Undoing Gender is the sixth major work of feminist philosophy and gender theorist Judith Butler. Butler is often credited with pioneering the fields of gender and queer studies, specifically through their 1990 work, Gender Trouble. Undoing Gender was published in 2004, and it is a collection of interconnected essays exploring a common topic of what it means to be human. This investigation is complicated by considerations of race, gender, sex, sexuality, national origin, and the broader concept of the “norm.” Reviews note that Undoing Gender is Butler’s first work to tackle the inclusion of transgender identities within feminist, gender, and queer studies, and Butler acknowledges how the issue of sexual difference intersects with their own theory of gender performativity. The essays address themes of Gender Performativity and the Social Construction of Identity, The Experiences and Exclusion of Marginalized Identities, and The Intersections of Personhood with Legal and Medical Institutions. Each essay, through these themes, seeks to understand how the common, international understanding of what is human and what determines personhood can be expanded to be more inclusive, less violent, and open to revision over time.

This guide uses the Routledge 2004 edition of the text, made available as an e-book by Taylor & Francis in 2004.

Content Warning: The essays in this collection discuss violence, anti-gay bias, transphobia, suicide, and sexual assault. The source text uses the terms “homosexual” and “transsexual,” which are considered derogatory, in order to analyze their clinical history; the guide reproduces these term in quotation.

Summary

In the Introduction, Butler discusses “norms,” outlining their efficacy as structures and repeated performances. Norms are difficult to isolate, occurring in instances, governing individual actions, and appearing in the laws and practices of institutions. Butler emphasizes the importance of analyzing and seeking to make changes to norms by describing how norms make subjects (that is, people) intelligible. Those who are deemed unintelligible are not just socially excluded; they are fundamentally segregated from the social structures that fail to acknowledge them. Using the example of Frantz Fanon’s analysis of race, Butler shows how norms push marginalized identities to the fringe of what can be understood.

Butler continues and extends this discussion in “Beside Oneself,” citing Michel Foucault in describing how norms govern the “real” in two ways. First, the norm creates unity among the “real” that meets the terms of the norm, but second, the norm creates the “unreal” by excluding that which fails to meet those terms. Linking the identities of gay and lesbian individuals to the idea of the “unreal,” Butler shows how grief is governed by norms, making grief over the deaths of friends and family within the gay and lesbian community “unreal” or unintelligible. Noting the use of phrasing like “women’s” human rights or “gay” and “lesbian” human rights, Butler shows how women, gay individuals, and lesbian individuals are implicitly delineated from what is “human.”

“Gender Regulation” explores how norms govern gender, and Butler explains Jacques Lacan’s concept of the “symbolic order.” Under the symbolic, Lacan outlines different symbolic positions that Lacanians hold as irrefutable, such as the “father” and “mother.” These positions are tied to an inherent Oedipal conflict by which both gender and sexuality are determined. Using Foucault and Francois Ewald, Butler refutes the Lacanian position, noting how queer theory is in the process of separating gender, sex, and sexuality. Comparing Catherine MacKinnon and Katherine Franke, Butler shows how the issue of sexual harassment exposes different ways to view the norms that regulate gender and sexuality.

“Doing Justice to Someone” centers on the life of David Reimer, who was mutilated as a child in a surgical mishap that removed much of his penis. John Money took over David’s case and tried to convince David that he was “Brenda.” Money promoted the social constructivist view of gender and sex, but he was simultaneously abusing “Brenda” and ignoring “Brenda’s” discomfort. David transitioned back to being a boy in his teenage years, which many have used to support gender essentialism. Butler discusses the implications for the transgender and intersex communities through the lens of David’s life, casting doubt on the certainty with which institutions approach issues of sex and gender.

