A R.O.T. Crew Manifesto is a submission from Evelyn Kronfeld, an independent journalist and It’s Going Down columnist. Her IGD column, Tranarchy!, stands at the intersection of trans identity and revolutionary Leftist politics and consists of radical news and analysis.

A R.O.T. Crew Manifesto

RAVAGE ORDER THOROUGHLY // CREATE RADICALLY, EXIST WICKEDLY

This zine is an array of brief, notebook-style essays deconstructing some ideas and issues relating to mental health, social relations, love, destruction, and upheaval.

PDF for Online Reading

Imposed PDF for Printing

For more zines, check out the Filler distro archive.

click here for a print-ready pdf

Who is the Gender Abolitionist?

L. T.

Dear friend,

I was surprised to hear from you today given how busy we both have become, but I am grateful for your letter. I have no doubt you’ve heard me mention the person you are inquiring after from across the room or have seen their text on occasion across the various social media platforms. I openly acknowledge the enigma surrounding the person you’re looking for. It seems they are too-often explained in only the fuzziest usages of language, and so this begs your question: who is the gender abolitionist?

It is probably best to begin by pointing out who the gender abolitionist cannot be. They are not a feminist, for what they strive for is neither the equality of gendered bodies nor the liberation of women from men. This latter point is important, because while the gender abolitionist admits openly that the millennia-old subjugation of women’s bodies is the root of immense and ongoing global catastrophe, they do not see the continuing existence of these bodies as possible after that patriarchy has been truly dissolved. The culmination of a global, years-long campaign to eliminate all misogynistic practices only arrives for the gender abolitionist when women and men have been rendered so materially indifferent to one another that the distinction between the two is decided to be eliminated. I will return to this point later.

The gender abolitionist is, similarly, not one who tolerates the crux of performative accounts of gender such as those advanced by scholars such as Judith Butler. Certainly, transgressions against norms of gendered practices are punished, but this does not reduce the vast structural forces that enforce those norms to the role of policing one’s appearance alone. It is true that trans women faces misogyny in-so-far as they attempt integrating into what is conceived as a normative womanhood, and that trans men may, conversely, reap social and political benefits. Yet we should not forget that it is equally true violence against a trans woman stems from their body’s challenges to a coercive and mandatory practice of strictly gendered sexuality; a body may be altered or disguised, but so long as these two methods by which one pursues performance lies strictly within the structure of gendered discourses, the gender abolitionist must reject them.

If the preceding two approaches do not set out satisfactory practices for the gender abolitionist, what does? I am not sure I can answer this question on every gender abolitionist’s behalf, but I will try my best to at least elucidate what I consider the most important points.

First, to return to a previous point: the gender abolitionist sees patriarchy, and not gender binarism, as the root of the gendered conundrum humanity has found itself in. This is a not unimportant distinction. To decry gender binarism as too limited a model for the possibilities of gendered expression is entirely anti-ethical to the understanding that it is the oppression of one class (women) by another (men) that gives rise to gender in the first instance. By shifting rhetoric from patriarchy to gender binarism, the critics of gender abolitionism immediately give up the ghost of any potential for revolutionary change, and instead embrace a comfort-oriented politics aimed at a mere expansion of terms for those beings men will ultimately, and usually already do, work to subjugate. As I’m sure you are already aware, the historical struggles of black anti-racists have shown us there is no room for the inaction of moderates who prioritize their personal comforts over substantive change during revolutionary struggle.

This is not to say that those who feel as if they to need to step outside of gendered terms in order to describe their way-of-being are at any fault for recent rhetorical shifts. Obviously, the constraints of gender have been felt by much of humanity for many thousands of years, and those who protest these limitations to their desires have always existed. Yet the ways in which this problem has been addressed have been historically unsatisfactory, often leading (if they lead anywhere at all) to the creation of new social roles which are still uniformly constrained but can function as a release valve for the pressures of ongoing, patriarchal oppression. For the gender abolitionist, the various alternatives to what is merely gender binarism, and not gender itself, are not satisfactory in a post-colonial world.

