ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to study how Foucault's notion of the will to know the truth about sex informs the Brandon Teena case. It reviews the array of discourses, medical, psychological, cultural, and legal, that have arisen from this case of rape and murder of a 21-year-old outside Falls City, Nebraska, on December 31, 1993. The existence of a transphobic continuum, which runs the gamut from liberal toleration to murder, requires that critical queer studies recognize the dangerous implications of participation in a tragic paradigm. Critical queer studies require a frank assessment of the contradictions that exist within the range of positions along the spectrum sexual minorities inhabit. Queer subjectivity, dedicated to resisting identitarian positions, necessarily critiques the out and proud stances of gays and lesbians, while transgendered, transsexual, and inter-sexed subjects. While some are born queer and some achieve queerness, most of us, to borrow Shakespeare's adage, an imposition that requires a greater attention among queer critics.
