“Biological essentialist gender determinism” is the view shared between many TERFs and mainstream cisnormativists: “Gendered social roles are determined by a biological essence which is shared between members of the same gender.” This essence tends to be related to assumed reproductive capability at birth, such as genitals or chromosomes.
“Psychological/spiritual essentialist gender determinism” are the related ideas that many TERFs and truscum share: “Gendered social roles are determined by a spiritual or psychological essence which is shared between members of the same gender.” On one hand TERFs might talk about “male socialization” while truscum tend to talk about gender dysphoria as their gender essence which proves the rightness of their role.
“Social performative gender constructivism” is a set of ideas that oppose forms of gender determinism by stating that instead “Gendered social roles are a set of performances which construct systems of gender”. Many strict social performative gender constructivists, like Natalie Wynn of Contrapoints, might even say that their transition in presentation is a transition between genders and not simply a change in the way society views them.
“Social performative gender nihilism” is a response to some of the shortcomings of gender constructivism (for instance, that it grants legitimacy to harmful social pressures around gender performance) and which recognizes the gender determinist project as one that seeks to use gender role to colonize reproductive power. Gender nihilists instead seek to use gender performance to make gender and thus reproductive power illegible and opaque so as to undermine this system of control. Gender nihilists recognize the socially constructed reality of gender but that this reality is a battleground rather than a unchangeable backdrop to every gender performance.
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