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Who's Afraid of Gender

by Judith Butler

"Depending on the anxieties circulating in a particular region, gender can be figured as Marxist or capitalist, tyranny or libertarianism, fascism or totalitarianism, a colonizing force or an unwanted migrant."

"When people are already living with fear, and they are told that there is in fact more to fear, and that the source of their fear can be named, then the name contains and neutralizes the contradictions, serving now as a “cause” of ongoing and ultimate destruction, one that must be rooted out and expelled."

"The effort to quash any qualifications on family serves the purpose of keeping family in a single, acceptable form. Any effort to reconfigure the family or move toward ideas of kinship arrangements not identified as family is ruled out as “ideological.” But the practice of ruling out alternate possibilities of kinship when they already exist is surely an ideological move! How else to establish a single social form as universal and necessary? The way to make the argument is simply to assert the self-identity of family, a tautological move that seeks to rule out all cultural and historical variation. “Family is family!” seeks to assert the obvious, but it is a way of shutting down alternative possibilities already actualized in the world."

‘Note how the Church’s argument against relativism ushers in a phantasmatic dimension in the course of its articulation, relying on terrifying figures to make its case or, rather, produce its effect. Logic yields to inflammatory rhetoric in a flash. If there is only one moral form for sexuality, and that is heterosexual conjugality, and if some people claim that there are equally possible and valuable alternatives, those people are relativists. And relativists refuse to make moral distinctions, or, rather, they cannot make them, since apparently they make no strong moral distinctions themselves and as a result cannot condemn harm. Apparently, for them, anything goes: pedophilia, child molestation, the indoctrination of young people. It does not matter that lesbian, gay, and bisexual organizations generally abhor child molestation and abuse, having often suffered its effects; that sexual consent is central to queer ethics; or that child pornography is a terrible form of exploitation. No one of any age should be instilled with doctrine against their will.’
—Judith Butler, “Who's Afraid of Gender?”, p. 86

‘Scala thinks that without a commitment to a moral order anchored in the superiority and exclusive value and intelligibility of heteronormative marriage and reproduction, no moral judgments are possible, and nihilism follows. Is such an apparent argument true, or is it rather a kind of dream sequence that he has publicized to conjure a potential danger he fears and believes others should fear as well?’
—Judith Butler, “Who's Afraid of Gender?”, p. 87

it may simply show that morals may not be univercal the morals that you thought were imutable are subect to change. that may very well show relitivism it be true. emotivism fits better here though. i don't think "nihilism" isn't an acturte word here. there's a difrence between the truth that "there are no objective morals which rule all of reality" and the enacted "i'll just do what i want, kill, steal, whatever". nihilism could be used as excuse. but most people still have moral inclenations whether or not they belive in relitivism or emotivism. the fear is that society could fall into chaos without some type "christian" absolute moral order. the reality of morals seams to be more complex. it depends which moral actor expressing moral desictions. humans in general share alot of the same moral atrubutes and agree on most things. but depending on your brain chemestry, your genetics, your societal influences, your moral requirments will be diffrent from others. not to mention diffrent speices of life, which have very diffrent moral requirements.

besides that point.

"There is nothing about affirming several forms of gender and sexuality as valid that leads to the conclusion that judgments about harmful forms of sexuality can no longer be made. Some forms are not harmful, and others clearly are. ... We will doubtless disagree about what “doing harm” means, but then let us have that discussion openly rather than decide it in advance by dictate. There is no discussion, because dogma rules out discussion."

this goes into the objectification of the forbiden.

"If one grows up as a heterosexual who regards one’s own sexuality as the only possible one, then gay and lesbian lives become unthinkable, aberrant, even monstrous. The fear of that monster, however, becomes a component part of one’s own psychic life—the unthinkable that haunts the thinkable.21 One lives out the only possible sexuality that there is, which means that other forms are banished from thought to a region where dreams and nightmares take shape. To rule out the very thought of queer kinship, gay and lesbian sexual lives and forms of intimacy, and trans life, for instance, means that they have to be cast out or negated in some way, returning only through phantasmatic orderings that both organize and threaten conscious convictions. After all, the “unthinkable” has to remain unthinkable, and that takes a certain ongoing psychic labor. When it appears, when it is thought, it has to become unthinkable again, so a mechanism is required to keep it from ever becoming too thinkable."

