Eroding Sexism with the Yogācāra Dialectics of Gender

In this presentation, I explore how we can expand contemporary gender metaphysics by drawing on Yogācāra philosophy. With a focus on the writings of Xuanzang (c. 602–664) and his disciple Kuiji (632–682), I investigate how the Yogācāra theory of consciousness-only can be read as a gendered account of non-duality that informs a critical and constructive reconceptualization of what gender/sex is. As I will argue, Yogācārins like Xuanzang and his disciples present gender/sex as an embodied performance that sentient beings can enact in different ways. While regular sentient beings have been conditioned to enact their gender/sex in an essentialist manner, they can also collaborate to re-enact their illusory gender for problematizing dominance. I refer to such a gender metaphysics as the Yogācāra dialectics of gender that does not explain gender away but rather furnishes sentient beings, especially the practitioners, a set of vocabularies in disposal for promoting social justices.