live expansively in your own expressions of gender, sexuality, and womanhood - resist the efforts to colonise your own body

The workshop – The Housewife and the Heteropatriarchy – Far Right Visions of Control with The Body Politic on Thursday the 15th was a dive into the narratives of the far right and the foundations they build upon, and more importantly how to counter them using intersectional coalitions.

            The first part of the workshop detailed what the far right is, their tactics, and foundations. Of note, is that while we discuss and label them as ‘the far right’ it is increasingly clear that they are not far at all – they have become more and more mainstreamed and a more apt label may be ‘the extreme centre’. While the foundations of this politics may have been at the fringes at one point – it’s increasingly clear that they are at the fringes no longer – evidenced by the increasing rise of these politics throughout Europe and the United States.

            The foundations of the far right are that there is an imaginary ‘natural world order’ which is based in biological essentialism, and they weaponize this to push traditionalism and their agenda to suppress reproductive justice and LGBTQIA+ rights. This ‘natural world order’ and biological essentialism are rooted in imagined hierarchies of the past, which mythologize racial and heteronormative histories, rather than fact.

            In application, this looks like the insistence on the gender binary as ‘common sense biology’ and ‘that’s how it’s always been’. When in fact – the reality is quite different. Sex is biologically complex, not a binary – with over 40 different types of intersex combinations of chromosomes, hormones, and internal and external genitalia. This binary reduction of sex ignores the existence of intersex individuals completely. It also ignores the problem of how to define a “biological woman” – is it chromosomes, phenotype, the ability to bear children, hormones? All these factors can vary greatly or not apply at all to some cis women.

Not only do these imagined hierarchies of the past ignore scientific fact, but they also ignore real history. The far right’s call to a time when ‘men were men’ and ‘women were women’ ignores the fact that transgender, nonbinary, and gender fluid people have always existed throughout history and across cultures. Notable examples include the Two-Spirit people of indigenous North America,  Hijras in India, and multitudes of cases throughout history of individuals living their lives as a gender identity they were not assigned at birth - including Elagabalus, a Roman Emperor who preferred to be called Empress, and offered half the empire to the surgeon that would correct her genitalia.

It is important to note that the biological essentialism waged as a weapon by the far right against the LBTQIA+ community is also used to repress women’s rights. The diverse gender expression showcased by trans, nonbinary, and gender fluid individuals, threatens this biological essentialism, which they use as a justification for the repression of women’s rights through traditionalism. By restricting what it means to be a woman, it becomes a slippery slope until only one narrowly defined kind of woman is a “natural” and acceptable type of woman. This affects all women, cis and trans.

Intersectional coalitions are the clear counter to these threats from the far right. Whether it be racism, heteronormative patriarchy, transphobia, threats to reproductive freedom – it is the same struggle. I urge you to first and foremost resist the efforts to colonise your own body – live expansively in your own expressions of gender, sexuality, and womanhood. Get involved in your local community organisations including WRDA, HereNI, The Body Politic, The Rainbow Project, Reclaim the Agenda, and so many more. And continue to educate yourself, The Body Politic has excellent online resources available, get on mailing lists for local organisations like HereNI and join courses that are available to you. And importantly continue to show up for your neighbours in solidarity as we did this past weekend – standing against transphobia and racism in our community made a powerful statement, continue doing the work to support that statement.

By: Mary