More contemporarily, an increasing number of people now describe themselves as non-binary, genderqueer, or some other variation of an essentially anti-gender impulse. For the gender abolitionist, this is an encouraging development, but it is also a potentially dangerous one. These anti-gender identities are not themselves revolutionary in content; this is all the more apparent to the gender abolitionist who, as I have already pointed out, rejects performativity as an accurate accounting of gender. On one hand, this allows the gender abolitionist to correctly locate the root of anti-gender identities and acknowledge them in their friends as something not based within performativity-based practices such as “passing”; on the other hand, the gender abolitionist recognizes that anti-gender identified friends who fall short of practicing a politics that centers the destruction of patriarchy are not yet themselves gender abolitionists. The non-binary person who still reproduces patriarchy by refusing women dialogue, by not acting in direct opposition to legislation targeting women, and by not even disputing gender directly outside their own self-affirmation cannot be recognized by the gender abolitionist as a comrade in pursuit of gender’s systematic destruction.

All of this to say: representation is dreadfully incapable of telling the gender abolitionist who can be called a friend.

As you know, it is not enough, nor has it ever been enough, for white people (myself especially) to simply call ourselves “not racist.” We long ago agreed that every white person worth their salt in a fight carries out anti-racist practices in order to not just abolish race, but specifically their own whiteness. The gender abolitionist would, I think, hold that this logic extends to gender, ham-fisted of an analogy though it may be. It is not enough for those who refuse the constraints of gender to be not men or neither woman nor man. Those who go about their lives being systematically recognized as a part of manhood must seek to be anti-men; not just among their fellow radicals, but everywhere they go. This is not a process that can leave any stragglers: trans men and non-binary people cannot abdicate their practical complicities in the subjugation of women due to a misguided belief that it is only the binary or the binary’s lack of inner mobility which is the fundamental problem. Such a belief reeks of all the mistaken judgements that characterize the white person who is racially “moderate” and believes the simple construction of a black middle class will soothe all the ills of society.

Ultimately, the gender abolitionist is the one who asks everyone to take up the practices of leveling gender just as readily as they would ask them to be anti-capitalist and anti-racist, because it is only via this leveling that gender’s horrors will be forced to exit from our collective history. Forcing some to give up their real or desired power over others will never be a peaceful or comfortable process, but it is a necessary one.

My friend, I am sincerely sorry for the length of this reply; I do hope it goes some way in prompting even more questions about this topic that we can discuss next time we sit down over a meal.

Yrs.,
L. T.

***

Filler is a DIY media platform, recording studio & anarchist zine distro affiliated with Pittsburgh’s autonomous student network and the Steel City Autonomous Movement (SCAM).

You can send your report-backs, zine submissions, critiques, graffiti/action photos, demo tapes, hate mail, memes, etc to FILLERCOLLECTIVE [at] RISEUP [dot] NET … we’ll try to get back to you in a reasonable amount of punk time.

We recommend using Tor and guerrilla mail together if you want to submit something anonymously.

Twitter @PghAutonomy
IG @Filler_PGH

Statement received from NightShade PGH on 03.08.18

Today, March 8, 2018, marks International Women’s Day, and across the globe millions of women and gender non-conforming people are showing up in solidarity with one another—many folks taking part in an international strike, rejecting capitalism as a means of liberation from the patriarchy. Actions ranging from strikes and protests to rallies and meetings have been reported in Spain, Kenya, Afghanistan, the Philippines, South Korea, and countless other locations around the United States and world. Nightshade is keeping an active eye on these various movements, and stands in solidarity and excitement with them as those involved continue to fight for their demands, big and small.

Particularly, it is important to remember the roots of International Women’s Day, which originated in 1909 as International Working Women’s Day, and its direct relationship with labor movements. While massive attention was drawn to the Women’s Day march last year in DC, marked by a sea of stunningly-gendered pink pussy hats, along with it came critiques of white-feminism and other organizing strategies which neglected to honor the voices of women of color and trans-women, and neglected to address the position of incarcerated women, poor women, and other women marginalized on multiple axes, in relation to capitalism and white supremacy. This year, however, Women’s Day falls right amidst the Teacher’s Strike in West Virginia, where, like in many states, 75% of teachers are women. According to Tithi Bhattacharya, an organizer involved with the International Women’s Strike,

“the core strength of [the teacher’s strike] lies in the fact that it is vast majority women, and because women play a very significant role bridging the gap between the workplace, the home and the community, when the teachers went on strike, a vast portion of the community was immediately galvanized in support of the teachers. So churches came out, community members came out, because women are not just teachers, they’re mothers, they’re church members, they’re breadwinners in their family. So they sort of form this astonishing bridge between the workplace and the home, making visible both kinds of labor.”

