Abstract
Queer sexuality and gender fluidity threaten the domination of heteronormative power structures. Gender fluidity dismantles the argument that gender is innately a binary structure, and reinstates that it is only an integration of performative acts. Once individual bodies start to experiment with gender fluidity, they shatter the manipulative control social institutions exercise over them. This is a drastic shift in power positions, as it uproots the hegemony associated with social institutions, such as family, marriage, and the economy. A pragmatically possible response to this manipulative encroachment of the individual body is to strategically undertake queer identity and present how gender performance is a personal choice of identity, rather than a pre-assigned norm. Jacob Tobia’s Sissy: A Coming of-Gender Story and Billy Porter’s Unprotected: A Memoir are two autobiographical accounts that boldly narrate their journey of self-doubt, acceptance, anger, retaliation, and proclamation to the world that gender binarity is a social and cultural construct, and that experimentation with gender fluidity should be a guilt-free personal liberty. Through these two autobiographical texts, this study investigates how body politics operate as a strategic tool for cis-conditioning. It also explores how queer sexual expressions reaffirm gender performance. Further, this study investigates whether strategic acknowledgement of gender fluidity is a possible response to heteronormative body politics. Finally, it discusses the scope of affirmative body politics, which is less authoritarian in nature and designed for individual advancement and better life.
Keywords: Body Politics, Gender fluidity, Gender Performance, Homophobia, Queer Sexuality