A few years back, one of my favourite online content creators (Brittany Simon) posted a YouTube video titled “I was raised as a boy.” Within this short video (embedded below, if you’d like to watch it!), several Butler-adjacent ideas are explored; most generally, however, Brittany’s story illustrates the internal instability of “gender,” as a concept and as a term. She discusses how, as a child, her father made the decision to raise her “like a boy.” While her sister was treated more as a “girl,” and was more encouraged toward femininity, Brittany’s father actively exposed her to the realm of politics — something that he didn’t otherwise do, in how he raised his other daughter. As Brittany later learned, this was a conscious decision by her “traditional” father to raise her in a way that he actively associated with boys; Brittany had spent her childhood assuming that her father was simply raising her as an equal, rather than as a “boy.” As it seemed, despite raising her in a way that would likely be considered “feminist,” Brittany’s father continued to cling to his “traditional” beliefs on gender and gender roles. He would even tell an adult Brittany that he now regrets raising her in the way that he did. (Largely a result of him learning that Brittany has a romantic and sexual preference for women… he now attributes his daughter’s sexuality to his “masculine” methods of rearing.)
Essentially, this anecdote illustrates the illogical nature of traditional ideas of gender (and gender roles). It also intersects with Butler’s idea of “compulsory heterosexuality,” and the confusion that lesbians may cause to those who hold tight to the institution of “gender,” as a whole.
