Maria cyber

INTERVIEWS

Judith
Butler
 It was a strange, busy day when the phone rang and I heard Athina
tell me: “Your interview with Judith Butler is scheduled for tomorrow
at 17.00 at the hotel Caravel. She will be expecting you, she won’t
have a lot of time I’ll have to pick her up for her lecture at Panteio
University. “ I said ok, hung up the phone and called my friend Maria,
who had informed me in the first place that Judith would be coming
to Athens. I screamed on the phone “Maria tomorrow is the interview
with Judith” but she was busy and was kind of angry with me. Then I
thought of Katerina but she didn’t have the time either. I must
confess that the decision to go by myself was kind of hard. The very
idea of interviewing Judith was an amazing feat. I had so many things
to tell her…but by myself?

I met her on the entrance of the hotel where she was posing for a
photographer. I immediately felt an intimacy, she was butch just like
me, she was cool and comfortable with the camera. She glowed and
her glow cast my fears and anxiety aside. We sat down inside in the
restaurant, she ordered green tea and I ordered a diet coke. She had
swam earlier in the swimming pool, she loves to swim, that’s why she
chose that hotel because of the swimming pool. And she loves yoga
as well! I learned about that later on of course…
Maria Cyber: When you talk about gender and
especially when you started writing Gender Trouble, did
you do it because you had questions concerning your
own gender?

Judith Butler: Don’t we all?

Maria Cyber: It took me a long time to understand

myself and figure out what my ‘problem’ was, because
a lesbian identity just wasn’t enough. And I had trouble
with the lesbian organizations because I behaved like a
boy and in 1997 when I was dating a butch girl she told
me of the transgender movement and I immediately
wanted to find out more about it. That’s how I found
out about you and Kate Bernstein. Bernstein writes in a
non-academic language.

Judith Butler: Yes she does.

Maria Cyber: She is direct.

Judith Butler: This is true.

Maria Cyber: You can talk in an academic, theoretical,

philosophical language and the people who go through
changes with their bodies can’t easily follow the
academics, is it important for you for people to
understand you and to feel like you can help them?

Judith Butler: Yes I do want to help people, that’s true.

But look I have to talk with the psychologists, the
psychiatric organizations, lawyers, with people who are
trying to remove the stigma of the ‘pathology’ of
homosexuality, transgender and intersex. I have
helped to write the books on what intersex is, to make
the films that explain it and to create arguments for
those who aren’t in some organization so they can
learn and understand. We are fighting on many fronts,
other times I am out on the streets, protesting and
supporting gay, queer, trans activists with any way
that I can. Other times I am just a street dyke, that’s
how I was raised , that’s what I am and that’s what I
call myself. A street dyke. I had to learn how to buy a
silk shirt; it wasn’t something easy for me I had to
learn it nobody taught me.

Maria Cyber: You clearly state that you are a lesbian?

Judith Butler: I am a lesbian.

Maria Cyber: I am so happy to hear you say that, after

all the press releases that the Pulantza Foundation has
issued, it hasn’t mentioned anything about your work
with gender, I was afraid that it might have been an
identity you had left behind.

Judith Butler: I am a street dyke…it is one of the

primary things of my personality and that’s what I am
no matter how much I talk to the academics and the
philosophers and even when I am fighting for
Palestinian rights it isn’t something that I shy away
from but rather bring it into focus. And I believe that
queerness is about alliance it isn’t just about me and
my identity.

Maria Cyber: I had read in an interview of you that

queer movements can be antifeminist.
Judith Butler: I don’t believe that they are
antifeminist, but I believe that there are a lot of
feminists who think that. That queer is antifeminist,
that transgender is antifeminist…That’s not right.

Maria Cyber: Maybe the text interpretation was wrong…

Judith Butler: Possibly.

Maria Cyber: Because it said that you believed that the

queer movement could be antifeminist.

Judith Butler: In an article I wrote I describe the

problem that some queers believe that feminism is
over and that we are now post-feminists or
antifeminists and that there are feminists who believe
that queers and trans can be antifeminist and I try to
look at both sides of the argument and this is
something that I am against. So you probably saw the
description of what people think which isn’t what I
believe.

Maria Cyber: I have had problems with the feminist

movement as well, for the dildo for example.

Judith Butler: They had a problem with that?

Maria Cyber: Yes of course, they still do.

Judith Butler: What’s their problem? Don’t they find it

pleasurable?

Maria Cyber: They have a problem with it because

they think that the dildo is a penis substitute.

Judith Butler: They probably don’t understand it. The

penis is the substitute for the dildo. It’s a joke but it’s
important because it asks the question, what comes
first? The dildo or the penis?

Maria Cyber: There was a big problem in accepting

intersex people in the lesbian community.

Judith Butler: I’m sorry to hear that.

