Beyond Performativity and the Gender Paradox: Gender, Sex, Sexuality, and Plurality

Abstract Book of the 5th International Conference on LGBT studies

Year: 2026

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Beyond Performativity and the Gender Paradox: Gender, Sex, Sexuality, and Plurality

Shane Elliot Bowers

ABSTRACT:

Western culture has argued since the late 19th century that the intellectual debate on gender, sex, and sexuality is undermined by the rule of nature. The limitations of normativity around gender and sex identification place preemptive qualifications on power and delimit this field to mere descriptions of gender. However, what about transgender, non-binary/conforming individuals who separate their sexuality and gender identity from their biological sex identity? In my paper, I analyze the terms associated with gender through the deconstruction of “performance” and “performativity” through queer theory, bridging the homo-social environment of Europe with the Western paradigm. I intertextualize four critical thinkers: Judith Butler, Amelia Jones, Jean-François Lyotard, and Lorenzo Bernini. The novel Orlando by Virginia Woolf is analyzed as evidence to explore the constraints of performativity and the incorporation of polygender to address gender paradigms. The language surrounding the word “polygender,” which liberates gender from binary, is investigated; this study criticizes the restrictions of Butler and Jones’ viewpoint on “performativity.” In my analysis, I argue that understanding gender ‘performativity’ requires an in-depth examination of how sex and gender are not interchangeable.

Keywords: Erasure, Gender, Non-Binary/Conforming, Performativity, Plurality, Pluralism, Polygender, Queer, Sex, Sexuality, Transgender