shanice mcbean: against gender essentialism

7/27/2019 Shanice McBean: Against Gender Essentialism

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A response to John Molyneux: Against Gender Essentialism

Shanice McBean, 6 October 2013

The riot of Stonewall in 1969 marks a decisive reference point for the history of LGBT

struggle. Pre-Stonewall there was a pervasive pressure for LGBT people to assimilate into

the gender and sexual norms enforced by the nuclear family. These conditions meant a lot of

LGBT people found themselves in heterosexual relationships that involved a feminine

woman being the subordinate to a masculine man.

The Stonewall riot and the Gay Liberation movement (GLM) that followed created the

conditions where rejecting the confines of assimilation became an act of political subversion.

The popularisation of the camp aesthetic alongside bawdy and extravagant aspects of the

GLM was a reaction to the repression concomitant to the previous period of enforced

heteronormativity.

It was during this context of a backlash against assimilation that the diversity of sexual and

gender identification became much more visible. The question of visibility is deeply

connected to the history of LGBT struggle precisely because a major aspect of LGBT

oppression is forcing the diversity of sexual and gender identities to become invisible. We

can see this still today, where even Conservatives publicly support same-sex relationship

equality so long as that very same-sex identity becomes invisible; by dissolving itself into the

heteronormative structure of the nuclear family through marriage.

The subsuming of LGBT identity to heteronormative structures (like the family) is a major

way LGBT oppression operates under capitalism which means visibility is central to LGBT

struggle under capitalism. This is why, despite the limitations, events like Pride are incredibly

important. Crucially, this means left wing theorists on gender and sexuality need to actively

refuse to contribute to the invisibility of LGBT identity.

What is the relevance of the question of visibility to John Molyneux’s ISJ piece? The

assumptions of his arguments inherently wipe out the very possibility of transgender

identity. Molyneux’s main arguments work on the assumption that gender is not a social

construct but is a biological reality that is influenced by society. Indeed he writes: "Race is

not a scientifically valid or useful biological category in the way that gender is. The notion of

distinct races really is a social/historical construction. The concept of distinct genders or

sexes is not." This is revealing. Firstly, it confirms that his assumption is that gender has a

strong biological element. Secondly, it shows he conflates gender with sex: ‘genders or

sexes’. The consequences of this are incredibly problematic: if gender is simply a matter of



biology then it follows people born with a male anatomy cannot then become women (and

vice versa for people born with female anatomies). This wipes out the theoretical possibility

and therefore denies the very existence of transgender people who, fundamentally, find they

have a mismatch between their anatomy and gender.

If, on the other hand, gender is not solely but is partly a matter of biology then it follows

transgender women/men can never truly be women/men because they will always be

lacking that other necessary constituent of gender: biology. The understanding of gender as

conceived in any correlative way to biology creates either the theoretical space for the

non-existence of transgender identity, or, allows the space for transgender identity to be

conceived of as less full or less real than cisgender identity. This line of thinking perpetuates

the invisibility of transgender people and, I believe, we ought to call this kind of crude

gender essentialism what it is: transphobic.

This seems quite contrary to common sense, though. It is universally acknowledged (at least

in the 21st Century West) that there is some biological basis for gender. How can we

reconcile the transphobic consequences of correlating gender with biology with the

seemingly scientific pressure to suggest some basis in biology for our understanding of

gender?

It is at this point we can go back to Molyneux’s quotation above: he says ‘gender or sexes’ as

if the two words designate the same thing and are therefore synonymous. It is here that

Molyneux’s ignorance on the issue is most glaring: there has, over many decades of thought

into the subject, emerged a sharp distinction between sex and gender. This distinction is

relevant in theoretical and philosophical discussion but is also becoming cemented in

scientific and sociological investigation - making the distinction not just a pretty abstract

theory but a facet of reality.

The distinction is understood as follows: sex is denoted by the words ‘male’ and ‘female’ and

designates biological categories. One’s sex is defined by hormones, genitalia, reproductive

capacities etc. Gender, contrastingly, is social: it designates the role one plays in society, one’s

aesthetic expression, one’s position in society relative to others, one’s social behaviour and

is denoted by words like ‘woman’ and ‘man’. Sex does not give rise to gender: the two are

ontologically autonomous.

