104-425: Rekers is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: George Rekers (born 1948), American psychologist and minister Paul Rekers (1908–1987), American long-distance runner See also [ edit ] Ekers Rakers [REDACTED] Surname list This page lists people with the surname Rekers . If an internal link intending to refer to
208-483: A Fulbright Scholar in 1979. After receiving their PhD, Butler revised their doctoral dissertation to produce their first book, entitled Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in Twentieth Century France (1987). Butler went on to teach at Wesleyan University , George Washington University , and Johns Hopkins University before joining University of California, Berkeley , in 1993. In 2002, they held
312-422: A "materialized" entity, upon which cultural, collective ideals of gender can be built. From this angle, Butler interrogates value conscription upon various bodies as determined theories and practices of heterosexual predominance. If gender consists of the social meanings that sex assumes, then sex does not accrue social meanings as additive properties but, rather, is replaced by the social meanings it takes on; sex
416-470: A Performative Theory of Assembly (2015), as well as on other contemporary thinkers. In this book, Butler deals with issues of precarity, vulnerability, grief and contemporary political violence in the face of the War on terror and the realities of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and similar detention centers. Drawing on Foucault, they characterize the form of power at work in these places of "indefinite detention" as
520-442: A child custody case, in which he testified against a lesbian mother seeking to regain custody of her daughters because her lesbianism "placed her children at risk for deviant sex-role development". Zucker criticized Rekers for ignoring scholarly literature suggesting that there is little evidence for such claims. He concluded that Shaping Your Child's Sexual Identity is an example of "the passionate rhetoric that can be engendered by
624-461: A church ministry to repentant homosexuals." Judith Butler describes this work as "intensely polemical", giving "highly conservative political reasons for strengthening the diagnosis [of " gender identity disorder "] so that the structures that support normalcy can be strengthened." Growing Up Straight: What Every Family Should Know About Homosexuality is a 1982 guide for parents on how to prevent their children from becoming homosexual. The book
728-502: A companion from a website called Rentboy.com that offers clients a wide range of choices, from 'rentboy' and 'sugar daddy' to 'masseur'." On the May 6, 2010 episode of The Daily Show , Jon Stewart pointed out that Roman is looking on in the photograph, while Rekers is seen handling his own luggage. Following the first report about Rekers, on May 8, 2010, New York magazine reported that another individual said that Rekers had hired him in
832-495: A condition common to ours). Through a critical engagement with Levinas , they will explore how certain representations prevent lives from being considered worthy of being lived or taken into account, precluding the mourning of certain Others, and with that the recognition of them and their losses as equally human. This preoccupation with the dignifying or dehumanizing role of practices of framing and representations will constitute one of
936-449: A convergence of sovereignty and governmentality . The " state of exception " deployed here is in fact more complex than the one pointed out by Agamben in his Homo Sacer , since the government is in a more ambiguous relation to law —it may comply with it or suspend it, depending on its interests, and this is itself a tool of the state to produce its own sovereignty. Butler also points towards problems in international law treatises like
1040-471: A gay person. In cross-examination, Rekers acknowledged that he believed that homosexuality is sinful and that the Bible is the infallible word of God. His testimony was rebutted by Dr. Michael Lamb, a psychiatrist, who stated that there was no scientific evidence for the assertion that homosexuals were worse parents than heterosexuals. The trial judge, Pulaski County Circuit Court judge Timothy Fox, ruled against
1144-521: A major influence on feminist and queer scholarship. Their work is often studied and debated in film studies courses emphasizing gender studies and performativity. Butler has spoken on many contemporary political questions, including Israeli politics and in support of LGBT rights . Judith Butler was born on February 24, 1956, in Cleveland, Ohio , to a family of Hungarian-Jewish and Russian-Jewish descent. Most of their maternal grandmother's family
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#17328588304851248-774: A male child". In 2011, Anderson Cooper 360° featured a story about the fate of Kirk Murphy, a child Rekers states that he cured in many of his books. Murphy's siblings and mother state that the therapy ultimately had lasting damage to the boy and led to him growing up to be a man who grappled constantly with his homosexuality before committing suicide in 2003 at the age of 38. His work has been criticized by other scholars for reinforcing sex-role stereotypes and for reliance on dubious rationales for therapeutic intervention (e.g. parents' worries that their children might become homosexuals). Rekers refers in his academic work to "the positive therapeutic effects of religious conversion for curing transsexualism" and "the positive therapeutic effect of
1352-465: A negative review from the psychologist Kenneth Zucker in Archives of Sexual Behavior . Zucker wrote that, as in some of his other work, such as Growing Up Straight (1982), Rekers ignored, dismissed, or distorted scientific data to prevent it from conflicting with his religious views. He noted that some of the material was controversial, such as Rekers's discussion of his behavior as an expert witness in