"This entire psychic economy is organized by this deliberate form of illiteracy. The most extreme view of this kind is that children who learn the word “gay” will become gay, as if the word itself will magically give rise to the sexuality and sexual practice. Such power attributed to a word! The very exposure to the word is the same as grooming and indoctrination, as if an unstoppable rush from the unconscious will take over a life, robbing it of judgment and orientation. The “viral” character of gender affirmed by many of its opponents attests to this fantasy of its contagious power; if the word touches you, it will enter your cells and start replicating until you are fully remade in its image."

It's word mystisim. The idea that words have spirtual power. Words can pull thoughts from the unthinkable relm into the thinking relm. That is scary to some. The best way to resolve this is to let the unthinkble become thinkable and understand it to its full extent in order to acurratly asess its danger. Because in most cases not only is there lack of danger, but an extaordinaily positive and life ameriming behavior. Fear makes understanding the world extreamly difficult.

This "area of banishment" is where all the things we fear live.

"The laws that seek to deprive queer, trans, and feminist youth (one can be all three, of course) of an education, the laws that seek to ban any critical understanding of race and racism from education, deprive young people, especially feminist, queer, and trans youth, of understanding their world. Those legally enforced checks on thought itself do harm: they intensify marginalization and undermine the very possibility of pursuing a livable life."

"This is a moral alibi, an inversion, the kind that lets moral sadism flourish. The harm is done through cultivating an imagination of where harm is happening and who is making it happen. That phantasmatic scene effects a displacement from actual harm done, both continuing and justifying that harm, for if the source of that harm has been effectively externalized, then destroying that externalized form keeps the destructive action alive—and intensifies it. "

"The law can become abusive by locating abuse as what it opposes; the law can assault lives by imagining the lives affected as assaulting the family; the law can even murder, or let die, when it decides that certain lives are so corrosive or destructive that exposing them to lethal violence, unprotected, is justified."

"... health care should ideally be a service that alleviates a form of suffering. The deprivation of health care abandons people to their suffering without recourse to remedy. Of course, there are serious discussions to be had about what kind of health care is wise for young people, and at what age. But to have that debate, we have to be within the sphere of legality. If the very consideration of gender-affirming care is prohibited, then no one can decide which form is best for a specific child at a certain age. We need to keep those debates open to make sure that health care serves the well-being and flourishing of the child."

"The idea that being exposed to an idea is enough to be indoctrinated by it assumes a seamless and quick passage from thought to conviction, bypassing all judgment and evaluation. The youthful mind is tacitly figured in these instances as fully porous or helplessly responsive to a penetrative power, as if to be exposed to a word or a thought is to be penetrated against one’s will."

This because this is what the church thinks. 'Young minds are inocent and easyaly manipulatable. People are not trustworthy expressors of their own discomfort or confution.' In a world where no one is allowed to express the unthinkable, this becomes true. its an induced illiteracy and induced fear of knowlage and the abilty to consider information. The only way to know what is safe then, is to listen to your athority figures. Because you couldn't possibly know what might be good for you. The only way to know the truth is to shove the "unthinkable" into the land of nightmears and read your Bible. The fear is that people will find a diffrent bible to fallow or a diffrent authority figure to look up to. The gaol SHOULD be to help people gain acsess to information so that they can decide for themselves what might be the most acurate picture of reality, NOT scare them into submition.

"Those making allegations about indoctrination do not simply refuse to see what actually happens in educational environments. They know that developing autonomous judgment is an educational goal, and they fear that potential, that freedom to think, more than they fear indoctrination."