“Gender is a copy for which there is no original.”

This was Butler’s point in Bodies that Matter. It was deployed in service of defending and valorizing that which is genderqueer, which is delegitimized because it is an imitation of the Real Thing.

For Butler, there is no Real Thing in evidence. No one springs into life knowing how to do gender. We learn how to do a gender by watching and mastering the symbolic language of those around us.

There is, for instance, nothing natural about holding objects with one’s pinky finger extended, standing hands-on-hips with the finger pointed backwards, or pointing with the wrist bent at a 90-degree angle.

These are all part of a culturally-specific language for symbolically expressing femininity with our hands. They are no more biological than liking the music of the Jonas Brothers.

So each of us learns to do our gender, and all gender is a kind of drag or imitation, however imperfect, that follows along the path made by others.

If we tease out the statement just a bit, we might render it as “Normative genders are copies for which there is no original.”

Looked at this way, from the perspective of normative genders, I think Butler is right.

However, from the perspective of genderqueerness, I think she gets it exactly wrong.

Genderqueers are originals for which there is no copy.

When I really embrace being genderqueer, when I stop trying to be anything else other than the particular blend my body and presentation make me, I find myself in a space of uniqueness. Not better, mind you, but definitely unique.

There simply is no one else around who looks or acts quite the way I do. I don’t appear to fit into any of the normative versions of male I see around me, and certainly none of the female.

The closest I come is when I get to a transgender conference, when I do see people who look somewhat like I do, and whose bodies, manner and presentation inhabit some of the same semiotic space. But even at tranny conferences, almost everyone’s gender looks remarkably unique to me, even those who normally try to pass.

Genderqueerness means having the courage to go to a space in the gender system where you are original. Where there are no copies. To go to the edge of the map of intelligible genders – and then step off into whatever lies next.