☆☆☆ "Appropriate & subvert the patriarchal semiotic hegemony of the hetero-normative dyad!" ☆☆☆

Monday, December 26, 2016

Radical Chic

Julia Serano talks about "Trans-Invalidation"

http://www.juliaserano.com/av/Serano-TransInvalidations.pdf

"Psychology, Sexualization and Trans-Invalidation"

(An aside here -- "Trans Woman," and "Trans Man" get confusing, just like "trans-gender" and "trans-sexual." I have created a "Latinate coinage" . . . Testosteronea  for those born w/ testosterone. Estrogenae for those born w/ estrogen. -- And yet it is still altogether up in the air!)

I am Testosteronea. My Primary Care team prescribed Finasteride, 5mg / daily for BPH (benign prostate hyperplasia) "pee in the night" . . .  Started Nov. 15. Full effect takes 6 months (spring, 2017, close to 4/20 LMAO)

Finasteride reduces testosterone 68% to 75%, half-life is hours.

Dutasteride reduces testosterone 95% to 98%, half-life is months. Not in the VA pharmacopeia, but not $$$ and I can get this Rx filled at CostCo/Walgreen's.

Last week I asked my Primary Care doc about Dutasteride, "not offered by VA" -- Today we feel like "wait and see" on the Finasteride. Finasteride seems to be working for me: Reduction of male pattern hair, thickening of head/scalp hair, reduction in testosterone driven impulsion.

My Primary Care doc (Ph.D. in Nurse Pract. NP) offered a referral to Urology for "bi-lateral radical orchiectomy" -- surgical castration.

One of the trans-forums from which I have been eternally banned had a user from Germany (Deutschland) who used the signature: "Kein Gott, Kein Staat, Kein Fleischsalat"

No God
No State
No Flesh Salad -- (surgery)

And so, over dinner w/ my recently partner pal (Estrogenae) I posed a couple questions she had never encountered before: "Just exactly what part of my having my testicles removed makes you squeamish?"

-- and . . .

I've given it  a great deal of thought these past fifty or sixty years of my life. I am seeking companionship -- which I seem to have found. I have been wishing/hoping that my penis and testicles would just go away. Testosterone (male sexuality) raises impulse issues for me. I seek affection, companionship, not sex. Testosterone messes up all that affection stuff for me, for us.

And so . . . "Radical bi-lateral orchiectomy? What have I got to lose?" -- what to lose indeed!

Orchiectomy is irreversible. And as I have been warned all my life about risky behaviors, "It's liable to leave a mark!"

-- LMAO --

Mark indeed!

Orchi is a 30/60 min surgical procedure performed under general anesthesia. Google tells us what we might expect.

Orchiectomy - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchiectomy

Back about 1980 I got a vasectomy, bilateral incision in scrotum, mobilize the vas, sever and tie off. 20 min under local anesthesia, 6 wks being tender, uncomfortable, pissy mood, codeine pain-killers.

I don't believe in God, the state or flesh salad. I wish they'd just fall off and go away, but have reservations about a socio-cultural construct that requires that we submit to castration in order to "pass" as who we have always been in the first place.

That said, the other sexual anxiety I have in my anxious life (PTSD, childhood sexual abuse) is that the testosterone in my system makes me crazy impulsive. "Testosterone poisoning" -- having been raped a couple times by males (Testosteronea), I am not at all comfortable with the "hetero-normative dyad." Sex generally, but testosterone especially messes me up, makes me impulsive (addiction), and I've been socialized to expect that male sexual interest in someone is intrusive, oppressive, something to keep in check or otherwise deny what I am feeling.

I use the men's room. I pee standing up. If I don't shave it turns into a beard, hair to be braided on my chest, legs, under my arms. Ick --

People call me "sir" -- Now and then, not very often and only with a lot of serious effort and attention to "disquise" am I able to "pass" without much remark, and only in the dark, at a distance, anonymously.

Blanchard and autogynaphila talks about "erotic target error."

