Commodified, Then Cast Aside: The Betrayal of Trans Liberation

Monique Wittig, the Totalitarian Category of Sex, and the Fight Beyond Inclusion

Mainstream LGB groups used trans and queer activism to gain assimilation, then abandoned us. Monique Wittig’s The Category of Sex reveals why this betrayal was inevitable—and why abolition, not inclusion, is our path to liberation.

Introduction

Across the United States, a wave of anti-trans legislation continues to sweep through statehouses, attacking everything from access to gender-affirming healthcare to basic legal recognition. In this hostile climate, one might expect a unified front of resistance from those who have long claimed the mantle of LGBTQIA+ advocacy. Instead, what we are witnessing is the quiet, calculated abandonment of the trans and queer community by many mainstream Lesbian and Gay organisations. In a February 2025 report by PinkNews, trans and queer activists sharply criticised groups such as the Human Rights Campaign and regional LGB alliances for their complicity in this betrayal. “We mobilised for marriage equality because we believed in collective liberation,” said Kai Washington, a trans rights organiser. “Now, when our healthcare is under threat, the silence from LGB leadership is deafening.” Others, like queer activist Marisol Rivera, were even more direct: “These groups were happy to have trans people on the frontlines for visibility, but their agenda has always been about fitting into heteronormative systems, not dismantling them for all of us.” These sentiments were echoed in a joint statement from Trans United Front, which stated, “Mainstream LGB movements have commodified trans struggle and discarded solidarity when it no longer served their policy goals.”

This abandonment is not a matter of strategic miscalculation or internal discord—it is the inevitable outcome of a movement that long ago chose assimilation over liberation. To understand how this betrayal came to be, and why it cuts so deeply, we must revisit the analysis of Monique Wittig, whose essay The Category of Sex remains a crucial lens through which to view the present moment. For Wittig, the category of sex is not a neutral descriptor, but a political and social imposition—a totalitarian system that constructs and enforces the identities of “woman” and “man” in service of heterosexual power. It is a system that reduces people to bodies for exploitation, visibility for consumption, and roles for control. Within this framework, the existence of trans and queer people, who live beyond or against the strictures of sex as a social category, represents a threat—not only to heteropatriarchy, but to any movement invested in maintaining access to it.

Mainstream LGB organisations never intended to dismantle this system. Rather, they relied on the radical energy and visibility of trans and queer activism to shift the Overton Window far enough to make their own demands—marriage, military service, adoption rights—appear palatable to the heteronormative mainstream. We were the vanguard, the necessary radical other that made their assimilation possible. And now that they have secured their place within the structures of power, they have cast us aside to protect those gains. Wittig’s critique not only explains this betrayal—it shows why it was inevitable, and why the abolition of sex as a category is not merely a theoretical proposition, but a political necessity.

Historical Context: Trans and Queer Labour for LGB Gains

The history of queer resistance in the United States is often rewritten to centre cisgender gay and lesbian figures, neatly sidestepping the radical, transgressive, and gender-defiant individuals who first stood against the machinery of state violence and social control. Yet it was precisely these trans and queer people—those deemed too deviant, too visible, too much—who ignited the fires of rebellion. The uprisings at Stonewall in 1969 and the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot in 1966 were not polite petitions for inclusion, but acts of collective defiance, led by trans women, drag queens, street-based sex workers, and gender nonconforming people of colour. These moments were not about assimilation; they were rejections of a system that sought to erase or incarcerate them. Their labour—physical, emotional, and strategic—pushed the boundaries of what was politically imaginable and socially acceptable.

As the so-called gay rights movement emerged from these foundations, a profound shift occurred. The radical energy of trans and queer activism, so essential in those early days, was gradually harnessed to serve the more modest and “respectable” goals of mainstream Lesbian and Gay organisations. These groups increasingly distanced themselves from the radical flank, adopting a strategy of respectability politics that sought to portray gay and lesbian individuals as just like everyone else—monogamous, patriotic, professional, and law-abiding—except for whom they loved. Marriage equality and military inclusion became the focal points of advocacy, not because they served the most marginalised, but because they offered a pathway to assimilation into existing structures of power. Crucially, these demands only became palatable in the public eye because trans and queer activists had first expanded the realm of political discourse. By pushing the boundaries, we made the centre hold.

