Table Of ContentAssuming a Body
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Assuming A Body
Transgender and Rhetorics of materiality
Gayle Salamon
ColumBiA univeRsiTy PRess
new yoRk
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Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
Copyright © 2010 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Salamon, Gayle.
Assuming a body: transgender and rhetorics of materiality /
Gayle Salamon.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-231-14958-7 (cloth: alk. paper) —
ISBN 978-0-231-14959-4 (pbk.: alk. paper) —
ISBN 978-0-231-52170-3 (e-book)
1. Transgenderism—Psychological aspects.
2. Transgender people—Psychology.
3. Gender identity. I. Title.
HQ77.9.S25 2010
306.76'8—dc22 2009031454
Casebound editions of Columbia University Press books
are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
p 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
References to Internet Web sites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writ-
ing. Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for
Web sites that may have expired or changed since the book was prepared.
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FoR Julie
who helped me make it out and
who has always taught me about sameness and difference
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ConTenTs
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
part one What Is a Body?
1
The Bodily Ego and the Contested Domain of the Material 13
2
The Sexual Schema: Transposition and Transgender in
Phenomenology of Perception 43
part two Homoerratics
3
Boys of the Lex: Transgender and Social Construction 69
4
Transfeminism and the Future of Gender 95
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part three Transcending Sexual Difference
5
An Ethics of Transsexual Difference: Luce Irigaray and the
Place of Sexual Undecidability 131
6
Sexual Indifference and the Problem of the Limit 145
part four Beyond the Law
7
Withholding the Letter: Sex as State Property 171
Notes 195
Bibliography 205
Index 217
ConTenTs viii
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ACknowledgmenTs
First and last thanks go to Judith Butler, whose inspiring work and
unfailing support made this book possible.
Thanks to my editors Wendy Lochner and Susan Pensak at
Columbia University Press, and to three anonymous reviewers,
whose helpful suggestions strengthened this manuscript.
Thanks to Princeton University and my colleagues and friends
there including: Eduardo Cadava, Zahid Chaudhary, Anne Cheng,
Jim Clark, Isabelle Clark-Decès, Jill Dolan, Jeff Dolven, Diana
Fuss, R. Marie Griffith, Daniel Heller-Roazen, Claudia Johnson,
Meredith Martin, Deborah Nord, Jeff Nunokawa, Nigel Smith,
Val Smith, Alexandra Vazquez, Stacy Wolf, and Michael Wood.
Thanks also to the Society of Fellows at Princeton whose support
gave me the time to complete much of this work: Leonard Bar-
kan, the indefatigable Mary Harper, Carol Rigolot, Cass Garner,
and Lin DeTittia, with particular thanks to fellow fellows Mar-
got Canaday, Jen Rubenstein, Ben Kafka, Graham Jones, Miriam
Petty, Mendi Obadike, Bianca Calabresi, and Martin Scherzinger.
Thanks also to the Fund for Reunion and Debbie Bazarsky at the
LGBT Center at Princeton.
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Profound thanks to Alan Schrift and Johanna Meehan, without
whose early and continued encouragement I would not have found
this path. Thanks to James Kissane and Knut Tarnowski for meet-
ing impatience with kindness and intellectual generosity.
I am deeply glad for the good company of Kaja Silverman, Joan
Scott, David Kazanjian, Josie Saldana, Ken Corbett, David Eng,
Teemu Ruskola, Zrinka Stahuljak and Laure Murat. Thank you
to Gail Weiss, Ewa Ziarek, Angela McRobbie, Penny Deutscher,
Ann Murphy, Samir Haddad, Mary Beth Mader, Diane Perpich,
Kelly Oliver, Denise Riley, Petra Kuppers, Elizabeth Weed, Anne
Fausto-Sterling, and Carol Armstrong. I have benefited from the
wisdom of C. L. Cole, Jack Halberstam, Lisa C., Erik Schneider,
Dylan Scholinski, and Patrick Letellier in conversations about
trans issues.
Thanks go to friends and colleagues during my time at UC Berke-
ley: Homay King, Catherine Zimmer, Jill Stauffer, Beth Ferguson,
Gillian Harkins, Katrin Pahl, James Salazar, Rob Miotke, Emma
Bianchi, Felipe Gutterriez, Jane Taylorson, Maxine Fredericksen,
and Carl Fredericksen.
Thanks to Judith Butler, Kaja Silverman, Sharon Marcus, and
David Hoy for invaluable comments and advice on the project while
still in the form of a dissertation. I am grateful for comments on
the first chapter from Karl Britto, Michael Lucey, Charis Thompson,
Paola Bacchetta, and Leigh Gilmore. Thanks to my students at Berke-
ley and at Princeton, with particular thanks to Cathy Hannabach.
For true friendship and sustaining kinship, I am grateful to
Dustin Ray Jermier, Armon Kasmai, Miss A, Mike Nield, and
Lila Thirkield. Thanks to the Lexington Club and to Sunny, Ace,
Danny, Libby, Yvette, Kelly, Steph, Bre, and Kiki. I am grateful for
the keen eyes of Ace Morgan, Lily Rodriguez, and Allison Wykoff.
For various forms of shelter while writing, thanks to Jane Huber
and Gerry Kiwanuka, Patrick Letellier and Keith Hodge, Nello
Carlini, Ben Kafka and Julie Coe, and Wendy Brown.
Thanks to Julie Salamon, Cheryl Clark, Richard Salamon, and
Marilyn Ayers-Salamon.
Finally: gratitude beyond measure, in every register, to A. B.
Huber. You are my magnetic north.
ACknowledgmenTs
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