Faggotization and The Extant Gender Ternary

On the Gender Subaltern Class, and the Three-Gender System that Defines Us

[Brief introductory author note: You're going to have to stick with me for a bit because this is extremely long winded and kind of convoluted, but only because I am trying to lay out in thorough manner the logical progression of these ideas. It may also likely abrade against many peoples sensibilities, including people I respect, but I gently request trying to read this essay in good faith, and while considering the context of it having been written by a racialized transgender lesbian.]

[Changelog 1/23/2025: Added supplementary voiceover audio for further accessibility in case original audio was mixed too poorly for legibility for some readers.]

I contend that the genders which exist are:

Power, Not-Power, and Faggot-Subaltern

Take a few things as presuppositions:

1. Gender, like all "identity categories" relevant to a materialist analysis, is a class structure. Or rather, the model of gender being used for this analysis views gender as a class, rather than a feeling, an essential spiritual characteristic, or any other idealist notion.

2. For a class structure to function, the contained classes must necessarily be legible to those overarching structures. By the very nature of being rooted in material reality, in material relations of labor and power, they are both physical and universally understood by Power, if not necessarily consciously by individuals. This is because Power cannot Subjugate, cannot generate an Underclass, that it does not read as legible. Therefore, we can assume that classes which are oppressed or exploited by other classes are implicitly and trivially legible to that power structure.

3. The way these classes are made real is not through individual choice or emotion or sentiment or ideology or even expression; they are imposed upon all individuals by the conglomeration of historical forces which move their given society.

4. Classes exist in antagonism against each other. When the contradictions which animate their antagonisms are resolved, the classes cease to exist.

5. Gender Subalterns exist, of which Transgender people are included within.

What can be understood from these givens?

Well, firstly, if we take 5 and 1 as both true, we must understand Gender Subaltern as a Gender Class. If 2 is also true, then we must understand that this Gender Class is implicitly and essentially legible to power. If 3 is true, then we understand transgender class and Gender Subaltern, which exist and are characterized as relation with power, as something beyond the essential character of a person but rather exists within the infrastructure of their society and their relationship with it, the way they interact with that social fabric. The old "I would be transgender on a desert island" assertion is proven untrue, but in a trivial sense: you cannot be raised by no one on a "desert island." To be a person means a person in a context and in a society. Even if you become isolated, you carry the indelible marks of that society upon you.

Moreover, to Be Transgender or Gender Subaltern is not something that one is. Rather it is something that someone has done to them.

If 4 is true, we must understand that the Gender Subaltern Class must exist in dialectical relation to the class of Legitimate or Successful Genders (i.e., those genders which are considered "legitimate" or "acknowledgeable" by gender hegemony).

Further, it is trivial to know that there exist Oppressed Genders (i.e. Gender Not-Powers) who are considered appropriate for subjugation, but which are not included within Subaltern Gender Class. We can liken this analogously to how there exist proletarians who are not Made Subaltern (the vast majority of proletarians in the imperial core, for example, and who are not included in the lumpenproletariat).

Finally, there must be a dominant class for this gender structure - the gender class which stands most to benefit from this class structure, which exists in direct contradiction with the other gender classes, and whose class interests are embedded in the material, physical infrastructures of gender class - the class whose interests denote the Class Character of the Gender Apparatus, the Dictatorship-Of-Gender-Power.

Going back to one of the previous points, we can dispel a very core myth which frequently proliferates in liberal feminist spaces, "trans-inclusive" or otherwise, which is that of: transgender identity being an aberration, a failure of the policing of the gender structure, a state of existence which is basically illegible to that society, which that society attempts to assimilate through violence, forcing transgender people to "return to cisgender-hood." I contend that in fact, this is not true - rather, a far more sinister and vicious infrastructure exists.

I contend that rather, Transgender-Identity-By-Way-Of-The-Subaltern-Gender-Class is not only legible to gender hegemony, but necessary and intrinsic to its structure. It is not that Patriarchy demands that transgender people stop existing. Rather the opposite, on some level: patriarchy manufactures subaltern status, and in fact, requires the existence of subaltern gender class in service of policing and maintaining the coherence of the entire gender hegemony, and especially, the coherence of the Legitimate Genders, I.E. Power and Not-Power.

