Note: Read this first you have not already. Also, TL;DR version of Butler: Reimer committed suicide not because he was denied his biological identity of being a male, but because of society's oversimplification of gender wouldn't allow him to be a forced transsexual.
Judith Butler Responds To The Case Of David Reimer In "Undoing Gender"
![[Image: tumblr_lz3ucxZjAq1rp27ljo1_500.jpg]](https://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lz3ucxZjAq1rp27ljo1_500.jpg)
Well, I found Judith Butler’s chapter on David Reimer in her 2004 book, Undoing Gender.
As I previously noted, Butler released a book in 2004 that has a chapter discussing David Reimer. She included her analysis of the situation under a chapter about the evolution of transgender politics. She discusses that David was body was forcibly queered and, from that, his crisis of stems from his inability to fit into prefabricated gender norms.
Let me reduce her approaches here. She, once again, makes a narcissistic argument that David’s life (as Brenda) was one born out of coercion and performance. She sets up the doctors, psychiatrists & his family as the audience and he as the nonconsensual actor. His performance of a gendered role was the cause of his discomfit as a child & adult. She claims that David was fundamentally motivated by desire for approval from authorities figures in the form of love. She draws on some of his comments about his life & forced transsexuality and she claims his words are so steeped in gendered norms that his true identity is impossible to ascertain as it is buried underneath his gendered upbringing.
She claims David identity conflict was also born out of his gender identity unmoored from his lack of genitals. In this sense, she claims he transcends sex & gender into world of transsexuality. She also asserts the David implicitly argues that David doesn’t want manhood, in general, to be judged on having a natural penis. She reinforces David’s issues were purely around failing to live up to gendered norms forced onto him by heterosexist authority figures. She notes towards the end of the piece that we can never really know what David thought about his sexual identity, as his body was forced to be made intelligible (medically & socially forced to be a female) and he exists in the limits of how society circumscribes the human experience.
In other words – it wasn’t that fact his biologically male & that was denied to him, it is the insufficiency of approaches to gender in society that caused his severe psychological issues.
A quick rebuttal is necessary here. She completely ignores the issue of biological realities of sex & gender (discussion to follow) and completely misdiagnoses what David’s issues were. Clearly, it was his frustration about his identity as a male from a biological perspective. He isn’t worried about queered bodies; his issue is the gap between how he was programmed biologically and the removal of his testicles. His psychological issues stem from that gap that will never be rectified in reality. She talks about gender being a performance because of the needed medical intervention necessary to make David a male, but that take is absurd, as doctors were trying to make whole their mistaken burning of his penis.
Of course, David is worried about people think about him, but that is a reflection of his insecurity relating to his identity as a male. The power analysis of authority figures is off-base. Surely, David was supremely upset that his life was forcibly engineered by doctors & psychiatrists. However, if I was hazarding a guess, if you asked him what he wanted it would not be the smashing of heterosexist gender norms but to go back in time and have his penis not get burned off.
Foucualt's & Feminist's Relationship With Power
![[Image: ryan-gosling-8.jpg]](http://runt-of-the-web.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/ryan-gosling-8.jpg)
Let’s talk about Foucault and how his theories cloud feminist's & social constructionist's minds.
First, let me talk about post-structuralist thought in general. I am not an expert on this strand of philosophy; the philosophy is about analyzing modern society through a critical theory lens. A common theme is the deconstruction of binaries like gender. This is where feminist post-structuralists come in. Judith Butler is a perfect example of this sort of feminist. They do not believe that there are any differences between men & women and their approach is primarily used in psychoanalysis & literary criticism. Of course, the main problem is the extensive use of Freud and Foucault.
Foucault was a French philosopher who was popular through the mid-1900’s until his death in the 1980’s. He is famous for many things, but his work on power & gender is most relevant here.
Let’s first consider his genealogical approach to analyzing history & society. He believes that the truth is randomly discovered and rarely self-evident or fixed. His approach to historical & social analysis is by looking to relations based on power, knowledge and the body. He does not consider a particular individual’s intentions or aims when considering their actions, but a contextual analysis of power in a given situation based on historical subjectivity. In sum, pure social relevatism.