In “Undiagnosing Gender,” Butler weighs the benefits and disadvantages caused by the diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder (GID). For some, GID is a cover term for any sexuality that is not heterosexuality, or it is a pathological desire to change sex or gender. Because of the effect that pathologization has on individuals, Butler notes how many want the diagnosis removed. However, Butler also shows how a diagnosis of GID is the only way for many working-class people to access gender-affirming care. Without the diagnosis, middle and upper-class people will be able to access care, but working-class people will lose access, exposing the delicate balance of institutional change.

“Is Kinship Always Already Heterosexual?” questions the decision of the French and German governments to allow gay marriage with the stipulation that gay couples not be allowed to have children, adopt, or access reproductive assistance. Butler centers the discussion on the desire for recognition, exploring gay marriage as a way for the state to recognize and desire gay people. Butler argues against Sylviane Agacinski’s view that gay adoption and reproduction is destructive to French culture, arguing instead how alternatives to heteronormative kinship undermine the claims to “universality” posed by such a culture. Analyzing the Oedipal conflict, Butler poses multiple alternatives to the heteronormative formation of sexuality and gender in children, while also questioning the implicit relation between the Oedipal conflict and kinship.

In “Longing for Recognition,” Butler describes how triangulation of desire in a critical dyad expands the discussion of desire. Recognition implicitly requires the self to recognize the “Other” and be recognized by the other, while desire is governed by a “third term,” often assumed to be the phallus. Butler questions the role or necessity of the phallus in understanding desire while emphasizing the need for the self to “split” in understanding itself and desiring recognition. This mandatory split may not require negation and destruction, but Butler outlines how the self “is” alterity and relation is only periodically formed in a dyad.

“Questioning the Incest Taboo” discusses trauma as a point of violation or fantasy, noting how the incest taboo, posited as a formative fantasy in the Oedipal conflict, requires further analysis. Though the incest taboo is considered morally and ethically important to safeguard against violation, it is also required by the norm as the method for developing heterosexuality. Butler notes how the incest taboo protects itself through the moral and ethical stance against violation, but it does not fully explain the necessity of heteronormativity through the Oedipal conflict.

In “Bodily Confessions,” Butler uses Foucault’s understanding of confession—evolving from the maintenance of power into a means of transference and transformation—to explore the use of language in transformation. Butler performs a reading of Antigone’s confession in Sophocles’s Antigone (c. 441 BCE), and they question how Antigone assumes Creon’s authority in her confession, expresses incestual love for her brothers through her crime, and seeks punishment for a guilt that predates her crime. Ultimately, Butler frames confession as a method for self-discovery and recognition between an open analysand and receptive analyst.

“The End of Sexual Difference?” questions the role that sexual difference plays in contemporary studies of sex, gender, sexuality, and feminism. The essay is a focused response to Rosi Braidotti, in which Butler explains how sexual difference is both critical for certain understandings of feminism and detrimental to attempting a more inclusive understanding of humanity. To argue for women’s welfare and rights, it appears critical to highlight the sexual difference between men and women. However, to include identities that are not clearly defined within sexual difference, sexual difference must be removed in favor of language and methods that allow for greater intelligibility.

“The Question of Social Transformation” is the last essay in the text as it applies to Butler’s focus on undoing gender. Butler emphasizes how issues of gender, sex, and sexuality are not mundane, pertaining specifically to the survival of individuals struggling with their own unintelligibility and rejection from the norm. Norms influence politics in ways that undermine the very existence of marginalized communities, and Butler expands the discussion to consider how international efforts at “universal” human rights are undermined by the exclusion of women, queer people, transgender individuals, the subaltern, and anti-imperialist communities. Butler’s conclusion argues in favor of a human rights that is constantly evolving to become more inclusive and less violent.

The final essay in the collection, “Can the ‘Other’ of Philosophy Speak?” addresses Butler’s own development within philosophy, reflecting on their childhood encounters with philosophical texts, their place within the academy, and their transition into other branches of the humanities. Butler discusses the “Other” of philosophy as the many branches that claim to be philosophical without being integrated into academic standards of philosophy. Butler concludes by noting how much of the innovations and progress in philosophy are now happening in these other fields.