Cis- and Transgender Identities: Beyond Habituation and the Search for Social Existence

Elaborating on Vasterling’s articulation of a phenomenological notion of embodiment in Judith Butler’s work, Annemie Halsema, in her article, “Cis- and Transgender Identities: Beyond Habituation and the Search for Social Existence,” argues that Butler’s theory of gender performativity is a starting point in need of supplements. One of these supplements is the phenomenological notion of bodily habit formation, another is an account of psychic gender identity. Performativity is not only linguistic but also habitual. Prior to the awareness of assuming a gender identity, the individual repeats movements and forms a bodily memory. Because habit formation allows for variance, just like performativity, gender – both in the case of cis and in the case of trans – is variant. In order to account for the experiences of transgenders, merely considering gender constitution in terms of repetition of social norms and bodily habit, however, is not sufficient. Another element needs to be taken into consideration, the “psychic” gender, which is the gender a person identifies with.