Gender Policing & Carceral Politics
- Sara Pilon
- Dec 1, 2025
- 7 min read
Updated: Dec 3, 2025
In August of 1966, a riot broke out at Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District when a transgender woman reportedly threw a cup of coffee in the face of her arresting officer (Stryker, 2008, p. 151).
This historic moment of resistance took place at the “intersection of several broad issues that continue to be of concern today … [including] discriminatory policing practices in minority communities” (p. 152). Transgender women, gender non-conforming people, drag queens, and sex workers alike came together at Compton’s Cafeteria. This was a 24/7 establishment where folks gathered to seek out community and respite from the violence they experienced on the streets (Levin, 2019).
To better understand how this confrontation unfolded, we can turn to the broader framework of carceral logics.
“Carceral logics are the ideas, beliefs, and practices teaching us that punishment is the only way to deal with societal harm” (Alexander, 2023, p. 230).
The moments that preceded the Compton's Cafeteria riot exemplify how gender policing works as a carceral system—one that is grounded in racism, cisnormativity, and heteronormativity.
While this historic example was a physical manifestation of carceral violence, it was also inherently about enforcing gender norms. This demonstrates that while the violence of a carceral logic is sometimes material, it is also ideological—founded upon beliefs and various practices that are "used to manage gender variance" (Alexander, 2023, p. 230).
If the carceral logics underpinning gender policing are both material and ideological, this tells us that it can manifest in numerous distinct ways, such as through:
Police Violence
Ex: The murders of Vicky Hernández , Camila Díaz Córdova , or Tony McDade
State–Sponsored Political Violence
Use of the notwithstanding clause in the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta
The banning of gender-affirming healthcare for minors in the American state of Tennessee
Everyday Social & Institutional Violence
These different types of gender policing—whether through direct police violence, state-sponsored political violence, or everyday social and institutional violence—demonstrate that punishment is directed in particular ways, with particular aims. Carceral logics turn to punishment, targeting those who fall outside the boundaries of what society has determined to be "normal." This raises an important question. How have we come to this definition of normal in the first place?
Audre Lorde—a "Black feminist, lesbian, poet, mother, warrior"—helps us answer that.
Audre Lorde’s "mythical norm" describes the unattainable standard we are meant to aspire to:
White
Thin
Cisgender Male
Young
Heterosexual
Christian
Financially Secure
The "mythical norm" is more than an unrealistic ideal, however—it is also a political tool. Lorde's "mythical norm" identifies a standard against which all others are measured.
What this effectively does it create binaries: White / Non-White, Thin / Fat, Cisgender Male / Cisgender Female, Young / Old ... and so on and so forth.
Binaries collapse potential. Gender identity and biological sex are both expansive categories, but when we relegate them to the binary of cis man / cis woman, we lose out on unique worlds, perspectives, and ways of being.
The gendered binaries that the mythical norm upholds are also intrinsically tied to race—particularly when we consider how settler-colonialism and white supremacy weaponize the category of woman.
Qui Dorian Alexander uses an American context to demonstrate how Black women were systemically excluded from the status of womanhood, which was constructed around Whiteness and the social practices upon which Black women were excluded.
"The category of female was created precisely to deny Black women access to white, colonial constructions of gender, kinship, and domesticity. Because these cultural practices were what defined womanhood, by explicitly denying Black women’s participation in these gendered practices, a subhuman category was created" (Alexander, 2023, p. 231).
Alexander argues that as such, gender essentialism—the "assertion that gender and sex are fundamentally and inextricably connected—is a racist assumption. Gender essentialism as a tenant of TERF-ism is explored in greater detail here.
Within a Canadian context, Métis scholar Kim Anderson describes how specific gendered and racialized language at the time of the west’s settlement constructed Indigenous womanhood in a way that shored up White femininity while dehumanizing Indigenous women.
“The uncivilized squaw provided a backdrop for the repressive measures against the Native population of the time. Like the men who were depicted as savage warriors, the women were reported to be 'violent instigators of atrocities' (against whites), thereby justifying colonial violence against Indigenous peoples. The image of the Native woman as the beast of burden in her society was drawn up to demonstrate the superiority of European womanhood and femininity ... and the necessity for replacing Native womanhood with European womanhood” (Anderson, 2018, p. 494).
The historical constructions that Alexander and Anderson describe—where both Black and Indigenous women have been excluded from the category of "woman" and the privilege of colonial, white femininity—aren't simply past injustices. These histories reveal how the "mythical norm" has been entrenched in various ways over time, becoming part of the fabric of what society has accepted as "common sense."
