Gayle Rubin on Categories
Sep. 25th, 2025 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lb_lee“Our categories are important. We cannot organize a social life, a political movement, or our individual identities and desires without them. The fact that categories invariably leak and can never contain all the relevant ‘existing things’ does not render them useless, only limited. Categories like ‘woman,’ ‘butch,’ ‘lesbian,’ or ‘transsexual’ are all imperfect, historical, temporary, and arbitrary. We use them and they use us. We use them to construct meaningful lives, and they mold us into historically specific forms of personhood. Instead of fighting for immaculate classifications and impenetrable boundaries, let us strive to maintain a community that understands diversity as a gift, sees anomalies as precious, and treats all basic principles with a hefty dose of skepticism.” —Gayle Rubin, “Of catamites and kings: Reflections on butch, gender, and boundaries,” The Persistent Desire: a Femme-Butch Reader, Boston: Alyson Publications, 1992, pg. 477-478
Rubin was talking about lesbian political fights about trans people and the overlap and boundaries between butch and transsexuality (and there’s LOTS of expressions of what we’d nowadays call trans and gender dysphoria in A Persistent Desire), but I think the same ideas apply to multi/plural/many-selved stuff too. Goodness knows I spent enough time chewing on my arm because I couldn’t figure out how to express a concept without it turning into a hopeless argument over the terms in use. This whole essay has a lot of great quotes (“sexual preference, gender roles, and political stance cannot be equated, and do not directly determine or reflect one another”) and is worth reading.
Also it’s just really nice to see an essay over thirty years old saying “cool your jets about trans people, it’s fine. Your politics will survive.”
Mori wants this book like burning. Too bad used paperbacks start at $100.
Rubin was talking about lesbian political fights about trans people and the overlap and boundaries between butch and transsexuality (and there’s LOTS of expressions of what we’d nowadays call trans and gender dysphoria in A Persistent Desire), but I think the same ideas apply to multi/plural/many-selved stuff too. Goodness knows I spent enough time chewing on my arm because I couldn’t figure out how to express a concept without it turning into a hopeless argument over the terms in use. This whole essay has a lot of great quotes (“sexual preference, gender roles, and political stance cannot be equated, and do not directly determine or reflect one another”) and is worth reading.
Also it’s just really nice to see an essay over thirty years old saying “cool your jets about trans people, it’s fine. Your politics will survive.”
Mori wants this book like burning. Too bad used paperbacks start at $100.
no subject
Date: 2025-09-26 12:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-26 12:23 pm (UTC)I am considering going over to the Watertown Zine Fest to admire and possibly purchase on October 18. (Minoanmiss sent me info!) Were you considering it, and, if so, would you like a ride?
no subject
Date: 2025-09-26 03:13 pm (UTC)We’ve tabled there a few times and there’s been some really stunning work. A high point last year was grabbing a zine about two-spirit/indigequeer stuff!
no subject
Date: 2025-09-26 03:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-27 12:26 am (UTC)