Lacanian Theory Must Be Understood As A

I Did Not Mean To Argue That Gender Is Fluid And Changeable (mine Certainly Is Not). I Only Meant To Say That We Should All Have Greater Freedoms To Define And Pursue Our Lives Without Pathologization, De-realization, Harassment, Threats Of Violence, Violence, And Criminalization. I Join In The Struggle To Realize Such A World.

Some Trans People Thought That In Claiming That Gender Is Performative That I Was Saying That It Is All A Fiction, And That A Person's Felt Sense Of Gender Was Therefore "unreal." That Was Never My Intention. I Sought To Expand Our Sense Of What Gender Realities Could Be. But I Think I Needed To Pay More Attention To What People Feel, How The Primary Experience Of The Body Is Registered, And The Quite Urgent And Legitimate Demand To Have Those Aspects Of Sex Recognized And Supported.

It Is Always Brave To Insist On Undergoing Transformations That Feel Necessary And Right Even When There Are So Many Obstructions To Doing So, Including People And Institutions Who Seek To Pathologize Or Criminalize Such Important Acts Of Self-definition. I Know That For Some Feels Less Brave Than Necessary, But We All Have To Defend Those Necessities That Allow Us To Live And Breathe In The Way That Feels Right To Us. Surgical Intervention Can Be Precisely What A Trans Person Needs – It Is Also Not Always What A Trans Person Needs.

I Am Not Sure That I Know Enough About The Pre-history Of 9/11 To Agree Or Disagree. But I Did Think At The Time That The [george W.] Bush Administration Took A Number Of Cues From The Israeli Government, Not Only By Drawing On And Intensifying Anti-arab Racism, But By Insisting That The Attack On Us Government And Financial Buildings Was An Attack On "democracy" And By Invoking "security At All Costs" To Wage War Without A Clear Focus (why The Taliban?), And By Suspending Both Constitutional Rights And The Regular Protocol For Congressional Approval For Declaring War.

When I Was Young There Were Lesbians Who Said "oh, I Will Free Myself Of All Norms Of Masculinity, All Norms Of Heterosexuality ". And Then, They Ended Up In Very Complex Relationships That Were Maybe Full Of Heterosexual Power Dynamics Or Full Of Lesbian Forms Of Masculinity And They Became Very Confused.