HIV/AIDS and the epidemiological constructions and falsifications of gender

As Judith Butler notes regarding gender performativity, “the body presents itself as a signifying lack”; nevertheless, juxtapositions of HIV/AIDS and gender (a) have re-created genderoriented acceptabilities and taboos, (b) have attempted to demarcate “lacks” and “excesses” that threaten or reify heteronormative matrices, and (c) have re-fashioned gender identity solely on the basis of superficial “readings” of the performing body—the “Other.” My paper explores HIV/AIDS as a driving force behind normative re-deployments of gender-based taboos. Examining arguments by Butler, Sedgwick, and Sontag, I also show how the fluid metaphoricity of HIV/AIDS has imperilled traditional, binary configurations of gender.