- Butler is no Lacanian, she argues the Symbolic, the Paternal law is a ruse, is just power in a Foucaultian way, that is, the difference between the Lacanian Real and Symbolic is an effect of a discourse of power
- There is a hetersexual matrix literally like the matrix in the movie of the same name. This structures sexuality, and in particular the Lacanian emphasis on the differentiation of sex into male/female as being/having, is a primary example of a construction that is meant to follow a hetersexual normativity.
- Gender melancholia and the Lesbian Phallus are her two signature moves that sum up her radical reinterpretation of gender and sexuality that is critical of psychoanalysis, but is also aware of the shortcomings of Foucault’s premature dismissal of Freud.
Link to book review of Vicki Kirby’s Live Theory book on JB