Blanchard's transsexualism typology - Wikipedia 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanchard's_transsexualism_typology

 

Sexuality for Testoseronea is object directed, it's the "spirit of the penis" (Penis derives from the Latin root "penetrate" -- like a spear.) 

 

And so basically if we cannot access the "erotic target" (hetero-normative dyad) then we Testosteronea "improvise." "Para" in para-philia is Greek for "beside" -- If we cannot hit the "10 ring" (bullseye), then we aim for the outside rings on the target, which are termed "fetish" according to the medical dogma. 

 

Fetish is just an object noun with a lot of pejorative baggage connected to it. 

 

In the hetero-normative dyad world, target errors can become a fixated obsession. Testosterone is a bucking horse and it's easy to get caught in the stirrups and dragged away by a testosterone stampede. 

 

I'd like to put that horse out to pasture, but he performs some essential physiological and metabolic functions that we need (like osteo mineral density). Down side is that in order to put him down, I have to kill him. I have a hard time killing stuff. 

 

"Kein Gott, Kein Staat, Kein Fleischsalat"


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

























ns
.

Friday, February 12, 2016

Julia Serano --Trans-Invalidation

Two articles by Julia Serano addressing trans invalidation: 

http://www.juliaserano.com/av/Serano-TransInvalidations.pdf


http://juliaserano.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-real-autogynephilia-deniers.html

We'd pull things together and develop some sort of introductory or exegesis . . . But mostly just linking while we sort out some discursive issues, media, interpretive community . . .


Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Lines of Inquiry

We currently have our tent pitched in several camps of inquiry:

First, since my views get me banned from forums, let's look at a peer-reviewed monograph written by an MD, Ph.D. in clinical psychology:

Blanchard’s Autogynephilia Theory: A Critique
CHARLES MOSER, PhD, MD
Department of Sexual Medicine, Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality,
San Francisco, California, USA


http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00918369.2010.486241



Moving right along . . . We're looking these days at R.W. Connell and " Hegemonic Masculinity." Easiest way to explain it is to link to the Wiki entry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegemonic_masculinity

The end product of this inquiry being that sex role stereotypes are engendered by the dominant hegemony (Patriarchal), and where TERF and Jack (Fuck you, Jack.) get their panties in a bunch is the part where trans-women (M to F transsexual) are tarred with the brush of buying into sexist stereotypes.

Some do, particularly the "drag queen" who is invariably homosexual and sex orientation is all about being on the margins. Judith Butler provides an exegesis regarding "drag" -- fundamentally that it is a parody of patriarchal sex-role stereotypes.

"Intersectionality" is another line of inquiry -- This mostly derived from sociology and studies of the social situation of black women. Intersectionality suggests that black women's social issues intersect along lines impinging on race, gender, poverty, education, and more. At bottom asserting that social issues are multi-faceted and interconnected.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality

Intersectionality (or intersectional theory) is the study of overlapping or intersecting social identities and related systems of oppression, domination or discrimination. The theory suggests that—and seeks to examine how—various biological, social and cultural categories such as gender, race, class, ability, sexual orientation, religion, caste, age and other axes of identity interact on multiple and often simultaneous levels.

------------------------------------------------------

Excerpt from intro to "Night to his Day: The Social Construction of Gender" -- Judith Lorber 

http://faculty.ucc.edu/english-chewning/SocialConstructionOfGender.pdf 

Talking about gender for most people is the equivalent of fish talking about water. Gender is so much the routine ground of everyday activities that questioning its taken-for-granted assumptions and presuppositions is like wondering about whether the sun will come up. Gender is so pervasive that in our society we assume it is bred into our genes. Most people find it hard to believe that gender is constantly created and re-created out of human interaction, out of social life, and is the texture and order of that social life. Yet gender is like culture, is a human production that depends on everyone constantly “doing gender.”

West, Candace, and Don Zimmerman. 1987. "Doing Gender." Gender and Society 1, 125-51.

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Speaking of stereotypes -- I know more than a few lesbian women who wear black, ride Harley Davidson, and pack firearms, this author included. So much for the sexist stereotypes . . .

