Gender in Movement: The Emergent Versus the Continuous

Abstract

ABSTRACT Dealing with the question of gender binary versus gender multiplicity, this article introduces an “Emergent” component of gender that exists in parallel with a “Continuous” component and entertains variable relations with it. It is suggested that alongside a continuous gender identity and gender identification, there exists a component characterized by its nonlinear, changing, varying gender experience, based on incessant movement between the gender poles, and on the subject’s taking different positions in and between them. This experience does not come to take over or inherit the continuous component of gender identity but joins it by way of constituting an additional dimension, which exists in parallel to it throughout every subject’s life. These ideas are illustrated through a detailed analytic case.