1456-509: A number of parties including trial judges; the American Civil Liberties Union has asserted that his personal beliefs regarding homosexuality interfere with his ability to give an unbiased professional opinion on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual (LGBT) topics, including gay adoption . Legal experts have discussed whether his involvement with a male prostitute in 2010 could render his testimony unreliable, possibly affecting
1560-455: A passive practice that emanates from a calm region of the soul, or as an individualist ethical relation to existing forms of power." Instead of this understanding, Butler argues that "nonviolence is an ethical position found in the midst of the political field." In Who's Afraid of Gender? , Butler explores the roots of current anti-trans rhetoric, which they define as a "phantasm" that aligns itself with emerging authoritarian movements. Butler
1664-553: A period of time, as the chair of the board of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission . Over the years, Butler has been particularly active in the gay and lesbian rights, feminist, and anti-war movements. They have also written and spoken out on issues ranging from affirmative action and gay marriage to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the prisoners detained at Guantanamo Bay. More recently, Butler has been active in
1768-426: A person will be accepted if their desires differ from normality. Butler states that one may feel the need of being recognized in order to live, but that at the same time, the conditions to be recognized make life "unlivable". The writer proposes an interrogation of such conditions so that people who resist them may have more possibilities of living. In Butler's discussion of intersex issues and people, Butler addresses
1872-533: A publication from the APA states "The idea that homosexuality is a mental disorder or that the emergence of same-sex attraction and orientation among some adolescents is in any way abnormal or mentally unhealthy has no support among any mainstream health and mental health professional organizations." (Printing and distribution of that publication was with the support of the American Counseling Association ,
1976-505: A range of other disciplines, such as psychoanalysis , literary, film, and performance studies as well as visual arts, has also been significant. Their theory of gender performativity as well as their conception of "critically queer" have heavily influenced understandings of gender and queer identity in the academic world, and have shaped and mobilized various kinds of political activism, particularly queer activism, internationally. Butler's work has also entered into contemporary debates on
2080-438: A record of supporting anti-gay legislation and was later caught in a gay sex scandal . Rekers co-authored four papers with Ole Ivar Lovaas , a psychology professor at the same university, on children with atypical gender behaviors. The subject of the first of these studies, a 'feminine' young boy who was homosexual by four-and-a-half years old at the inception of treatment, committed suicide as an adult; his family attribute
2184-628: A ritual reiterated under and through constraint, under and through the force of prohibition and taboo, with the threat of ostracism and even death controlling and compelling the shape of the production, but not, I will insist, determining it fully in advance. Butler also explores how gender can be understood not only as a performance, but also as a "constitutive constraint," or constructed character. They ask how this conceptualization of an individual's gender contributes to notions of bodily intelligibility, or comprehension, by other individuals. Butler continues to discuss bodily intelligibility by means of sex as
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#17328588304852288-464: A similar capacity in 1992. On May 12, Christianity Today reported that Rekers stated on his personal website that he had interviewed several people for the role of travel assistant, and was not aware of his assistant's internet advertisements. He e-mailed them saying "I confessed to the Lord and to my family that I was unwise and wrong to hire this travel assistant after knowing him only one month before
2392-495: A specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding the person's given name (s) to the link. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rekers&oldid=1046120660 " Category : Surnames Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description with empty Wikidata description All set index articles Monitored short pages George Rekers George Alan Rekers (born July 11, 1948)
2496-436: A story about the prehistory of the subject, one that I have been arguing cannot be told. There are two responses to this objection. (1) That there is no final or adequate narrative reconstruction of the prehistory of the speaking "I" does not mean we cannot narrate it; it only means that at the moment when we narrate we become speculative philosophers or fiction writers. (2) This prehistory has never stopped happening and, as such,
2600-468: A twenty-year-old " rent boy " who was using the pseudonym "Lucien" (later identified as Jo-Vanni Roman). Roman was available for hire through the Rentboy.com website. Rekers acknowledged hiring Roman for the 10-day European vacation as a "travel assistant" and denies any impropriety. He said that Roman was there to help carry his luggage since he had surgery recently and was unable to carry it himself, although
2704-534: A view notably propounded in Butler's 1990 book, Gender Trouble . Consequently, Butler's work is passible of criticism by modernist and anti-relativist critics of postmodernism who deplore the idea that categories spoken about in the natural sciences (e.g., sex) are socially constructed. In 1998, Denis Dutton 's journal Philosophy and Literature awarded Butler first prize in its fourth annual "Bad Writing Competition", which set out to "celebrate bad writing from
