That refusal opens the way for a more radical form of self-determination, one that happens in solidarity with others who are undergoing a similar struggle. For instance, gender assignment is a “construction” and yet many genderqueer and trans people refuse those assignments in part or in full. We form ourselves within the vocabularies that we did not choose, and sometimes we have to reject those vocabularies, or actively develop new ones. But this idea of social constructs does not acknowledge that all of us, as bodies, are in the active position of figuring out how to live with and against the constructions – or norms – that help to form us. In her view, a trans person is “constructed” by a medical discourse and therefore is the victim of a social construct. If she makes use of social construction as a theory to support her view, she very badly misunderstands its terms. I oppose this kind of prescriptivism, which seems to me to aspire to a kind of feminist tyranny. She appoints herself to the position of judge, and she offers a kind of feminist policing of trans lives and trans choices. JB: I have never agreed with Sheila Jeffreys or Janice Raymond, and for many years have been on quite the contrasting side of feminist debates. It represents an attack on the body to rectify a political condition, “gender” dissatisfaction in a male supremacist society based upon a false and politically constructed notion of gender difference… Recent literature on transsexualism in the lesbian community draws connections with the practices of sadomasochism.Ĭan you talk about the ways in which your views might differ? ![]() The mutilation of healthy bodies and the subjection of such bodies to dangerous and life-threatening continuing treatment violates such people’s rights to live with dignity in the body into which they were born, what Janice Raymond refers to as their “native” bodies. I suggest that transsexualism should best be seen in this light, as directly political, medical abuse of human rights. could be likened to political psychiatry in the Soviet Union. Some have lumped your work together with the work of gender theorists such as Sheila Jeffreys, who wrote: Either way, one should be free to determine the course of one’s gendered life.ĬW: I think it’s safe to say that many gender theorists are controversial in one way or another. Surgical intervention can be precisely what a trans person needs – it is also not always what a trans person needs. I know that for some feels less brave than necessary, but we all have to defend those necessities that allow us to live and breathe in the way that feels right to us. Judith Butler: It is always brave to insist on undergoing transformations that feel necessary and right even when there are so many obstructions to doing so, including people and institutions who seek to pathologize or criminalize such important acts of self-definition. Along the way, Butler specifically addresses TERFs and the work of Sheila Jeffreys and Janice Raymond.Ĭristan Williams: You spoke about the surgical intervention many trans people undergo as a “very brave transformation.” Can you talk about that? ![]() I, therefore, wanted to ask Butler about what she really thinks about gender and the trans experience. However, the concept of gender performativity has been used – and some would assert – abused to support a number of positions that misconstrues Butler’s work. Butler’s essays and books include Performative Acts and Gender Constitution (1988), Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990), Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” (1993) and Undoing Gender (2004). She’s written extensively on gender and her concept of gender performativity is a central theme of both modern feminism and gender theory. By Cristan Butler is a preeminent gender theorist and has played an extraordinarily influential role in shaping modern feminism.
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