Realness as Resistance: Queer Feminism, Neoliberalism, and Early Trans Critiques of Butler

Abstract

AbstractIn this article, I argue that scholarship on the cultural impact of neoliberalism provides a vital framework with which to revisit early trans critiques of Butlerian queer feminism. Drawing on this scholarship, I reread the appeals to the real and realness in these critiques through the neoliberal transformation of social difference. I link the early argument that some trans figures were problematically used in queer feminism to represent the fluidity of identity with the more recent argument that the flexibility of identity has become a core part of neoliberal cultures. This context challenges the current dominant view of early trans critiques of Butler as misreadings and instead casts them as resistant to a superficial encouragement of individual flexibility. As a result, revisiting this debate demonstrates the need to rework theoretical frameworks that may continue to inadvertently lead to selective trans inclusion in queer feminism and points the way to trans-queer-feminist theory that is more attuned to shifting models of power.