This shift is best understood through the lens of the Overton Window—the idea that political possibilities are constrained by what is seen as acceptable or mainstream at any given time. Trans and queer activists, through our resistance, visibility, and refusal to conform, stretched the Overton Window to the left, creating space for less radical demands to be framed as reasonable, even moderate. In this sense, our activism was politically useful to mainstream LGB movements, who leveraged our labour and our bodies as instruments for their own advancement. Once they had achieved their goals—goals that entrenched their position within the very systems we sought to dismantle—we were no longer useful. Their advocacy was never about collective liberation; it was about selective inclusion. And so the historical pattern of exploitation and abandonment repeated itself: the radical edge was dulled, the inconvenient voices silenced, and the struggle for trans and queer liberation left to continue alone.

The Betrayal: Assimilation Achieved, Solidarity Abandoned

In the aftermath of marriage equality’s legal victory in the United States, the landscape of LGBTQIA+ advocacy began to shift in ways that revealed the underlying fault lines between assimilationist goals and liberationist struggle. With the attainment of marriage rights and increased access to military service—goals championed by mainstream Lesbian and Gay organisations—the funding, media attention, and legal resources that had once supported broader queer and trans causes were quietly reallocated. Trans rights, once touted as part of an inclusive vision of equality, were now treated as politically inconvenient, too divisive, or too costly to defend in a climate of mounting right-wing backlash. The movement, such as it was, declared victory and moved on—leaving behind the very people whose visible, often dangerous, advocacy had made those victories possible.

The betrayal was swift and systematic. As we’ve seen, LGB organisations began to downsize or altogether dissolve their trans-specific programmes, citing budget constraints or strategic realignment. When anti-trans legislation targeting healthcare, sports participation, and even the right to exist in public spaces surged, many of these same organisations remained silent or offered only tepid statements of concern—carefully worded to avoid alienating donors or political allies. Prominent LGB figures, whose careers had been built on the rhetoric of inclusion, began to distance themselves from trans issues, with some going as far as to embrace “gender critical” narratives under the guise of free speech or “reasonable debate.” What emerged was not the broad coalition of resistance that had been promised, but a retreat into the narrowest definition of rights—a retreat that prioritised defending gains rather than extending solidarity.

This abandonment was not a failure of solidarity, nor a moment of hesitation in the face of escalating oppression—it was, in truth, planned obsolescence. From the outset, trans and queer people were treated not as partners in a shared struggle, but as pawns in a calculated effort to reposition LGB identities within the bounds of mainstream acceptability. Our labour was instrumental, our bodies strategically visible, and our resistance deliberately provocative—all to make the demands of assimilationist politics appear moderate by comparison. Once marriage certificates were signed and military commissions granted, our continued presence was no longer desirable. We were too disruptive, too radical, too resistant to the system they now sought to join. The betrayal was not just personal—it was structural, inevitable within a political framework that never had liberation as its goal.

Wittig’s Critique: The Category of Sex as a Totalitarian System

Monique Wittig’s The Category of Sex offers a searing indictment of one of the most foundational pillars of social control: the idea of sex as a natural, immutable fact. For Wittig, sex is not a biological reality but a political category—one that functions as a totalitarian system, assigning roles, rights, and value based on rigid, state-enforced classifications. To be designated “woman” within this regime is not simply to be named, but to be reduced, to be made visible as a sexual object whilst rendered invisible as a social being. Wittig describes this as a kind of social slavery: “for the category of sex is the category that ordains slavery for women.” It operates not merely through language and custom, but through violence, surveillance, and the constant reaffirmation of boundaries—what she calls inquisitions, courts, tortures, and executions—all designed to enforce sex-based hierarchy.

