UNI101Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Judith Butler, Reverse Onus, Canada Border Services Agency
6 Jan 2014
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Even the signification of a lesbian identity suggests stability of that identity. The people who are actually represented by this term didn"t come up with this term but it is imposed upon them. She thinks it"s important to come out as lesbian to counteract the invisibility of the identity. She wants to know what the term lesbian means and who gets to define it. Trying to conform to this identity actually produces this identity. Through the performance of a gender identity, you are bringing into existence that identity. What heterosexuals do is imitate the ideal heterosexual identity which doesn"t exist in reality outside of this performance. There is no such thing as the ideal male or female but one produces this idea every time one performs it. This identity is never the exact same thing. A lot of our reality is unconscious and may not actually conform with our identities .