It is not even that "despite this, Gender Hegemony punishes Gender Subaltern Status with violence and material subjugation." Rather, Gender Subaltern Status is the punishment - it is a punitive policing measure, which is held over the heads of all participants (willing or unwilling) of the Gender Hegemony, as a failure-state wherein subjects who Do Not Comply or who Cannot Comply with the bounds of the Legitimate Genders (again, Power and Not-Power) are sent upon said failure. Gender Subaltern Status must be punished and done-violence-to, as that is the nature of its existence, which is to be the gender-space wherein specific kinds of punitive violence are done. As such, even as Gender Subalterns are punished, so their existence is necessary to the preservation and continuation of the Gender Hegemony.

Further, the fact that these classes are mutable (much like how a proletarian, in extraordinary circumstances, can acquire capital and Become a capitalist, and, far more common, a Capitalist can lose their capital and become forcibly Proletarianized) is not a bug but a feature of this system. This reality is why Subaltern Gender exists, why it is necessary to keep a failure-state in place within the paradigm - because Subaltern Status is the gun barrel, is the Threat, is the Looming Blade.

It is in this way, that Not-Powers are enlisted in service of the gender system which maintains the integrity of Powers' stranglehold of the gender structure. All Gendered Peoples are subject to the same policing forces - wherein violation of compliance with the system is met with demanding violence, which forcibly moves any violating party into the category of Gender Subaltern.

This is, therefore, another central thesis to this analysis: that gender class-inclusion is provisional, with the failure-state of compliance always leading directly into becoming subaltern.

Because this inclusion is provisional, all people who are Not Currently Subaltern are motivated to viciously police the boundaries of the Subaltern realm, and are motivated to police each other, forcing non-compliant individuals into the Subaltern realm, out of a desire for self-preservation, lest they themselves become Subaltern by way of not policing sufficiently aggressively.

In brief(er), we can say:

Power (the gender) has a motivation to hold onto their power (basic class interest). This is therefore maintained by forcefully policing the bounds of Power and Not-Power. But, how can this be policed? The answer is that the failure state of Subaltern must be created, as a place where people who attempt to violate the bounds of gender-class are sent.

Not-Power (the gender) has a motivation to hold onto their place as subjugated Not-Power (even as it is an oppressed class, in contradiction with Power) because, without sufficient political consciousness, the nonverbal, tacit assertion, the assertion that every member of society knows in their gut, is: fail to comply with this, and you will be Made a Subaltern. You Will Become Faggotized.

So, Not-Power, in a desperate attempt to escape the process of Faggotization, of Forcibly Being Made Subaltern, also polices the bounds of Subaltern, and Not-Power, and, therefore, implicitly and trivially, the category of Power.

As Power dominates and subjugates Not-Power, as these classes exit in direct dialectical contradiction, those latent revolutionary energies in Not-Power are captured and redirected, and in fact, actively enlisted, in the policing of the category of Subaltern, by the gender-class Power. As such, Power and Not-Power unite in a provisionally shared class interest of maintaining the integrity of Faggot-Subaltern as the failure-state of gender.

Thus, we arrive at the below diagram:

NEXT:

What does this mean? Why use "Power, Not-Power, and Faggot-Subaltern?" How is this different from just saying "Cisgender Men enlist Cisgender Women in the policing of the category of "transgender?" Is that not essentially what this argument is?

I would argue: no, absolutely not.

Because Faggot-Subaltern includes more than simply "Transgender," because Not-Power includes less than "Cisgender" "Woman," and because Power is not analogous to "Cisgender" "Man."

The below section of this essay is less thoroughly articulated, specifically because I am, candidly, less well-read on the current literature about it than I might wish to be.

However, I will make an attempt to expound, haltingly as it may be.

First, we can assume that what I mean by "Faggot-Subaltern" most likely contains those who are commonly understood as being affected by this term. For example, "transgender woman" and "gay man."

However, this is not entirely true. For one, not all "gay men" are subalternized. Some gay men are willing, or merely able, to escape the Faggotizing-Subalternizing force of gender-policing, whereas some gay men are unable, for whatever reason, to access this provisional inclusion in one or the other of the Legitimate Genders.

Much in the way of "the purpose of a system is what it does," it would be best not to assess "who is a Faggot-Subaltern" from the perspective of "what do liberal identitarian discourses on Tumblr consider The Kind Of Person Who Is Allowed To 'Reclaim' This Slur," but rather, by asking a reactionary member of Power-Not-Power, "who do you consider to be a faggot?"

From this, we understand that there are not hard-and-fast rules based on currently extant gender categories (e.g., "cisgender gay men are faggots, transgender women are faggots, cisgender heterosexual men Aren't Faggots, etc.") Rather, in lockstep with the fact that gender inclusion is provisional, Faggot-Subalternhood is decided based on a combination of how much an individual is considered to violate the bounds of Power-Not-Power gender structure, and is determined contextually based on the particular power infrastructures a given individual is currently interacting with.

