Making sense of it: why democracy (and feminism) needs to go beyond binary citizenship

Abstract

This text assumes and departs from three basic premises: 1) identities are not born but constructed through repeated performative actions that are in turn informed by existing social constructions of gender; 2) analysing and understanding the ways in which gender is shared and historically constructed can lead to a construction of gender that goes beyond the binary system on which heteronormativity depends; 3) feminism is inherently democratic and entails the consolidation of the very conception of democracy. If feminism wants to remain so, it concludes, it cannot but embrace the theoretical framework and action of non-binary citizenship conceived by Queer Theory.