Compensation for unpaid or underpaid labor, whether in community organizing, emotional/care work, teaching, or elsewhere, is demanded on this day by women worldwide. The failure of current structures, whether on an institutional scale or in the household, to provide due credit, compensation, and support to women and gnc folks is a direct result of the interplay between capitalism and the heteronormative patriarchy. As demonstrated by a recent crackdown on sex-work and strip clubs in New Orleans, neoliberal privatization and gentrification, also known as “(re)development,” goes hand-in-hand with violence against women and trans- people, particularly those already in close proximity to gendered and sexual violence.

It is true, and has been shown by all of the recent strikes and acts of feminist resistance, that capitalism cannot function without the exploitation of women and gnc folks. And until that exploitation ends, we will not be free. Beyond this, Nightshade also stands in solidarity with those demanding an end to all violence against women and gnc people–the physical and sexual assault, the policing and gendering of our bodies, the repression of our minds and spirits. Every year when this day comes around, we are as sick and tired of being oppressed as any other day. We recognize that our fight against capitalism is a feminist fight, it is an intersectional fight, it is a queer fight. And we also understand that the worlds we build together, here and now, are crucial to the then and there of our imaginations, to our liberated futures which connect us to so many feminists past, present, and to come. We realize that the end to violence does not come without ceaseless practice of healing, defense, accountability, and learning new ways to be with one another. This requires ongoing work, where we hold each other with care and bravery, and move towards a world beyond patriarchy and all other forms of dominance.

As March 8th comes to a close, we encourage you to show love to the women and gnc folks in your life, not just today but every day. We mourn those who have been stolen from us so far this year by acts of gendered violence, and will continue to fight like hell for the living. Remember that this fight does not end when the spotlight disappears: this month Nightshade is holding a queer dance fundraiser where all proceeds will go to Survived and Punished, a collective which supports survivors of domestic violence criminalized for defending themselves, and we hope to see you there!

With queer love and rage, today and every day,

–The Nightshade Collective

Statement from the Nightshade Collective

We are queer and trans. Our existence clashes against the gender binary, and its crushing grip which polices our bodies and threatens our safety. The ways that we live—relate to one another, dress, gesture, and dream—are all in inherent subversion to that binary, which seeks to classify, erase, separate, and homogenize us. In turn, we fight for spaces free from gendered expectations, places where we can function and thrive in peace.

These demands are no different than what any person or creature desires: We wish to be ourselves without falling victim to demonization, violence, or death.

Our discussion with the IGDcast was originally posted to It’s Going Down

CLICK HERE to listen to the podcast.

Detractors on the Right claims that they are the only ones opposed to identity politics, but time and time again, we have seen that they are simply promoting another reactionary flavor. On the Left, many people instead push for a diversity of identities to be represented within capitalism. For those that want the destruction of all forms of domination, we must ask if there is an alternative. But what would that look like, and is it possible to push towards something that conceivably we cannot have a blueprint for? What does this mean for our day to day lives as well as how we struggle, organize, and build collective power?

In this episode, we caught up with several people involved in the Filler Collective, to talk about the concept of Gender Nihilism. In short, we ask if it is possible to understand gender and overcome it in a way that goes beyond liberal notions of inclusion within the dominant system. Is a genderless world possible, and what does fighting for one mean for those living in one where gender norms and roles define all aspects of our lives?

CLICK HERE to listen to the podcast.

Music: Harum Scarum

More Info: Filler Collective, Beyond Another Gender Binary, Destroy Gender.

Nightshade Pgh – Issue #1: Declaration

Nightshade is a collective of womyn and queer folks devoted to ensuring a safer community for women/POC/queer/trans folk in Oakland. Queers bash back! 

