Introduction to the Special Issue : positive non-binary and/or genderqueer sexual ethics and politics

Gender fluidity, genderqueerness and non-binary gender are increasingly embraced and visible and offer exciting new ways of understanding gender, the self and others. There is certainly not consensus on what they mean, which can be seen as a strength. Some trans exclusionary ‘gender critical’ or ‘radical feminists’ labour under the idea that these identities, and the option of rejecting binary genders, are a threat to women and girls’ rights and at odds with feminism. While popular discourses have often been either celebratory or adversarial and aggressive, much academic work on this topic thus far has, importantly, been from the fields of psychology (see Barker & Richards 2015) or health (Smith et al. 2014), centred around monitoring and overcoming the negative: discrimination, health issues, violence. As Armitage puts it in their contribution to this special issue ‘academic narratives mostly position trans and queer people, especially youth, exclusively in terms of victimhood and of needing help’. Some of this is for good reason: urgency of protecting the most vulnerable, framing research for funding, and evidencing the need for services. Recently there has been somewhat of a shift to more positive works (Iantaffi & Barker 2019: Nicholas 2019). Given this context, this roundtable and special issue sought to respectfully and productively discuss the positive aspects of these approaches to gender, in particular what they might mean for sexual ethics and politics, and how they may be enabled and affirmed more widely.