In social and political debate, the critique of essentialism arose from post-modernist theory, according to which the essentialist view on gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, or other group characteristics is that they are fixed traits, discounting variation among group members as secondary.
Contemporary proponents of identity politics, including feminism, gay rights, and/or racial equality activists, generally take (supposedly) constructionist viewpoints that may still rest on an essential assumption that a preconceived historical 'fact' is 'truth'.