#echp

It is an uncomfortable one with many implications, that a specific group of people has tried to shut down. These people are often members of White, Anglospheric, or native English-speaking demographics, who may also be queer and from other marginalised intersections. They share an appeal to Anglospheric politics and an ignorance to how their institutions are non-generalisable to other cultures, languages and nations.

Many persons from the aforementioned subset often refuse to acknowledge how localised such gender maps are and reliant upon the collective subjective worldview. This is not without its reasons.

Worldview, which underpins perspective, knowledge models and “common sense”, is informed by culture, religion, local representations, and language models—which are all dependent on history and anthropology of that specific Petri dish.

Language significantly shapes how we understand and express gender. It impacts identity formation. It is derived from local cultures, which has predispositions towards certain archetypal notions. Its usage influences the relational map of human genders to grammatical gender classifications of other nouns. Therefore how we perceive such gendered categorisations of objects and people, constructing and reinforcing gender stereotypes. With the globally dominant language and culture being English and Anglospheric respectively, such has monopoly on queer theory, community and contributes heavily to the international consensus on queer politics and rights.

It should be therefore acknowledged that a delocalised entity is inherently non-binary to local gender maps. When a non-native English speaker, a migrant, or a non-Anglospheric local adopts the terms of an Anglospheric culture, many are making an agentic choice to identify with said term and draw relationships to its referent.

Secondly, that any who are imperfect fits to the divides between gender and sexual categories, who straddles or moves between these—co-opt terms and draws relations to its referents for their own basis of identity, both to enable communication and to conceptualise in accordance to a normative gender map. Such persons may consider themselves to be gender-diverse, fluid and intersex persons, who are often excluded from the discourse that centralises cisheteronormative assimilation.

Thirdly, that as with all use of language, terms offer a “best fit” graph of meaning based on plotted points. When used to describe identity, terms and their referents are not prescriptive, rather descriptive.

Such concerns throws some of the anti-choice beliefs into disarray and has implications on today’s queer discourse.

The reasons that most dominant societies use to “permit” queer persons our rights, is frequently on the basis that queer persons have no other choice but to *be* queer. Many have therefore adopted this rationale to demand basic human rights and liberation from systemic inequity.

The lack of choice in one’s intra- and inter-personal gender experiences are valid and certainly more applicable to some persons than others—but it comes with some nuances.

It is for this reason that the social sciences has focused heavily on the unavailability of free will behind gender and sexual orientation, to legitimise queer politics.

Free Will & Determinism

Queer politics has had to fight against the historical assumptions of queer persons as dysfunctional and/or criminals/intentional deviants, and the inhumane treatments borne from such ideas—such as conversion therapy, correctional 🍇 and other forms of abuse. Determinism, the lack of choice and autonomy in one’s being, has been most effective in this regard.

On the other hand, Free Will and autonomy in one’s identity has been weaponised heavily by anti-TLGB parties to delegitimise queerness, frame queer persons as cultural rebels and deviants, enemies to the status quo who do not deserve legitimisation from the State, nor validation from their communities.

Determinism has been used as an approach against Free Will morality and appeals to nature. Where choosing to be any other way than how nature (or God) intended is immoral, but as long as it is beyond your control, it is justifiable. The extension of this to all queer interactions between agents and their environment, has become the “middle-ground” liberal rationale, which while applicable to some persons, is also done to appeal to the State.

It is therefore especially challenging for queer persons to even begin to address autonomy in gender and sexuality, when doing so could cause them to become liabilities to current queer politics, their communities (which are already scarce) and be subject to endangerment and rejection from all sides.

It causes the splintering of the community into those who operating on choice, versus those who do not. More aptly; it splinters queers central to the Anglosphere and its politics, versus queers who are peripheral to it.

Radicalisation of Identity Politics

The radicalisation of identity politics—that is the legitimisation of such identities without appealing to the state—has always been a topic of intersectional identity politics.

Such has denounced the need for critical queer theory to conform and assimilate into the normative ideas of state-sanctioned personhood, but rather challenges what can be considered human on the basis of maximised autonomy.

Punks, Bulldaggers & Welfare Queens by Cathy J. Cohen (Cohen, 1997)

…rebuff what they deem the assimilationist practices and policies of more established lesbian and gay organizations. These organizers and activists reject cultural norms of acceptable sexual behavior and identification and instead embrace political strategies which promote self-definition and full expression.

While biological predispositions, and socialisation to a smaller extent, have significant roles to play in determining a person’s gender and sexual orientation, deterministic approaches can often deny the autonomy of individuals in favour of assimilation and subjugation to the system. It ignores gender as a performance, a journey with an active agent however shaped by things sometimes beyond their control, and a site of activism.

