Article / Archive
A really really really important thing for cis people to understand is that the emphasis on sexual dimorphism, aka the “binary gender model” in humans is, quite literally, white supremacist propaganda.
See, as “social darwinism”, “phrenology”, and other “race sciences” were taking off in white academic circles, the academics there were increasingly obsessed with gender. Feminist movements at the time were challenging cis male authority and academic institutions that gatekept white women.
So cis white men in power began to converge on the idea that heightened sexual dimorphism in humans was a sign of “evolutionary progress” and “civilization”. They often pointed to Indigenous groups where misogyny was less institutionalized as examples of “less evolved humans”.
These cis white male academics argued that sexual dimorphism, and a clear and visible distinction between men and women, was a sign of advanced civilization, more evolutionarily advanced populations, and was morally correct It was deeply interrelated with Christian ideals of sex segregation, aka “separation of the roles of men and women”, aka misogyny.
As white cis women tried to advance their rights in the feminist movements, and as people of color the world over rebelled and resisted white supremacist hegemony and colonialism, cis white male academics panicked. They decided that the binary gender model was not just moral, but scientific.
Astute readers may note, at this point, that the binary gender model was also a direct propagandized response to feminist movements. Arguing that allegiance to the binary gender model is feminist, with this contextual knowledge, is immediately apparent as absurdity.
This is the legacy that haunts us through today. There are good reasons that anti-trans arguments come from white supremacists, Nazis, fascists, Christofascists, white nationalists, etc. It is because the binary gender model is white supremacist propaganda from their political forebears.
Science is not, and has never been, and will never be, objective. It is always influenced and affected by the biases we hold, individually and societally. When anti-trans agitators say “listen to science!” they literally mean “social darwinism”. Call it out.
The gender binary model is white supremacist propaganda and has been the whole time. Its ubiquity speaks not to its legitimacy but to our societal and institutional biases and particularly our racism.
In actuality, human sexual dimorphism is a bimodal distribution of many sex factors, which vary in value and combination by individual, and change throughout the lifespan. They can also be changed intentionally with medical intervention.
Trans people exist and can and do change our sexes.
Human sex is neither binary nor fixed.
Fuck white supremacy. Fuck the gender binary model. Fuck colonialism.
Learning the history of our societal constructs is critical to understanding the context of this moment, and #resisting fascism broadly.
Thank you for reading.
A really really really important thing for cis people to understand is that the emphasis on sexual dimorphism, aka the “binary gender model” in humans is, quite literally, white supremacist propaganda.
See, as “social darwinism”, “phrenology”, and other “race sciences” were taking off in white academic circles, the academics there were increasingly obsessed with gender. Feminist movements at the time were challenging cis male authority and academic institutions that gatekept white women.
So cis white men in power began to converge on the idea that heightened sexual dimorphism in humans was a sign of “evolutionary progress” and “civilization”. They often pointed to Indigenous groups where misogyny was less institutionalized as examples of “less evolved humans”.
These cis white male academics argued that sexual dimorphism, and a clear and visible distinction between men and women, was a sign of advanced civilization, more evolutionarily advanced populations, and was morally correct It was deeply interrelated with Christian ideals of sex segregation, aka “separation of the roles of men and women”, aka misogyny.
As white cis women tried to advance their rights in the feminist movements, and as people of color the world over rebelled and resisted white supremacist hegemony and colonialism, cis white male academics panicked. They decided that the binary gender model was not just moral, but scientific.
Astute readers may note, at this point, that the binary gender model was also a direct propagandized response to feminist movements. Arguing that allegiance to the binary gender model is feminist, with this contextual knowledge, is immediately apparent as absurdity.
This is the legacy that haunts us through today. There are good reasons that anti-trans arguments come from white supremacists, Nazis, fascists, Christofascists, white nationalists, etc. It is because the binary gender model is white supremacist propaganda from their political forebears.
Science is not, and has never been, and will never be, objective. It is always influenced and affected by the biases we hold, individually and societally. When anti-trans agitators say “listen to science!” they literally mean “social darwinism”. Call it out.
The gender binary model is white supremacist propaganda and has been the whole time. Its ubiquity speaks not to its legitimacy but to our societal and institutional biases and particularly our racism.
In actuality, human sexual dimorphism is a bimodal distribution of many sex factors, which vary in value and combination by individual, and change throughout the lifespan. They can also be changed intentionally with medical intervention.
Trans people exist and can and do change our sexes.
Human sex is neither binary nor fixed.
Fuck white supremacy. Fuck the gender binary model. Fuck colonialism.
Learning the history of our societal constructs is critical to understanding the context of this moment, and #resisting fascism broadly.
Thank you for reading.
