Queer Post-gender Ethics

There is increasing resistance to gendering in contemporary society, seen in gender-neutral childrearing and pronouns, expansion of legal sex categories and intersex rights, and queer and genderqueer movements. This timely book considers the utopian question of whether, and how, gender could be eradicated and how we might understand identity and relationships without it.

It considers the implications of arguments from 'new materialism' about the malleability of biological sex, and of queer theory and gender deconstruction, for social change and political practice. The original theoretical and practical argument is for an androgynous, reciprocal ethic or way of being in the world that transcends both sex/gender and some of the debates plaguing gender studies.

It takes inspiration from real-world queer and post-gender practices, for example by being written using gender-neutral pronouns, and also considers the reality of implementing such an ethic in a highly gendered world, especially in cross-cultural contexts. Review: Quite simply one of the most impressive, thoughtful and careful expositions of the new terrain of androgynous ethics of the self that arises from the advances of queer theory, gender critique and the deconstructive turn in social theory.

Nicholas succeeds in the difficult task of authoritative exposition of the range of gendered, social and ethical theory balanced in a discursive style that encourages reflection, thought and engagement. The clarity of this approach to thinking gender and ethics, combined with a fine grasp and deployment of complex theory in a refreshingly accessible articulation, makes this a pleasure to read.

This is indispensable to anyone who wants to understand the frontiers of thinking identity, self and gender today and an exciting challenge to move against and in transgression of those frontiers. - Paul Reynolds, Edge Hill University, UK