Getting under performance's skin: epigenetics and gender performativity

Abstract

This article offers a re-examination of Judith Butler's theory of gender performativity (as described in her influential 1990 work Gender Trouble) in the light of recent epigenetic discoveries. Epigenetics is the study of molecular mechanisms that modify the manner in which DNA sequences are expressed while leaving the sequence itself intact. These processes can be influenced by environmental factors, demonstrating how our environment can affect us at the cellular level with important consequences for the ways in which we think about behaviour, gender and identity. Through an exploration of a range of scientific papers (in conjunction with an epigenetic reading of Leslie Feinberg's Stone Butch Blues), this article asks if epigenetics could provide a mechanism through which gender performance achieves some degree of biological embodiment. Although current research can offer a basis for some interesting speculation, it is also clear that such a question cannot yet be answered. Fortunately, new lines of investigation could one day provide us with a clearer idea of the relationship between gender performance and epigenetics.