Putting bioessentialist up on the high shelf until tumblr users understand that it’s not just a word for when someone says genders are different
Bioessentialism is when you assign differences in sex and gender purely to biological reasons. The classic misogynistic one is that women are naturally better housekeepers because the female mind has the traits needed to be a live in maid, caregiver, and cook. This is untrue, men can also do all of this things. However, in society, men aren’t expected to do those tasks like women, and henceforth are never taught.
“I, as a lesbian, would rather not date men” is not bioessentialist. It could be bioessentialist, if the argument were to say something like “because men are naturally more violent because of their testosterone.” This isn’t true! However, there are reasons to avoid dating men like…in general. The dominant culture for men doesn’t really teach them to treat women with respect, and this isn’t even going into rape culture. Also sometimes a woman doesn’t want to be with a man in the first place, and insisting she must is fucking weird!
The different is that bioessentialism creates a world where any differences are engraved in stone as biologically sound. You can’t make men less violent compared to women, so you shouldn’t try, and pointing it out is mean to men. A lot of feminist political views are demonstrably about societal issues that get lumped under bioessentialism, because those societal issues for a lot of people are maybe just a litttttttle too hard to talk about.
Bioessentialism doesn’t provide the room for society to actually work on the issue, and it’s how you get “solutions” like gendered sports and the constant fears around the idea of a unisex bathroom.
Bioessentialism just throws its hands up in the air and goes “it’s in their balls I guess, nothing we can do about it”