2808-651: A woman; thus, by eliminating female and male identity Butler would have abolished the discourse about sexism in the queer community. Schwarzer also accuses Butler of remaining silent about the oppression of women and homosexuals in the Islamic world, while readily exercising their right to same-sex-marriage in the United States; instead, Butler would sweepingly defend Islam , including Islamism , from critics. EGS philosophy professor Geoffrey Bennington , translator for many of Derrida's books, criticised Butler's introduction to
2912-460: Is a collection of writings of gay and lesbian social theorists. Butler's contribution argues that no transparent revelation is afforded by using the terms "gay" or "lesbian" yet there is a political imperative to do so. Butler employs "the concepts of play/performance, drag, and imitation" to describe the formation of gender and sexuality as continually created subjectivities always at risk of dissolution from non-performance." Bodies That Matter: On
3016-412: Is a form of citationality : Performativity cannot be understood outside of a process of iterability, a regularized and constrained repetition of norms. And this repetition is not performed by a subject; this repetition is what enables a subject and constitutes the temporal condition for the subject. This iterability implies that 'performance' is not a singular 'act' or event, but a ritualized production,
3120-471: Is a practicing Southern Baptist , and credits the work of C.S. Lewis , particularly his writings on gender relations, with influencing his religious and social views. Rekers has attracted attention for his views on homosexuality, which have been promoted in a number of forums and court cases. He asserts that homosexuality is a "gender disturbance" that can be corrected through 18 to 22 months of weekly therapy during childhood and adolescence. Mark Pietrzyk, of
3224-579: Is an American feminist philosopher and gender studies scholar whose work has influenced political philosophy , ethics, and the fields of third-wave feminism , queer theory , and literary theory . In 1993, Butler began teaching at the University of California, Berkeley , where they have served, beginning in 1998, as the Maxine Elliot Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and
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3328-454: Is an American psychologist and ordained Southern Baptist minister . He is emeritus professor of Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Science at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine . Rekers has a PhD from University of California, Los Angeles and has been a research fellow at Harvard University , a professor and psychologist for UCLA and the University of Florida , and department head at Kansas State University . In 1983 Rekers
3432-526: Is destructive, and against parenthood by gay and lesbian people in a number of court cases involving organizations and state agencies working with children. In May 2010, Rekers employed a male prostitute as a travel companion for a two-week vacation in Europe. Rekers denied any inappropriate conduct and suggestions that he was gay. The male escort told CNN he had given Rekers "sexual massages" while traveling together in Europe. Rekers subsequently resigned from
3536-460: Is enabled is always already a relation between subjects who are variably opaque to themselves and to each other. The ethics that Butler envisions is therefore one in which the responsible self knows the limits of its knowing, recognizes the limits of its capacity to give an account of itself to others, and respects those limits as symptomatically human. To take seriously one's opacity to oneself in ethical deliberation means then to critically interrogate
3640-416: Is instituted through acts which are internally discontinuous, then the appearance of substance is precisely that, a constructed identity, a performative accomplishment which the mundane social audience, including the actors themselves, come to believe and to perform in the mode of belief. If the ground of gender identity is the stylized repetition of acts through time, and not a seemingly seamless identity, then
3744-516: Is not a prehistory in any chronological sense. It is not done with, over, relegated to a past, which then becomes part of a causal or narrative reconstruction of the self. On the contrary, that prehistory interrupts the story I have to give of myself, makes every account of myself partial and failed, and constitutes, in a way, my failure to be fully accountable for my actions, my final "irresponsibility," one for which I may be forgiven only because I could not do otherwise. This not being able to do otherwise
3848-421: Is our common predicament (page 78). Instead Butler argues for an ethics based precisely on the limits of self-knowledge as the limits of responsibility itself. Any concept of responsibility which demands the full transparency of the self to itself, an entirely accountable self, necessarily does violence to the opacity which marks the constitution of the self it addresses. The scene of address by which responsibility
3952-433: Is performed without one being conscious of it, but says that it does not mean this performativity is "automatic or mechanical". They argue that we have desires that do not originate from our personhood, but rather, from social norms. The writer also debates our notions of "human" and "less-than-human" and how these culturally imposed ideas can keep one from having a "viable life" as the biggest concerns are usually about whether
4056-564: Is relinquished in the course of that assumption, and gender emerges, not as a term in a continued relationship of opposition to sex, but as the term which absorbs and displaces "sex," the mark of its full substantiation into gender or what, from a materialist point of view, might constitute a full de-substantiation. While continuing to draw upon sources such as those of Plato , Irigaray , Lacan , and Freud (as they did for Gender Trouble ), Butler also draws upon pieces of documentary film and literature for Bodies That Matter . Such pieces include
