Undoing Gender

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) includes the diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder (GID). This diagnosis is beneficial in allowing transgender individuals access to proper medical care, but it pathologizes transgender individuals. Butler argues for the diagnosis as a matter of autonomy. Butler discusses the history of discrimination and pathologization of gay and lesbian individuals through prior diagnoses, which continues under GID. Anti-gay and transphobic groups, such as the National Association of Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, use GID to support the misguided linking of gender and sexuality. Gender does not indicate sexuality, nor do queer relationships need to emulate heterosexuality. A GID diagnosis could be a “pure” instrument, though this choice would require a pragmatic attitude. Dr. Richard Isay argues that language for a GID diagnosis should be less pathologizing, while Jacob Hale argues that psychologists should be excluded altogether. Hale and Isay question autonomy, suggesting either that autonomy can be internally undermined or that there are “material conditions” to “liberty.” Medical decisions that affirm norms are usually supported by insurance, such as a man taking Viagra, while those who go against norms are often rejected, such as full mastectomies.

Butler shows how the body operates as a set of signs that indicate sex. Butler cites George Rekers, a professor of neuropsychiatry and behavioral science, as an example of Christian right-wing ideology. Rekkers argues that GID is a valid diagnosis and should be expanded to encourage “corrective,” religious action. A GID diagnosis can grant working-class individuals financial assistance to make transitioning possible, but they also must submit to the language of diagnosis, which is often untrue. Part of a GID diagnosis requires the removal of sex from the cultural matrix, which Butler argues is impossible. The diagnosis uses a rigid understanding of gender, noting how boys with GID express a preference for improvised women’s clothing, while girls prefer being called by a boy’s name. These rigid views expose the social nature of sex and gender, embedded in the diagnostic requirement of “distress.” Gwen Araujo, a transgender youth who was killed at a party, exposes how the “distress” has explicitly external origins. The GID diagnosis exposes a critical paradox in autonomy, in which individuals can only express autonomy with the permission of society.

Butler notes how kinship relations and marriage are conflated, arguing that the kinship struggles of different nations can inform the anxieties of each regarding kinship. Discourse on gay marriage assumes that marriage represents legitimacy, which inherently excludes any kinship outside marriage. The act of this exclusion is itself political. A person cannot choose an unintelligible existence, finding themselves circumscribed by the political exclusions. Arguments against gay marriage are often rooted in anti-gay bias, and the French decision to allow gay marriage stipulated that gay couples cannot have children. Butler frames marriage as a complex relation between the desire for state recognition and the state’s desire to recognize.

Sylviane Agacinski argues that gay couples having children violates the “symbolic order.” In opposing gay couples’ rights, she implicitly sees those rights as challenging the norm. Butler notes the dilemma between accepting state recognition for institutional benefits and the sacrifice of freedom inherent in state recognition. Butler cites Jacqueline Rose, who suggests that forming a critical perspective means being aware of both the benefits and problems of legitimation and the power of the state as “fantasy.”

Agacinski’s argument aligns with the symbolic positions of the father and mother, through which she calls gay couples’ desires for children “violence.” The Oedipal conflict organizes the transition from nature to culture through the father’s ownership of the mother. Agacinski argues that children cannot determine gender and sexuality with two fathers or with two mothers. Butler notes that some successful kinship structures deviate from and refute the universality of the Oedipal conflict.

The incest taboo and mandate for exogamy ensure the reproduction of culture, likening Agacinski’s struggle to maintaining the fantasy of universalism when opposing both queer and interracial relationships. Butler notes David Schneider’s perspective that kinship is a form of “doing.” The fantasy of cultural unity relies on heterosexual reproduction which reproduces and is reproduced by a monolithic culture. Kinship, though, loses its specificity as it approaches “community,” allowing sexuality to branch out as its own domain.

Butler questions what different forms the Oedipal conflict might take in different cultural settings and whether it mandates heterosexuality. The fragility of the symbolic framework comes out in the fears of its proponents, such as Agacinski and Hanna Segal, who oppose being gay as unnatural or pathological while arguing for its potential to destabilize culture. However, engaging in discourse within the framework of the symbolic order implicitly accepts a loss of the unintelligible.