We are planning on putting our first zine out at the end of the month! The theme for the first issue is DECLARATION. So you can submit any type of art, writing, poetry, etc. which fits the theme and the groups ideologies. Create something beautiful about a topic you think the world needs to draw attention to.

DEADLINE: May 16th

Submit by emailing nightshadepitt@gmail.com

In Our Hands – Issue #2:
Breaking the Silence

Trigger warning: Sexual assault, violence, rape, abuse

In Our Hands—a survivor-centered community accountability reading, discussion, action and support group—is seeking submissions for the next issue of our zine. Our goal with this zine is to offer insight to other survivors on how to manage their own experiences and create an accountability process that is useful and empowering to them. We aim to dismantle Rape Culture by examining each piece of its extremely complex structure. One of the first steps in this process is to identify violent, abusive, and oppressive behaviors. We are looking for stories from survivors of sexual violence, abuse, and/or oppression about your experience and struggles with “breaking the silence.”

Some issues we would like this zine to address are:

• The process of identifying and recognizing what happened or is happening, and finding language to come forward about it;
  
• The problematic yet common occurrence of violence and re-traumatization that comes with survivor disclosure;
  
• The difficulty of dealing with other people’s emotions upon disclosure (such as coping with the emotional reactions of friends, family, intimate partners, as well as strangers, enemies, and allies of your perpetrator(s)); Conflicting emotions or confusing memory details.
• How did/do you reconcile those internal conflicts.

This zine is also aimed at supporters and allies of Survivors. We would like to hear from Survivors about:

• What types of support have you experienced that were helpful or harmful?
• What do you wish you had throughout your process of coming forward, holding accountability, and personal healing?

You may choose to address these questions directly, in essay form, or through other forms of creativity, such as poetry or visual art. We ask that written submissions please be limited to 2,000 words or less. Creative forms should be 2 pages or less, at 5.5×8.5″/page.

Please e-mail your submissions to in.our.hands.pgh@gmail.com.

To submit anonymously via email, you may use:https://anonymousemail.me/
<https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fanonymousemail.me%2F&h=VAQFY9VaOAQHJEExz6b2kceaPxoyHSm_G-5tNrTKQ42-jow&enc=AZMi2dP-qgv42EiYzFZ3Q1pb3_bfLXIaqHbGNNVtC3tzCCcOto7qSLMQcBlpBhP5uYhPrxSGwIq-3t5dS5Q0-k2LipYEbDFPKV47-v8H9UOzlvcSNwtDVoB7yQCFVDyvHfOhUqEJTabIbZZR0PgnUDayDoTG1jMcGzEeeGA_a7gOxE9akhRP6HebN_H5qoYry_Y&s=1>
(make sure to write “anonymous” or a pen name in the section titled “name”).

You can also mail a hard copy or digital file to:
In Our Hands
C/O The Big Idea Bookstore
4812 Liberty Ave.
Pittsburgh PA 15224

The deadline for submission is June 1, 2016.

Link to first zine:
http://in-our-hands-pgh.tumblr.com/zine

This issue of Filler explores the growing resistance to the Pitt Patriarchy. A lot of bullshit prompted this issue, some of which you can read about in the collection Milo Goes to Pitt. A print-ready PDF will be uploaded whenever we get around to it. Content warning: misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, sexual assault, violence… probably more. Not a light read.

Reality Isn’t Safe

“Reality isn’t Safe” is the Pittsburgh Student Solidarity Coalition‘s response to an open letter that accused PSSC of “anxiety-mongering” in their opposition to far-right and proto-fascist organizing on campus. As part of his “Dangerous Faggot Tour,” the alt-right propagandist Milo Yiannopoulos came to Pitt to give a lecture billed as “Free Speech in Crisis.” Roughly 30 people engaged in a variety of tactics to protest the event.

“Reality isn’t Safe” is broken into two sections. The first takes on specific right-wing arguments against the existance of the heteropatriarchy and white supremacy. The second contextualizes the controversy on Pitt’s campus within the broader social war. READ.

On Tactics: A Response to PSSC’s “Reality isn’t Safe”

Written by Liam Swanson, a Pitt and New-SDS alumni.