Foucault is a favorite writer for feminists for this approach that eschews reality in favor of theoretical analysis of power balances - most importantly over Foucault’s focus on the oppression of the body. Foucault was a clear social constructionist and believed that biological explanations of male & female differences was rooted in inequality & misogyny. Note how when you are debating a feminist and you bring up biological differences, the response is rarely disputing that fact but focusing on that you are bringing up biological differences in order to oppress women. That is a Foucauldian approach – focus on perceived power imbalances and ignore claims of fixed truth.
As it relates back to David Reimer & Judith Butler, the analysis is this: Reimer did not commit suicide because he was denied his biological birthright - he committed suicide on the basis of oppressive power imbalances that denied him an autonomous relationships with his body. The issue wasn’t his removal of his penis & testicles – although that was a violation of his autonomy – but the real violation was his forced performance of femininity at the hands of authority figures. Due to restrictive norms placed onto the bodies of men & women – based on male privilege & heterosexuality – Reimer committed suicide out of his inability to properly identify with his ambiguous sexuality.
The power imbalances that authority figures manipulated in order to force David into either binary role, a man or a woman, are a reflection of fictions of sex as biological & an approach to sex relating purely to reproductive abilities. Further, the approach here is that Money & the authorities were reinforcing homophobic approaches to gender that force men to pretend they are masculine in order to never have to deal with the existential terror of admitting attraction to their father. For women, it is the same. Feminine women are that way because they are repressing lesbian impulses towards their mother.
The Freudian analysis here is that masculine men & feminine are psychologically immature and need to drop the performance in order to become a self-identified human. Reimer was a person who killed himself because he could not reconcile his identity outside of gendered norms he was so thoroughly soaked in. Unable to create persona outside of masculinity & femininity, he faced that Freudian existential terror and killed himself in order to not deal with it.
As for other feminists responses to Reimer, understand they mostly deferred to Butler & Foucault. They focused on the transphobic violence inflicted by doctors on Reimer & the latent misogyny that undergirded the whole approach to assign Reimer to either sex. I found one article that admitted feminist approaches to social constructionism is lacking, but it was the only one.
Gender Deconstruction As Pure Selfishness
![[Image: Polyamory-preferred-by-everyone-except-t...tarded.gif]](http://www.russlindquist.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Polyamory-preferred-by-everyone-except-those-sexually-retarded.gif)
Let's talk about the Online-Girl Hamster Thread. There are many posts of women who are completely unmoored from feminine sensibility. Many of the women assume, as feminists, it is the insufficiency of social scripts handed to women & people that prevent them from becoming "people." Let's step through this.
Let's analyze this female. She is completely a stereotypical disaffected Millennial, with the typical obsession with power, feminism and inequality. Her self-hatred bleeds through strongly & is spelled out directly sometimes. She uses feigned indifference in order to wish away her inability to develop a healthy individual identity.
She talks a big game about not being a man or woman and hating the concept of gender. This is where the Freudian analysis is applicable. Someone like her probably absolutely loathes masculine men & feminine women - especially when they are joined in a romantic relationships. She probably assuages herself that such bourgeois "expressions" of gender are outdated and based on misogyny & homophobia.
I will never understand some people's temporal issues. It does not matter one bit if an idea is "outdated" - what is most relevant is whether said idea is right or wrong.
The misogyny bit is based out of narcissism. As I have asserted before, accusations of misogyny are generally rooted in a female searching for male worship. Here, this female would regard such a stereotypical gender expression as misogynistic because it reflects on gendered norms - i.e. such expressions are not real but performances. The fact such a person would take so easily to the idea of life being a performance suggests narcissism, but also the narcissism is exposed by framing gender oppression through the lens of female oppression. If gender norms are oppressive to both sexes, then why view it through the female lens - because it is all about privileging men & oppressing women? The logical inconsistency is obvious here, but recall the Foucauldian sleight of hand - they will refocus the discussion on power disparities while ignoring real world logical inconsistencies. In a vain attempt to garner the attention of the masculine man (whom she finds sexually attractive) she will use anger, confrontation & general irascibility as an attempt to refocus said man's attention on her.
As for the homophobia, recall the Freudian analysis of the masculine man /feminine women using such fictions in order to never have to confront their homosexual desire for their same-sex parent. Recall my very first thread here about a homosexual man asserting homosexual approaches to masculinity are superior to heterosexual approaches. Once again, we have an argument for social constructions of masculinity & the concept of performance. His argument can be boiled down to the fact masculine men are just performers either using masculinity to advance their misogyny or using it to hide from their homosexual impulses.
