A California professor laid out an argument for tossing out sexual identifiers, as terms like gay and lesbian ‘harms trans people,’ they claimed.
Brandon Andrew Robinson, an associate professor at the University of California, spoke on the matter with the university while promoting their book, ‘Trans Pleasure: On Gender Liberation and Sexual Freedom.’
Robinson, who uses they/them pronouns, argued that ‘identities limit us’ and the ongoing creation of unlimited new identities demonstrates how such labels ‘fail to capture the full complexities of gender, sexualities and desire.’
They particularly noted hyper-specific identities, such as gynosexual, sapiosexual, asexual or pansexual.
‘It’s a several-fold argument,’ Robinson told UC Riverside. ‘First, I want people to question why we privilege gender and genitals above all other attributes – like height or race – when we conceptualize our sexual identity.’
They continued on to argue that the term ‘gay,’ referring to a man being attracted to a man, ‘assumes a man is a stable, inherent category.’
‘When history shows the definition of manhood is constantly changing,’ they said.
‘Gender essentialism [the belief that men and women possess inherent, fixed traits determined by biology that define their identity and gender roles] also harms trans people, who often complicate those binary boundaries.’
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