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Title

A radical queer utopian future: a reciprocal relation beyond sexual difference

Author(s)

Nicholas, Lucy

Abstract

Removing, transcending, or otherwise rendering void or absent sex/gender as a central element of selfhood is an aim rarely pursued in theory or in activism concerned with deconstructing sex/gender. Even in queer and transgender theory that imagines alternative models or landscapes of identity or the self, sex/gender is usually merely adjusted, varied, and multiplied rather than rejected or transcended. The few visions of future landscapes of identity and sexuality in Western contexts that dare to imagine a selfhood without sex /gender, or at least without sexual difference, appear to be limited to a strain of 1970s utopian feminist science fiction and more recently among the theory and prefigurative practices of contemporary anarchist-queer communities. This article views the current relationship between self and other as one that, in departing from the assumption of sex/gender, does not allow subjects to define themselves and others outside of it. In its place I propose an alternative way of being (ethics) derived from a social and intersubjective ontological basis that values reciprocal relations between subjects that are not reducible to antagonism or difference.

Publication type

Journal article

Source

Thirdspace: A Journal of Feminist Theory and Culture, Vol. 8, no. 2 (2009)

Publication year

2009

FOR Code(s)

2002 Cultural Studies

Keyword(s)

Gender;  Identity;  Sex;  Sexuality

Publisher

Thirdspace

ISSN

1495-8513

Publisher URL

http://www.thirdspace.ca/journal/article/viewArticle/lnicholas/248

Copyright

Copyright © 2009. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). The published version is reproduced in accordance with this policy.

Full text

Peer reviewed