The whole "intellectual" arc of Butler, Foucault & Freud is steeped in narcissism and selfishness. People who subscribe to these theories are people who are unable to come to terms with their identity as a person. Instead of working on their issues like a healthy person would, they port it across society.
Take Judith Butler. She assumed every single female has the similar issues with femininity she has. You see this so often in feminism when it relates to the natural feminist - white, heterosexual, middle-class+ - they stress intersectionality so hard. They need hard & fast rules so they don't get in narcissistic battles over whose experiences are representative of everybody's.
That is the selfishness of gender deconstruction. The need to deconstruct other's identities is based out of the fear of dealing with their existential issues. They believe so strongly that masculine men are that way because they are terrified of dealing with homosexual impulses is telling. They know, deep down, they are terrified of dealing with their psychological issues. They assume others have the same issues related to their sexuality & gender expression.
This exposure here is what fuels much of American female anger, hatred & ugliness. It is very sad, really. It is quite the ignominious end for the once great nation of America.
I suppose every civilization shall rise & fall. It is sad that it will go out in such a selfish & anti-intellectual way. A bunch of people who haven't realized that everybody else does not have the same issues they have. So blindingly obsessed with power that they forget the real reason we are all here - to do right by each other.
David Reimer was just a pawn in the game for social power by social constructionists. When his genitals were remove without his consent, they were more worried about gendered power structures. When he candidly talked about his denial of his male birthright they only speculated they did not have enough information to understand why he felt that way. Even when he tasted the cold, unforgiving steel of a shotgun, it still was about restrictive gender norms.
Yes, Butler, Foucault & all your "intellectual" sympathizers, what matters most isn't analyzing the world not through arbitrary & tainted lens of truth but considering the world through your self-absorbed understanding of power relations.
Masculinity & femininity? It's misogyny, homophobia or whatever the hateful oppression of the day is - never consider your own psychology. What matters most is that society at large kowtow to your delusions so you can sleep better at night.
That's all it is - demanding a good night's sleep at the expense of a man's life, at the expense of intellectualism & most certainly at the expense of one of humanity's greatest nations - America.
Judith Butler Responds To The Case Of David Reimer In "Undoing Gender"
Well, I found Judith Butler’s chapter on David Reimer in her 2004 book, Undoing Gender.
As I previously noted, Butler released a book in 2004 that has a chapter discussing David Reimer. She included her analysis of the situation under a chapter about the evolution of transgender politics. She discusses that David was body was forcibly queered and, from that, his crisis of stems from his inability to fit into prefabricated gender norms.
Let me reduce her approaches here. She, once again, makes a narcissistic argument that David’s life (as Brenda) was one born out of coercion and performance. She sets up the doctors, psychiatrists & his family as the audience and he as the nonconsensual actor. His performance of a gendered role was the cause of his discomfit as a child & adult. She claims that David was fundamentally motivated by desire for approval from authorities figures in the form of love. She draws on some of his comments about his life & forced transsexuality and she claims his words are so steeped in gendered norms that his true identity is impossible to ascertain as it is buried underneath his gendered upbringing.
She claims David identity conflict was also born out of his gender identity unmoored from his lack of genitals. In this sense, she claims he transcends sex & gender into world of transsexuality. She also asserts the David implicitly argues that David doesn’t want manhood, in general, to be judged on having a natural penis. She reinforces David’s issues were purely around failing to live up to gendered norms forced onto him by heterosexist authority figures. She notes towards the end of the piece that we can never really know what David thought about his sexual identity, as his body was forced to be made intelligible (medically & socially forced to be a female) and he exists in the limits of how society circumscribes the human experience.
Quote:Quote:
It clearly is a reason beyond the regime of reason established by the norms of sexology itself. We only know he holds out for another reason, and in this sense, we no longer know what kind of reason this is, what reasons can be; he establishes the limits of what they know, disrupting the politics of truth, making use of his desubjugation within that under of being to establish the possession of love beyond the grasp of that norm.
In other words – it wasn’t that fact his biologically male & that was denied to him, it is the insufficiency of approaches to gender in society that caused his severe psychological issues.