And then again, the "Lesbian Butch Biker" is very much a parody and most of us realize it.

Gender presentation is a great big, all encompassing semantic game. "Play Ball ! ! ! "




Friday, January 29, 2016

BIBLIOGRAPHY -- Links, URL's, Resources, Peer Reviewed

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Let's use this particular page as a catch-all for links. Since we can cut/paste, we can edit and arrange, revise, etc. We'll try to keep it glossed . . . 
 --------------------------------------------------------------

Columbia University Press LGBTQ Peer Review Journals
links to a selective list of peer-review specialized journals which focus entirely on empirical/archival LGBTQ research.

http://harringtonparkpress.com/lgbtq-core-research-journals/ 

This linked page (supra) provides the following biblio/links --
There seems to be a gold-mine of resources here. Like a buffet, it's difficult choosing what to put on the plate first!


LGBTQ Peer Review Journals
Below are links to a selective list of peer-review specialized journals which focus entirely on empirical/archival LGBTQ research.
[Note: this is a reference service only.]
Canadian Online Journal of Queer Studies in Education

Columbia Journal of Gender & Law
Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy

Duke Journal here is where I found --

Duke Law Monograph -- "Perceiving Orientation: Defining Sexuality After Obergefell

The Dukeminier Awards
Best Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law Review Articles of [Year]

A unique and creative OA digital reprint journal sponsored by The Williams Institute. The journal selects/reprints the best law review articles published in the previous year on sexual orientation and gender identity issues. It is accessible on an open access (free) basis.
Gay and Lesbian Issues and Psychology Review
Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide
GLQ: A Journal of Gay & Lesbian Studies

IAMURE International Journal of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Studies
(caution: this journal does not appear to have its own Editor, nor a clear subscription vs. OA model. Listed for reference only.)
InterAlia: a journal of queer studies (English/Polish Language)
International Journal of Sexuality and Gender Studies
International Journal of Transgenderism

Invertito
Jahrbuch für die Geschichte der Homosexualitäten (Yearbook for the History of Homosexuality – annual thematic journal)
Journal of Bisexuality
Journal of Gay & Lesbian Mental Health

Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services

Journal of GLBT Family Studies

Journal of LGBT Issues in Counseling

Journal of LGBT Youth

Journal of Homosexuality

Journal of the History of Sexuality
Journal of Lesbian Studies

Lambda Nordica
LBGT Health
LBGTQ Policy Journal [Harvard University]
Les Online: Digital Journal on Lesbian Issues
Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity

QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking
Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture
Sextures
Sexualities

SGP: Sexuality, Gender, and Policy Journal (Policy Studies Organization)
SQS: Journal of Queer Studies in Finland

Tulane Journal of Law & Sexuality:  A Review of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in the Law [title varies]
Transgender Health [Open Access]
Transgender Studies Quarterly


 Duke University, Transgender Studies Quarterly
https://www.dukeupress.edu/TSQ-Transgender-Studies-Quarterly
http://tsq.dukejournals.org/content/1/1-2/1.full -- Editorial purpose, scope, history 

 

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

The Hegemony of Testosterone



I'm pretty sure Sontag is the character in Woody Allen's "Whore From MENSA" -- available online.

Just because, let's start out with a link to Susan Sontag: "Notes On Camp"
Thanks be to Georgetown University, "fair use" 

http://faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/theory/Sontag-NotesOnCamp-1964.html

Then a series of links, in no strict order -- 

 Hegemonic Masculinity from Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegemonic_masculinity

Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept -- 

http://www.engagemen-me.org/sites/default/files/Hegemonic%20Masculinity-%20Rethinking%20the%20Concept%20%28R.%20W.%20Connell%20and%20James%20W.%20Messerschmidt%29.pdf

An interview with Dr. Judith Butler, Ph.D. -- Re: TERF, trans, gender and radical feminism

http://www.transadvocate.com/gender-performance-the-transadvocate-interviews-judith-butler_n_13652.htm

My position in all this might be summarized by my current, fluid, historical presentation: "Cis-M Trans Radical Feminist Militant Gender Liberationist"

