Summary Of Imitation And Gender Insubordination By Judith Butler

Every year on National Coming Out Day, LGBTQ+ individuals come together to celebrate our proudly declared identities. But what are we really celebrating? In “Imitation and Gender Insubordination”, Judith Butler explores what it really means to come out and claim an identity. Although Butler acknowledges the importance of coming out for purposes of personal affirmation and community organization, she is ultimately skeptical in the coming out process because it means conforming to the discourses of oppressive powers and because the meaning of the identities themselves are ambiguous.
Butler recognizes that coming out can be advantageous for many reasons. First, it provides personal affirmation for marginalized individuals. Recognizing and being comfortable with one’s desires provides the
Minority communities can then be the force for political movements against the oppressive systems of powers.
Although coming out can provide self-affirmation and generate political movements, Butler is skeptical in the process because coming out is participating in the discourse constructed by oppressive institutions of power. Going back to Foucaultian ideas, desires were translated into discourse by systems of power in order for these powers to monitor and control them. Butler describes doming out as “the normalizing categories of oppressive structures” (308) because conforming and claiming an identity that is constructed is thus participating in the oppressive structures themselves. Some people may argue that coming out is an act of liberation because it protests against the erasure of the existence of gay/lesbian individuals. However Butler digs deeper into this and argues that “there is no question that gay and lesbians are threatened by the violence of public erasure, but the decision to counter that violence must be careful not to reinstall another in its place” (311). Coming out and proclaiming