this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2025
36 points (84.6% liked)

Communism

9958 readers
5 users here now

Discussion Community for fellow Marxist-Leninists and other Marxists.

Rules for /c/communism

Rules that visitors must follow to participate. May be used as reasons to report or ban.

  1. No non-marxists

This subreddit is here to facilitate discussion between marxists.

There are other communities aimed at helping along new communists. This community isn't here to convert naysayers to marxism.

If you are a member of the police, armed forces, or any other part of the repressive state apparatus of capitalist nations, you will be banned.

  1. No oppressive language

Do not attempt to justify your use of oppressive language.

Doing this will almost assuredly result in a ban. Accept the criticism in a principled manner, edit your post or comment accordingly, and move on, learning from your mistake.

We believe that speech, like everything else, has a class character, and that some speech can be oppressive. This is why speech that is patriarchal, white supremacist, cissupremacist, homophobic, ableist, or otherwise oppressive is banned.

TERF is not a slur.

  1. No low quality or off-topic posts

Posts that are low-effort or otherwise irrelevant will be removed.

This is not a place to engage in meta-drama or discuss random reactionaries on lemmy or anywhere else.

This includes memes and circlejerking.

This includes most images, such as random books or memorabilia you found.

We ask that amerikan posters refrain from posting about US bourgeois politics. The rest of the world really doesn’t care that much.

  1. No basic questions about marxism

Posts asking entry-level questions will be removed.

Questions like “What is Maoism?” or “Why do Stalinists believe what they do?” will be removed, as they are not the focus on this forum.

  1. No sectarianism

Marxists of all tendencies are welcome here.

Refrain from sectarianism, defined here as unprincipled criticism. Posts trash-talking a certain tendency or marxist figure will be removed. Circlejerking, throwing insults around, and other pettiness is unacceptable.

If criticisms must be made, make them in a principled manner, applying Marxist analysis.

The goal of this subreddit is the accretion of theory and knowledge and the promotion of quality discussion and criticism.

Check out ProleWiki for a communist wikipedia.

Communism study guide

bottombanner

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
muad_dibber@lemmygrad.ml
AnarchoBolshevik@lemmygrad.ml
36
Gender Abolitionism is Inherently Transphobic (en.prolewiki.org)
submitted 1 week ago by CriticalResist8@lemmygrad.ml to c/communism@lemmygrad.ml
28 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I am unfortunately not at a point yet where I can write my own additions to this piece but I wanted to start venturing into gender and gender roles because there are a lot of marxists who repeat, no doubt because it seems to make sense on the surface, that gender is a social construct or that it should be abolished. A lot of it is Butlerian in nature and I highly recommend Leslie Feinberg who was positioned against the butlerian view of gender.

The sense of self is completely omitted in the Butlerian view of gender (as a performance), in that as a (cis) man if I acted (performed) like a woman and put on women's clothes, then that theory states I would be a woman. But I would not feel like one, because I know I'm not a woman. And if I lived in a false reality that forced me act like a man all my life from childhood to the point that I also believed I was a man (say in the same way you can make someone believe the sky is red if you berate them enough), then what explains that trans people specifically are able to "break out" of this mold? A lot of common (in marxist circles) feminist theory is unfortunately completely dismissive of trans people, trans men especially - if gender is a construct to pit oppressors and oppressed then why would anyone "choose" to be part of the oppressed group? Everyone ought to perform as men if that were the case. As for gender abolitionism, the author makes the case in their essay :)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] CriticalResist8@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Thank you for posting! I also struggle to understand gender fully, and that essay (and talking to the author, since we are both on prolewiki) is further confounding it for me lol. That's why I didn't add too much in the text box. I'll check out the video from philosophy tube.

I think gender is a social construct in so much as it loses all meaning without a concept of social interaction, but just like money or class can have a huge impact on one’s life. It is also rooted in one’s core sense of self and not a choice.

I wanted to add something to that part you wrote but it left my mind as soon as it entered. That's why I have trouble wrapping my head around gender in details, any time my neurons fire off a valuable insight I lose it seconds later 😵‍💫

I think what I wanted to say was that if there is an innate sense of gender (in the self), then it cannot solely be a social construct and there is material reality to gender outside of what we make it conform to be, or something like that.

[–] SmallBear@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 1 week ago

So... speaking as someone who is trans myself, I think the part of this that makes it difficult to make that last assertaion is... how do we know that there is an innate sense of gender (in the self) that is separate from the social construction of gender? I have a very strong sense of what my gender is but... how do I know that didn't develop it at least partially from my interactions with the society I live in? I don't know where my "sense of gender" came from, and I don't know if it's innate or learned. Either way it's a very real experience.