A person beyond gender: a first-hand account

Misogyny in Psychoanalysis by MichaelaChamberlain. Published by Phoenix Publishing House, Bicester, 2022, 100 pp, £15.99 paperback.

“…Here, Chamberlain is briefly pointing to a problem that has long been identified with such binary terms, which refer back to biological sex, however modified or broadened their subsequent usage. This is an argument developed originally by Judith Butler (1993), and since taken up in many writings, especially those relating to non‐normative expressions of sexuality and gender (e.g., O'Connor & Ryan, 1993; Hertzmann & Newbigin, 2019). Women who inhabit or claim certain forms of lesbian identities have been especially misunderstood in a misogynistic way by the misleading assumptions that they exhibit inherent masculine characteristics, or that lesbian relationships must contain a female/male dynamic to account for desire.…”

“…Chamberlain however does not draw on the plentiful literature about the ways in which these binary terms have been used to invalidate the lives and non‐normative desires of many women (and also gay men), in psychoanalysis as elsewhere (e.g. O'Connor and Ryan, 1993; Hertzmann and Newbigin, 2019). It is here that homophobia and misogyny intersect, as in the long‐standing psychoanalytic inability (now challenged) to conceive of desire between women except on a heterosexual model.…”