A quick rebuttal is necessary here. She completely ignores the issue of biological realities of sex & gender (discussion to follow) and completely misdiagnoses what David’s issues were. Clearly, it was his frustration about his identity as a male from a biological perspective. He isn’t worried about queered bodies; his issue is the gap between how he was programmed biologically and the removal of his testicles. His psychological issues stem from that gap that will never be rectified in reality. She talks about gender being a performance because of the needed medical intervention necessary to make David a male, but that take is absurd, as doctors were trying to make whole their mistaken burning of his penis.
Of course, David is worried about people think about him, but that is a reflection of his insecurity relating to his identity as a male. The power analysis of authority figures is off-base. Surely, David was supremely upset that his life was forcibly engineered by doctors & psychiatrists. However, if I was hazarding a guess, if you asked him what he wanted it would not be the smashing of heterosexist gender norms but to go back in time and have his penis not get burned off.
Foucualt's & Feminist's Relationship With Power
Let’s talk about Foucault and how his theories cloud feminist's & social constructionist's minds.
First, let me talk about post-structuralist thought in general. I am not an expert on this strand of philosophy; the philosophy is about analyzing modern society through a critical theory lens. A common theme is the deconstruction of binaries like gender. This is where feminist post-structuralists come in. Judith Butler is a perfect example of this sort of feminist. They do not believe that there are any differences between men & women and their approach is primarily used in psychoanalysis & literary criticism. Of course, the main problem is the extensive use of Freud and Foucault.
Foucault was a French philosopher who was popular through the mid-1900’s until his death in the 1980’s. He is famous for many things, but his work on power & gender is most relevant here.
Let’s first consider his genealogical approach to analyzing history & society. He believes that the truth is randomly discovered and rarely self-evident or fixed. His approach to historical & social analysis is by looking to relations based on power, knowledge and the body. He does not consider a particular individual’s intentions or aims when considering their actions, but a contextual analysis of power in a given situation based on historical subjectivity. In sum, pure social relevatism.
Foucault is a favorite writer for feminists for this approach that eschews reality in favor of theoretical analysis of power balances - most importantly over Foucault’s focus on the oppression of the body. Foucault was a clear social constructionist and believed that biological explanations of male & female differences was rooted in inequality & misogyny. Note how when you are debating a feminist and you bring up biological differences, the response is rarely disputing that fact but focusing on that you are bringing up biological differences in order to oppress women. That is a Foucauldian approach – focus on perceived power imbalances and ignore claims of fixed truth.
As it relates back to David Reimer & Judith Butler, the analysis is this: Reimer did not commit suicide because he was denied his biological birthright - he committed suicide on the basis of oppressive power imbalances that denied him an autonomous relationships with his body. The issue wasn’t his removal of his penis & testicles – although that was a violation of his autonomy – but the real violation was his forced performance of femininity at the hands of authority figures. Due to restrictive norms placed onto the bodies of men & women – based on male privilege & heterosexuality – Reimer committed suicide out of his inability to properly identify with his ambiguous sexuality.
The power imbalances that authority figures manipulated in order to force David into either binary role, a man or a woman, are a reflection of fictions of sex as biological & an approach to sex relating purely to reproductive abilities. Further, the approach here is that Money & the authorities were reinforcing homophobic approaches to gender that force men to pretend they are masculine in order to never have to deal with the existential terror of admitting attraction to their father. For women, it is the same. Feminine women are that way because they are repressing lesbian impulses towards their mother.
The Freudian analysis here is that masculine men & feminine are psychologically immature and need to drop the performance in order to become a self-identified human. Reimer was a person who killed himself because he could not reconcile his identity outside of gendered norms he was so thoroughly soaked in. Unable to create persona outside of masculinity & femininity, he faced that Freudian existential terror and killed himself in order to not deal with it.
As for other feminists responses to Reimer, understand they mostly deferred to Butler & Foucault. They focused on the transphobic violence inflicted by doctors on Reimer & the latent misogyny that undergirded the whole approach to assign Reimer to either sex. I found one article that admitted feminist approaches to social constructionism is lacking, but it was the only one.
