gender constructed

Being genderqueer, the gender I identify with is constantly in flux. So much so, it is difficult to describe this undulating identity with one label. The others I have used are: gender bender, genderfluid, gender fucked, and agender. My gender is the sensation of intimate connection between my body and my mind — the alignment of my six senses otherwise known as embodiment. The dichotomy of gender dysphoria versus euphoria lives within me and is evidenced in the way my body/mind rejects feminine and/or masculine affects.

American gender theorist and philosopher, Judith Butler coined the term, “gender performativity” in her 1990 book, Gender Trouble. Using Butler’s analysis of the term, Sara Salih states that gender performativity, “…seems to point towards the conclusion that gender is not something one is, it is something one does, an act, or more precisely, a sequence of acts, a verb rather than a noun, a “doing” rather than a “being” (2006). As an individual that regularly bends the expectations of my gender assigned at birth, it is my lived reality that doing gender feels akin to a performance. Androgyny allows me to step in and out of masculinized and feminized gender attributions, and as a result of that, public perception of my gender shifts. This is proven by the gendered variation of pronouns and greetings that strangers offer me depending on my appearance. Since I have no vested attachment to a particular gender, I feel caricatured by the gendered perception I receive from others. No harm comes from this personally, but I can not speak for others who feel a strong attachment to their own gendered embodiment. Everybody deserves to be referred to in a way that affirms who they are inside and out.

This project is an endeavor in exploring gendered imagery with my body as the primary locus. I use the constructed image to stage scenes that carry the notion of performativity.

Gaze with respectful curiosity.

Butler, J. (1999). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (2nd ed.). Routledge.

Salih, S. (2006). Judith Butler and Performativity. In Sexualities and Communication in Everyday Life: A Reader (1st ed., pp. 55–67). SAGE Publications, Inc.