Queer Normativity and the Politics of 'Gender'

The so-called ‘gender wars’ of contemporary Western feminism have divided feminists into two opposed camps: ‘TERFs’ and ‘trans rights activists’. I argue that this debate has had two interlinked effects on feminist theorising. First, this debate unfolding heavily on social media platforms tends to create confrontation and, by extension, entrench dichotomous thinking. At the same time, the space for poststructuralist accounts of gender is shrinking due to the increasing ontologisation of gender in queer discourse. Both of these trends, I contend, constitute a normalisation of queer theory, subsuming it within a politics of recognition and ontopolitics. I examine how these trends are contrary to broader feminist projects aiming to challenge dichotomous thinking, and to the poststructuralist/queer ethos of deconstructing gender epistemologies. Finally, I insist that poststructuralist, especially Foucauldian, feminism is still relevant and necessary for feminists to understand its own present.