Nonbinary identity was born online and developed a new assertion: that individual gender identification alone constituted transition. By 2020, this doctrine of sheer identity had become hegemonic. This talk tracks the online ascent of the principle of sheer identity, as well as its inevitable disappointments IRL. These disappointments are inevitable since nonbinary identity was designed for the disembodied medium of the internet, not for a material world that only recognizes two genders. The key problem is that nonbinary identity politics never made a properly political effort to transform the two-gender system, nor did it acknowledge gender’s material anchors in sexed bodies, sexual attractions, and divisions of productive and reproductive labor. The doctrine of sheer identity prevents it from doing so, ensuring that nonbinary gender remains fundamentally apolitical and consigning ordinary nonbinary people to the lived experience of “cruel optimism.
River Ngu
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