4160-571: Is relinquished to expand the cultural field bodily through subversive performances of various kinds." Throughout this text, Butler derives influence from French philosophers such as Simone de Beauvoir and Maurice Merleau-Ponty , particularly de Beauvoir's The Second Sex and Merleau-Ponty's "The Body in its Sexual Being." Butler also cites works by Gayle Rubin , Mary Anne Warren , and their own piece "Sex and Gender in Simone de Beauvoir's Second Sex " (1986), among others. Gender Trouble: Feminism and
4264-491: Is reluctant to embrace such labels, saying in 2013, "I prefer to [provide] a story rather than a category. I come from a strong zionist community in the [United States], and became critical of zionism starting in my early twenties.... I am now working for what can only be called a post-zionist vision at this point in history. Perhaps at another point in history, I would be called a zionist, or even call myself that." Butler argues that, although antisemitism has been rising, there
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4368-638: Is used to defend the author's views on the subject. What is perhaps most disappointing about these two books is the idyllic view of family life and human conduct for which the author longs." Zucker went on to write, "Ultimately, one has to wonder how Rekers will feel toward his child patients, should they grow up not to be straight. He might well benefit by recalling the words of Harry Stack Sullivan : "We are all much more simply human than otherwise." In Shaping Your Child's Sexual Identity , Rekers provides advice to parents which he claims can help them prevent their children from becoming homosexual. The book received
4472-575: The Geneva Conventions . In practice, these only protect people who belong to (or act in the name of) a recognized state, and therefore are helpless in situations of abuse toward stateless people , people who do not enjoy a recognized citizenship or people who are labelled "terrorists", and therefore understood as acting on their own behalf as irrational "killing machines" that need to be held captive due to their "dangerousness". Butler also writes here on vulnerability and precariousness as intrinsic to
4576-464: The New York Times wrote: "Thanks to Rekers's clownish public exposure, we now know that his professional judgments are windows into his cracked psyche, not gay people's. But...his excursions into public policy have had real and damaging consequences on a large swath of Americans." Newsweek 's June 7, 2010 issue's Back Story listed Rekers, among others, as a prominent conservative activist who has
4680-519: The Occupy movement and has publicly expressed support for a version of the 2005 BDS ( Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions ) campaign against Israel. They emphasize that Israel does not, and should not, be taken to represent all Jews or Jewish opinion. Butler is an outspoken critic of many aspects of contemporary Israel's actions and has criticized some forms of Zionism . Butler has been variously identified as " post-Zionist " and " anti-Zionist ", but
4784-417: The "reification" of sexual difference within a heterosexual framework, and articulates their concern with how this framework affects the accurate presentation (or lack thereof) of "femaleness" across a diverse array of experiences, including those of women. "As a corporeal field of cultural play, gender is a basically innovative affair, although it is quite clear that there are strict punishments for contesting
4888-551: The 1997 translation of Derrida's 1967 Of Grammatology . Before a 2017 democracy conference in Brazil, Butler was burnt in effigy . Bruno Perreau has written that Butler was literally depicted as an " antichrist ", both because of their gender and their Jewish identity, the fear of minority politics and critical studies being expressed through fantasies of a corrupted body. Much of Butler's early political activism centered around queer and feminist issues, and they served, for
4992-432: The Bible countenances any other definition of the family, such as the sharing of a household by homosexual partners, and that society's laws should be modified in any way to broaden the definition of family." The tract was condemned by Democrats; Bush told the media that Regier "doesn't share those extreme views." Regier survived the controversy and served as DCF head from 2002 to the end of Jeb Bush's term in 2007. Rekers
5096-462: The Discursive Limits of Sex seeks to clear up readings and supposed misinterpretations of performativity that view the enactment of sex/gender as a daily choice. As such, Butler aims to answer questions of this vein that may have been raised from their previous work Gender Trouble . Butler emphasizes the role of repetition in performativity, making use of Derrida 's theory of iterability, which
5200-449: The Family under the names of Regier and Rekers, which condemned working mothers as being in "bondage" and argued that the government should have no right to place children in protective custody except in cases of extreme abuse or neglect. The tract's authors also "affirm that Biblical spanking may cause temporary and superficial bruises or welts that do not constitute child abuse" and "deny that
5304-702: The Interfaith Alliance, and the National Education Association . ) According to Rekers himself, he spends much of his time with boys whose peers regard them as "sissy" and "effeminate" with the goal of reversing those traits and "help[ing] these children to become better adapted to themselves and to their environment." The APA's opposition to his methods led to him resigning from the organization. Rekers has appeared in court in several cases as an expert witness testifying on matters concerning homosexuality. His testimony has been strongly criticized by
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#17328588304855408-662: The Program of Critical Theory . They are also the Hannah Arendt Chair at the European Graduate School (EGS). Butler is best known for their books Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990) and Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (1993), in which they challenge conventional, heteronormative notions of gender and develop their theory of gender performativity . This theory has had
