render those who contest the hegemony invisible, justifying oppression, abuse, fetishization and appropriation. This leaves an incredibly uncaring system that pushes social responsibility of forging change back onto the public (Hakim, Chatzidakis, Littler and Rottenberg, 2020, pg. 4). To be raised under capitalism is to be raised ego-centric, a thought pattern encouraged by media overflowing with killing stories (Le Guin, 1986). To create a more caring world, identity thus must be forged without the ‘other’ to pitch oneself against. Donna J. Haraway’s vision of the cyborg body offers a powerful metaphor for identity without opposition (Haraway, 1991, pg. 456). The cyborg rejects autonomy for interconnectivity with one’s environment, technology, and other bodies in a harmonious, circular exchange of needs and care. (Haraway, 1991, pg. 462). The cyborg lacks innocence in favour of knowledge and is essentially both selfless and in itself a community (Haraway, 1991, pg. 458): it does not have an ‘other’, it is above others (Carlson, 2001, pg. 306). Legacy Russell offers utopia through glitch: a refusal of the binary enabled by blending individuals with their online avatars, giving power to the internet’s unique ability for fluid identity reconstruction. Glitch refuses the binary, refuses the physical boundaries of the body and thrives in abstraction and confusion (Russell, 2020, pg. 26). Glitched/cyborg bodies transcend the known world and offer a utopian future void of gender.

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