Gender Nihilism: An Anti-Manifesto - Alyson Escalante

If one is to free themselves from the violence of gender (such as misogyny and surgeries forced upon intesex bodies) they must destroy the apparatus of gender entirely.

Antihumanism is the rejection of the essential. This belief sees that there is nothing inherent to being a human.

The concept of "Man and Woman" dont exist as labels for essential categories of being rather they are discursive, social, and linguistic symbols which are evolve and change.

Their existence is contingent on power and subjugation.

Liberal Feminism

• when saying “I am a woman” they mean they are spiritually, ontologically, metaphysically, genetically, or any other modes of “essentially” a woman.
• there is an unawareness or dismissive attitude towards the relationship of power and gender.
• Views gender as a way of legitimizing themselves and performing it proves they can operate within it

Gender Nihilism:

• when saying “I am a woman” that means that they are located within a certain position in a matrix of power which constitutes them as such.

Gender nihilist Continued:

• they consider themselves gender abolitionist due to gender as a system being inherently violent
• appealing to power is a trap and one must refuse to legitimize themselves.

Antihumanism does not deny the lived experience of those who have a deep connection to gender, rather it acknowledges that such an experience of gender was always already determined through the terms of power.

The idea of “woman and man” do not exist within us as a stable truth, but references the discourses by which we are constituted.

"Gender is a frame, a subset of language, and set of symbols and signs, communicated between us, constructing us and being reconstructed by us constantly."

The apparatus of gender operates cyclically; through our behaviors and norms thus this realization allows for movement against the cycle.

Although, as time progresses normalization may occur so that, nefariously the counter gender action is then naturalized, accounted for, and subsides the resistance.

One may think that assuming a nonbinary identity would be praxis in the abolition of the binary, but that isn't the case. By taking on an identity that uses binary as a point of reference it reinforces and replicates the same issues.

The identity itself normalizes and neutralizes revolutionary friction while still not agitating the system.

Trans and Nonbinary people are not a fault for reinforcing gender and are often those who are most hurt by gender.

This is why subjectivity reliant on labeling is problematic. There's a greater pressure to perform the nuance of each part of your personhood that you forget that struggle of power you're fighting against.

It works as a domesticating agent

One might read this cry for the gender abolition as an attempt to recategorize people based on sex as a lesser form of violence. This is not true at all! Sex is just as discursive as gender and is the perpetrator of just as much violence against non-compliant bodies.

A return to a simpler and smaller understanding of gender will not help in achievingliberation. It is the very normative grouping of bodies in the first place which is to be pushed back against. Neither contraction nor expansion will fix the problem, only destruction of the apparatus

Complete negation is a terrifying concept. There is no "true self" to return to. What comes next is unknown but that calls for a new found eagerness and excitement.

The piece at time of publishing neglected a few key things such as:

• context
• an explicit address of race
• an articulation of gender as a colonial product
• a clarification as to the nature of the piece itself.

A further exploration on this is available in the text:

Beyond Negativity: What Comes After Gender Nihilism?