Non-Binary Performativity: A Trans-Positive Account of Judith Butler’s Queer Theory

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts, Oct 2017

By Toby Finlay, Published on 10/25/17

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Non-Binary Performativity: A Trans-Positive Account of Judith Butler’s Queer Theory

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts Non-Binar y Performativity: A Trans-Positive Account of Judith Butler's Queer Theory Toby Finlay Wilfrid Laurier University Part of the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons Recommended Citation Article 8 Follow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/luja Part of the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons Recommended Citation Non-Binary Performativity: A Trans-Positive Account of Judith Butler’s Queer Theory I. Introduction The work of queer and feminist scholar Judith Butler has revolutionized our understanding of gender within contemporary social theory. In Gender Trouble (1999), Butler develops the theory of gender performativity that challenges the conception of gender as a natural, pre-discursive characteristic of human beings, allowing for an interrogation of the systems of power-knowledge that constitute gender arrangements. This post-structural reconceptualization of gender is particularly significant for queer and trans communities insofar as it elucidates the symbolic violence through which binary gender categories defined in heterosexual opposition to one another are imposed on all individuals at birth. Despite these theoretical implications, reframing gender in this way necessitates a deconstruction of the identity politics that have come to characterize the gay- and trans-rights movements. To the extent that performativity questions the possibility of stable queer or trans identities, Butler’s theory may be perceived as invalidating the self-determination of queer and trans people. Consequently, there is a demonstrated need for a trans-positive reading of Judith Butler’s queer theory that unites the validity of queer and trans experience with the performativity of gendered subjectivities. In Undoing Gender (2004), Butler attempts to quell the perception that her queer theory would invalidate the identities of queer and trans people. She acknowledges queer and trans people’s nuanced relationships with identity by highlighting the paradox within which both the presence and absence of identity categorization constitute an unlivable constraint over human life (3–4). In many ways, being recognized as people in liberal-humanist society is dependent on queer and trans people claiming an intelligible sexual orientation and gender identity; however, claiming these identities can also be understood to exercise constraint over our non-normative ways of being. As a person who does not self-identify with either binary gender category (i.e., neither male/masculine nor female/feminine), I regularly negotiate this intersection of needing to assume queer and non-binary identities to render LUJA my unique subjectivity recognizable to others while still not feeling entirely represented by these terms. Within the queer and trans communities more broadly, however, there is a reluctance to acknowledge these limitations of identity-based frameworks, likely because of the necessity of identity to our recognizability and political movements. Butler’s consideration of queer and trans people’s paradoxical relations to gender identity is, thus, theoretically significant because it centres the role of violence in producing queer and trans subjectivities. Nevertheless, Butler’s exploration of gender constitution can be accused of exploiting non-traditional gender arrangements in complicating the gender experiences of primarily cisgender audiences. Accordingly, critical trans scholar and activist Viviane Namaste critiques Butler’s queer and feminist analyses for requiring the existence of violence against trans bodies but largely decontextualizing this violence in the pursuit of her theoretical objectives (“Undoing Theory” 19). Butler’s inquiry therefore fails to the extent that it does not centre the authentic experiences of queer and trans individuals (i.e., the drag queens and kings, intersex folks, trans folks, indigenous and racialized folks, and the many intersections of these positionalities) who make this exploration possible. In this context, the unrepresentativeness of Butler’s performative framework for queer and trans experiences is particularly problematic and justifies a reclamation of her queer theory by and for queer and trans scholars and our communities. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to provide a critical reading of Butler that identifies and creates space for subversive and non-conforming gender performativities within contemporary social theory. II. The Heterosexual Matrix An exploration of Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity necessarily begins with an evaluation of the power relations that constitute people’s experiences of gender and desire. According to Butler, there is no gendered self that exists prior to language, but rather, people are established as gendered subjects “through becoming intelligible in accordance with recognizable standards of gender intelligibility” (Gender Trouble 22). This mea (...truncated)


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Toby Finlay. Non-Binary Performativity: A Trans-Positive Account of Judith Butler’s Queer Theory, Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts, 2017, Volume 4, Issue 1,