It is this distinction that allows us to maintain the common sense assumption that there is

some biological element worth considering here and the reality that trans people are fully

the gender they identify with. By sex and gender being the subject of different spheres a

necessary connection between the two is severed. You can have the biology of a male but



fully be a woman (i.e. a transgender woman) or you can have the biology of a female and

similarly fully be a man.

It’s worth stating here that as Marxists we believe that theory should be based on reality; not

the other way around. It may seem to some that the gender/sex distinction was invented to

solve the political problem of making trans identity invisible. This would be mistaken. We

know that, objectively, transgender women/men are fully women/men. Some transgender

people aim to - and some do - cement themselves within the world as the gender they are

and then become understood by the world as being that gender. Therefore any theory that

leads to the conclusion that transgender identity cannot exist (i.e. by fixing gender statically

to biology) or cannot exist to the fullest extent of gender identity (i.e. by fixing gender to

biology in some way) must be wrong. The gender/sex distinction is, then, not an invention

but a discovery. There is something fundamentally different between biological anatomy(sex) and the socially constructed moulds we are forced to occupy (gender) and it is this

coming apart of the two that means transgender identity is as real and true and full as

cisgender identity.

Gender, then, becomes the oppressive moulds we are socialized into and who gets socialized

into what role is determined by sex markers that signify what sex one belongs to. In class

society this is most signified by the capacity for reproduction. What this distinction means is

there is no inevitable or necessary connection between sex and gender. This circumvents the

problem of making transgender people invisible but also circumvents the gender

essentialism that justifies a lot of women’s oppression. It does this whilst also explaining why

biology tends also to be a key consideration all the while remaining rooted as a description

of the way the world is.

The discussion, however, does not end at this distinction. There is clearly a distinction

between what we want to call sex (biological anatomy) and what we want to call gender (the

social moulds that capitalism enforces to oppress us for its own ends). But the next question

is a lot more radical; is the very categorisation of human beings by biological sex something

timeless and inherent to nature? This is to ask the question of whether the very

categorisation of people into biological sexes is itself a social construct.

Take for example categorisation based on race; before racism categorising people by their

skin colour was no more sensible than identifying and categorising people by the shape of

their ears. How much, then, is the demarcation between people who can reproduce and

those who cannot a product of oppression rather than a natural line of division? While it is

true that people with a womb can have children and people without cannot, this does not, as



Molyneux seems to argue, mean that sex is ‘natural’. It is also true that black people can have

brown skin and white people cannot – due to biology – but this does not mean the basis for

race is natural. This question is very complex and I haven’t got the space here to fully

explore it. The point is simply this: the notion that sex is categorisation superficially made in

order to create pseudo-scientific justifications of oppression is not one that can be refutedby stating the obvious fact that there is one group of people who can reproduce and another

who cannot.

Furthermore sex itself - and so the ability to reproduce - does not fit neatly into the

male/female dichotomy. Some women are infertile, some men have wombs, and some

people are biologically neither male nor female because they were born with an anatomy

somewhere in between (i.e. intersexuality).

This raises a whole lot of serious questions for us. If gender and the categorisation of sex

are both socially constructed then what is the explanation for the very strong pull in the

direction of seeing gender/sex as solely or mainly biological? What is the creative political

potential for subverting gender conventions under capitalism to undermine gendered

oppression and heteronormativity? Why, if gender is constructed socially, does there seem

to be behavioural continuities between women as a group and men as a group (a very good

resource on this would be Cordelia Fine’s book ‘Delusions of Gender’ where she

systematically refutes the notion that behavioural continuity between the sexes is because of

biology). There are many more questions that this topic raises than it answers and that’s

why we need to discuss it; not regurgitate rehearsed and unresearched dogma where the

sole purpose is to attack individuals, rather than genuinely and keenly seek a Marxist

understanding of gender, sex and sexuality.

shanice mcbean: against gender essentialism

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