Group 5~Butler Review (Sorry, everyone, I had trouble accessing posts)

[Alicia Foster]

pg. 65

"He allegorizes transsexuality in order to achieve a sense of naturalness."

"...endocrinologists...understand his appearance now to be in accordance with an inner truth."

pg. 66

"in the name of normalization" VERSUS "in the name of nature"

1a} Our vision of gender and naturalness is not necessarily what is true~only what we have constructed as truth.

1b} "Malleability is, as it were, violently imposed. And naturalness is artificially induced." (pg. 66)

2a} The dominant culture determines the definition of natural and unnatural.

2b} regulation: what (not who) we are and can be; defines our limits

normalization: the setting of limits that people must subscribe to to be considered fully human, normal, natural, correct

3} This speaks to our tendency to automatically fear what we don't understand, to try to categorize it in order to give ourselves to the comfort of some semblance of control.