5512-744: The Spinoza Chair of Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam . In addition, they joined the department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University as Wun Tsun Tam Mellon Visiting Professor of the Humanities in the spring semesters of 2012, 2013 and 2014 with the option of remaining as full-time faculty. Butler serves on the editorial or advisory board of several academic journals, including Janus Unbound: Journal of Critical Studies , JAC: A Journal of Rhetoric, Culture, and Politics and Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society . In
5616-403: The Subversion of Identity was first published in 1990, selling over 100,000 copies internationally, in multiple languages. Similar to "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution," Gender Trouble discusses the works of Sigmund Freud , Simone de Beauvoir , Julia Kristeva , Jacques Lacan , Luce Irigaray , Monique Wittig , Jacques Derrida , and Michel Foucault . Butler offers a critique of
5720-596: The University of California in Los Angeles), testified that Dr. Rekers had omitted in his review of the scientific literature “other published, widely cited studies on the stability of actual relationships over time.” In 1983 Rekers was on the founding board of the Family Research Council , a non-profit Christian lobbying organization, along with James Dobson and Armand Nicholi Jr . Until May 11, 2010, Rekers
5824-416: The best interest of foster children to be placed in a heterosexual home" because the majority of people in the country disapproved of homosexual behaviour, putting further stress on children who were already likely to suffer from psychological disorders. According to Rekers, "That disapproval filters down to children [who] will express disapproval in more cruel, insensitive ways" toward a child being parented by
5928-421: The board of NARTH. Rekers is married with children. Rekers received his B.A. in psychology from Westmont College in 1969. He later received his M.A. and PhD in psychology from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1971 and 1972, respectively. As part of his doctoral studies at UCLA, Rekers led an experimental study which used behavioral treatment to discourage "deviant sex-role behaviors in
6032-484: The body is a major part of gender, in opposition to Butler's conception of gender as performative. A particularly vocal critic has been feminist Martha Nussbaum , who has argued that Butler misreads J. L. Austin 's idea of performative utterance , makes erroneous legal claims, forecloses an essential site of resistance by repudiating pre-cultural agency, and provides no "normative theory of social justice and human dignity." Finally, Nancy Fraser 's critique of Butler
6136-620: The book was influential. Ellen K. Feder criticized Rekers's work for lacking scientific credibility, describing Rekers's Growing Up Straight and Shaping Your Child's Sexual Identity as "manuals for parents designed to assist them in deterring their children from pursuing a 'deviant' lifestyle." The journalist Robyn E. Blumner of the Tampa Bay Times criticized Shaping Your Child's Sexual Identity for Rekers's "gay-bashing" rhetoric, such as his claim that gay activists secretly want to legalize pedophilia . Rekers' views on family life were
6240-614: The boys in such troops." He has acknowledged that his views are heavily influenced by religious concerns; as a member of the Southern Baptists , he believes that the city of Sodom was destroyed by God as a punishment for allowing homosexuality and that active homosexuals face "eternal separation from God", i.e., perpetuity in hell. Rekers was an expert witness in a 2004 case involving gay adoption in Arkansas, which had banned LGBT people from adopting in 1999. He argued that "it would be in
6344-611: The case of David Reimer , a person whose sex was medically reassigned from male to female after a botched circumcision at eight months of age. Reimer was "made" female by doctors, but later in life identified as "really" male, married and became a stepfather to his wife's three children, and went on to tell his story in As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl , which he wrote with John Colapinto . Reimer died by suicide in 2004. In Giving an Account of Oneself , Butler develops an ethics based on
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#17328588304856448-441: The central elements of Frames of War (2009). Undoing Gender collects Butler's reflections on gender, sex, sexuality, psychoanalysis and the medical treatment of intersex people for a more general readership than many of their other books. Butler revisits and refines their notion of performativity and focuses on the question of undoing "restrictively normative conceptions of sexual and gendered life". Butler discusses how gender
6552-455: The control of the subject it forms, as precisely the very condition of that subject's formation, the resources by which the subject becomes recognizably human, a grammatical "I", in the first place. Butler accepts the claim that if the subject is opaque to itself the limitations of its free ethical responsibility and obligations are due to the limits of narrative, presuppositions of language and projection. You may think that I am in fact telling
6656-496: The decision: "Dr. Cochran (Professor of Epidemiology and Statistics at the University of California in Los Angeles) also testified about errors in scientific methodology and reporting in Dr. Rekers' study, stating that Dr. Rekers had failed to present an objective review of the evidence on those subjects. Cochran concluded that Dr. Rekers' work did not meet established standards in the field. Another expert, Dr. Peplau (Professor of Psychology at
6760-506: The essay "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory," Judith Butler proposes that gender is performative – that is, gender is not so much a static identity or role, but rather comprises a set of acts which can evolve over time. Butler states that because gender identity is established through behavior, there is a possibility to construct different genders via different behaviors. "...if gender
