When activists don't represent - Christie Elan-Cane and 'Gender Identity' »

Branching off from the earlier discussion about how some people find ‘queer’ or ‘genderqueer’ offensive; some commentary on how activism that focuses on a single rigid narrative can erase the experiences and identities of those it claims to represent:

rhivolution:

nonbinary:

Christie Elan-Cane’s strong objections to ‘gender queer’

I mainly reblogged Christie Elan-Cane’s opinion to raise the point that some people do find the term offensive when it’s applied to them, and that it can be problematic to use reclaimed slur words for umbrella terms when some people object to being put under their umbrella.

[…]

And yes, I agree that Elan-Cane has a tendency to write in a single voice as if speaking for everyone outside the binary, and in doing so often erases people with different nonbinary experiences in just the same way as non-gendered people usually get erased in transgender writing.

I think activism work that sets out to be inclusive and representative of a plurality of voices and experiences, rather than a single activist’s opinions, tends to be more effective.

Somewhat OTly, I find the implication that people who identify as genderqueer should be classed, in Mx Elan-Cane’s terms, as ‘non-gendered’, to be highly incorrect—not offensive, but frustrating.

I have a gender. It’s a lot of different things at a lot of different times, but I definitely have one. There are people who don’t have a gender, who really are non-gendered, and that is cool, but I don’t think they or I would want ‘non-gendered’ to be the blanket term here either.

[FYI Elan-Cane’s title preference is ‘Pr’ and pronoun preference is ‘per’, both as in ‘person’]

Christie Elan-Cane’s misrepresentation of gender outside the binary goes further than that. Much of per activism, including press releases and letters sent to governmental, public and private organisations focuses on the term ‘gender identity’ and how (in per opinion) only people who identify as female or male have gender identities. Here’s a strongly worded example to that effect:

Fact!  The NON-GENDERED identity cannot be a ‘gender identity’.

Fact!  An identity that is neither male nor female is NOT a ‘gender identity’ in a societal structure comprised of two genders: male and female.

By definition, there is a contradiction. And furthermore, as a non-gendered human being, I object to the casual negation of the non-gendered identity through careless use of an indication reference marker that serves to exclude and ignore the socially invisible non-gendered members of the transpopulation.

[…]

It has been suggested on more than one occasion that non-gendered should learn to ‘embrace’ the term because the intention was that ‘gender identity’ should be inclusive to all transpeople. But the problem is that ‘gender identity’ cannot possibly include non-gendered.

Furthermore, how exactly is this (underlying) message of inclusivity to be conveyed to others, governments, corporations etc.? We, as a ‘category’, are presented within a bundling of ‘categories’ under an overarching ‘trans’ umbrella and collectively referenced under ‘gender identity’. Is it not fair to expect others to assume that all who are being referenced should possess a gendered identity? Where does this leave the non-gendered transperson? Nowhere – as ever!

Exclaiming ‘fact!’ in front of statements like “An identity that is neither male nor female is NOT a ‘gender identity’ in a societal structure comprised of two genders: male and female” doesn’t make them any less misrepresentative of the experiences and self identities of those who have gender identities other than ‘female’ or ‘male’.

There’s a big difference between arguing for recognition that not everyone has a gender identity and stating as a matter of absolute fact that everyone who is ‘neither male nor female’ cannot have a gender identity. I don’t have much of a strong feeling of any ‘gender identity’ myself, preferring to identify my gender with nebulous umbrella terms and the way I wish to be treated, that doesn’t mean I feel the need to deny other people theirs (or pretend that I don’t still have some form of ‘gender identification’).

And as such I find much of the tone and content of Pr Elan-Cane’s writing deeply problematic, ironically due to doing precisely what per argues ‘the establishment’ are doing to non-gendered people - forcing a rigid transgender narrative onto others who don’t feel it fits them.