Hostile parties have consistently attempted to keep any “influence” of queerness from leaking into cisheteronormative curriculums, for the sake of restricting worldviews.

This in turn controls informed ideas of what is possible to be, what is central versus alien, and therefore what deserves the utmost privilege of inclusion and empathy—to the exclusion of the non-normative.

Censorship restricts a person’s autonomy by limiting the paths of self-actualisation availed to them, but more significantly, such ideas of what legitimises personhood, reifies the global white cisheteronormative patriarchal able-bodied classist hegemony.

When the focus is more so on how a person cannot “help” themselves to be, this invites the collective to “fix” an individual in accordance with the status quo—or else to accept the person on a basis of “grace” (typically awarded on the basis of what is most affordable and convenient).

Such has occurred throughout history with the use of psychiatric interventions, conversion camps, “correctional” 🍇, “correctional” bullying, “correctional” behavioural facilities—some of which are now deemed inhumane only on the basis of how much suffering it produces versus how inefficient it is. It however, still deems such methods possible and useful as long as it meets the cost-benefit criteria.

The pivot to the focus on autonomy of individuals challenges the conditional acceptance of queer persons on how conveniently and affordably they fit into the status quo. It strongarms such coercive interventions as violating an individual’s autonomy, their availability of choice and the role of the State and its supporters, in the removal of autonomy.

Assimilation is killing us. We are falling into a trap. Some of us adopt an apologetic stance, stating "that's just the way I am" (read: "I'd be straight if I could."). Others pattern their behavior in such a way as to mimic heterosexual society so as to minimize the glaring differences between us and them….The myth of assimilation must be shattered…Let's make families which promote sexual choices and liberation rather than sexual oppression. (Cohen, 1997)

Intersectional identity politics enables visibility of proximity to privilege across multiple dimensions, and dismantles monolithic ideas of power, status and privilege.

our multiple identities work to limit the entitlement and status some receive from obeying a heterosexual imperative. (Cohen, 1997)

It highlights the inclusion of those who do not necessarily benefit from their pre-existing proximity to state-sanctioned identities, and validates the choice-based membership of persons to their own gendered maps without appealing to the dominant rhetoric for acceptance. Such constitutes transformational politics.

By transformational, again, I mean a politics that does not search for opportunities to integrate into dominant institutions and normative social relationships, but instead pursues a political agenda that seeks to change values, definitions, and laws which make these institutions and relationships oppressive. (Cohen, 1997)

Conclusively

Identity politics has focused primarily on Anglospheric politics so much so it has failed to see how the Anglosphere’s rhetoric has pervaded and dominated international cultures. How international persons and other marginalised groups such as immigrants and ethnic minorities, have co-opted such terms to interact within the Anglosphere and the global sphere. How it has impacted identity politics to queer theory and politics. Prompting inquisitions into the autonomies of individuals in their gender identities that may otherwise remain invisible and overshadowed by the Anglosphere’s intra-discourse.

Deterministic approaches to identity politics excludes queer experiences that do not align with local language and cultural models, overlooks autonomy in identity politics, and reduces the effectiveness of transformational identity politics.

Erasure of diverse experiences, silencing and attacks against publicising these and the liberation of choice, should not be reasoned with appeal to the hegemony.

Genuine transformational politics should not depend on exclusionist rhetoric that establishes monolithic identities and a privileged class upon its proximity to normative identities.

Choice, the autonomy of people in their identification, should be central to discourse. If the cisheteronormative society weaponise against queer persons the liberty to choose one’s gender, then the solution isn’t to deny we have choice or autonomy, but to question why that, to them, is a harmful thing.

The fight has always been about autonomy in identity. Not the removal of autonomy.

REFS

There is no such thing as ‘women’s representation’: intersectionality and second-generation gender and politics scholarship. By Ashlee Christoffersen & Orly Siow. (Christoffersen et al, 2024)

“Black and other feminists of colour have long argued that the category of ‘women’ is not neutral; indeed, it is ‘always already raced as white’ (Lewis, 2017: 117).”

“As part of the process of racially minoritised women’s exclusion from the category ‘women’, white women parliamentarians (including those advocating for gender equality) have been shown to have actively constructed the category in their own image (Christoffersen, 2024a). Contemporary examples of this process also abound within the rhetoric of female right-wing populist anti-gender politicians in Europe (see, among others, Farris, 2017; Sager and Mulinari, 2018; Bader and Mottier, 2020). Thus, the category of ‘women’ fails to encompass all ‘women’, even when it is qualified with references to diversity: ‘once you understand that embedded in the idea of “woman” are the normative values of white, bourgeois cisheteronormativity, then the entire fiction of “woman” is exposed’ (Christoffersen and Emejulu, 2023: 635). Therefore, despite best intentions, the term remains problematic as a starting point for gender and politics scholarship.”