I found a very nice, narrow lapel, lightly constructed, single vented, black worsted serge wool blended jacket at Goodwill. $9.99 This after watching a documentary on Sontag, Google images of Butler --


Monday, January 18, 2016

Constructing Lines, Deconstructing Barricades

Fetish by any other name --

Phenomenology considers consciousness, more or less, as the directed thought of the subject upon the object. The conscious direction of thought is termed "intentionality." Phenomenology, generally views the human conscious state as layer upon layer of directed (intentional) thought. Moreover, "thought" about phenomena includes all the consious baggage we take in about pleasure, pain, sights, smells, sounds, images, thoughts about these sensory imputs and thoughts about how those thoughts makes us feel -- and how we feel about those feelings.

Phenomena -- gender feelings for example -- are multifaceted, fluid, and subject to deconstruction, revision. We cannot put "gender" into a neat little categorical box: "If A then B," "If not A then C or D . . . " etc. Gender is more complex than the ramification of a diagnostic, taxonomic tree.

As regards "fetish" -- Let us appropriate and subvert this term. "Queer Theory" appropriated the epithet "queer" and subverted it yet again, from meaning "unusual" to "homosexual" to designation of a radical sex/gender enclave. Let's note too that "faggot" is originally a bundle of sticks (used to burn homosexuals at the stake), and that this "faggot" of sticks comes to name the object of the persecution.

We should appropriate and subvert the term "fetish" --

Back to phenomenology: Subject consciousness intentionally directed at an object. What is a fetish? A fetish is the object toward which conscious thought is directed. Blanchard argues (thinks he argues) that subject thoughts directed at "being or becoming the object of sexual desire" is somehow "pathological." Blanchard terms this "erotic target error." In fact it's arguably "erotic target innovation."

Foucault asserts that sexual expression is infinititely diverse and infinititly expressible. And it is the "hetero-normative dyad" who inscribes sexuality with values such as "normal" and "anomalous," (pathological).

Blanchard proposes two sorts of gender dysphoria -- fundamentally heterosexual and homosexual, if we can distinguish between assigned genders and assumed genders. But gender expression is more complex than a simple, categorical division. Additionally, suggesting that these feelings -- while likely a minority view -- are only deemed "abnormal," "anomalous," "pathological" according to an arbitrary social construct is a social convention, not a teleological fact. Calling these sentiments "fetish" is an entirely arbitrary lexical choice. The perjorative connotations we attach to "fetish" are arbitrary too.

I argue that most of the "femme" images we aspire to are social stereotypes. And accordingly I propose a bit of a field test here:

In the course of "dreaming" about the woman I'd like to be, I invariably pick objects (fetish) of what the social milieu deems "attractive." Continuing here . . . I'm 67, moderately overweight, and as a "woman" I'm a solid 1 or 2 on a scale of 10 -- 2 on a good day. Also I have come to realize that I dress day in, day out like most of the local cis-F here my age. We all wear the same clothing, and the women look female, the men look male. To be fair, let's add that this is a rural Pacific NW environment and most of what women wear locally is men's clothing, or clothing styled like men's clothing. This "style" has everything to do with the weather, climate, and rural setting. Men's work clothing is pragmatic -- for day wear, but not to facilitate "gender presentation."

If and when I "do drag" I invariably dress like a women in her mid-40's -- and sporting a lot of the "semes" of a female that age (jewelry, clothing style, hair, earrings, etc.) I expect I can pull off looking 67 yr old matron. I probably do pull off "67 yr. old matron, in sturdy casual wear -- who looks a lot like a guy."

I'm not seeing any avatars in these forums of less than ideal female stereotypes. SOME of the photos herein look like "normal everyday women" -- not particulary attractive. OTOH, a lot of photos herein look like old men attempting to look like young, attractive women. The stereotypical "fetish" is an attempt to present as an "attractive" woman, -- which is an external sort of affectation, seemingly having little to do with the radical feminist politics of gender and gender discrimination.

