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University of California, Riverside associate professor Brandon Robinson argued that a sexual identity label like “gay” or “lesbian” “harms trans people” and called for abolishing sexual identities altogether.
While promoting the book “Trans Pleasure: On Gender Liberation and Sexual Freedom,” Robinson, a member of the Gender & Sexuality Studies Department, spoke with UC Riverside about gender identities on Friday.
Robinson, who uses they/them pronouns, explained the importance of moving beyond “gender essentialism” from sexual identities, which the professor claims can be built around gender “stereotypes.”
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“If being ‘gay’ means being a man attracted to men, it assumes ‘man’ is a stable, inherent category, when history shows the definition of manhood is constantly changing,” Robinson said. “Gender essentialism also harms trans people, who often complicate those binary boundaries.”
Robinson included traditional labels like “gay” or “lesbian” as ones to abolish, wanting readers to question “why we privilege gender and genitals above all other attributes” in our desires.
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“I think the risk is worth it. While those communities are important, moving beyond those labels allows us to see people more accurately. It leads to a more complex — and more biologically accurate — understanding of ourselves as human beings. It allows us to explore our desires beyond labels that often confine and constrain us. And it allows us to explore our desires beyond shame that often comes with many labels as well,” Robinson said.
Fox News Digital reached out to UC Riverside for comment.
According to the University of California press, Robinson’s book was the byproduct of hundreds of Reddit conversations as well as 48 interviews with transgender women and “trans femmes” or “trans people who identify with a feminine gender expression.”
“I made a flyer, which went through UCR’s Institutional Review Board, offering trans women $100 for a one-hour interview. I posted the ad on Twitter and sent it to LGBTQ organizations,” Robinson said. “In less than 12 hours, I got over 100 responses. I think many trans women were enthusiastic about joining because they had never been asked about this part of their lives before.”
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From there, Robinson determined that sexual identity can indirectly reinforce gender as strict, biological categories.
“Identities limit us,” Robinson wrote. “And the fact that we keep creating new identities — such as gynosexual, finsexual, sapiosexual, asexual, or pansexual — shows how these categories fail to capture the full complexities of gender, sexuality, and desire.”
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Robinson’s interview came after the Supreme Court granted an emergency appeal last week to block a California law prohibiting schools from notifying parents if their child is changing their gender identity.