Out/Performing Our Selves: Sex, Gender and Cartesian Dualism

Abstract

Elements of feminist and queer theories and of phenomenology are used to engage with Cartesian dualism, in order to clarify the political implications of medicalized male-to-female (MTF) discourses. Particular attention is paid to descriptions of MTF as being in the `wrong' body. The author argues that this idea depends on a `shallow' model of corporeality, and suggests that a chronotopic model, by which the body is conceptualized as a process existing in both time and space, is more useful in counter-hegemonic theory.