C. Riley Snorton

There's an attempt to un-person enslaved people in this way, by denying them the choice to perform gender.

In A Black Queer History of the United States, authors C. Riley Snorton and Darius Bost explain, "Literally and figuratively, racial slavery altered the condition with which gender was represented, perceived, and lived by radically defining Black personhood as property and as according to an individual's capacity to reproduce capital.

The brutality of slavery lessened gendered distinctions between captives, as all enslaved people were measured according to the value they could produce for their enslavers." They cite Black feminist literary scholar Hortense Spillers, who coined the term ungendering in 1987 as a way of further dehumanizing enslaved people and Black people broadly.

Early American laws and norms condemning same-sex activity make it difficult to find narratives of people transgressing gender or sexuality norms without significant power and privilege.

They have that designation of male and female, but it's only useful insofar that it helps the owner describe exactly, like, how much capital, how much potential these things have, and I say things because they're not things with autonomy to, to the system, how much value they have and the potential of value that they can bring in.

And that's the only reason why there is gender ascribed to them.

And this is something that, again, is from C. Riley Snorton, Darius Bost.

I cannot recommend the Black Queer History of the US book enough.