Leave those kids alone: On the uses and abuses and feminist queer potential of non-binary and genderqueer

Abstract

The argument of this paper is that, despite their limits, gender ‘proliferations’ like nonbinary and genderqueer are the most effective and pragmatic approaches to overcoming or dismantling the gender binary whilst also expanding the range of ‘cultural resources’ of gender in the meantime. We make this case with the political and ethical caveat, however, that it would be politically ideal for these invocations of proliferation to be complemented by ongoing attempts to challenge sex/gender itself. We first outline the many ways that non-binary and genderqueer identities are invoked by numerous commentators as either symbols of progress, or weaponised for antithetical political purposes by a coalition of forces hostile to their proliferation. We then outline a defence of these identities as ontologically, pragmatically and socially justified, with feminist and queer political potential. We will make an argument as to why the invocation of non-binary and genderqueer as identity or subject positions is both understandable, due to the cultural constraints of the compulsarity of gender identity in society, and a potentially politically effective strategy. We then go on to engage, generously, with some potential limitations around non-binary and genderqueer and their potential collapse in to normativity, and consider how these may be addressed or mitigated against by a queer ethics. In short, we argue that non-binary and genderqueer can be understood as ways to make space in a structure that is not likely to crumble any time soon.

Remembering Simone de Beauvoir’s ‘ethics of ambiguity’ to challenge contemporary divides: feminism beyond both sex and gender

“…In this reverse case, the GIF aim of honouring autonomy in a context that has been so rigidly cisgendered risks reifying gender. This is understandable in a context where doing away with either is completely culturally unintelligible (Nicholas and Clark, 2020), but is challenged by Beauvoir's picture of the ambiguous situation that constitutes humyn ontology and freedom.…”

“…Stavro (2007) uses Beauvoir to argue that we do not need to wholly embrace identity politics to use identity. Collectively creating new situations of freedom may entail what I have called elsewhere fostering new cultural resources through which to place oneself and read one another (Nicholas and Clark, 2020). This means that the availability of new identities such as non-binary may well represent progress towards new 'cultural resources' for the self and other that allow for some relief from the immanence of binary gender.…”

“…But, heeding Beauvoir, I also caution that these are not inherently enabling. It is how they are used that is important (Nicholas, 2014;Nicholas and Clark, 2020). Indeed, a key tenet for Beauvoir's discussions of strategy and realism is that 'We have to respect freedom only when it is intended for freedom' (Beauvoir, 1976: 90).…”