Early in my education, one of my professors—Dr. Marie Lovrod—told me that "common sense is a claim to legitimacy." The maintenance of Lorde's "mythical norm" relies upon notions of common sense. By this, I mean that common sense becomes hegemonic (exercising power and/or dominance) as it stakes claim to something and positions it as a societal norm or ideal.
When we begin to unpack how common sense works within our worlds, we see how it operates in ways that are insidious—often escaping our attention.
"Noticing = The feminist killjoy’s hammer" (Ahmed, 2024).
Feminist philosopher Sara Ahmed describes the power of noticing as a tool for killjoys. Read more about killjoys here.
Let's Talk Common Sense...
We've lived through a pandemic, so we know the importance of hygiene. Washing your hands after you use the restroom is one example of common sense logic within our North American society.
What about which bathroom you use to wash your hands? It's also become common sense that we divide ourselves into which restroom we use on the basis of our biological sex.
These common sense notions don't make much sense at all. It's the power of noticing that helped me learn all of this.
Take a moment, and notice with me.
Notice how gender policing has manifested in your own life. Have you policed yourself or others? Have you been policed?
Notice how gender policing happens around you. When gender policing transpires in society, take notice of what kinds of rhetoric are used to support a carceral politic.
In January of 2023, the 2sLGBTQIA+ community in Saskatoon were made aware of false claims circulating on social media that a "naked man" was using the women's change room facilities at a local leisure facility—the Shaw Centre. This narrative was perpetuated by conservative commentators and platforms, including the Western Standard and Mark Friesen, a vocal critic of 2sLGBTQIA+ rights.
Politically far right organizers tend to subscribe to gender essentialism—drawing on very rigid, binary constructions of masculinity and femininity. Kathleen Blee is a sociologist whose work explores intersections of race and gender in various social movements. Her research on far right movements shows that groups will often stress the supposed vulnerability of "endangered majority-group women (white, citizens, heterosexual, dominant religion) whose childbearing and childrearing is essential to the future of the majority race, nation or religion" (Blee, 2020, p. 419).
I noticed this language of vulnerability weaponized in the review shown above. I noticed the very specific use of "girls," which implies a threat to adolescents. Have you noticed this before?
Blake Tait (he/him)—a local drag king (Ford Ranjer) and community activist—organized counter protests. I attended alongside many others as a queer, cisgender ally. I heard the vitriol from the protestors firsthand, but I was left with a sense of hope and community after all was said and done.
The protests and counter-protests culminated in an emotionally charged city-hall meeting, where Saskatoon came out for the trans community in a meaningful way.
From Compton's Cafeteria to the Shaw Center, it's evident that gender policing is rooted in a carceral logic—one that aims to punish gender diversity, which it views as a deviation from the "mythical norm." Once we notice how common sense is weaponized, we are better equipped to recognize these patterns around them, and call out injustice wherever we encounter it.
~ Thanks for killing joy with me!
Questions for Further Analysis & Discussion
How do you see carceral logics and the mythical norm represented within Stryker’s and Silverman’s Screaming Queens?
How can we connect the history presented through Screaming Queens to current events happening in our world?
How have you seen existing laws or policies enact gender policing and/or enforce the "mythical norm"?
Sources
Ahmed, S. (2024, June 28). Setting The Table, Some Reflections on Why Tables Matter.
feministkilljoys. https://feministkilljoys.com/2024/06/28/setting-the-table-some-reflections-on-why-tables-matter/.
Alexander, Q. D. (2023). TERF Logics Are Carceral Logics: Toward the Abolition of Gender-Critical Movements or Black Trans Life as Pedagogical Praxis. Women's Studies in Communication 46 (2), 230–234. https://doi.org/10.1080/07491409.2023.2193543.
Anderson, K. (2018). The Construction of a Negative Identity. In M. Hobbs & C. Rice (Eds.), Gender and Women's Studies, Second Edition: Critical Terrain (pp. 491–508). Canadian Scholars.
Blee, K. (2020). Where Do We Go from Here? Positioning Gender in Studies of the Far Right. Politics, Religion, & Ideology 21 (4), 416–431. https://doi.org/10.1080/21567689.2020.1851870.
Carole, Penny, Phyllin, Krys Neuman, LORI, & Cllie. (1970). Ain’t I a Woman? Ain’t I a Woman? 1 (1). Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections, Northwestern University. Independent Voices. https://jstor.org/stable/community.28032119
Levin, S. (2019, Jun 21). Compton's Cafeteria riot: a historic act of trans resistance, three years before Stonewall. The Guardian.
Lorde, A. (1980). Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference.
Stryker, S. (2008). Transgender History, Homonormativity, and Disciplinarity. Radical History Review (100), 145–157. https://doi.org/10.1215/01636545-2007-026.
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