gay essay

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What are little boys made of? What are little girls made of? In the process of making, one embarks on the journey to becoming who they are. Someone is never just a boy or a girl, as one’s sexuality is an ongoing process whereby one is always becoming and reinventing ways of being. Therefore, human beings become subject to the making under surveillance of society and culture.Are subjects more than they become? Marjorie Garber tackles the definition of “male subjectivity” in her essay in questioning what male subjectivity is and exactly where does transsexuals and transvestites fit into this cultural fantasy. By definition, male subjectivity is “recuperative cultural fantasy, a theoretical back formation from female subjectivity,” where the latter evolved as a politically necessary critique of the universal subject, “man”(321). In coining this term, society is giving back the power to men due to the fact that “to be a subject is to have a phallus” (322). Therefore, in having a phallus there is no room for equality or such term as female subjectivity, where equality is the foundation. This phallus or also known as a penis is the center of Garber’s essay in examining what it means to have a penis and the ways in which penis construction is both mentally and physically a challenge that trans living people face in their ongoing becoming into their sexuality.
In this essay, I will argue that the penis misrepresents maleness and transexual life betwixt the blurred lines of captivating one’s gendered identity. In actuality, translife is sufficient without the surveillance of becoming and making according to heteronormative cultures, which then removes the sexual organ from becoming or making a man or woman. Garber explores this concept in...

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..., literally by adhering to the female desire and reasserting one’s masculinity. Therefore, transvestites create a space that is personal and also public that both genders and sexuality may coincide.
Garber mentions the validity of the insignia of the penis of Stroller’s observation of transvestites in pronography as the highlight of desirous images. The transvestites are on display in female erotic clothing while their “cock and balls” (324)are still being exposed. The exposure of the male’s cock and calls brings about the heteronormative and vanishes the ambiguity of a transvestite. The desirous image then forces the concept of exposure to all transvestites in order to be desirous. The presentation of the cock and balls reasserts the insignia of the transvestite's maleness. Garber tests gender construction under the premise that male subjectivity is non-existent.

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