Letting go of the "no gender" utopia

Now that the U.S. government is threatening to define gender as only male or female, we need to fight more than ever for transgender rights. Certainly, it is an inevitable tragedy and only a nostalgic fool would want to prevent it from happening in the light of the fact that the flourishing of gay culture depends on the persistence of the oppression we have struggled so hard to eliminate.” By 2002 Bert Archer intoned that “sexual identity … is in the end, a house built on sand, the living in which makes us … more anxious, less happy people than we might be otherwise.” And Altman’s 2013 book The End of the Homosexual? For example, Stephen Wittle describes a transgender utopia where one can “become queer by refusing gender ascription;” activist Riki Ann Wilchins compares gender binary to a fascist dictatorship: “the purpose of a gender regime is to regulate these meanings and to punish those who transgress them;” and Kate Bornstein — perhaps the most ardent supporter of a “no gender” future — sees it within reach: “In this struggle for our freedom of expression there comes a point where the gender system reveals itself to be not only oppressive but silly.” What about sex? Literary critic Rita Felski characterizes Baudrillard’s objections as the whining of a frustrated male chauvinist: “In Baudrillard’s relentless heterosexual and sexist universe, this loss of desire is attributed to the disappearance of sexual difference.” But it is not only sexually frustrated, heterosexist, biological males who are deeply attached to gender. Califia has romanticized the gender binary in a way that some might see as more sexist than Baudrilliard: “when I crave a seamless male image, what I’m mostly longing for is a consistency and invisibility, the social convenience of passing without being questioned or challenged.” Though Califia acknowledges that men must learn how to “express their maleness in an honourable and respectful way,” he also describes what it feels like under the influence of male hormones: “I can absolutely understand why men can pay $40 for a blowjob on the way home from work, or get caught jacking off in public toilets.” Though gay and lesbian people often disagree about the nature or importance of “gay culture” they have historically categorized themselves according to their sexual attractions.