Of late I'm working to "un-gender" myself. Not comfortable with either end of the gender stereotypes, I'm really ensconced in the move toward freeing everyone from the hetero-normative dyad.

But then, and this is crucial, I don't take part in the search to find a sexual partner, and this is a crucial distinction. My presentation is not relative to a sexual partner, which makes the whole issue of "gender" and "sexual orientation" very much less complicated. I'm not directing my ID toward another person. Rather I direct my ID toward the integration and resolution of myself, who I am. Who I am is not a "fetish."
 

Crossdreamers: Felix Conrad Unmasks the Autogynephilia Theory in New Book on Transgender

Crossdreamers: Felix Conrad Unmasks the Autogynephilia Theory in New Book on Transgender



Let me link this -- I comment at the end of the post. 

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Transmogrification of Agenda

 Cut/paste from CrossDream Forums -- today

Deborah Kate wrote:

Allison,

I don't think many people here share your political agenda.

Do you wish to affirm crossdreaming, or condemn it as politically unsound?

 Michel Foucault in History of Sexuality asserts that sexuality is diverse and infinitely variable, infininitely expressed/presented.

For the record, I'm picking up on threads relating to "cis priviledge" from Julia Serano, Vitale, Dr. Becky . . . and co-mingling with radical feminism, a great deal of Husserl, Foucault, post structuralist gender theory by way of radical feminist authors. Indeed there is a dissonance in the LGBT community about idealogical schisms between trans gender and gay radical feminists.

Janice Raymond, Transsexual Empire (1979) -- We've read, blogged on this monograph. Raymond makes some strong arguments. Critics of Raymond make strong arguments. Those who would resist reading Raymond would ignore issues that need to be addressed.

I've been aware of Blanchard since 1989, when he first published. I've read broadly on both sides of this argument. From a post structuralist POV, I would deconstruct, appropriate, subvert the term "fetish" -- Phenomenology does this neatly. Post-modernist would problematize the valorization of the term. Fetish is a phenomenological object. As humans we focus sex drives on objects, a phenomenological ontology. It's oppressive to put value judgements on those objects. This oppression comes directly out of the patriarchal hegemony of the hetero-normative dyad.

AND -- this is precisely the line of reason radical feminists put on "cross dressing" as being a patriarchal objectification, and "femme" is a patriarchal objectification. Radical feminists put negative value on these objectifications. Interestingly, Blanchard pretty much does the same, only instead of "politically incorrect," Blanchard labels it pathological.

"Politically unsound?" -- Thanks for asking . . .

Serano introduced me to a new acronym: TERF "trans exclusive radical feminist." I've been aware of the political position. I wasn't aware of the acronym. Seemingly from reading the blogs associated here (blogspot.com) there appears several "camps" in CrossDream. Historically for me, I have spent more than a few nights in each and every one of these camps. I'm still looking for places to pitch my gender identity tent.

Judith Butler notes that Simone de Beauvoir views "gender presentation" as historical and accordingly fluid, dynamic, phenomenologically convoluted.

My current state of gender presentation is undergoing a great fluid review -- We're specifically hoping to "Appropriate and subvert the hegemonic patriarchal semiotics of the hetero-normative dyad." That's my blog header. It's from Judith Butler, and an enclave of theorists who call into question the semes of gender presentation, and the phenomenological ontology of sex/gender identity. This sentiment is derived from radical feminism. I'm male and a radical feminist.

Radical feminism hopes to free all of us from the oppression of genderism. Rad fem addresses the oppression of feminine stereotypes, but little considers the oppression of masculine stereotypes. Masculine stereotypes are oppressive, are oppressive . . . too. Radical fem suggests that the female paradigm is subordinate to the male paradigm. Let me suggest that both ends of the paradigm are oppressive and I hope to find resolution in "gender liberation." I'm a radical feminist gender liberationist.

These CrossDream forums present a great diversity of trans-gender attitudes, behavior, political agendas . . . But I'm not seeing the agendas being much directly addressed and considered.

That's my agenda: Figure out gender so I can be less dysphoric, more grounded in my ontological perspectives. Liberate humanity from the constraints of gender oppression.

