Hi All
Yeah well I was trying to avoid the sort of flame wars around this issue. And
since LP has been "monitoring" me (really?) then I'll spell out my position
which is a work in progress.
What I objected to about the OP (and I don't know Charlies politics
particularly but recognise the name as a long term member) is the biological
essentialism that I am surprised any Marxist would agree to. Progressive
movements of all kinds generally begin with a critique of such positions which
say that their oppression is part of nature - whether thats racial groups, gays
and lesbians, women etc. If oppression of groups is natural then of course it
can't be changed. Its a key tenet of Marxist (and other feminisms) that
biological sex is one thing (ie a feature of the natural world long before
humans came along) and gender (the way humans live out their social roles in
relation to sex). Ditto for sexuality. Oppressed groups built their (usually
liberal) politics on the notion of choice and a rejection of dominant social
norms.
With the rise of neoliberalism and the decline of social movements we have seen
a retreat from these positions - with sex constantly confused with gender. With
gays and lesbians insisting they were "born that way" and postioning themselves
as 'non-threatening' ("we are family etc"). I would say this is a step backward
because naturalising positions like this will leave you prone to reaction. If a
gay or lesbian person wants to construct their identity that way - well thats's
up to them - but if asked I would explain why I did not think sexuality and
gender were natural at all. With most gay and lesbian people I know that would
not lead me to be accused of being "hostile" to gay liberation or wishing them
to be exterminated - it would lead to a difference of opinion about how best to
understand the sexual politics of the movement. It makes sense that gay and
lesbian people would seek to naturalise their choices - because after all if I
was just "born this way" then I am no threat to you (or your family etc as the
homophobes claim) but if there really was a 'gay gene' then that would not
prove it was natural in the sense of being normal - it would, in reactionary
times, be subject to attempts at removing it. It goes without saying (or it
should dio) that gay and lesbian people should be able to build sexual and
emotional relationship with whoever and however they wish.
Ditto for trans people who are the latest wave of oppressed groups to make
claims about their right to live as they choose. This too has a history - thats
what I took from the Platypus talk (that there is a long history to these
things that Marxists have been involved in) and the sorts of identity claims
being made are not avant garde but conservative. Not all trans-people
identified the way they do now (for eg the term 'transexual' having vanished
from the discourse). The dominant voice in this movement is not a rejection of
social norms claiming that people should live as whatever gender they wish (and
biology be damned) but that they are in fact the wrong sex ie they were
'assigned the "wrong" sex' and that is why they want to change their gender to
bring it in line with their biology. Given that this is how our society
generally thinks about sex and gender ie gender is just an expression of your
biological sex so the roles we live are natural (and so there's no oppression
of women confined to narrow roles, homosexuality is wrong because its not
'natural' etc). Some kinds of radical feminism (a tiny minority) have their own
issues with essentialism too and its these 2 groups that have been pitted
against each other. I think gender or race essentialism is wrong who ever says
it and will in most cases lead to reactionary politics and leads to all sorts
of contradictions - so liberals its seems now fully support the gender
essentialism of the dominant discourse around transgender - that one was 'born
in the wrong body or assigned the wrong gender' - but reject it completely when
it comes to the race essentialism of Rachel Dolezal (again we know that
'passing' in a racial context has its own history as well).
A lot of this is carried out online where inflated claims and rhetoric are the
order of the day. How this impacts or connects with the lives of ordinary trans
people or what they think about it is hard to gauge. But as we can see here
even on Marxmail questioning the essentialism with which people frame their
politics (or demanding a historical understanding) somehow makes you "hostile".
And of course the right wing has had a field day with this - rejecting
trans-rights and women's rights - on the basis of what the majority of people
would understand ie that sex and sexuality and natural and everyone has their
proper place in the natural order of things. Something Marxists would reject by
instinct I'd have thought - hence my reaction to the original post. I don't
doubt that most people - gay straight or trans - experience their sexuality and
gender as arising naturally (its is, as the saying goes, second nature) from
within the body but that doesn't mean its the best way to understand the
politics and history of liberation which is to recognise that essentialism has
a conservative history not a progressive one.
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