6864-407: The ethics classes at the age of 14, and that they were created as a form of punishment by Butler's Hebrew school's rabbi because they were "too talkative in class". Butler said they were "thrilled" by the idea of these tutorials, and when asked what they wanted to study in these special sessions, they responded with three questions preoccupying them at the time: "Why was Spinoza excommunicated from
6968-563: The film Paris is Burning , short stories by Willa Cather , and the novel Passing by Nella Larsen. In Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative , Butler surveys the problems of hate speech and censorship. They argue that censorship is difficult to evaluate, and that in some cases it may be useful or even necessary, while in others it may be worse than tolerance. Butler argues that hate speech exists retrospectively, only after being declared such by state authorities. In this way,
7072-600: The focus of a major controversy in Florida in 2002 when then-governor Jeb Bush appointed Jerry Regier to the post of head of the Florida Department of Children and Families with responsibility for child welfare. Shortly after the announcement of Regier's appointment, it was disclosed that in 1989 the California-based Coalition on Revival had published a fundamentalist tract titled The Christian World View of
7176-407: The footnotes cite his own previous writings." The psychologist and sexologist Kenneth Zucker reviewed Growing Up Straight and Shaping Your Child's Sexual Identity , another work by Rekers, in a 1984 issue of Archives of Sexual Behavior . He described both works as, "examples of the passionate response that can be engendered by the study of human sexuality. In this instance, religious rhetoric
7280-587: The gay group the Log Cabin Republicans , has stated that Rekers' method uses aversion therapy – a practice opposed by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) – that punishes "nonconforming" behavior such as swaggering in girls or limp wrists in boys and rewards "conforming" behavior such as girls playing with dolls and boys playing basketball. A number of authorities working in the relevant fields reject Reker's basic premise utterly;
7384-443: The gay-rights organization Equality Florida: "Rekers is part of a small cadre of bogus pseudo scientists that charge these exorbitant fees to peddle information they know has been discredited time and time again. And people like McCollum will pay top dollar for it. There's a reason why he can't find credible sources. Because credible people don't believe this ban should exist." Third District Court of Appeal State of Florida, stated in
7488-427: The homosexual revolt" to the detriment of those suffering this "sexual perversion." He also asserted that Native Americans would make unsuitable foster parents, asserting that they suffered from a high risk of alcohol abuse and psychiatric disorders. Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Cindy Lederman ruled against the state. In her decision, she said "Dr. Rekers' testimony was far from a neutral and unbiased recitation of
7592-518: The human condition. This is due to our inevitable interdependency from other precarious subjects, who are never really "complete" or autonomous but instead always "dispossessed" on the Other. This is manifested in shared experiences like grief and loss, that can form the basis for a recognition of our shared human (vulnerable) condition. However, not every loss can be mourned in the same way, and in fact not every life can be conceived of as such (as situated in
7696-653: The intersectional aspects of gender-based violence. For example, Timothy Laurie notes that Butler's use of phrases like "gender politics" and "gender violence" in relation to assaults on transgender individuals in the United States can "[scour] a landscape filled with class and labour relations, racialized urban stratification, and complex interactions between sexual identity, sexual practices and sex work", and produce instead "a clean surface on which struggles over 'the human' are imagined to play out". German feminist Alice Schwarzer speaks of Butler's "radical intellectual games" that would not change how society classifies and treats
7800-456: The most stylistically lamentable passages found in scholarly books and articles", which Butler responded to . Some critics have accused Butler of elitism due to their difficult prose style, while others state that Butler reduces gender to "discourse" or promotes a form of gender voluntarism – Doctrine prioritizing will over intellect. Susan Bordo , for example, has argued that Butler reduces gender to language and has contended that
7904-462: The nude during the trip, which included genital touching." He also talked about how he believed that Rekers was, in fact, homosexual: "It's a situation," Roman said, "where he's going against homosexuality when he is a homosexual." According to the New Times , Roman "made it clear they met through Rentboy.com", and denied that he had been hired to carry luggage; The Times reported that Rekers "hired
8008-405: The opacity of the subject to itself; in other words, the limits of self-knowledge. Primarily borrowing from Theodor Adorno , Michel Foucault , Friedrich Nietzsche , Jean Laplanche , Adriana Cavarero and Emmanuel Levinas , Butler develops a theory of the formation of the subject. Butler theorizes the subject in relation to the social – a community of others and their norms – which is beyond
8112-603: The outcome of pending cases in Florida and California. Rekers testified before the Washington, D.C. Human Rights Commission on behalf of the Boy Scouts of America in 1998 in defense of the group's policy on excluding homosexuals, arguing that it was justified because admission of homosexuals "would legitimize the value of homosexual behavior in the eyes of many of the Boy Scouts ... There would be more homosexual conduct or behavior by
