''Undoing Gender'' is a 2004 book by American philosopher and

gender studies Gender studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analysing gender identity and gendered representation. Gender studies originated in the field of women's studies, concerning women, feminism, gender, and politics. The field n ...

writer

Judith Butler Judith Pamela Butler (born February 24, 1956) is an American feminist philosopher and gender studies scholar whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of third-wave feminism, queer theory, and literary theory. In ...

Summary

Butler examines

gender Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...

sex Sex is the biological trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing organism produces male or female gametes. During sexual reproduction, a male and a female gamete fuse to form a zygote, which develops into an offspring that inheri ...

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: and is a set of theories and techniques of research to discover unconscious mind, unconscious processes and their influence on conscious mind, conscious thought, emotion and behaviour. Based on The Inte ...

, and the way medicine and the law treat

intersex Intersex people are those born with any of several sex characteristics, including chromosome patterns, gonads, or genitals that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binar ...

and

transgender A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...

people. Focusing on the case of

David Reimer David Reimer (born Bruce Peter Reimer; 22 August 1965 – 4 May 2004) was a Canadian man raised as a girl following medical advice and intervention after his penis was severely injured during a botched circumcision in infancy. The psychologis ...

who was born male and reassigned to be raised as a girl after a botched circumcision, Butler reexamines the theory of

performativity Performativity is the concept that language can function as a form of social action and have the effect of change. The concept has multiple applications in diverse fields such as anthropology, social and cultural geography, economics, gender stu ...

that they originally explored in ''

Gender Trouble ''Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity'' is a 1990 book by the post-structuralist gender theorist and philosopher Judith Butler in which the author argues that gender is performative, meaning that it is maintained, created or ...

'' (1990). David—then renamed Brenda—rediscovers his masculinity and goes on to live his life as a male again. While many of Butler's books are intended for a highly academic audience, ''Undoing Gender'' reaches out to a much broader readership. Butler discusses how gender is performed without one being conscious of it, but says that it does not mean this performativity is "automatic or mechanical". They argue that we have desires that do not originate from our personhood, but rather, from social norms. The philosopher also debates our notions of "human" and "less-than-human" and how these culturally imposed ideas can keep one from having a "viable life" as the biggest concerns are usually about whether a person will be accepted if their desires differ from normality. They state that one may feel the need of being recognized in order to live, but that at the same time, the conditions to be recognized make life "unlivable". The writer proposes an interrogation of such conditions so that people who resist them may have more possibilities of living.

Reception

In a review of the book for '' The Comparatist'', Atticus Schoch Zavaletta wrote that ''Undoing Gender'' is the first of Butler's works to address transgender and intersex demographics in a prominent manner, and argued that, in doing so, Butler further "push sagainst the boundaries of the field she had a large part in creating." Zavaletta concluded: "''Undoing Gender'' constitutes a thoughtful and provocative response to the new gender politics and elegantly employs psychoanalysis, philosophy,

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

, and

queer theory Queer theory is a field of post-structuralist critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of queer studies (formerly often known as gay and lesbian studies) and women's studies. The term "queer theory" is broadly associated with the study a ...

in an effort to pry open the future of the human. Butler carefully attends to contemporary culture, asking questions crucial to LGBTQI studies, ones that are ultimately not only about gays or lesbians but are affirmative of the human and all its possible futures."

References

External links

Gender Performance and Trans-experience - Interview with Judith Butler

2000s LGBTQ literature 2004 non-fiction books American non-fiction books Books by Judith Butler English-language non-fiction books Gender studies books Intersex non-fiction Postmodern feminism Routledge books Transgender non-fiction books LGBTQ literature in the United States 2004 LGBTQ-related literary works {{LGBT-book-stub