Paragraph fifteen:

Lacans reading of Freuds description of the dream of the father, contains the syllogism Melanie Zeller is looking for:

Awakening is realizing/confronting. In sleep there is a (traumatic) realization/confrontation. Sleep is awakening (inverted: Awaken is sleeping).

So Zizeks concluding statement is; the superego structure of ideology (in this case, wokeness/conservative identity politics) not only keeps us from confronting the traumatic truth (of oppression) but also traps us in not ending it. In the above example the son can not burn to death in the dream, really burn so close to the father that he can not recoil, since it is "in" him, the dream is closer than reality. The father wakes up before it happens. So we are trapped not fully realizing/working through the absolute senselessness of oppressing each other.

Zeller states that this is a deception to hide the true reactionary position of the piece. If I champion her position here, she is right in that this can be possible. This can even be defended with one of Zizeks refutation of the cynical position to "stitch up" internal (in)consistencies: "I tell you I am a reactionary and I act like a reactionary, but let me not fool you ... I am a reactionary!" But does Zizek tell us he is a reactionary? On the contrary he insists that he is a communist, albeit he has stated that as he got older he became more "conservative". It has to be examined though, conservative in relation to whom and to what ends/towards what. If we take Zizeks insistens on a communist position (a materialistic approach outside the liberal framework of individual rights as the ideal to strife towards) seriously the above quote becomes:

"I tell you I am a communist and I act like a reactionary, but let me not fool you ... I am a -" what is he then? A reactionary communist? Something else entirely? Jordan Peterson/Hitler?

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Paragraph sixteen:

Zeller identifies Zizeks desire to be oppositional "misplaced". She continues that Zizek creates an Other that haunts him ("Wokes"). Her one argument for this is, that Zizek follows the recurring line of gendercriticals/trans-exclusionaries from "The Transsexual Empire", in that medical procedures for people to transition is in the interest of capital, because they make money with the pharmacy. The counterpoint I want to make is that medicine in our world is actually always to some degree informed by capital. So is any kind of trans-humanist operation (pacemakers, anti-depressants, operations involving screws, heart-transplants, to give a few examples). Since going back to any mythological "whole" is as much an ideological phantasma as the notion that medicine = good (and the notion medicine = evil), is there an alternative to critical examination of the methods of the medical care? Zizek does not say "puberty-blockers are an example of woke capitalism", but "the use of puberty blockers" (in this concrete instance). If we critically inspect a text like "The Transsexual Empire" we also have to critical inspect a text like "The Transsexual Empire Strikes Back" in that there is a point to be made that the completely-changeable subject is a capitalist dream(sleep).

The article Zizek wrote does not mention medical procedures for adults to transition, but puberty blockers for children and youth, which are not based on conclusive research. If any critical inquiry into medical research and pratices is refuted as propagandistic, then the word "malpratice" is, in fact, not applicable anymore. What do we use instead? What concept do we use?

We also do not know, conclusively, if all medical procedures are life-saving to trans-people. Cross-Evaluation is furthermore hindered by capital, which is, in a certain way, censorship. If you do not get money for your research, if universities are privatized further and further and political gains get involved (were always present), how do you research a thing? I agree with Zeller, that there is a real material conflict over the body. Where we differ is: a) there is a material conflict for all bodies (biopolitics), which includes trans-people, and b) we have to carefully analyze what this entails. For example, is it the same as being free from exploitation ("I want a space where I do not have to sell you my body/labor/potential to survive" or "I do not want to fight this war for your interests") or a right I can claim ("I want you, society, fellow humans, to help me get cured from this sickness" or "I want the right to get poison to kill myself") Both examples are interlinked, are they the same though? When we think about the climate catastrophy, yes they are. This another reason why we have to critically engage with the concepts of transhumanism (and by that the category transgender and therefore of course the categories gender and sex)

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Zeller quotes Zizek and frames the quote as "transphobia wraped in the thin venner of his particular philosophical process":

>“There is nothing ‘abnormal’ in sexual confusion: What we call ‘sexual maturation’ is a long, complex, and mostly unconscious process. It is full of violent tensions and reversals—not a process of discovering what one really is in the depth of one’s psyche.”

Actually the full quote is:

>One should take a step even further in this criticism and question the very basic claim that arriving at sexual identity is a matter of mature free choice. There is nothing “abnormal” in sexual confusion: What we call “sexual maturation” is a long, complex, and mostly unconscious process. It is full of violent tensions and reversals—not a process of discovering what one really is in the depth of one’s psyche.

This is a Lacanian premise. If the claim is that Lacanians sexuation is transphobic (or sexist), it has to be backed up by contrapoints to refute the assumptions, observations and reasonings in Lacans proposed systems (and the people that developed these systems further). Interestingly both readings of Lacan are possible, broadly spoken. Also at a certain point Zizeks reading of Lacan can be read as queer, but arriving via a different route. Since gender is itself inconsistent (not even my biological organs are represented in the symbolic order, not their failings, not their not-all), no one truly is "a man" or "a woman". This is in contrast to Butler, who argues that there is a "true" being/self (the subject which the narratives/discourses do not represent fully) under the narratives put onto it. For Zizek there is no "true" self (the subject is constituted by that which it is not), it is inconsistencies all the way down.

Interestingly the part Zeller put up, can be spun the other way. Since there is nothing "abnormal" in sexual confusion, trans-people are not "sick", they do not need to be "cured" (from what?), This does not mean that it is not possible to use transhumanist means to help them in their particular "abnormality" (as we are all abnormal, cis, trans, genderfluid, etc. does not matter). It also can be read as challenging the famous line that trans-woman from the "Transsexual Empire" by Raymond, that being transgender is "reducing" the "real female form". There is no real female form for Zizek (but a structure of the symbolic woman). None of us are what we think we are.

It also can be used to champion any stance against any form of conversion therapy for anyone. There is no true self and there is no free choice in this. (Trans)people do not choose to have a gender, as much as (Cis)people don't choose to have gender.

But if we now commit to the idea that children and youth can completely freely autonoumsly decide a medical transition, even if it is the beginning of one (which can have irreversible effects, like any operation), we greatly diminish the space of exploration and play in puberty (a terrible time). We also ideologically circle around the necessary responsibility of the parent, while the institutions circle the responsibility back onto the parent.

"I am not sure to help my child be its authentic self!"

"You have to be very careful and not surpress the childs authentic self. The child knows best."

"My child accuses me that I did not protect it, because it did not know what its authentic self was!"

"We told you to be careful."

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Last paragraphs:

Ultimately Zeller concludes that it is just the protectionist impulse of the old and/or eternal afraid. This is a false eternal. There is no inherent "rightness" or "goodness" in being "new", aswell as now inherent "goodness" in that, which was (there is no turning back in history). At some point fascism was the new thing. At some point putting observable "abnormal" people in overcrowded prison-adjacent institutions was the new thing. At some point heroin as a medicine was the new thing. But we have to go through with it. At some point Marx was the new thing. At some point human rights was the new thing. At some point anti-bacterial medication was the new thing. At some point even the human itself was the new thing.

The end gets, of course, ideologically filled in. "Sad day for all of us.". With pleasure she points out that the old man is aware of his own, onsetting, impotence. If our imagined father was only as potent as we hoped. Now sadly we see him naked, in the mud, a human, just as us. I propose: Either we kill him or we sit down with him. Doing both at the same time will prolong what should be ended.

tl/dr: I engage in the pleasure to observe Melanie Zeller in engaging in pleasure.