“For example, in the field of political representation, not only do both white and certain racially minoritised women benefit from white supremacy, but they have also actively sought to maintain racial privileges by policing the borders of ‘womanhood’ and upholding the distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ minority ethnic groups through processes of ‘post-racial gatekeeping’ (Saini et al, 2023). It is not therefore self-evident that ‘women’s’ or ‘diverse women’s’ inclusion should be the priority of efforts towards equitable representation. Gender as a social marker is always interlocking with others that change its qualities, meaning that neither ‘women’ nor ‘men’ are an inherently oppressed group. Gender is also not a binary category, as the burgeoning political scholarship on non-binary gender shows (see, for example, Solevid et al, 2021).”

Punks, Bulldaggers & Welfare Queens by Cathy J. Cohen (Cohen, 1997)

By transformational, again, I mean a politics that does not search for opportunities to integrate into dominant institutions and normative social relationships, but instead pursues a political agenda that seeks to change values, definitions, and laws which make these institutions and relationships oppressive.

Assimilation is killing us. We are falling into a trap. Some of us adopt an apologetic stance, stating "that's just the way I am" (read: "I'd be straight if I could."). Others pattern their behavior in such a way as to mimic heterosexual society so as to minimize the glaring differences between us and them….The myth of assimilation must be shattered…Let's make families which promote sexual choices and liberation rather than sexual oppression.

our multiple identities work to limit the entitlement and status some receive from obeying a heterosexual imperative.

Controlling and exploiting fem & BIPOC bodies. The commodification of femininity and its intersection with racism.

[post 1]

Lesbian separatism will never be able to itself be separated from transmisogyny/transphobia, classism, racism, a hatred of all gender non-conformity, biphobia and especially bimisogyny, sex negativity, and the overall anti-feminist want to control the bodies of other women and really, anyone they found "perverted" (which has been rightfully compared to religious fundamentalism ), and anyone who continues to spread these second-wave feminist views is endorsing them, directly. If they didn't or if they actually took the time to read where their ideas come from, then they wouldn't openly continue to promote them, so you can rest assured knowing anyone saying these things is either not educated about them, or they're an actual bigot.

I will also add to this for my own relevancy; the hyperfeminisation of some BIPOC bodies over others and how these are differently exploited under white cisheteropatriarchal capitalism compared to hypermasculinised BIPOC bodies.

The sexual slavery of especially S/EAsia, has depended on hyperfeminising and objectifying the people, as well as emasculating their masculine persons via sexually violent and fetishistic means. It is a form of dominance to humiliate and dehumanise masculinity and to force it into a disempowered patriarchally-defined femininity aka femininity as a class prone to dehumanisation and submission.

Bimisogynoir, the intersection of race, bisexuality and misogyny.

[post 2]

And before they can tack on "white" to the "cis" descriptor... More people of color, and indeed trans people of color, identify as some form of bisexual than white people.

There was also this blog post which brings up the fetishisation of bisexuality typically seen amongst white celebrities which are praised as queer icons, while when BIPOC celebrities do it they are typically seen as default hypersexualised therefore prone to criticism: post 3: White vs BIPOC Women Queerbait…

And from what I’m seeing, a Eurocolonial view of fems as being helpless and requiring a masculine savior when that isn’t the case for many (not all) BIPOC cultures.

And even in white-dominant spaces, especially Black and Brown fems are already hypermasculinised, yet still thrust under a hypersexual light. This distancing them from white femininity and white lesbianism, casting their romance and sexuality as impure and naturalised to exploitation.

Other posts:

[post 4]

Every time I see someone accuse bisexual women of centering men, it always seems to come from a place that I can only describe as being eerily reminiscent of the incel community. That's not a good look. Lesbian separatists should not be engaging in the same rhetoric that misogynistic cishet men do, especially not if they claim to be feminists of any kind.

A bisexual woman is not "centering men" just because she doesn't want to date you. That's "nice guy" talk. If you don't see how implying bisexual women are sluts who are obsessed with dick is identical to what any of these men say, you need to take a good look at yourself and analyze where you got this mentality from, and you need to unlearn this brand of misogyny you've internalized and are now using against other queer women in lateral aggression.

[post 5]

Cartesian Nature-Culture & Patriarchal Gender Roles

I also had a flashback to something I saw recently (I can’t find it but I do wish I saved it somewhere) that femininity in patriarchal societies is seen as nature, needing to be controlled by masculinity which is associated with culture.

Not talking bioessentialism, I’m talking patriarchal social conditioning which can impact and be internalised by anyone.

