Un-doing gender: the queer category Phil of Law, 2016

sexual psychology;Psychoanalysis;Social psychology;Sociology;cultural anthropology;Femminist phil Share common theoretical element progressive removal of gender from sex

 distance from biological determinism;phil essentialism; estrangement from nature Separation intro diff arguments: Psychosex/psychoanalysis: G  product of edu(G malleable;S fixed) Femminist socio and phil reflection G  social and cultural construct (irrelevance of nature; importance external environment/inner preferences in sexual identification)

Reasons for this trend: 1)empirical complexity(cases of ambiguity and transex) 2)configuration of different scenarios for women who claim different roles from discriminatory ones Estrangement from nature assumed as solution to empirical problematicity and liberation from female condition

Modern conceptual horizon Generally,until now, existence of nature and sex binarism not challenged G  category we could include in modern conceptual horizon Thought that shares at least 1 common element(even in heterogeneity of elaboration)  ability of reason to develop explanation of possibilty to know and not question ontological truth: m & f does not constitute a prob

Post –Modernism Paradigm shift gender conceptualisation Lack of confidence of ability to know universal/partial truth regarding man/society Denial existence/knowledge of order/essential foundation of human beings Refusal of foundationalist approach Contempt for explanation of reality that unifies differences

Phil premises lead to consequences present in Post-mod thought -de-stabilisation of phil structures of Western thought -deconstructionism Fluidisation;liquefaction of real

deconstructionism gender category undergoes deep transformation of meaning in post-modern deconstructionist perspective De-constructionism  extreme consequences of anti-essentialism. It is not easy to give a definition of deconstruction as the authors of this line of thought intentionally avoid defining the concept

deconstructionism  distruction of the possibility of systematisation and unification  its the revindication of the “other” as something which is unthought of and excluded from any categorization  denies possibility of elaboration of unique and absolute concepts and meanings

This line of thought radicalizes the premises of social constructionism: Deconstructionism marks a radical change in the way of understanding the gender category, bringing it toward the extinction of the same meaning

deconstructionism theorizes individualistic voluntarism insignificance of nature, exclusive relevance of the individual will Relativism: no order, no purpose, no hierarchy: everything is equivalent (undifferentiated)

deconstructionism radical separation sex / gender gender: non-acquisition by family society, but individual creation (what the 'individual wants' / chooses to be) gender prevails over sex; gender produces sex; the starting point is not nature, but the individual will

In order to allow the contingent/multiple individual to express freely, it is necessary to: dismantle structures (cancelling each organization and hierarchy) expose power

The starting point and the root of gender, in the postmodern perspective, is the individual not society nor nature. It is the individual that decides the gender personally desired and wanted, regardless of nature and society.

In this context it is argued that gender “can”, indeed “should”, be regardless of sex. The term gender is used as prescriptive  that is as what must be the expression of individual desire and no longer as descriptive of a socio- cultural process (social constructionism)

Foucault Although author has not directly engaged study of gender The post-modern theories of gender refer explicitly to the concept developed by him The author denies natural sexuality theorizes sexuality as a result of a complex process of social construction(“socialization of sexuality”)

Socialization of sexuality Foucault: Sexuality is not a permanent essence of human beings, but it’s the product of: history society context discourse and power  “biopower”

Gender and biopower In the Foucauldian perspective  “Biopower” has developed discourses on sex to control the human body with birth and population control Sexuality is a discoursive creation and an artificial invention of power used as an instrument of domination or control mechanism

It is power through speech, language and society, which gives meaning to bodies, practices and desires.

Each social group is a regulatory srtucture, which: defines bodies disciplines behaviours excludes other bodies acts and desires Determines what is to be considered normal/natural vs abnormal/unatural

Foucault’s influence Foulcault’s idea that both body and sexuality are cultural constructs rather than natural phenomena contributed to the femminist and post-feminist critique of essentialism. In this sense gender theories, in the context of post- femminism and postmodernism, become the objects of application of his method. Many theories intend to deconstruct social sex and gender, considering it the means to liberate the body, identity and subjectivity of the individual from the claim of natural or social essence, presumed as one,homogenous,static and stable.