Central to this regime is the declaration of sex, a process of social policing that requires every individual to pass through a binary gate, to be assigned and remain fixed within “man” or “woman.” Wittig draws a powerful comparison to the historical enforcement of racial categories under slavery, noting how enslaved people were compelled to declare their “colour,” a category no longer permissible under civil law. Yet sex remains a legally mandated declaration, a mechanism of control that persists unchallenged. This compulsory classification maintains a system in which women—and by extension, all gendered people—are trapped within a reductive identity, one that obliterates personhood in favour of sexual availability, reproductive labour, and compliance. Wittig argues that to exist and to think freely, one must first destroy the category of sex, for it is this category that prevents genuine human subjectivity.

For trans people, Wittig’s critique is not merely academic—it is lived reality. Our existence is fundamentally at odds with the totalitarian logic of sex. We do not fit within its binary, nor do we accept its terms. To live as trans is to reject the declaration imposed upon us at birth, to assert agency over the self in defiance of a system that denies that agency outright. This is why the backlash is so ferocious, and why the violence is so intense: trans existence exposes the fragility of the sex regime. It reveals that the categories of “man” and “woman” are not fixed, not natural, but enforced. Our very being calls into question the legitimacy of a system that relies on absolute compliance. In response, the system doubles down, using legislation, media narratives, and state violence to reassert control.

Mainstream Lesbian and Gay assimilation depends upon the preservation of the sex category. It relies on the recognition of cisgender identities as valid within the existing framework—“respectable women” and “respectable men” who happen to love the same sex. This framework cannot accommodate trans people without unravelling. Our liberation demands the abolition of the category itself. To include us would require confronting the very foundation upon which assimilationist gains were built. And so, rather than stand in solidarity, the LGB mainstream affirms the category of sex, knowing that in doing so, they are affirming their place within the social order—even if it means our exclusion, our erasure, and our continued persecution. Wittig understood that sex, as a category, was never neutral. It is a weapon. And today, that weapon is being wielded against us with impunity. To survive, we must do more than resist—we must dismantle the system that made our erasure possible.

The Political Utility of Wittig’s Thought Today

Wittig’s The Category of Sex is not merely a philosophical text—it is a vital political tool for our moment, a scalpel to dissect the root of the violence trans and queer people face today. As anti-trans legislation sweeps the United States and beyond, we are told that these laws are about “protecting children,” “safeguarding women’s spaces,” or “preserving fairness.” Again, Wittig strips away this veneer, exposing the true engine beneath these moral panics: control, not concern. These laws are not about safety; they are about reasserting a rigid social order—one that relies on sex as a totalitarian category to maintain hierarchy, compliance, and power. The eruption of legislation demanding legal declarations of “biological sex,” banning gender-affirming care, and policing trans existence in public spaces is a desperate attempt to reinforce the crumbling edifice of sex as immutable.

Wittig’s work challenges the very foundation of this regime—the assumption that “sex” is a natural, biological fact. Instead, she shows that sex is constructed, a sociopolitical imposition that orders society into dominant and subordinate classes. By rejecting this foundation, trans liberation becomes not merely a fight for inclusion or recognition, but an abolitionist struggle—one that seeks to dismantle the categories themselves, rather than assimilate into them. The current regime, which positions itself as the defender of “truth” and “nature,” is in fact a defender of authority—specifically, the authority to define, assign, and enforce identity. Courts, laws, medical gatekeeping, and carceral systems are not neutral arbiters in this conflict; they are active agents of enforcement, maintaining the category of sex through surveillance, punishment, and denial. Wittig’s analysis names this plainly: these institutions do not protect rights—they enforce subjugation.

