Getting Free from Gender: The Case against Compulsory Sex-Marking

This article argues for the abolition of a core component of our hegemonic gender regime: compulsory sex-marking. Compulsory sex-marking refers to the social demand that individuals advertise, through conventional means, a binary sex status connected to a socially legible gender role. This linchpin of our hegemonic gender regime poses an unjustifiable threat to our autonomy. In what follows, I not only offer a novel account as to why we should embrace a critical component of gender abolition, but also argue that dismantling a core feature of our hegemonic gender regime is compatible with a trans-liberatory political project.