Actually, now that you point it out, lumping gender and sexual minorities together is itself a recent Western development! It’s a manifestation of our resistance to cisheteronormative patriarchy within the West specifically, it made sense for us to do it so we could combine our struggles together, but applying it globally is probably going to produce lots of errors.
I will also add: there actually are cultural contexts in which “gender identity” is an act, meaning the gender role is, quite literally, the role that is currently being engendered, and not an intrinsic/total way of being,
Funnily enough, that vibes with how I experience gender. My gender is a performance I do for others so that I fit within the social role I desire. I just don’t see enough of a difference to say that being a woman is something I do, rather than someone I am. It’s both?
Exactly! Coalitional terminology can be very powerful in building cohesive movements and cross-boundary solidarity, but can serve as a bit of a double-edged sword and lead to a glossing over (or even erasure) of the rich cultural differentiation within (Julia Serrano talks a bit about this in Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive, and Viviane K. Namaste’s Invisible Lives: The Erasure of Transsexual and Transgendered People has some really great insights about this, and addresses–in a Canadian context–the way that the dominant trans discourse in Canada is english and thus Canadian legislative and organizational initiatives often reinforce an english framework of transgender that seeks to supplant french transsexualité)
Editing to add: if I’m remembering correctly, Leslie Feinberg’s Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue talks very specifically about the difficulties in forming those coalitional ties in American organizing between trans people and gay people, and the struggle to get gender minorities and sexual minorities to see their oppression and liberation as intrinsically linked.
My gender is a performance I do for others so that I fit within the social role I desire. I just don’t see enough of a difference to say that being a woman is something I do, rather than someone I am. It’s both?
If you’re interested in learning more about the performance and performstivity of gender identities, Judith Butler is a great starting point.
Ah, okay, that makes sense.
Actually, now that you point it out, lumping gender and sexual minorities together is itself a recent Western development! It’s a manifestation of our resistance to cisheteronormative patriarchy within the West specifically, it made sense for us to do it so we could combine our struggles together, but applying it globally is probably going to produce lots of errors.
Funnily enough, that vibes with how I experience gender. My gender is a performance I do for others so that I fit within the social role I desire. I just don’t see enough of a difference to say that being a woman is something I do, rather than someone I am. It’s both?
Exactly! Coalitional terminology can be very powerful in building cohesive movements and cross-boundary solidarity, but can serve as a bit of a double-edged sword and lead to a glossing over (or even erasure) of the rich cultural differentiation within (Julia Serrano talks a bit about this in Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive, and Viviane K. Namaste’s Invisible Lives: The Erasure of Transsexual and Transgendered People has some really great insights about this, and addresses–in a Canadian context–the way that the dominant trans discourse in Canada is english and thus Canadian legislative and organizational initiatives often reinforce an english framework of transgender that seeks to supplant french transsexualité)
Editing to add: if I’m remembering correctly, Leslie Feinberg’s Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue talks very specifically about the difficulties in forming those coalitional ties in American organizing between trans people and gay people, and the struggle to get gender minorities and sexual minorities to see their oppression and liberation as intrinsically linked.
If you’re interested in learning more about the performance and performstivity of gender identities, Judith Butler is a great starting point.