A World Without Gender?

While reading in the book The Feminist Utopia Project recently, I encountered these words in an interview with Melissa Harris-Perry in response to the question “Do you have any specific images or details for what would happen in your utopia and the ways in which it would be different from our world?” She responsed:

“Sometimes people offer the vision of a ‘post-racial’ world as one that is ideal. I think a world without race is not desirable. It does not sound like a utopia to me!”

Her words prompted me to clarify my own thinking in regard to gender. Many people in the transgender community, as well as some outside it, envision a world without gender. They see the difficulties and challenges that gender identity can pose. They consider the discrimination and exclusion, the abuse and violence that people face because their gender doesn’t align with the label assigned to them at birth. They recognize that being anything other than a cisgender male makes one “less-than” in any number of ways, often compounded upon one another. They believe, as a result, that the solution to the problem is to do away with the idea of gender altogether. Each person would then be free to be who he/she/they/zir/sie… is/are without concern for navigating the labels male and female.

I don’t agree. Much like Harris-Perry and race, I don’t think a world without gender is a utopia. I acknowledge immediately that I write from the perspective of a transgender woman who is 100% comfortable with both of those labels. In fact, I would be untrue to myself to consider or describe myself as anything but female. I like the differences between male and female. I don’t consider a world in which those differences disappear to be ideal. I definitely find I have much more in common with others who are female-identified than I do with those who are male-identified. My female friends and I are by no means monochrome, but we are all, in a fundamental way that is difficult to explain, female, and we know it.

This is not to say that I think gender must be limited to male and female. While I do not personally identify outside of that binary, I know many people who do. I don’t desire or intend to imply that they must force themselves to live within the binary. They should have full freedom to understand, interpret and express their gender in the manner that suits them. I only ask that in doing so they don’t erase the idea that many of us are male or female. If gender were to be erased, my very identity would be as well, which is no more just than for me or anyone to erase the identity of those who are not male or female. Our understanding of gender should include male, female and a spectrum of other possibilities.

As a female, and a transgender one at that, I am painfully aware of the power imbalance and host of injustices that women face relative to men. As someone who is not non-binary, I cannot personally relate to what that feels like for those who do not identify as either male or female, though I imagine it can be extremely painful. The solution isn’t to erase gender altogether. The solution is to create a society in which these power imbalances are eliminated and all people have full and equal access to opportunity and meaningful lives regardless of their gender. This is a huge order. It requires us to dismantle the patriarchal power structures that have dominated society since the beginning of time, those structures that favor cisgender men, particularly white ones. I think we are seeing hints of progress in this regard, despite the backlash which we are currently suffering. I will have the audacity to dream of, and work for, a world in which people do not face discrimination, violence, exclusion, and rejection based on their gender identity, nor on any other aspect of their identity – a society in which gender has not disappeared, but in which all genders are celebrated and welcome.