Clearing the fuzziness: Comments on Ashley Tauchert’s fuzzy gender

College

College of Liberal Arts

Department/Unit

Philosophy

Document Type

Article

Source Title

Journal of Gender Studies

Volume

29

Issue

3

First Page

361

Last Page

365

Publication Date

4-2-2020

Abstract

In ‘Fuzzy gender: between female embodiment and intersex’, Ashley Tauchert offers a ‘fuzzy’ model for gender. Her proposed model aims to account for the normative boundaries of sex and gender, especially between females, transwomen, and intersexuals, in terms of a ‘gender line’ on which different gender categories are located. This reply paper aims to clear the fuzziness in Tauchert’s model by pointing out two critical problems. First, her model appears to be self-defeating, since the marginalized gender categories it attempts to empower are defined in terms of the hegemonic binarism of the ‘pure’ heterosexual male and the ‘pure’ heterosexual female, which it tries to dislodge. Second, her model implies an infinite number of possible gender categories along the gender line; being so, it becomes theoretically inert and practically inadequate. In lieu of the fuzzy model, this paper suggests an alternative model of thinking through the black/white and grey gender categories. This model utilizes the metaphor of gender galaxies, where each gender category is treated as an independent, socially-conferred galaxy; each having specific societal concerns and political agenda. This model, as will be argued, provides firmer grounding for the political aspirations of these various gender categories. © 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

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Digitial Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1080/09589236.2019.1606701

Disciplines

Gender and Sexuality

Keywords

Gender identity; Sex; Social constructionism

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