Gender Deconstruction As Pure Selfishness
Let's talk about the Online-Girl Hamster Thread. There are many posts of women who are completely unmoored from feminine sensibility. Many of the women assume, as feminists, it is the insufficiency of social scripts handed to women & people that prevent them from becoming "people." Let's step through this.
Let's analyze this female. She is completely a stereotypical disaffected Millennial, with the typical obsession with power, feminism and inequality. Her self-hatred bleeds through strongly & is spelled out directly sometimes. She uses feigned indifference in order to wish away her inability to develop a healthy individual identity.
She talks a big game about not being a man or woman and hating the concept of gender. This is where the Freudian analysis is applicable. Someone like her probably absolutely loathes masculine men & feminine women - especially when they are joined in a romantic relationships. She probably assuages herself that such bourgeois "expressions" of gender are outdated and based on misogyny & homophobia.
I will never understand some people's temporal issues. It does not matter one bit if an idea is "outdated" - what is most relevant is whether said idea is right or wrong.
The misogyny bit is based out of narcissism. As I have asserted before, accusations of misogyny are generally rooted in a female searching for male worship. Here, this female would regard such a stereotypical gender expression as misogynistic because it reflects on gendered norms - i.e. such expressions are not real but performances. The fact such a person would take so easily to the idea of life being a performance suggests narcissism, but also the narcissism is exposed by framing gender oppression through the lens of female oppression. If gender norms are oppressive to both sexes, then why view it through the female lens - because it is all about privileging men & oppressing women? The logical inconsistency is obvious here, but recall the Foucauldian sleight of hand - they will refocus the discussion on power disparities while ignoring real world logical inconsistencies. In a vain attempt to garner the attention of the masculine man (whom she finds sexually attractive) she will use anger, confrontation & general irascibility as an attempt to refocus said man's attention on her.
As for the homophobia, recall the Freudian analysis of the masculine man /feminine women using such fictions in order to never have to confront their homosexual desire for their same-sex parent. Recall my very first thread here about a homosexual man asserting homosexual approaches to masculinity are superior to heterosexual approaches. Once again, we have an argument for social constructions of masculinity & the concept of performance. His argument can be boiled down to the fact masculine men are just performers either using masculinity to advance their misogyny or using it to hide from their homosexual impulses.
The whole "intellectual" arc of Butler, Foucault & Freud is steeped in narcissism and selfishness. People who subscribe to these theories are people who are unable to come to terms with their identity as a person. Instead of working on their issues like a healthy person would, they port it across society.
Take Judith Butler. She assumed every single female has the similar issues with femininity she has. You see this so often in feminism when it relates to the natural feminist - white, heterosexual, middle-class+ - they stress intersectionality so hard. They need hard & fast rules so they don't get in narcissistic battles over whose experiences are representative of everybody's.
That is the selfishness of gender deconstruction. The need to deconstruct other's identities is based out of the fear of dealing with their existential issues. They believe so strongly that masculine men are that way because they are terrified of dealing with homosexual impulses is telling. They know, deep down, they are terrified of dealing with their psychological issues. They assume others have the same issues related to their sexuality & gender expression.
This exposure here is what fuels much of American female anger, hatred & ugliness. It is very sad, really. It is quite the ignominious end for the once great nation of America.
I suppose every civilization shall rise & fall. It is sad that it will go out in such a selfish & anti-intellectual way. A bunch of people who haven't realized that everybody else does not have the same issues they have. So blindingly obsessed with power that they forget the real reason we are all here - to do right by each other.
David Reimer was just a pawn in the game for social power by social constructionists. When his genitals were remove without his consent, they were more worried about gendered power structures. When he candidly talked about his denial of his male birthright they only speculated they did not have enough information to understand why he felt that way. Even when he tasted the cold, unforgiving steel of a shotgun, it still was about restrictive gender norms.
Yes, Butler, Foucault & all your "intellectual" sympathizers, what matters most isn't analyzing the world not through arbitrary & tainted lens of truth but considering the world through your self-absorbed understanding of power relations.
Masculinity & femininity? It's misogyny, homophobia or whatever the hateful oppression of the day is - never consider your own psychology. What matters most is that society at large kowtow to your delusions so you can sleep better at night.
That's all it is - demanding a good night's sleep at the expense of a man's life, at the expense of intellectualism & most certainly at the expense of one of humanity's greatest nations - America.