This perspective breaks down identity into an heterogenous identification process With the consequent rejection of all categories: even the sex gender category

a) biological determinism (pre-modern theory): substitutability sex / gender (We become what we are) b) social constructionism (modern theory): gender separation from sex (We can become different from what we are) c) deconstructionism (postmodern theory): priority of gender on sex (What matters is how we become)

The queer category It is in the context of de-constructionism that the gender category gives way to the queer theory. Queer: strange,weird, oblique. For some aspects the queer theory presents lines of continuity with the gender theories; for other aspects it introduces new elements that break through the previous thought.

Queer theory Two elements that carachterize “queerness” or “queering”: Polymorphism: Expressed in problematization and denial of sexual binarism: Queer indicates a way of thinking and living sexuality in contrast to the rigid binary male or female classification Rejects any oppositional binary code

Queer expands gender category including not only sex but even sexuality as sexual orientation: “Set of behaviours, attitudes and acts and desires aimed at the bond with the other, the attraction towards the other” Attraction  erotic/romantic sense

pansexualism Other element that characterizes queer Problematizes and denies heterosexuality as privileged in society Queer considers every sexual orientation equivalent  whether it is expressed towards the opposite sex or the same sex or both sexes It is the exaltation of omnisexuality/multisexuality where every sexual preference is justified by the simple fact it is expressed towards someone regardless of whom they are Exaltation of every sexual preference

“queer” is therefore an amorphous and open term: a flexible, fluid, variable, permeable category against closed impermeable, fixed dichotomies

Queer  “umbrella term” which refers to many theories that have in common the liberalisation of sexuality making “normal” what was considered “abnormal”

LGBTI Institutionally, queer has been associated with LGBTI construct gender identities in opposition to biological determinism and essentialism problematize on theoretical level and withstand on practical level rigid sexual dimorphism and heterocentricism

Transexual individual that lives the non-correspondance between biological sex and psycho-social gender and intervenes to permanently modify their body for a complete sex riassignment male-to-female, who passes from male to female or the femminization of the male, female-to-male; who passes from female to male or masculinization of the female

Transgender Individual that expresses, transitory or steadily, a gender identity that is not in line with the sex at birth and combines both male and female features and behaviour, wavering from one gender to the other with a partial modification of the body if needs be Trans-woman: individual born male and lives like a woman Trans-man: individual born female and lives like a man

Transvestitism (or cross-dressing) Phenomenon referred to individuals that have the habit of intentionally wearing publically or privately, clothes that are usually and traditionally associated with the opposite sex Intersexual Condition of sexual ambiguities (genetic,gonadic,hormonal,morphological) due to contemporary presence of features of both sexes

Queer theory Rejects any hierarchy in relation to sexual identity and sexual orientation: difference is considered to be cause of hierarchy that consequently widens the distance between normal considered superior and abnormal considered inferior.

Queer theory and intersex condition Hormonal treatments or irreversible surgery on children are therefore deemed illicit individual can grow in the intersex state and as adults can choose (or even not choose) on the basis of individual will. Claim a ‘third gender’ that could account for any variation from the binary.

Queer and transexualism Criticizes transexualism which forces the transformation of the body’s sex according to gender, returning to the conformity of sexual binarism Prefers sexual indetermination to determination Transgender condition is preferred to transexualism

Critics to Queer theory 1) first of all we can underline it’s virtual side typical of postmodernity queer identity is not only victim of its “potentiality”, but also unable to be realized: an identity that has its basis in reality could not in fact ever be realized. Sedgwick (American academic scholar in the fields of gender studies), defines queer identity in this way: queer connotes etymologically a crossing of borders but that does not refer to anything in particular thus leaving the question of its denotation to challenges and revision

2) The second consideration concerns the asocial character of queer identity : it has this peculiarity  it can not be established if not by self-designation. In other words queer is only who can publicly declare to be so, not who is declared such by society. The self-designation process expresses the individual desire of absolute sovereignty on his identity, his existence, and his being, but also on society that he manipulates refusing to identify himself for what he really is.

3) queer theory exalts the idol of materialism, that is matter (the sexed body),fluid, porous, without substance at the end of the revolution has transformed reality - scientific, material, spiritual- in virtual reality.