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Stereo-Typically Patriarchal

We Google "trans-gender forum" frequently -- surf the social context online, pick up the thread of narrative. What I see is a lot of drag-queens and cross-dressers. I'm not seeing a lot of non-binary questioning of gender role stereotypes.

Let me suggest that, like "sex / gender" there is a bifurcation in "feminine / female" -- feminine being often equated with "femme," "sissy," "girlie," etc. These are terms, like "chick," "dame," "broad" that objectify women. Some women may use these terms for one reason or another, but by and large these are terms of derision, and affrontery in the view of radical feminists. Moreover, radical feminists assert that these terms are a product of the patriarchal hegemony. Logically then, we might infer that cis-M crossing to present "femme" is a performative act which subsumes a patriarchal stereotype and presents it as a objectified gender identity.

And so . . . I'll cop to it first.

I'm 67, more or less. I wish I could look like this:

image

In reality this is what a woman more or less my age looks like:

image


image

image
I use these examples because they're public, not an endorsement of Hillary, or Carly.

And so the end product for me in all this is the realization that the "female" in my presentation ideal is an objectification (fetish), and not very realistic. More and more I'm progressing in a transition (No HRT, No surgery) that more fully considers and integrates a less stereotypically sexist, patriarchal objectification about what a woman my age looks like. Moreover, since I'm not a physiological woman, I aspire to ID as a radical-feminist, and to eschew the semiotic oppression of what the patriarchy envisions as "femininity."

Julia Serano, in my blog links to the right, considers the rejection of trans-women by radical feminists precisely on account of the parameters I lay out here. One radical trans-woman opted for no surgery, no hrt, and even decided to present with facial hair.

The upshot in all this for me is that my "presentaion" or "performatives" are becoming more holistic, integrated, and less stereotypically patriarchal.

 
Alias WunderDirt is Allison --
Allison Wunderland's Transcend Dance -- AllisonTranscend.blogspot.com

"Any girl can wear heels. It takes a REAL woman to wear combat boots."

Friday, January 15, 2016

Semiotics of Oppression

Judith Butler in Gender Trouble describes "drag" as a hyperbole, an exaggerated performance of stereotypical "femininity" semes (traits, characteristics).  




Gender Trouble is available free online in pdf -- Multiple links, lotsa discussion:

http://www.lauragonzalez.com/TC/BUTLER_gender_trouble.pdf


Gender Performitivity is a Wiki link --

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_performativity



This forum is called "CrossDreamers"  http://crossdreamlife.lefora.com

 -- which to me suggests a cross dressing fantasy with erotic fantasy content, rather than an integrated trans-gender identity. DSM, and the psychiatric field uniformly view cross dressing for erotic stimulation as a "paraphilia" -- the formal clinical term for "fetish."

Discussions in these CrossDreamer Forums, particularly with regard to clothing and "passing" lurches into the "femininity fetish" mode with what appears to me as a sort of objectification fixation.

I have a life living with a mother who's business and world was women's fashion and clothing. Never in her 90 yrs do I ever remember clothing making her, her colleagues, or her models "more feminine." Either clothing fits the task at hand or it doesn't work. That's the sentiment of Oscar de la Renta I think.

If your clothing requires constant adjusting, fussing, checking, it's not working for you. 

Butler talks about gender stereotypes and the semiotics of clothing. Butler, and radical feminists generally, view womens' fashion as a hegemonic affectation of patriarchal oppression. The short end of that syllogism is that men create these fashions so that men can find them sexy. And the men who dress up in these artifacts because it makes them "feel sexy" are buying into the patriarchal stereotypes -- which is a male hegemonic stereotype, not a femaie one

And so I ask about the intention, the direction, motive of this CrossDream forum. I'm a cis-M transgender, radical feminist, gender liberationist. I'm not a cross dresser.

