Binary Gender Isn’t ‘Natural’, But We’re Conditioned to Believe It Is

Toward a new epistemology that recognizes sex and gender diversity

In 2019, the Spanish philosopher Paul B. Preciado prepared a talk for l’École de la Cause Freudienne, a French member organization of the World Association of Psychoanalysis. At the event, standing before 3,500 psychoanalysts, he asked if anyone else was gay, trans, or nonbinary, and no one raised their hands. The audience laughed and booed, and he was only able to deliver a fraction of his talk. He subsequently published his intended remarks as a small book, first in French, and then in Spanish in 2020. It’s called Yo soy el monstruo que os habla: Informe para una academia de psicoanalistas.

Here’s his argument.

Yo Soy El Monstruo Que Os Habla

Preciado considers himself to be reporting from his own perspective as a trans man [“hombre trans”] He begins by saying that masculinity and femininity are not natural but naturalized [“su vida natural — o mejor sería decir naturalizada”]. That is, they are constructed. Thus, people’s personal beliefs, not objective realities, cause them to consider themselves “natural men” or “natural women,” and we need not take the idea of natural gender for granted [“quizás ustedes se piensen…