Sharing an essay from user Nodrada on Medium that I thought was an insightful Marxist perspective on gender. I am very curious what my trans/nonbinary friends think about this. I'm cisgender and still learning about these issues.

The gist of the essay is that certain forms of radical feminism are flawed and even damaging. The first, obvious form is the trans-exclusionary radical feminism (TERF) whose flaws speak for itself. The second form is the "liberal" form, which takes gender as pure and absolute, an essence which merely needs expressing. What this second form leads to is hyper-personalized genders, in the last resort a unique gender for each individual, as each individual would have their own essence needing expressing. The author finds this to be an empty liberation, since the gender-sex contradiction is never resolved. (This has striking resemblance of Marx's critique of the anti-theists in the famous "opiate of the people" in the Critique of the Philosophy of Right.)

My take-away is that gender cannot simply be abolished outright as the TERFs would like, but neither is recognition of new identities in itself liberating. Of course recognition of new identities, e.g. pronouns, is a necessary step on the road toward actual liberation from gender, which has become an oppressive institution if it ever was anything but. "Being" trans is not an absolute condition, it is a mode of being in an absolute world which demands gender. (Sorry if this comes across as too edgy, happy to hear critique on that last thought.)

excerpt:

In both of these poles [individualists and TERFs], there is a certain identifiable episteme or common sense even in their direct contradictions. Both recognize the body as a primary site of dispute, of autonomy, and of liberation — whether in presentation, reproduction, labor, or sexual desire and pleasure. Both employ a certain authenticity rhetoric, with TERFs positing gender as an external institution as being inauthentic and gender individualists positing gender liberation as the realization of one’s internal, originary essence in an authentic gendered life.

In these stances, both tend to hold to a sex-gender distinction. On the one hand, we have the “objective” category of sex — objective in the sense of literally being present in the object of the body, and in the sense of the categories being assumed to be beyond social-historical influences. On the other hand, there is the “subjective” category of gender, which is understood as variable and a site of change, whether through historical social struggle or through a realization of one’s internal, subjective self-image of authenticity.

Both make a mechanical and dogmatic separation of the unmediated “objective” scientific categories, placed beyond the social in their formation even if recognized as the object of social dispute, and the “subjective” categories, which are rendered either static dichotomies or as pure determinations of the individual. Against this modern view, here we seek to advocate for a position which emphasizes not only the sociality and historicity of gender, but to reject the two-systems approach and emphasize that this extends not only to sex but to all categories. That is because all categories, every single one, are from the perspective of human beings, even as they organize real, concrete, objective things into systems of knowledge. There is no such thing as an unmediated, primary object for a living being.___

I had a literal shower thought today about how many games, whether sport or video game or board game or puzzle, are time-based, and I wondered if that has always been the case or if time-based games have proliferated under capitalism.

The reason I think about this is I enjoy doing the NYT crossword, but I don’t understand why there needs to be a prominent timer. Why does a puzzle need to be timed? It only adds stress to something meant to be fun, and makes leisure feel like work.

There are more connections as I think about it. Role-playing games are an obvious one. Players begin their journey as isolated individuals, true Robinsonades who must forge a life on their own, standing apart from the NPC society created by the developers. The NPCs and world resources serve only as a means for player advancement. And of course, online highscores bring efficiency to the fore. It is not sufficient to advance. You must advance faster than everyone else, or be left behind. RPGs frequently involve player-to-player market economies for another layer of competition.

Were games historically this focused on time, efficiency, and competition? If so, was it to a similar degree as today?

I am not a historian but I remember reading that the ancient Olympic Games, while still being competitive, were also religious and artistic in nature, not purely athletic. The competitive aspect was because of the rise of neighboring Greek city-states which had to compete for resources, and the Olympics served as a peaceful way to blow off resultant steam. So while this is a different kind of competition from capitalist competition in the market, it’s clear that political-economic situation impacts games and how people view their leisure.

I’ll do some research on it this weekend. It’s just been in the back of my head and thought I’d share.

I don't know all the politics around this decision, but I was happy to see this news. The Grand Canyon is one of my favorite places in the world. It is constantly eyed for resource extraction (e.g. uranium), and this places one more protective hurdle. Choosing to take this as a good thing, and not analyze it as a cynical political move.

Now to fully solidify my moment, here are some vacation photos.

This channel, Launchpad Astronomy, is great and first came to my attention for its coverage of the James Webb Space Telescope launch. IIRC, the speaker used to work on Hubble.

At 11:50 he covers the Final Parsec Problem, which I commented about in response to this post a few weeks ago.