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Transgender Studies Quartery -- Duke University

Transgender Studies Quartery -- Description

https://www.dukeupress.edu/TSQ-Transgender-Studies-Quarterly

Over the past two decades, transgender studies has become fertile ground for new approaches to cultural analysis. TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly offers a high-profile venue for innovative research and scholarship that contest the objectification, pathologization, and exoticization of transgender lives. It will publish interdisciplinary work that explores the diversity of gender, sex, sexuality, embodiment, and identity in ways that have not been adequately addressed by feminist and queer scholarship. Its mission is to foster a vigorous conversation among scholars, artists, activists, and others that examines how “transgender” comes into play as a category, a process, a social assemblage, an increasingly intelligible gender identity, an identifiable threat to gender normativity, and a rubric for understanding the variability and contingency of gender across time, space, and cultures. Major topics addressed in the first few issues will include the cultural production of trans communities, critical analysis of transgender population studies, transgender biopolitics, radical critiques of political economy, and problems of translating gender concepts and practices across linguistic communities.
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Gender Studies as a scholarly field is coalescing around Phenomenology, Post-Structuralism, Literary-Critical Theory (metaphysics), and Semiotics.  Most of this work is derived from radical feminist theory -- which ironically rejects the very patriarchal, gender stereotypical presentation of the hetero-normative dyad that many trans M to F aspire to.

I aspire to subverting the stereotypes -- Neither end of the dyad works for me, For now, and it's fluid, presentation for me is about "un-gendering" and liberating myself from the patriarchal oppression reflected in the two poles of the dyad. Curiously, I'm feeling more and more aligned with the radical feminist camp. Ironically, I've appropriated the presentation of a radical feminist (political as well as sartorial) . . . Ironically, this has me dressing like a radical feminist, gender ambiguous, man with long hair, ear-rings, and a political agenda.

Friday, January 1, 2016

Sara Salih Collaborates W/ Butler -- "Gender Trouble"

The first paragraph sucks me in. Somewhere in the convolutional syntax and arcane lexical choices, Salih suggests (in collaboration w/ Butler) that there is no ontological entity behind the performative presentation.
 

http://faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/theory/Salih-Butler-Performativity-Chapter_3.pdf

On Judith Butler and Performativity
SARA SALIH
Science” and “naturalness” are discursive constructs and, although it might seem strange to refute the authority of science” after quoting apparently “scientific” data, the point Butler is making is clear: the body is not a “mute facticity” (GT: 129), i.e. a fact of nature, but like gender it is produced by discourses such as the ones Butler has been analyzing. As with gender, to suggest that there is no body prior to cultural inscription will lead Butler to argue that sex as well as gender can be performatively reinscribed in ways that accentuate its factitiousness (i.e. its constructedness) rather than its facticity (i.e. the fact of its existence). Such reinscriptions, or re-citations as Butler will call them in Bodies That Matter,constitute the subject’s agency within the law, in other words, the possibilities of subverting the law against itself. Agency is an important concept for Butler, since it signifies the opportunities for subverting the law against itself to radical, political ends.

---
And I need to re-read this piece several times through.  The construction gets fuzzy for me, difficult syntax, extended comma heavy adverbials. Lexical rough sledding. 

Seemingly, from my first take-away read, subversion of gender stereotypical norms is the viable stratagem. Easily asserted. Instituted only with some stealth?

-------------------------------

Re-reading this now more closely --

"Factitiousness" -- This is the antonym of "fictitious-ness." "The body is not a 'mute facticity'."

And the issue is about culturally inscribed bodies, not beings. This is a physiological issue, not an ontological one. Elsewhere, Butler asserts that presentation is historical, and fluid. From these two premises, we might elaborate this assertion: Persons are born into a pre-existing historical context, and in this sense bodies are pre-inscribed with cultural constructedness.

The socio-cultural constructedness of bodies, affords bodies the agency of subverting the laws of construction against themselves. This socio-cultural subversion opens doors to radical, political ends.

We're not considering ontology here. We're considering bodies, physical entities with socially constructed genders. This is an entirely different concept than the consideration of sex and ontologies. 

I want to argue that sexual ontologies are fixed and a priori. I want to argue this, but I'm not altogether up to speed on Kant. More reading . . .