I believe this had something to do with Cartesian dualism, and the ways of knowing.

[Source]

Merchant traced the use of dichotomised gendering of metaphors which emerged with the scientific revolutions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the impact of Cartesian dualism: culture versus nature, mind versus body, reason versus emotion, objectivity versus subjectivity. She argued that science from the start was masculinised and nature feminised.

The response to the development of a patriarchal analysis has been twofold:

On the one hand, science and technology must become gender free. Therefore they must incorporate women’s knowing and being. This has been referred to as standpoint theory.

On the other hand, there has been a valorisation of the negative side of the dichotomy into a positive. Women’s knowledge and ways of knowing are to replace patriarchal science.

This also has application to critical race theory, where BIPOC cultures were feminised and seen as “nature”, requiring colonisation’s acculturation.

As well as critical gender and queer theory, where the psychopathology of queer people were seen as a disorder in “nature”, requiring psychiatric ordering and institutionalisation to be acculturated.

The flipside is also true, where BIPOC cultures and queer persons were seen as unnatural products of degenerate and inferior values, whereas Eurocolonial culture was seen as the civilised derivative of “true, upright nature”. Therefore that BIPOC and queer people had to return to “proper nature”, often in the forms of promoting slave labour and/or procreative child- and dyadic-centricity as corrective programs. (Dyadic centricity = Nuclear family model).

All of which are echoed also, in the control of fem bodies.

Nature-endorsement characterises many environmental or green movements, but it has also provided a foundation for anti-feminist, anti-gay and even fascist politics. Nature-scepticism is more common within sexual politics because it challenges the reactionary condemnation of feminists, gays and lesbians who promote behaviour perceived to be “unnatural”. [Source]

My addition to that:

Femininity under the patriarchy is seen as naturally perverted. Even when it is a symbol of purity, it is seen as corruptible potential where the fault lies in the fem’s self-discipline [where they must live up to masculine law], which is why even that in misogynistic and patriarchal societies, isn’t radical.

Masculinity under the patriarchy is both brutal and supposedly salvation. Also, salvation via brutality. Here we see things such as “means justifies the ends”, “violence for peace”. It is typically enforced via war, expansion, conquering, and in its most maladaptive forms—violence turned upon victims and vulnerable persons.

The cultural feminist analysis of the universality of patriarchy as male power and culture based on male sexuality, which is inherently violent and which operates to contain women through control of sexuality and reproduction. [Source]

To add to this however, anyone can be classed as any of these energies by society, and being placed in either with different intersections, opens a person up to different privileges and risks.

A person of a marginalised intersection especially BIPOC, is disadvantaged in both and experiences more risks than privileges. Which is why monosexist oppression and lateral contributions to oppressive structures by Lesbian & Gay monosexuals furthers biphobia on especially racialised basis.

Bringing it back to my main point, the urgency to control and possess fems bodies and femininity, comes from this.

The link between biphobia, racism and cisheteronormative patriarchy is the assumed/enforced dependency of femininity on masculinity for any sort of autonomy and sexual integrity rather than as a standalone entity capable of independence—

We derive a femininity as also being seen as exploitative, corruptible and insidious itself.

A patriarchal outlook loves femininity when it adheres to fawning and dependency, but will inevitably condemn it too, as weaponised incompetency, when they feel transactionality (especially via commodified gender roles) is not achieved, and not reciprocated.

In saviour mode, the patriarchal person overextends themselves to “save” femininity [seeing it as dependent, aka benevolent sexism], only to turn around and point fingers and persecute fems for not “giving back”. This is punishment against the feminine subject who has been projected upon, to coerce them into obeying the implicit contracts put in place to control and possess femininity.

Femmephobia & the Invisibility of Constructed Femininity

Bear with me, this section is a bit rough and theorised.

I’m gonna be abbreviating Eurocolonial cisheteropatriarchy as ECHP.

How does this link back to “passing privilege” and the invisibility of constructed femininity in Femmes:

Femininity is internalised as naturally perverted, especially when uncontrolled by patriarchal masculinity.

Class of disempowerment. Seen as non-autonomous and dependent.

As an exploitative group due to the cycle of Eurocolonial cisheteropatriarchy biting itself in the ass.

As nature/natural, lacking in cultural progress, order and control.

As labour and procreation; both of which have become commodified under capitalism.

It is viewed as a tool of the patriarchy and therefore indistinguishable from its agendas, invisible and non-autonomous when in comparison to stark (esp. Eurocolonial cisheteropatriarchal) masculinity.

The ECHP has colonised femininity, and in the process has associated its other marginalised groups either directly or indirectly with hyperfeminisation or else the demand for hyperfeminisation [contrasted hypermasculinisation but only in a condemning way].