“The Student Government Board at Pitt, if I remember correctly, came out of radical student struggles in the 20th century as a concession, a ‘pressure valve for would-be dissidents’, as you say. However, this characterization, on its own, minimizes the actual impact the SGB has on everyday life. It is not just a pressure valve; it is a positive formation, a method of distributing bodies, affects, labor. It is unimaginable, in the reign of the ‘marketplace of ideas’, that this distribution could be specifically anti-fascist. If the liberals succeed in making the SGB anti-fascist, even in this minimal way, they have achieved the impossible, and achieving the impossible is a radical, leftist goal.”

READ MORE

It’s a Man’s Campus, Let’s Fuck it Up! (Part I)

Notes toward organizing an anarcha-feminist assault on campus rape culture.

Written by Angel and Brett. Angel is an organizer with Illegal Queers PGH. Brett does Filler stuff. They both volunteer with The Big Idea Cooperative infoshop, participate in PSSC, and hang around the autonomous student scene.

“Anarcha-feminism is not merely intersectional feminism taken to its logical conclusion. It is a fluid framework that is capable of informing and evaluating our resistance to patriarchy within a broader vision for offensive revolutionary action.

Anarcha-feminism expands the feminist project of gender equality by asking questions that aim to facilitate the merger of means and ends. Do our efforts merely educate and raise awareness, or do they challenge the material conditions of patriarchy? Do our efforts disperse power and legitimacy, rather than concentrating it? Do they build our sense of autonomy? Do they empower survivors? Do they meet our needs?”

READ MORE

 Destroy Gender

Written by Lena Kafka, a Pitt and PSSC alumni. She fucks shit up and stuff.

“Gender is but another apparatus to be smashed, burned, and scattered. To destroy an apparatus, we must destroy its roots. But first, the soil that covers and protects the roots. The police, racists, misogynists—patriarchs of all varieties—this is the soil we must dig up.

Easier said than done. Confronting police requires militancy (vigilance + awareness + tactical knowledge), but militancy demands the kind of commitment and preparation many aren’t ready for. In most ‘progressive milieus’, going on the offensive is seen as hasty, ill-advised, or at worst, as reactionary. Revolutionaries know that those who wait for the state’s offensive to hit them, who wait for some tragedy to use as leverage and justification for reform, are the real reactionaries. Revolutionaries need to push beyond half-measures, beyond reform, concession and rollback, and push for breaking from the normalcy of daily life. We must push for insurrection against all governance.”

READ MORE

CW: patriarchy, rape culture, violence

Notes toward organizing an anarcha-feminist assault on campus rape culture.

by Angel and Brett

While academia theoretically exists as a space reserved for education and intellectual growth, universities across the country have been making headlines as they continue to fail to provide safe and equal access for women, gender nonconforming folks, and people of color—all of whom are at greater risk for sexual violence.

But the university is not alone in its failure. Patriarchy permeates social life on every campus; from frat row to sports teams, and often even to the social justice organizations that claim to fight it. We’ve all heard the statistics by now. One in four of our classmates will be assaulted at some point in their academic career, every 21 hours there is a rape on an American college campus, and on and on. 

To assert that sexual assault is simply a failure of the university to provide proper security or advocacy groups is to completely ignore the roots of the epidemic. Sexual assault doesn’t thrive because there aren’t enough police on campus, but rather because assault is the violent enforcement of male dominance in the social sphere. [“Reality isn’t Safe” explores this premise in greater depth.]

Despite the programs discussing and advocating prevention measures, the painfully inadequate counseling centers, and the countless ways to navigate the labyrinth that is Title IX, none of the existing efforts address the heart of the issue: the fucking patriarchy. Obviously men are not the only ones committing assault, but rape culture is deeply tied to the patriarchal attitudes that surround sex and intimacy. Rape culture is a frontline in the social war, and even the most marginalized person might choose the side with more power.

Until we find concrete ways to disrupt and deconstruct both institutionalized patriarchal structures and their socio-cultural roots, sexual assault will remain a staple of the college experience.

