The inconvenient fact about nonbinary identity is that, like any other gender identity, it is ultimately a social construction. Valid or not, what we think we “are” on some essential, intrinsic level is just as amorphous and contingent as other gender experiences.

What I mean by this is that it’s not actually a bad thing to be self-reflective (or self-reflexive) when it comes to gender. Nothing “happens” once you “discover” some truth about who you are, if such a discovery is even possible. We’re no more or less valid than anyone else.

I think as nonbinary people we’re used to being constantly questioned and interrogated on our experiences, so it’s perfectly understandable that anything that feels like a challenge would be met with pushback. Still, there’s some utility in being critical about our identities.

It is a sort of basic truism of cissexism that there “is” some intrinsic, real, legitimate gender at the core of every person’s experience; what feminism does (and what transexuality does) is disrupt that notion of metaphysical essentialism.

My point is that you cannot (responsibly) reject the notion of fixed, essential binary gender identity on the one hand, and affirm the notion of a stable, intrinsic nonbinary gender identity on the other. Both identity projects work to naturalize a socially imposed class system.

The goal is not to make more genders — an identity for every difference. The goal is to end gender-based oppression.

(....through communism)