@article{Xiang2018, author = {Xiang, Zairong}, title = {Transdualism}, series = {TSQ-Transgender studies quarterly}, volume = {5}, journal = {TSQ-Transgender studies quarterly}, number = {3}, publisher = {Duke Univ. Press}, address = {Durham}, issn = {2328-9252}, doi = {10.1215/23289252-6900795}, pages = {425 -- 442}, year = {2018}, abstract = {The author introduces the concept of transdualism to critique dualism without relying on a dualistic model of critique, the modus operandi necessary for a critique against sexual dualism and hetero/cisnormativity. Transdualism offers an opportunity to dwell within that operation by staying below (not beyond) the "dualism," that is, below the logic of either/or. The essay will explore the notion of "transdualism" through the hexagram Tai of the Yi Jing, which is often used in medical contexts to illustrate the body-of-orifices of Huangdi Neijing or the Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor. The author reads this body-of-orifices, which is primarily represented by its nine major bodily tunnels, with yinyang philosophy as gender/sex indeterminant and shows that the Inner Canon's yinyang body-of-orifices points to something more transgressive, which could unsettle from within the naturalism of gender and sexual dualism and the nature/culture as well as other dualistic divides that have informed contemporary critical rethinking of embodiment. By unpacking the hexagram Tai alongside Inner Canon's body-of-orifices. as well as contemporary feminist, queer, and transgender theorizations of the body and sexuality, this essay aims at rethinking the materio-discursive complexity of the body-of-orifices, which has been either dualistically separated into antagonisms between man and woman, sex and gender, body and discourse, yin and yang; or one-sidedly reduced to a function of "social construction," knowable only through languageā€”or problematically lumped together in a gender-is-fluid postmodern "both-and," which supposedly overcomes the metaphysico-theological "either/or."}, language = {en} }