To understand why this system clings so desperately to the category of sex, we must also reckon with its ideological roots—particularly in the Calvinist tradition that underpins much of the current reactionary movement. Calvinism, with its doctrine of predestination and inherent human depravity, views deviation from divinely ordained roles as rebellion against the natural and moral order. In this worldview, “man” and “woman” are God-given categories, fixed at birth and loaded with expectation. The body is a site of discipline, and the proper order of society is to reflect the divine hierarchy: male over female, adult over child, ruler over subject. The state, imbued with this moral mission, becomes not merely a political entity but a theological enforcer. Calvinist-influenced lawmakers do not see trans existence as a political issue—they see it as heresy, a direct challenge to the very order of creation, which must be stamped out to preserve their vision of righteousness. Their vehemence is theological; their cruelty is faith-driven.

Wittig’s call to destroy the sexes as a sociological reality is, therefore, not an abstract provocation—it is a demand for survival. For trans and queer people, the enforcement of sex is not a philosophical problem; it is a material threat to our existence, enacted through state violence, social exclusion, and cultural erasure. To challenge this system is not to quibble over definitions—it is to stand against a totalitarian order with centuries of theological and legal scaffolding. But as Wittig reminds us, this order is not inevitable, and its categories are not eternal. They are constructed, and what is constructed can be dismantled. To live, to think, to be free—we must begin there.

The Aftermath of Trust

They said “together,”
but meant “until.”
Until the door was open,
until the ink was dry,
until the cameras turned away.

I stood beside them,
not as guest or stranger,
but kin—
or so I thought.

My voice, my body,
the shimmer of my truth,
was their banner,
their proof
that they were radical enough,
progressive enough,
safe enough
for the world to embrace.

I carried the torch,
and they walked in its light.
But when the way was clear,
they snuffed it out
and left me
in the smoke.

I am not surprised.
Not truly.
But knowing the betrayal
does not still the ache
of silence
where I once heard
promise.

They called it strategy.
They called it necessary.
I call it what it is—
theft.

And now,
in this barren space
where friendship once stood,
I find only echoes,
only the husk of solidarity
hollowed out
by convenience.

I am not broken,
but I am weary.
Not alone,
but lonelier.

Still—
the quail greet me without condition,
the coyote keeps my secrets,
the wind does not ask
what I can offer.

Out here,
trust does not wear a mask.
It is not bargaining or barter.
It simply is.

And I—
used, discarded,
but still here—
step into the dusk
with my own light,
flickering,
but mine.

Final thoughts …

The lesson of recent years could not be clearer: trans and queer liberation cannot, and must not, rely on mainstream Lesbian and Gay organisations. These groups have shown, through both action and silence, that their allegiance lies not with the marginalised, but with proximity to power—secured through conditional inclusion and the abandonment of those deemed too radical, too disruptive, or too costly to defend. Our survival cannot be wagered on institutions that view our existence as expendable, nor can we continue to invest in coalitions that crumble the moment solidarity is no longer politically convenient.

What we need now is not a return to respectability or a plea for inclusion, but the forging of new solidarities, grounded in shared struggle rather than shared identity. We must build alliances with those who understand that liberation is not granted by the systems that oppress us, and who are willing to fight for a future beyond the narrow confines of assimilation. This means rejecting the false binary between the “good” marginalised subject—obedient, quiet, and grateful—and the “bad” one who refuses to disappear. Our power lies in our refusal to be categorised, our insistence on existing in ways that defy the regimes of sex, of gender, of normative life. Radical queer thought, so often treated as a liability, is in fact our greatest asset. It names the violence we endure and points towards the abolition of the systems that produce it.

Monique Wittig reminds us that as long as sex remains a category imposed upon us, we are not living freely—we are being managed, reduced, and controlled. To destroy the category of sex is not an act of erasure; it is an act of reclamation, of existence. For those of us whose lives are daily shaped by the violence of this categorisation, survival within its confines is not true survival—it is servitude. Liberation cannot come from fitting into a world built to erase us. It can only come from dismantling that world and building something freer in its place. In Wittig’s words, “we must destroy the sexes as a sociological reality if we want to start to exist.” We owe ourselves nothing less.