[AGTRT-BF11] Non-binary gender through the lens of Formal Gender Theory

Jan Bergstra & Laurens Buijs
Amsterdam Gender Theory Research Team

The most notable author on gender theory in recent years, as far as we can tell, is Robin Dembroff (self-proclaimed non-binary, Yale/Princeton).

In Why be nonbinar (2018), Dembroff describes the essence of being nonbinary. We explained in AGTRT-1 and in AGTRT-3 why we think neutral in the context of gender is a better term than non-binary, but because of the link to Dembroff’s paper, we still use the term non-binary here.

We want to characterize Dembroff’s view from the results of our recent research on formal gender theory. We mention a few points.

Read more about our work on formal gender theory:
Why gender science may pay more attention to formal gender

1. Dembroff argues that being nonbinary is an opt-in only, or in other words that you can belong to the nonbinary only on your own initiative. Therefore, according to Dembroff, non-binary is “radically anti-essentialist.” This is certainly correct, but we prefer to speak of “co-essentialism” (see AGTRT-M1 and AGTRT-M5), because the belief that a person’s own psyche alone determines that they would be non-binary is also a form of essentialism.
2. Dembroff leaves open whether man and woman are also opt-in only gender labels. If yes, Dembroff’s position is fully co-essentialist; if no, Dembroff’s position is partially co-essentialist, or selectively co-essentialist. In the latter case, in the absence of an opt-in to a gender, the gender assigned at birth is valid (i.e., gender assigned at birth is valid by default). We note that a compelling argument is made in Barnes (2022) that this attribution by default is necessary in some cases, particularly in the absence of a convincing opt-in.
3. Dembroff prefers to see the notion of gender become irrelevant: no secret about that. The choice to be non-binary is also a political choice against the dominance of gender as a concept imposed on people from outside. Dembroff is what we in AGTRT-7 called gender erosion indifferent , or indifferent to the fact that gender differences can erode and thus disappear. This makes Dembroff an advocate rather than an opponent of what we in AGTRT-M4 call “reckless transgendering”(capricious transgendering). We assume that Dembroff would find our notion of “responsible transgendering”(responsible trasgendering) nonsensical, or at least irrelevant, and and would find its use undesirable.
4. Dembroff sees only a minority of nonbinary individuals as sexually neutral from birth: those with an intersex condition. Most nonbinary individuals are therefore transgender in the sense that they have gone from male to neutral or from female to neutral (in AGTRT-1 terminology: male-to-neutral transgender and female-to-neutral transgender, or transneutral). Only a minority of these trans-neutral individuals see that transition as a solution to gender dysphoria; most, in opting in from non-binary, are making an essentially political move.
5. Dembroff sees little in the distinction between gender categorization and gender identity, which we derive from Barnes (2022) and see as fundamental. For Dembroff, gender identity (i.e., self-identification) determines gender categorization. That, according to Bogardus (2022), is an implausible construction. In AGTRT-1, we describe that Bogardus’ doubts, while obvious, are not necessarily decisive.
6. Dembroff leaves open whether there is also an opt-out of gender “man” without a simultaneous opt-in for either gender “female” or gender “neutral.” It is also unclear whether there is also an opt-out of gender “woman” without a simultaneous opt-in for either gender “man” or gender “neutral.” If such opt-outs without simultaneous opt-in are realistic, then this is where the gender bottom (or gender unknown, symbol ?) that we stage in AGTRT-1 arises, if not then there may be no such thing as a “loose” gender opt-out.