Comments | enderwiggin: Trans-, in gender and sex

enderwiggin

Trans-, in gender and sex

Oct 10, 2006 13:41

Note: I write this not as an expert on such terminology, but as individual speculation put upon me from the outside. And because one of my friends (mentor) had asked me this several times. A more accessable form of this text will be posted up soon. Critiques and comments please? It's by far not a finished text, there's a lot to do with polishing ( Read more... )

deconstruction, sex, queer issues, trans, theory, gender, supplement

Comments 5

just a few thoughts purloinedcoin November 10 2006, 00:19:13 UTC

Hi,
I'm surprised you haven't gotten any comments about this since I really enjoyed it personally. I haven't read about the supplement as treated by Derrida (which I'm guessing is in Of Grammatology) but it definitely follows his spirit, from what I've gathered from the few essays I've read by him in Writing and Difference. That is, I see it being fairly critical about the fixity found in choice (a problem that from what I've read is sort of insoluble) and it sets the physical world into the periphery and privileges the immaterial (though I wouldn't quite say metaphysical). Which then makes me wonder about how your statement may engage in dialogue with the various threads (not necessarily confluent within themselves) of materialist criticism out there. That is, what kind of discussion can emerge from your statement about the physical -- a standpoint that has been co-opted by those who are hostile to this idea of gender as floating beyond the reductive space of chromosomal analysis (in the pop-culture world anyway...I'm sure there ( ... )

Re: just a few thoughts enderwiggin November 10 2006, 00:49:20 UTC

Oh wow... you are definately more well-read than I am on critical theory and philosophy. I just recently got into theory this summer, no more than 4 months ago. As for this idea, I've pretty much scraped it after reading some works by Judith Butler on subjection and power, and the idea of Being of Heidegger ( ... )

Re: just a few thoughts purloinedcoin November 10 2006, 03:23:15 UTC

sorry to hear that you've dispensed with this theory, although if you're like me, I suspect that perhaps a variation of it will pop up in some other idea. Honestly, I have barely read any theory myself, although I hope to pursue it in more depth. Eventually I hope to read Butler and Heidegger, but I don't feel prepared for them just yet (among various other canonical works ( ... )

Re: just a few thoughts enderwiggin November 10 2006, 03:43:41 UTC

Deconstructing sex is possible, though it is much harder than gender since it is based on the physical semiotics of the biological body. (I'm not comfortable with using the term dismantling, hence why I used it when I was talking about activists with no idea of theory. Dismantling is only part of the process, deconstruction not only dismantles what claims to be an Universal truth, but it opens it up to the Other). We could look at intersexed individuals to talk about sex, but that's a lot more in depth than my lil' mind wants to go right now ( ... )

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