Evolvement of identities and settling of inequalities –An unauthorized reading of Virginia Woolf

Abstract

A non-canonical reading of two texts by Virginia Woolf –Orlando and A Room of One’s Own–is presented in this paper. The main argument is that Woolf assumes a position regarding the processes that biomedicine and the freshly created sexology were carrying out since the end of the 19th century, aimed at installing the binarism of sex and gender based on sexual differentiation. She draws the attention to the possibility of androgyny, of bodies non-compliant with the binary logic, of mobile, fluid identities, and the possibility of their self-management. That is, she explores subjects that emerge in academic fields, mainly in medicine, between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, related to homosexuality, transvestism and transexuality, the multiple identities she defends. in the last section of the paper, the writer’s approach regarding the implications this settling of truths about sex and social differentiation has had for women are addressed, when the sexual and gender binarism settled upon our world.