#2

Objectification here is correlated with the notion that one does not get to "consent to oneself." While gender without transition can exist through a basic act of recognition of that gender as a possibility or desire in the other, whether by the person themselves or, if in a social capacity, among others, the degree to which it has an effect and impact on the world is the degree to which it is allowed to be performed socially, the correspondence of this performance to that identity negotiated socially. In other words, the very assignment of gender, whether correspondent to someone's identity or otherwise, requires a negotiation. And yet, it cannot be seen as an entirely consensual process for two reasons: (1) the power of others in granting the social existence of a given identity is always greater than the power of oneself to do so--that is, the negotiating strategy of someone with a given sense of identity always must be on the defense rather than offense, which is why the creation and production of distinct communities from that of cissies has been so important for queers and trans people; (2) people are often assigned a label, role, given a demand or expectation, prior to their ability to even be reflectively conscious or able to manipulate language and sign systems, or understand the social world around them--that is, as children or infants.

In a sense, (2) is a social prescription of identity that can only later be refused at a stage when the person comes to understand what they have been made to be up to that point, for the impact on themselves--it is at this stage that engagement with gender can be seen as broadly consensual. (2) is a necessary operation, in any world in which the infant or child must have an entry-point into the social world at all. There is no form of entry into society that can be universal or universalistic, but rather every entry into society must adjust itself to the particularities of life and specific desires of the family and community into which the child is born. The point is, it is the desire of the other, the particularities of the form of life that others are bound by, that determines the social conditions which the impulses, reflexes, and strivings of the given organism must developmentally confront and wrestle with. In sum, it is objectification that makes the development of an intrapersonal "gender system," i.e. an internal gender(ed) narrative or mapping, possible.

Consequently, all gender(ed) narratives also already presuppose a fundamental concession to or for the other: that their desires come to matter to and shape my identity, even if in a negative capacity (even in those cases, there is an affirmation of the desire of some hypothetical other, a kind of wish for desire-otherwise). It is no wonder then that many feminists often place themselves at risk of falling into a trap when they criticize objectification, namely the trap of robbing women of their agency in regards to their identities, performances, preferences, at the same time that those identities and performances or preferences are reduced to accounts or effects of patriarchal objectification.

If objectification precedes or runs parallel to identity formation, then critique of objectification runs the risk of paternalistically objectifying those with certain identities in order to render their identities and performances semi-public projects. This is why characterizing certain identities or performances of those identities as "misogynistic," whether by ciswomen or, especially among transphobes, for transwomen, is simplistic and reductionist. While objectification in a society that is bad at consent is often going to have a strong adverse emotional charge or negative valence, "objectification" in its most positive iterations can be analyzed as a kind of social gift: a means of still having value to or for others independent of one's actions, presumed character, efforts, social status, productivity, etc. In other words, a technology by which it is still possible to be desired and wanted unconditionally. And it is unconditional precisely because it is a phenomena that happens independent of me, even when I am consenting to it. After all, my consent is not what makes someone else experience, in their own head, that side of me which may be an object for them, as this always exist; rather, my consent is what allows me to be socially useful by giving myself to them in some corresponding capacity.