Why is Judith Butler Given So Much Weight in the Trans Discourse?
Plus, Why the New Right's Theocracy Plus Fascism Fusion Will Not End Well
While Butler wants to fundamentally change society, most trans people only want society to leave them alone. Conflating the two seems highly unfair to me. And it has real world consequences too: 'gender theory', the branch of ideology that Butler arguably pioneered, has often been seen as a force that will radically change society, by rendering biological sex, the concepts of mother and father, and other associated traditions both arbitrary and oppressive, and hence condemned to the dustbin of history. While I'm not sure that Butler is really that radical, I have to admit that some of these criticisms do have some merit at least. The fact is, gender theory really wants to 'deconstruct' gender for the whole society, even when it's not wanted by the vast majority of society.
On the other hand, many trans people just want to live their lives in peace. To do that, they need to resolve their own gender dysphoria. Most trans people certainly do not have an agenda to radically transform society, like Butler does. When trans people say that they are 'trapped in the wrong body', they are describing their own feelings of gender dysphoria, not pondering about whether gender is a social construct or how it can be deconstructed. In other words, the highly politicized, radical theories of Butler et al. have nothing to do with the everyday lives and needs of trans people.
The Problem with Deconstruction
I have this ongoing suspicion that deconstructionists want no less than 'liberation' from the objective truth. Which is to say, deconstructionism is simply a philosophically sophisticated way for some people to avoid the reality, by treating it as if it were not real. The ultimate intellectual form of escapism, one might say. The trouble is, many of us want to continue living in the real world. We don't need, or want, this kind of 'liberation' from reality.
Why the New Right's Theocracy Plus Fascism Fusion Will Not End Well
A recent article in Quillette by Cincinnatus Smith is one of the most insightful analyses of the New Right I have seen recently, and provides a good explanation for its destructive tendencies.
In the article, Smith characterizes the New Right as a kind of fusionism, a mirror of the 20th-century libertarian-traditionalist fusionism. However, this new fusionism is instead between 'integralism' and 'vitalism'. To put it plainly, 'integralism' is basically theocracy (no surprises here), and 'vitalism' is a combination of Nietzschean will-to-power-ism and White Supremacy, which is basically fascism. The problem with trying to come up with a fusionism between theocrats and fascists is that they have long been sworn enemies, because their fundamental worldviews are opposed.
TaraElla is a singer-songwriter and author, who is the author of the Moral Libertarian Manifesto and the Moral Libertarian book series, which argue that liberalism is still the most moral and effective value system for the West.
She is also the author of The Trans Case Against Queer Theory and The TaraElla Story (her autobiography).