If gender binary and sexual normativity are social constructs that oppresses other forms of existences, do I have to struggle to deny and dismantle such constructs? Misfits in the novels, and arguments about queerness convinced me the myth of gender binary is out of date. However, I could not imagine the actual practice of queerness that could replace the old frame. The quest of queerness was just enough for me to doubt my body, language and desire in my routine life, but failed to give me evidence what to do after the doubts.
\nTyler in Cereus Blooms at Night suggests us to transgress gender binary, rather than dismantling it. He wears female nurse\u2019s uniform in front of Mala. He even puts on makeup. He turns into a perfect, stereotypical woman figure, which must have been suffocating for many women. The moment he wears stockings on his thigh, he recognizes it is a confinement but find the feeling of hairs tightened joyful. It shows conflicting desire regarding gender binary. There is yearning to be free of any oppression, but at the same time there is a masochistic desire to be willingly confine oneself.
\nBell hooks said in Teaching to Transgress that she chooses to speak black vernacular when she feels it would be more effective to deliver what she wants to speak up. She is transgressing the terrains of white and black languages freely. From her flipping choices of languages comes the real liberation from dominant power. As for gender binary, too, daring transgression over borders between male and female would give people self-governance. Instead of ignoring or refusing pervasive existence of gender norms, acknowledgement, appreciation and appropriation of the norms would make a success in creating alternative space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If gender binary and sexual normativity are social constructs that oppresses other forms of existences, do I have to struggle to deny and dismantle such constructs? Misfits in the novels, and arguments about queerness convinced me the myth of gender binary is out of date. However, I could not imagine the actual practice of queerness … Continue reading The Power of Transgression<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2977,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123782],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2977"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}