On the Etiology and Politics of Sexual Phenomenology

Abstract

Working from the conceptual site, which discloses the relationship between the theory and the practice of Judith Butler's post-structuralist framework, this paper looks at male lesbians to amplify the diversity within gender identity and sexual expression. Male lesbians problematise the sex-leads-to-gender hierarchy and, in doing so, unravel the entire enterprise of heteronormativity. More importantly, perhaps, they illustrate the confluence in the culturally manifested and scientifically prescribed binary between nature and culture. In short, this paper considers the myriad possibilities ‘biologically read’ males who identify as lesbians have on the current social epistemology that has been crystallised on dichotomies of male/female and nature/culture.