In extremely crude/rough/vague terms, some gay men are faggots, and some are not. I would assert that pretty much every gay man who Is a faggot knows he is a faggot, and would be able to tell you based on how he experiences his interactions with power infrastructure. Some "cisgender gay men" may be able to access provisional inclusion in Not-Power, or, in very few cases, may be able to maneuver into Power. Some lesbians are considered Faggot-Subaltern, and likewise, some are not, and are allowed to provisionally be included in Not-Power.

Likewise, some "heterosexual, cisgender" people are forcibly Faggotized. A few that come to mind (with my rudimentary analysis of this, candidly) might include

1. Sex workers

2. Poor, racialized sex workers in particular

3. "Cisgender, heterosexual" "men" who are considered Sufficiently Gender Deviant to become forcibly Faggotized (these do exist!)

With regards to who is allowed into the class of Not-Power, we might be tempted to shorthand it as "cisgender women"; however, given the above analysis, we understand that this must be troubled, and that Not-Power may not include some people who would be considered "cisgender women" by way of being Faggotized. Likewise, some people might be included into Not-Power who might not be included in Faggot-Subaltern.

If we are to define these categories, we may somewhat tautologically use the names we have been using:

Power (gender) includes those who are most (provisionally) granted Power by Gender Hegemony.

Not-Power (gender) includes those are not granted Power, except provisionally, over specifically the Faggot-Subalterns, and on some level, against each other.

Finally, Faggot-Subaltern is The Subaltern, the gender-class who has no direct hierarchical power over another gender-class.

(As an aside, it should be noted that many "cisgender-heterosexual" racialized women might be included in Subalternized Gender, whereas many women who might otherwise be included in Subalternized Gender are allowed provisional access to Not-Power by way of being not racialized, i.e. White. However, as materialists and Marxist-Leninists, we understand that these qualities are not intrinsic to some essential, idealist nature of these identities, nor are they qualities of moral character, but rather consequences of material relations with power.)

Conclusions:

Let us collate our findings from the above argumentations:

1. There exists a conceivably legible (and, perhaps, more legible, from a materialist frame, perhaps even necessary) Gender System which exists as a ternary.

2. In this system, we have the genders Power, Not-Power, and Faggot-Subaltern.

3. These classes are policed in a cascading manner, with Not-Power being notably enlisted in the policing of Faggot-Subaltern, in service of clinging to their tenuous and provisional exclusion from Faggot-Subaltern.

4. Faggot-Subaltern is the end fail-state of Gender Power.

5. Not every Faggot-Subaltern is who might be assumed to be one under liberal gender paradigms, and that this warrants further assessment and investigation.

6. These classes are mutable, permeable, and in fact, must be so.

7. It is not true that Transgender Identity is an anomaly to Patriarchy, which Patriarchy is struggling to assimilate. Rather, Subaltern Gender is intrinsic and necessary to the maintenance of the Gender Hegemony.

Under this new paradigm, new analyses are capable of being made; new theorizing and new revolutionary tactics for the dissolution of Gender are possible. However, I hope I can make it clear that I do not consider the above a stable, resolved Truth, but rather, an underway-investigation, which requires the continued interrogation of its assumptions and the further crystallization of its core ideas.

What I hope to accomplish here, by putting forth this brief and rudimentary hypothesis, is to help kickstart the conversation that is already simmering under the surface, in particular, among many Marxist-Leninist trans materialist-feminists.

Finally, I want to reiterate, succinctly and clearly: when Marxist-Leninist analysis, and dialectical materialist analysis, are applied to feminism, feminism has the capacity to become an investigative science, which can adapt and evolve and self-correct, so long as we do not beholden ourselves to liberal idealisms, to a deadly stasis, a lack of movement and interrogation.

We still need Feminism. Liberal feminism is a false consciousness and has already been nearly wholly-integrated into the analyses of Gender Hegemony, of Gender-In-Service-Of-Imperial-Capital. I don't mean to assert that I have access to the ultimate, final truth of Feminism. Not even do I assert that I know that the above assertions are definitively true. This would be wildly irresponsible. As Marxist-Leninists, we understand that truth is provisional, iterative, and based on investigation and material implementation and practice.

We cannot know if the above is true until we prove it to be true. However, I want to put forth: perhaps this framework, or if not this specific one, this kind of framework, would be valuable to continue investigating.

A classless world, without economic, gender, racial classes, or any political classes at all, is possible. This is both the dream and promise of Marxism-Leninism. We can build this world! Onward!