Maria Cyber: Even in the chat room of LesbianGr if

there is just one FTM he is kicked out. Things in Greece
when it comes to matters of gender are a bit better
now but they still have a long way to go. Have you
ever read the Well of Loneliness?

Judith Butler: Yes.

Maria Cyber: What do you think about it? Everyone

says that it is the first lesbian book ever written but I
believe that it is the first female to male book ever
written.

Judith Butler: This is interesting; I believe that there

are a lot of complex connections in there. You can
consider yourself as a trans in a lesbian relationship but
what is it then? Is it a lesbian relationship or is it a
transgender relationship? Or does it constantly change
and you can’t define it? I think everyone should relax
with all these categories and that way the person who
goes through all these ‘sex changes’ during the course
of a relationship, we can define this if we use a more
complex vocabulary but I am not going to. Is it lesbian
or is it transgender? Maybe it is both.
Maria Cyber: How did you feel when you read it?

Judith Butler: I understood it, I felt the book and the

way of writing that you mention but look, you can be
transgender in a sexual relationship, you can be
occasionally transgender out on the street but only in
those circumstances you may be transgender. While
some other people might be transgender in other
aspects of life or even in all. There is a great spectrum
concerning transgenders, others may tell you that their
sexuality hasn’t changed that they have always been a
straight male for example and that he has always love
men. And now that he is a man this hasn’t changed.
And there are others who may say that they are
lesbians and yet when they are with women they feel
more like men and their sexuality ends up changing
their gender. We must allow for all these different
combinations and some wish to differentiate gender
and sexuality and some don’t.

Maria Cyber: I believe that these are two different

things. Your gender is one thing and your sexuality is
another. Do you believe that they are different? If I
was 18 now and the transgender movement was what
it is today I would have made the corrective surgery, I
felt a lot like a little boy when I was a teenager, now
that I am 40 I am glad I haven’t.

Judith Butler: It is historic now that I am 53 and…

Maria Cyber: What’s your sign?

Judith Butler: Pisces.

Maria Cyber: I’m an Aquarius.

Judith Butler: We are both in the water then. Well for

me, being butch was very important while I was
growing up…I had problems when I was young as well,
I didn’t know where I belonged, am I a lesbian? Am I a
feminist? And I never liked the idea that if I was a
feminist that meant that I had to have sex in a certain
way. I disagreed with that notion when I was 18 and
still disagree with it 35 years later. No feminist can tell
you how to have sex, that is fascist. You can be a
feminist and have sex with a dildo, be penetrated with
a dildo or penetrate someone with a dildo, have anal
sex, be into s/m, this doesn’t concern me.
Maria Cyber: Would you ever have a sex change?

Judith Butler: Being butch has allowed me to be in a

special ‘world’ since it wasn’t exactly feminist. It’s true
that over the years I have seen many butch women
turn transgender. If the transgender movement was
what it was 30 years later would I be transgender? May
be. It’s difficult for me to think like that.

Maria Cyber: Now that I am 40 I would never have the

surgery, with all the hormones etc.

Judith Butler: Because you have grown older with your

body, you see that you can’t take it and you can’t
reverse certain things so you have to be very careful
on what you choose.

Maria Cyber: Do you think that your gender and your

sexuality change as you get older? When I was younger
I felt like a boy and now I feel 50-50. And I feel like
giving people advice, ‘Wait, don’t touch your breasts,
just wait’. Do you feel like this too? That people who
have gender dysphoria should wait?
Judith Butler: I don’t say make the change as soon as
you can and I don’t tell them to wait either. What I say
is, there is something that needs changing but try to
understand first what that thing is, there is a need to
change something and you can’t fight it but you can’t
change it until you know for sure what that is.

Maria Cyber: As you grow older do you see changes in

your butchness?

Judith Butler: Yes it changes but it depends on who

you are with as well. It doesn’t change radically, I
won’t ever associate with certain types of girls, I have
my standards, I am quite predictable but on the other
hand there are things that might come up depending
on who you are with. Even your body can change
depending on who you are with. If it didn’t change it
would have been like taking your sexuality for granted.
It is a way with which to associate your self with
someone else so there are levels to this. It can allow
you to be more vulnerable or steady as a rock. It
depends.
Maria Cyber: I never thought about it like that because
I always thought that it changed because I am
changing.

Judith Butler: But we are always changing with other

people. At least that’s how I see it.

Maria Cyber: I have www.lesbian.gr for over 12 years

now and it has personal ads. Over 20.000 and in the
first years there was a high visitation from men, they
wanted to have sex with lesbians. Now 10 years later
there are only a few of those ads. Most of them want to
be penetrated by women and to be submissive. And I
see this as a mirror of society. Do you think so?