8216-654: The photograph clearly showed Rekers lifting his own luggage. Rekers was quoted as commenting, "If you talk with my travel assistant ... you will find I spent a great deal of time sharing scientific information on the desirability of abandoning homosexual intercourse , and I shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ with him in great detail." The incident was covered by media outlets and TV shows worldwide. In subsequent interviews, Roman said Rekers had paid him to provide nude massages daily: "'Jo-vanni' in news reports, has told various media outlets that he gave Rekers daily massages in
8320-424: The possibilities of gender transformation are to be found in the arbitrary relation between such acts, in the possibility of a different sort of repeating, in the breaking or subversive repetition of that style." Butler concludes their essay with a personal reflection on the strengths and limitations of widespread feminist theories which function on a solely binary perception of gender. Butler critiques what they call
8424-503: The possibility of any genuinely oppositional discourse; "If speech depends upon censorship, then the principle that one might seek to oppose is at once the formative principle of oppositional speech". Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence opens a new line in Judith Butler's work that has had a great impact on their subsequent thought, especially on books like Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? (2009) or Notes Toward
8528-465: The power and possibilities of protests, such as the Black Lives Matter protests regarding the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner in 2014. In The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind , Butler connects the ideologies of nonviolence and the political struggle for social equality. They review the traditional understanding of "nonviolence," stating that it "is often misunderstood as
8632-406: The relevant scientific evidence. Dr. Rekers' beliefs are motivated by his strong ideological and theological convictions that are not consistent with the science. Based on his testimony and demeanor at trial, the court cannot consider his testimony to be credible nor worthy of forming the basis of public policy." It later emerged that Rekers had been paid nearly $ 120,000 for his testimony on behalf of
8736-414: The script by performing out of turn or through unwarranted improvisations. Gender is not passively scripted on the body, and neither is it determined by nature, language, the symbolic, or the overwhelming history of patriarchy. Gender is what is put on, invariably, under constraint, daily and incessantly, with anxiety and pleasure, but if this continuous act is mistaken for a natural or linguistic given, power
8840-418: The social world in which one comes to be human in the first place and which remains precisely that which one cannot know about oneself. In this way, Butler locates social and political critique at the core of ethical practice. In Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly , Butler discusses the power of public gatherings, considering what they signify and how they work. They use this framework to analyze
8944-438: The society at large but also within the feminist movement." Finally, Butler aims to break the supposed links between sex and gender so that gender and desire can be "flexible, free floating and not caused by other stable factors" (David Gauntlett). The idea of identity as free and flexible and gender as performative, not an essence, has become one of the foundations of queer theory . Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories
9048-651: The state had anticipated. He later increased the bill to $ 200,000 with the addition of late fees and other charges for preparing paperwork. The unpaid bill led to two years of legal wrangling that was finally settled out of court with a $ 60,000 payment. In 2008, Rekers was an expert witness in In re: Gill , a case defending Florida's gay adoption ban. He presented testimony asserting that homosexuals are more likely to suffer from depression, substance abuse, and emotional problems. Citing what he called "God's moral laws," he asserted that individual homosexuals are "manipulated by leaders of
9152-541: The state of Arkansas in December 2004. He was strongly critical of Rekers' testimony, describing it as "extremely suspect" and said that Rekers "was there primarily to promote his own personal ideology." Rekers responded by denouncing the trial as "utterly corrupt." Following the case, Rekers billed the Arkansas Department of Health and Human Services a sum of $ 165,000 for his testimony, an amount that far exceeded what
9256-472: The state reserves for itself the power to define hate speech and, conversely, the limits of acceptable discourse. In this connection, Butler criticizes feminist legal scholar Catharine MacKinnon 's argument against pornography for its unquestioning acceptance of the state's power to censor. Deploying Foucault 's argument from the first volume of The History of Sexuality , Butler states that any attempt at censorship, legal or otherwise, necessarily propagates
9360-403: The state, which had been solicited specifically by Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum . The attorney general wrote in 2007: "Our attorneys handling this case have searched long and hard for other expert witnesses with comparable expertise to Dr. Rekers and have been unable to identify any who would be available for this case." However, his choice of witness was criticized by Nadine Smith of
9464-399: The study of human sexuality." The neuroscientist Simon LeVay commented that Shaping Your Child's Sexual Identity reveals his "virulent antipathy towards homosexuality." Jackie M. Blount found Rekers's "language and logic reminiscent of works from earlier decades", comparing Shaping Your Child's Sexual Identity to Peter and Barbara Wyden's Growing Up Straight (1968). She wrote that
9568-490: The suicide to this treatment. Following his suicide in 2010, the man's sister told the news that she read his journal which described how he feared disclosing his sexual orientation because when receiving the behavior modification treatment as a young boy, his father would beat him severely if he was given a different color "poker chip" as punishment for feminine-like behavior such as playing with dolls. Judith Butler Judith Pamela Butler (born February 24, 1956)