To begin, we need to analyze the ways in which the administration, media, and campus culture rationalize and trivialize assault, not as problematic or internalized attitudes, but for what they really are: strategies in perpetuating and reifying systems of patriarchy. All social hierarchy, from gender to race to class, is imposed by the threat of violence. It’s irrelevant whether a media pundit understands their logic as serving an agenda of strategic oppression or as a “rational” and “objective” approach to a contentious issue; the logic remains the same, with the same violent impacts, and it is all the more insidious.

Analysis is a continuous process, as patriarchy has proven to be one of the most flexible hierarchies in that it is quick to absorb the aesthetic of our opposition without detracting from the violence of male dominance. We need not look farther than the irony of having a sexist like Joe Biden speak at Pitt for the “It’s On Us” campaign as proof of this.1, 2 We have to constantly challenge ourselves to hash out the details of enemy strategies in order to better defend and empower ourselves.

The most prevalent strategy in seizing and erasing a survivor’s narrative is the tactical redirection of classic American individualism.

First, the stage is set with a “prevention” discourse that asserts that the people most at risk of facing violence (women, queer folks) need to be the ones responsible for preventing it. It’s almost cliché to point out that our society teaches people how to avoid assault instead of teaching people not to rape in the fucking first place. What this discourse really teaches us is how to live in fear, how to confine our self-expression to the culturally accepted practices that reproduce patriarchy. The result is that victim-blaming is effortlessly disguised in the rhetoric of prevention discourse: shouldn’t you have known not to leave your drink unattended at frat parties?

Second, what is objectively a social epidemic is quickly personalized, typically as an issue concerning only two individuals. This is an especially easy maneuver when the survivor has some sort of “romantic” history with the perpetrator.

Now with the stage set and the spotlight focused, the administration, media, or police can completely remove the survivor’s story from the broader socio-political context through tactics like victim-blaming, slut-shaming, and prude-shaming. Let’s be perfectly clear: assault has nothing to do with whether or not a survivor is drinking heavily and incapable of making sober decisions. Nor does it have anything to do with how a person dresses or where they choose to sleep at the end of the night. It has everything to do with the attacker refusing to respect boundaries and choosing to satisfy their urges with the understanding that they’re unlikely to face repercussions. The constant threat of character defamation is what keeps survivors silent and “illegitimate” in the public eye.

The final step in the tactical maneuvering of hyper-individualist logic is isolation. Now that the cumulative weight of prevention discourse, personalization, and character defamation has effectively stolen control of the survivor’s narrative, the social stigma of the whole ordeal can potentially isolate the survivor from any sort of support structure or “legitimate” framework for seeking justice. This is how the constant violence of patriarchy disguises itself, and is just one of many ways the broader social war remains hidden.

There are many more enemy strategies we can and should analyze. But we can only refine our notions and theories through immediately proceeding to action, or else we risk losing relevance in the constantly shifting socio-political terrain. In understanding the discursive and material practices of the administration, we can identify weak points in the authoritarian, patriarchal structures that define the University under capitalism. But so long as neoliberalism continues to creep onto our campus, Pitt will continue increasing tuition rates alongside the size of the student body. And if Pitt wants to do this, it will inevitably try to cover up the violence of campus culture. Because that’s just good business.

Anarcha-feminism is not merely intersectional feminism taken to its logical conclusion. It is a fluid framework that is capable of informing and evaluating our resistance to patriarchy within a broader vision for offensive revolutionary action.

Anarcha-feminism expands the feminist project of gender equality by asking questions that aim to facilitate the merger of means and ends. Do our efforts merely educate and raise awareness, or do they challenge the material conditions of patriarchy? Do our efforts disperse power and legitimacy, rather than concentrating it? Do they build our sense of autonomy? Do they empower survivors? Do they meet our needs?

In Part II, we’ll explore several of these questions as they relate to the struggle against patriarchy at Pitt.

In the meantime, here are some cool local projects to check out:

In Our Hands – a grassroots community accountability skill-building group based in Pittsburgh. They just put out the first issue of their zine!

Night Shade – a new crew of women and queer folks based in Oakland that are organizing a network of safe-houses, anti-fuckboi patrols, community support efforts and more! Contact studentsolidaritypgh@gmail.com and the Pittsburgh Student Solidarity Coalition will put you in touch with them.

The Fourth Wave – a monthly intersectional feminist publication run by Pitt students!