Let's talk about Judith Butler

[Novelafemme]

Originally Posted by dark_crystal

My quibble is that, to me, this only makes sense for the cisgendered. I feel like she implies there is no such thing as transgender **

**although i am cisgendered and i would never presume to speak to what transgender "is," which is what i would be doing if i went toe-to-toe on her assertions

which is precisely my problem- Butler does not let her cisgendered perspective stop her from making assumptions about what transgendered individuals are thinking and feeling

I particularly don't like the way she takes the David Reimer case and decides for herself what led him to report that he "felt like a boy"

Queer theorists like Judith Butler are relatively new to the world of transgender issues. She, like author/Chicana activist Cherrie Moraga, are quite forthcoming about their individual struggles with transphobia. For latent second wave feminists like them, the struggle is very internal and often goes against their anti-assimilation backgrounds. I am not saying they are right or wrong, rather inserting a bit of information that might shed some light.

added: by anti-assimilation I mean that some people feel transgender males have divorced themselves from the feminist community by "assimilating" into the heterosexual world. NOT ME! But "some people"