9672-541: The synagogue? Could German Idealism be held accountable for Nazism ? And how was one to understand existential theology , including the work of Martin Buber ?" Butler attended Bennington College before transferring to Yale University , where they studied philosophy and received a Bachelor of Arts in 1978 and a PhD in 1984. Their studies fell primarily under the traditions of German Idealism and phenomenology , and they spent one academic year at Heidelberg University as
9776-615: The teaching of gender, gay parenting, and the depathologization of transgender people. Some academics and political activists see in Butler a departure from the sex/gender dichotomy and a non-essentialist conception of gender—along with an insistence that power helps form the subject —an idea whose introduction purportedly brought new insights to feminist and queer praxis, thought, and studies. Darin Barney of McGill University wrote that: Butler's work on gender, sex, sexuality, queerness, feminism, bodies, political speech and ethics has changed
9880-492: The terms gender and sex as they have been used by feminists. Butler argues that feminism made a mistake in trying to make "women" a discrete, ahistorical group with common characteristics. Butler writes that this approach reinforces the binary view of gender relations. Butler believes that feminists should not try to define "women" and they also believe that feminists should "focus on providing an account of how power functions and shapes our understandings of womanhood not only in
9984-544: The trip", saying he was unaware that his "travel assistant" was "more than a person raised in a Christian home". Rekers explained his regrets for the harm caused by his "unwise decision", and that he was being advised by "an experienced pastor and counselor from my church, so I can more fully understand my weaknesses and prevent this kind of unwise decision-making in the future". On his resignation from NARTH he said "I am not gay and never have been." The scandal became popular fodder for media commentators and comics. Frank Rich of
10088-411: The very language it seeks to forbid. As Foucault argues, for example, the strict sexual mores of 19th-century Western Europe did nothing but amplify the discourse of sexuality they sought to control. Extending this argument using Derrida and Lacan , Butler says that censorship is primitive to language, and that the linguistic "I" is a mere effect of a primitive censorship. In this way, Butler questions
10192-417: The way scholars all over the world think, talk and write about identity, subjectivity, power and politics. It has also changed the lives of countless people whose bodies, genders, sexualities and desires have made them subject to violence, exclusion and oppression. Postmodern feminism's major departure from other branches of feminism is perhaps the argument that sex is itself constructed through language ,
10296-466: Was influential. However, the viewpoints espoused in the book have been controversial. Professor Michael R. Schiavi wrote in a 2001 Modern Language Studies journal article that the work was a "horror show written for parents anxious to re-direct sissy sons to sexual righteousness". The journalist Frank Rich questioned the book's status as scholarship in The New York Times , writing that "many of
10400-553: Was inspired to write this book after being attacked in 2017 in Brazil while speaking, at least one of whom shouted at Butler, saying "Take your ideology to hell!" Butler is interested in the literal demonization of gender by analyzing the historical context of the anti-gender movement . The book has been described as "the most accessible of their books so far, an intervention meant for a wide audience". Butler's work has been influential in feminist and queer theory, cultural studies , and continental philosophy . Their contribution to
10504-664: Was listed as an advisor and officer with the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality but resigned following the exposure of the rent-boy scandal. NARTH is an association which promotes the acceptance of conversion therapy intended to change homosexuals into heterosexuals, contrary to the advice of mainstream professional associations such as the American Psychiatric Association and American Psychological Association . The Miami New Times reported on May 4, 2010, that three weeks previously, Rekers had been photographed at Miami International Airport with
10608-477: Was murdered in the Shoah . Butler's parents were practicing Reform Jews . Their mother was raised Orthodox , eventually becoming Conservative and then Reform, while their father was raised Reform. As a child and teenager, Butler attended both Hebrew school and special classes on Jewish ethics , where they received their "first training in philosophy". Butler stated in a 2010 interview with Haaretz that they began
10712-416: Was on the founding board of the Family Research Council , a non-profit Christian lobbying organization, and he is a former officer and scientific advisor of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), an organization offering conversion therapy , a pseudoscientific practice intended to convert homosexuals to heterosexuality. Rekers has testified in court that homosexuality
10816-590: Was part of a famous exchange between the two theorists. Fraser has suggested that Butler's focus on performativity distances them from "everyday ways of talking and thinking about ourselves. ... Why should we use such a self-distancing idiom?" Butler responded to criticisms in the preface to the 1999-edition Gender Trouble by asking suggestively whether there is "a value to be derived from...experiences of linguistic difficulty." More recently, several critics — such as semiotician Viviane Namaste — have criticised Judith Butler's Undoing Gender for under-emphasizing
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