Judith Butler: Of course it is a social phenomenon. If

you look at the personal ads it is like a mirror of
society. There are many issues but the strongest of
them is today’s men’s passivity. A lot of men pay to be
slaves to women but they don’t want this in their
‘official’ relationships and they set it apart.

Maria Cyber: The internet grants you anonymity and

you have the comfort level to differentiate your official
relationships from your hidden desires.

Judith Butler: I remember reading Kate Millett and her

critique on literary pornography. She had begun to
describe the pornography to which she was against and
I felt aroused by this as I was reading it and I thought
to myself, ‘Now I’ve done it. I’m in trouble.’ Because
what I wanted was wrong according to this feminist. So
there was a schism.

Maria Cyber: I felt that I was right once I discovered

the dildo and it offered me the penis that I wanted and
I didn’t care what anybody said.

Judith Butler: Good for you.

Maria Cyber: And then I made some art pornographic

photographs where I had inserted the dildo in my
girlfriend’s anus and wrote, ‘Love me tender love me
true but fuck me hard’ and another where a woman
opens her feet wide and it wrote ‘Deep inside me I am
a good girl’ and I distributed these photographs in the
form of a flyer to the lesbian movement and they
would tear them up in front of me. And the worst thing
is that they said that they rejected me because I
reproduced the male aspect of pornography but for me
it was my own pornography.

Judith Butler: I think that masculinity has a different

experience according with each body. Some men
experience their masculinity in a different way than
women who feel masculine. Why must we think that
masculinity is male? Why can’t there be different types
of masculinity? Even men have second thoughts on
their masculinity, ‘Am I big enough? Do I fuck right?’

Maria Cyber: I am a woman and I have periods and

PMS but when I am in the mood I feel like fucking like
a man or what is commonly known to be a man. And
my partners enjoy this and we bask in our fantasies.

Judith Butler: Sometimes you must allow some

fantasies to come true. Just as the dildo always stays
hard and even some heterosexuals prefer it. How can
we explain this? These are complex issues. I am not
sure anymore which is more important.

Maria Cyber: Have you ever been to Lesbos?

Judith Butler: No I haven’t but I would love to.

Maria Cyber: Where do you live now?

Judith Butler: In San Francisco. In the center of it all.

Maria Cyber: Have you written something in ‘Gender

Trouble’ that you have changed your mind about?

Judith Butler: All the time. I am always changing my

mind. I can tell you a lot of things.

Maria Cyber: Tell me one.

Judith Butler: I can’t think of one now.

Maria Cyber: With the recession do you think that

matters of gender have any bearing now?

Judith Butler: Yes because it is all connected. You can’t

discuss about social violence if you can’t discuss about
violence against queers, transgenders, gay, women…
Maria Cyber: For example, for people who are starving
like in Africa, who cares about gender there?

Judith Butler: It matters because a lot of transgenders

lose their jobs, their rights to live. HIV has brought all
this to the forefront, safe sex practices, the economic
hold that western societies have over Africa and the
interests of the pharmaceuticals. All of this is
connected. Queer activists are still working in Africa.
How can we set these apart? Even in the sex industry,
the sex workers have to have unions, to have pensions,
medical insurance and other work rights. There is a lot
of trafficking and the sex workers have to protect
themselves and that has to do with worker’s rights,
health, poverty, social violence. And what about police
violence? On immigrants, queers, gay, etc. So we have
an alliance of those who are more vulnerable to police
violence, an alliance of minorities.

Maria Cyber: In the press release it mentioned that

you are active in matters of immigrants as well. Would
you like to tell me about that?

Judith Butler: It is a big issue in the States, in Europe,

even here in Greece. It is a big issue. And that has to
do with their rights or lack of those. We have more
police on borders, a lot of illegal immigrants without
medical care who are being taken advantage of.

Maria Cyber: Do you deal mostly with queer

immigrants or immigrants in general?

Judith Butler: I believe that there are alliances

between them.

Maria Cyber: What do you do in your everyday life?

JudithButler: I have been doing yoga for 6 years, I

swim every day.

Maria Cyber: Do you drink?

JudithButler: I love red wine and greek food. I also

love old films like those with Marilyn Monroe.

Maria Cyber: How about music?

JudithButler: I listen to whatever my son listens to.

Maria Cyber: You have a son?

JudithButler: Yes he is 15. My girlfriend gave birth to

him and I adopted him. He is straight but loves gay
people. He is a pro-gay activist. We are a queer family.

Maria Cyber: How long have you had a relationship?

JudithButler: About 19 years.

Maria Cyber: Monogamous?

JudithButler: We have an understanding.

Now we are in the lobby of the hotel with Athina and a

dear friend of Judith who is Greek and lives in Paris.
We are discussing Panos Koutras’ new film ‘Strella’. I
say goodbye and I realize that I am not a professional
reporter I feel like I want to meet the person I am
interviewing. Anyway I hope you enjoyed it

Thank you