A Marxist Theory of Gender in Trans NYC

• In Event: Anti-Capitalist Feminisms (Co-sponsored by Sociology of Sex and Gender Section)

Abstract

Proceeding from the theoretical insights laid out by Marx’s Capital and ethnographic research conducted in the transgender community of New York City in 2025, this paper argues that capitalist accumulation in the long term erodes the material basis of gender categories and thus generates the social ground on which transness proliferates. The paper suggests that a historical materialist analysis of gender can address the shortcomings of a Butlerian poststructuralist approach, which has become widespread in contemporary queer and trans studies. Butler’s work illuminates the social construction of gender and sex, but does not explain how such construction occurs historically or how it changes. The Marxist tradition, especially the work of Marxist feminists, has theorized how the social construction of gender categories is shaped by the form of production in a given context. Analysis of capitalist production, argues the Marxist feminist literature, is necessary to the analysis of women’s position in contemporary society. This work applies the same analysis to trans community. New York City, a long standing center of trans culture, is home to a growing population of young trans people living in “t4t” community in several enclaves throughout the city. Through ethnographic and interview research in this community, the paper develops a theory of how trans life has reached such prevalence and prominence in the twenty-first century metropolis. The theory hinges on the ever greater intensive and extensive mediation of human labor by technology that accompanies capitalist accumulation. This mountain of ‘dead labor’ reduces the impact of bodily particularity in labor processes, as well as allowing for a greater degree of manipulation of the body through technologies like hormone replacement therapy and sex reassignment surgery. Though this paper is staunchly feminist, trans inclusive, and anti-capitalist, it suggests that nuance is needed in theorizing the relationship between gender and capitalism.

Author

• Rose Porter, CUNY-Graduate Center