literally i hate “gender abolition” so much. like. ok. mini and less nuanced rant but the core tenant seems to be “these boxes are bad, so we should get rid of the boxes and concepts” rather than “lets liberate these categories, stop assigning them meaning, and make them personalized.”
thats why some trans activists and certain gender criticals can both consider themselves gender abolitionists. trans GAs want to get rid of gender and sex entirely as any kind of category, while gender critical GAs want to get rid of gender and leave only sex as an important characteristic.
like ok. im a man. thats a very personal and important part of my identity. to me, i feel good as a man when filling Man Roles. i like camping, roughing it outdoors, i like country music and hardcore too. i like feeling like a role model and a provider and i like feeling strong. those things arent what make me a man but they feel important to my manhood. i know women who are exactly like this- we go camping together, we dress similarly, we listen to the same music, we both like feeling strong. they like it as women and i like it as a man. the categories are still there, but they are whatever they mean to us. gender is liberated because we can do whatever we want without feeling like we’re in the wrong “box”. but if you got rid of the boxes, we’re doing the same things but we dont get those personal and important labels.
gender is a social construct. what it means to be a man is socially constructed. but that doesnt mean your identity as a man or a woman or genderqueer or agender or fluid isnt real, just that we understand and create meaning through society. not every trans person feels this way but for me, my manhood feels fundamental to me and innate. its very much there and binary and unchangeable. i like it. i had to fight to like it.
reconstructing gender doesnt mean getting rid of it won’t just create new problems. my dad likes to say “there are no solutions, just trade-offs”. and if we are reconstructing gender, i think we should expand categories and make them personalized rather than getting rid of a concept that is as helpful as it is harmful. what it means for me to be a man isnt the same as what it means to my other male friends and the same is true of any identities. a gender liberated society would let us exist with variation and fluidity and without forced conformity while still identifying with our gender. a gender abolitionist society would just create new categories and even if they succeeded, i dont think its possible to stop all people from having a gender identity. i think you’d either go the gc route and revert to sex as the only categories, or trans vs cis, but either way we are social creatures. categories, when loose and self defined and not rigid, can be good.
you need societal change and reconstruction. you need to liberate gender, because ultimately it is a neutral thing that can be constructed as good or bad, harmful or helpful.
that got WAAAAY longer than a mini rant but. im fired up
